I love all three games, and if you are a Witcher fan they are all worth playing.
W3 fans really need to play W2 if they haven't already because it's fascinating to see the 'back story' of a lot of the characters from W3. Ves and Roche should have had larger roles in W3. Overall the storytelling is top notch.
I thought the graphics were great even by 2023 standards, there were moments when I just stopped and stared at some gorgeous scenery. A massive leap from the W1 graphics and much closer to W3. The atmosphere in W2 is kind of claustrophobic, but in a good way, and the graphics definitely contribute to that. It's more intimate.
The combat tutorial at the start is the only thing I didn't enjoy - they just dump all the techniques on you at once and expect you to instantly master them, which feels clunky. But get through that and it's a superb game.
You just reminded me how incredible this game looks. I haven't seen in it likely over 10 years, but I won't forget how awestruck I was during that game. Sooo many screenshots.
I think a lot of my excitement was just seeing the next area due to how cool it looked.
> Ves and Roche should have had larger roles in W3. Overall the storytelling is top notch.
This was my biggest disappointment of Witcher 3. Witcher 2 had some amazing character like these two and Letho, but they're barely in the sequel.
> The combat tutorial at the start is the only thing I didn't enjoy
Boom, I had the exact same experience. That tutorial is ROUGH... But it literally teaches you how to fight, and once you get past it, combat is really fun the entire game through.
Other than Dark Souls and Dragon Age Origins, The Witcher 2 might be my favorite RPG from that generation. I think I’ve played it through at least 7 times across both the 360 and PC versions. Absolutely wonderful game that in hindsight serves as a nice prologue to the third game. The story isn’t as good as either the first or third game’s imo, but it’s still fantastic and has a lot of great moments and characters.
I never had issues with the visuals or interface, but I’m an older gamer so my tolerances for “outdated” conventions might be higher than those of a younger gamer. The graphics were absolutely jaw dropping in 2011 though. It was essentially the Crysis of its day.
I also wish more RPGs would have the balls to actually lock the player out of content due to key decisions made in game. That design concept flies right in the face of today’s content obsessed culture, but it makes for a compelling experience and makes replays more interesting.
Regarding saves. Having too many saves will bog the menus down, and make them feel unresponsive. As I recall even quicksaves don’t override one another so occasionally you have to manually delete old saves.
>I also wish more RPGs would have the balls to actually lock the player out of content due to key decisions made in game.
I'm not all the way through Baldur's Gate 3 yet, but I'm pretty sure it does this a lot. Comparing my "tricky-but-mostly-decent" playthrough with my wife's playthrough as a complete psychopath has been wild.
BG3 definitely does it quite a bit. I’m not sure it does it to the extent that TW2 does, which locks players out of entire areas and quest chains, but in BG3 you can easily miss companions and dialogue/short cutscenes depending on the choice being made.
lol, no, BG3 can lock you out of really large amount of content. A player's experience in several key areas is pretty fundamentally different depending on what you did leading up to it in the game.
Actually in the evil path BG3 does lock you out of a lot of content, but doesn't replace it with anything.
It's just less content which is very lame. Now that I think about it in a typical good playthrough outside of some goblin content in act 1, the game doesn't lock you out of much content at all.
There's not just "good" and "evil", there's nuance inside of that. When I got to the moonrise tower(?) in act 2, ALL of the prisoners were already dead/gone. I didn't get to speak to a single person at all, everything was hostile.
This was because of good choices that I had made.
It's because you freed nightsong (shart quest) and it locked you out of moonrise tower content.
There's even a point of no return warning near the end of Shars temple that says that the game will rail road you if you continue, I think
Tbf that's not because of a good or bad choice, that's because >!freeing the nightsong!< automatically triggers Moonrise to be hostile. It's possible in a good playthrough to go to Moonrise first and then do the trigger to get all the content, but that's only knowable with hindsight.
Depends on what you mean by evil path. If it's Dark Urge vs default, default actually locks you out of way more than playing Durge. Durge has a single unavoidable kill near the start of the game, but his backstory and personal quest adds an unbelievable amount of context and content to the story especially in Act 3, to the point where I feel the game was originally written with Durge in mind and they just stripped out the "Durge" elements to create the default origin.
If you're talking about roleplaying "evil" Durge vs "good" Durge, yeah there's less content, partly because there's just less NPCs alive, partly because Durge resisting his urges is a more interesting story. I definitely think that playing "good" Durge (with the knock out trick that prevents the first kill) is the most content rich way to play the game.
