The Witcher

The Witcher is an RPG developed and published by a Polish company, CD Projekt Red. The game is based on the books of their fellow countryman, Andrzej Sapkowski, and more precisely on the main character, Geralt of Rivia, who is one of the few remaining witchers -- monster hunters for hire.

The game's writing is certainly one of its strengths; multiple times a plot twist completely got me off guard. And I like how your choices carry far into the next chapters, and characters, who at first seem just side-quest NPCs, grow more important later on. I also like how atypically to most RPGs, the main plot does not feel as much like some distant thing that will forever wait you. There are some purely unrelated quests in form of notice board assignments, but as most of the quests are bound to the main plot, I felt I was constantly progressing in the story.

There is a certain quirk in Sapkowski's style I do not like judging by the game, though. Of course, not having read any of the books, I cannot say how subtle the anachronisms are in them, but, for instance, when a dwarf blacksmith starts talking about innovation, my immersion is bit shaken to say the least. Another such an immersion breaker for me is modern day profanity in a high fantasy setting. Though I must say I did chuckle a bit at Geralt's exclamation -- "Abso-fucking-lutely beautiful." -- when he was thrown in jail.

Amnesia is an easy way for a game to have an already wicked character yet still be able to level him from the start. Planescape: Torment and one of the Knights of the Old Republic games (or was it both?) did this to name two, and The Witcher does that as well. It is curious, though, that Geralt's loss of memory is not the main focus but only plays a minor role along the main story.

In fact, Geralt never regains his memory. The Witcher is not really Geralt's story. He just acts as a considerable part of it and yet there is more than enough personal motivation to keep the player going. The game ends in a prolonged epilogue, though, and I thought it pointless all the way until the final revelation. If I understood it correctly, the whole storyline is actually pretty mindblowing.

It is a shame not every aspect of the game is as strong. When I first tried The Witcher, I thought it was a console port due to how you need to time your attacks to chain up a combo -- a thing I think is common for console action (roleplaying) games. But no, The Witcher is very much a pure PC game, which just tries to take a little different approach. Unfortunately, the combat feels generally rather clumsy, and rarely very satisfying.

One reason for my shaky experience was probably the camera perspective I chose. The over-the-shoulder camera limits your view heavily as the screen focuses on the movement of your mouse (unless you hold shift), which you also need to keep clicking on enemies for the previously mentioned combo-chains.

The other two camera options offer a top-down view but I felt the OTS was more to my liking and movement outside combat felt most natural with camera behind the character. Funny how the OTS camera really is over the shoulder, your character standing on the side, unlike in most other games that use third person perspective (and have the camera directly behind). It is also worth noting how jerky the camera is when Geralt is running. It is like it was bound to his actual movement, and shakes accordingly.

The Witcher has the double-tap movement command for tumbling like I expected. However, much to my dismay, I found it useless and often quite unresponsive. When surrounded by enemies, the only direction to tumble is sommersault over the opponent in front of you (and that does not always work either). In Fable, your character would do the animation even if it did not get you anywhere. At least you do not have to manually parry in The Witcher.

I believe the game would be much more enjoyable if it had similar control scheme to World of Warcraft; attacks should be usable from an action bar and the mouse should be left free to move the view and select enemies. So far that has been the best gameplay experience I have had in any 3D RPG.

The Witcher runs on BioWare's Aurora Engine but is heavily modded beyond what the engine could originally do in Neverwinter Nights. I think The Witcher looks more like Neverwinter Nights 2 which ran on Electron (updated Aurora), though the areas are definitely larger in the former. The (improved) old engine shows its age at dialogue voice-syncing and character animations, especially when coming from games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins.

Character textures and models are limited (though pretty) -- it is lame to see the same NPC models reused throughout the game. However, in environment textures and detail The Witcher comes up as a winner when compared to DA:O. One might even consider turning detail down in some places -- you cannot see shit when you are wading through a swamp, waist-deep in water with thick foliage everywhere.

It was nice to see a grid inventory for a change (go PC gaming!) but The Witcher does not really do it properly. Having minuscule icons defeats the purpose of seeing all of your items at once since it is impossible to recognize the items, especially when half of the icon is covered by a two-digit number -- items in the stack. The inventory also has slots for different items, and you cannot carry two steel or silver swords at the same time. It is more realistic but in my opinion not required.

I think I should have probably played the game in the hardest difficulty setting (it cannot be changed afterwards). At first Medium offered enough challenge, but onwards from chapter 4 the game became too easy. However, after I could spam Aard sign to stun opponents and perform coup de grâce on everything, combat became much more tolerable.

Boss fights in The Wicher are disappointing. They are either too easy or just simply boring. Although, the end of chapter 5 makes an exception to this. But then there is still the drawn-out epilogue left afterwards. And its final confrontation, which I actually almost screwed up. You are forced into meditation (you cannot do it manually since there is no fireplace around) before it but as my potion buffs had hours left on them, I just canceled it only to find the game had decided to remove the buffs for no reason.

At first I thought this would not be a problem, since I could just remove the intoxication level with a potion of White Honey and quaff more potions. However, I evidently had used my last White Honey at some point and thus was forced into the final showdown with room for one potion. Luckily, I beat the fight on the first try, which was nice since my last save was at least an hour away -- you cannot trust on the auto-save of The Witcher, at all. It saves the game way too infrequently.

The Witcher is a game with great story and atmosphere; no small thanks to the awesome soundtrack (though it gets old by the end of chapter 3), which comes with a beautiful end credits song. It would be interesting to play the game through again, and make different choices and see how they affect the outcome. But thanks to the not so great combat, I think I will pass. There would not be much room for a different kind of build either, although on Hard, Geralt gains levels slower and you need to choose your talents more carefully.

Also, after the game ends, you get to see a movie that sets the stage for the sequel, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. In which more of Geralt's forgotten past is revealed. And I believe CD Projekt is already working on the third installment.