Will I like The Witcher?

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
The usual trope of urgently having to Save the World from Certain Doom Right Now, but then going off to help random strangers do completely unrelated things always mildly irritated me.

I have a feeling I'd like cRPG's a lot more if it wasn't for this. Because I'm the kind of guy who feels like I have to do all those quests. It's like a check-list, you have to check all the items before you can move on, and doing so completely undermines the actual story of the game until it's all but pointless…

Übereil

The hype for Wild Hunt got me to finally retry the first Witcher game, which I had abandoned after 20 minutes when I first got it in a Steam sale a couple years ago.

Well, I've made it a few hours into the game this time -- and I'm bored again. There's nothing to the combat beyond clicking the mouse every time the cursor flashes, and the story so far involves a lot of running from one end of the village to another on not-very-interesting errands, whacking trash respawns on the way.

Is this series just not for me? Does it deepen as it goes?

Originally Posted by Hexprone
The hype for Wild Hunt got me to finally retry the first Witcher game, which I had abandoned after 20 minutes when I first got it in a Steam sale a couple years ago.

Well, I've made it a few hours into the game this time — and I'm bored again. There's nothing to the combat beyond clicking the mouse every time the cursor flashes, and the story so far involves a lot of running from one end of the village to another on not-very-interesting errands, whacking trash respawns on the way.

Is this series just not for me? Does it deepen as it goes?

IMO, Combat is mostly crap, sorry. But it does open up a bit, especially if you play around with potions and signs. Some people actually like it, though, and some even think it's better than Witcher 2 combat - which is a complete mystery to me.

One great thing about the combat, in my opinion, is that signs work on bosses - though sometimes in a lesser way. But unlike most RPGs, bosses don't just ignore your entire strategy - which means you can actually develop an approach and stick to it for almost all the fights.

As for what the game is about, I'd say it's a very atmospheric game with a very interesting story. But it has a LOT of tedious busywork - and it's one of the most frustrating examples of how NOT to implement day/night cycles - because you have quests you can't complete until you've run back and forth several times and talked to NPCs which might not be available at the given time you arrive. To make matters worse, you can't just rest anywhere - you have to run to the closest campfire or Inn, which is really ludicrous in playability terms.

That said, it DOES have some redeeming features. I'd say the fourth chapter alone is worth all the frustration. It's more or less separate from the rest of the game, but it's such a wonderfully atmospheric experience - and I remember it fondly.

The story kinda lost me towards the end of the game, where it became somewhat complicated - and I'd lost all enthusiasm due to the horrible fetch quests - but I'm actually considering going back and playing it again now, just to get the full Witcher, Witcher 2 and Witcher 3 experience.

Overall, it's nothing if not a unique experience - and if you ever want to play the other Witcher games, you'll appreciate knowing a bit more about the characters.

You will love the Witcher if you value storytelling above graphics and some gameplay mechanics, to put it simply. Witcher 1 is outdated in terms of graphics and battle mechanics, but even that isn't that bad, I'd say the game aged well. The story-telling and the portrayal of grey areas of morality is there and it's masterful

Well seeing as someone else necroposted before I had a chance to, I wanted to add that I'm looking forward to replaying the first Witcher game, as I'm about to complete the final book in the series (8 books in total), and my understanding is the first game starts about 5 years in lore time after the last book.

I remember really enjoying that game and its approach to gameplay, and the memorable characters, some of which I've already "encountered" in the books, as well as those in the W3. The W2 really lost me after Act 1, so I'll likely skip it or just replay Act 1. And then continue my playthrough of W3.

Hopefully I'm not having too high expectations. I should check out some must-have mods for W1 though, it is an older game, so should try to make everything go as smoothly as possible..

Originally Posted by mbuddha
Hopefully I'm not having too high expectations. I should check out some must-have mods for W1 though, it is an older game, so should try to make everything go as smoothly as possible..

Thee aren't to many mods for the first Witcher but I do recommend a graphic mod.

Link - https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-witcher-texturen-mod