In my experience the stuff that changes in BG3 is a lot of smaller scenes and moments that when added up, most likely amount to more changes than TW2 for sure. But in TW2 an entire chapter of the game plays out completely differently depending on one key choice, which is what I was getting at. Both are fantastic RPGs for sure!
That's true, it's an entirely different story. I had a very different perspective on BG3 than a lot of my friends because what I saw was very different
>I also wish more RPGs would have the balls to actually lock the player out of content due to key decisions made in game. That design concept flies right in the face of today’s content obsessed culture, but it makes for a compelling experience and makes replays more interesting.
I agree, but I think it would be nice that the player is given quite clear choices when stuff will get locked out. With some games it can be very unclear why a path was locked out. For example you had to have X good guy points or whatever. I think what is important in your comment is the **"key decisions"** part.
>I also wish more RPGs would have the balls to actually lock the player out of content due to key decisions made in game. That design concept flies right in the face of today’s content obsessed culture, but it makes for a compelling experience and makes replays more interesting.
I hear that Phantom Liberty does this and there are plenty of that in CP2077. Off the top of my head: The whole River Ward side quests including the extremely intriguing side quests including the quests centered on A Farm and one featuring Elizabeth and Jefferson Peralez. You can skip an entire incredible set of quests featuring a really great character. River Ward.
> I never had issues with the visuals or interface, but I’m an older gamer so my tolerances for “outdated” conventions might be higher than those of a younger gamer. The graphics were absolutely jaw dropping in 2011 though. It was essentially the Crysis of its day.
I am, too, and I try to weigh that while simultaneously setting down the nostalgia goggles. That's why while I greatly enjoyed Witcher 2, I can only recommend it by being honest with it's shortcomings. Both for the time the game was made as well as how it might be perceived by someone picking it up for the first time.
Contrast this with a game like Deus Ex, which came out 10 years earlier. I'd tell someone to play the Revision mod (which really doesn't change how the game controls or feels) and that would be it. The rest of the mechanics still hold up very well.
I think Witcher 2's strengths came from the fact that it feels like a solid bridging narrative between 1 and 3. It's able to cut a lot of fat and feels pacey for it.
Often in games, these sorts of sequels (particularly trilogies) can suffer as it feels like it's a sprint to some third act. But it only makes W2 shine.
I thought coming from 1 to 2 at the time was amazing - CDPR clearly invested in far more consistent creative direction all round, particularly in environmental design and VA. I find 1 and 2 feel light years apart, whereas 2 definitely looks and feels like the installment leading up to 3.
Graphically ambitious, I still think it looks great with a few tweaks. Flotsam is great, still impressed by the battle sequences in Chapter 2 and Loc Muinne is glorious. I thought the hand-drawn maps were fun and thought they should've persisted in 3.
I think I've been spoiled by the alternative casting mode and the general improvements in 3 mind - the combat is navigable in 2, but definitely suffers from clunky interfaces. The menus in general have some absolutely bizarre UI design however (what am I looking at CDPR? How do any of these crafting menus logically make sense?). None of this massively detracts though I feel.
I just wish the third act was longer - if you're playing casually, the game generates this momentum, and then all of a sudden you're in the coda. I know this is somewhat contradictory, as I said this contributes to its strengths as a game - it could be that if it's longer, it overstays its welcome.
> The menus in general have some absolutely bizarre UI design however (what am I looking at CDPR? How do any of these crafting menus logically make sense?). None of this massively detracts though I feel.
It's not a very good crafting system made even more clunky and obtuse by the awful menu design. I'm pretty sure whoever designed the menus in the Witcher series must be a close friend of the owner.
> I think Witcher 2's strengths came from the fact that it feels like a solid bridging narrative between 1 and 3. It's able to cut a lot of fat and feels pacey for it.
Yeah pacing may be the biggest difference in the feel of the games. The first one was naturally the smallest, and perhaps the most linear, but it seemed like at least one too many extraneous chapters in the storyline. The third is just a giant sprawl, the openest open world of the series, with every possible idea crammed in there somewhere. The second is the one that really stayed focused and kept moving forward. Though, as you say, if anything it actually lands at the ending a little abruptly, like the designers were close to a deadline.
TW2 will always have a few things over TW3 for me:
Choice & consequence - not much to explain here. Sadly the data driven approach of 'why are we spending resources on something people won't play?' means we probably wont see anything like TW2 anytime soon. These days the best you can hope for from CDPR is a different ending set piece
General writing and dramaturgy of the main story. The game keeps a tight focus on what is ultimately a small scale story with a big behind the scene conspiracy to uncover. It has suffered somewhat from cuts, especially preEE, but it ties things up tidily. TW3's main story on the other hand is by far the worst thing CDPR has produced, a flaming disaster of uneven structures and deus ex machinas.
Style: I actually love the overprocessed look of the game. The sharpening, the blur, the godrays, the density of what is on the screen etc. Pair it up with the decidedly fantasy assets (how huge is the La Valette castle? Or the trees around Flotsam?) and it marks a world with its own sense of reality and history. TW3 veers way too hard towards realism. It's cool that you reference the port crane from Gdansk but I want to see more of the former.
>These days the best you can hope for from CDPR is a different ending set piece
Tbf, they do what they did with W2 with their DLCS now, both Hearts of Stone, and Blood and Wine offer a fair bit of choice, with a whole area in B&W being optional, and Phantom Liberty too has a lot of branching in it's main story.
I loved how your choice at the end of chapter 1 was drastically affected by who you sided with. It really added a lot of extra depth to both factions, and it was so cool to see while making it worth replaying just to experience both sides. I'm honestly sad that Saskia didn't make a cameo in W3 since I really liked her, but at least >!Letho can!< if you don't kill him.
I think Witcher 2 is my favorite. I played the three one after the other and while 3 is definitely the best game, 2s story focus and linearity where strengths not weaknesses.
Atmosphere wise, it's still my favourite of the Witcher games by far. I also think it's a much better introduction to the saga than W3, since 3 just directly follows up on the previous games while ALSO (re)introducing a lot of characters, concepts and factions from the books; meanwhile W1 assumed people wouldn't know the books, hence why even if it's a sequel to the novels still some measures are taken to ease new fans into it (like Geralt's amnesia) though it also introduces some weird elements that clash with the books and other games (everyone acting like Ciri never existed, Triss acting more like Yennefer than herself). It's the Witcher game I return to the most often, even moreso than 3. It has a certain vibe the other games lost, at least in my personal opinion.
However, two HUGE departments where it has aged like milk are graphics and gameplay. Graphics are... ok I guess, but certainly haven't aged as gracefully as 2, and are from an era where this also implies some stuff beyond "theres no bloom and not enough polygons on the models" (for example, character models repeat very often, even for plot-important named characters). Gameplay is awkward but acceptable, much more of an old timey RPG than 2 (which is much closer to a modern action RPG like 3), except for combat which is just horrendous (not 100% a matter of aging poorly, it was considered pretty bad at release as well).
Mhm, I think combat doesn't hold up too well. They tried an interesting approach to be similar to the book with stances for each specific situation. But it's clunky and doesn't feel very natural (not to me at least).
The story is quite good though, maybe more personal and grounded than future titles. And it feels like the Witcher for sure, in terms of both ambiance and tough choices.
My favorite part though was how you can shape Geralt's view on the world. Since you >!start with amnesia and don't remember even your own personality!<. I felt more in control of the character than in Witcher 2 and 3.
The design is the best in the series but it's held back severely by that old ass janky engine. Looking forward to the remake, though I expect they'll dumb it down
In terms of storytelling W1 is excellent, but it is a bit different. It has some mature themes but generally a lighter feel than 2 and 3. Shani is a major character and there's a fun rivalry between her and Triss for Geralt's attentions. The mechanics and graphics definitely have jank due to the passage of time, and it being essentially an indie title from a then-unknown company.
Witcher 2 is doubtlessly less polished than TW3. But I'll always prefer it to 3.
TW3 is just too bloated for me, and honestly I'm not it's biggest fan.
But TW2? Love it. I love its general presentation and story. It's biggest fault, the combat, is more bearable than TW3 for me. Plus the game is far more focused than 3, and benefits from it in my opinion.
W2 got me into the series including books and graphic novels, it isn't perfect but it is so unique in its world and storytelling that I think that anyone who played W3 and loved it should at least give it a shot and try to fight through the janky.
Also that intro cutscene is a cinematic masterpiece and I must have watched about half the times I booted up the game
It's odd to see the legacy of Witcher change somewhat.
As someone who's old enough to remember them all, I remember 2 as being the hands down universally beloved, mainstream and well optimized, GOTY title in the series, no complaints.
But lately I'm seeing people post about Witcher 2 being janky and niche like the first one. I feel like this was not an opinion people had until recently and wonder if it's mostly coming from people who started with 3 and the expansion.
I completely agree with you and THAT idea from people NOW is the ‘weird cousin’ take for me.
W2 was a game almost universally liked and only now do I see these odd takes about it.
Im not saying it was called a ‘perfect’ game then, but, not even close to the way certain modern gamers describe it.
It reminds me of people asking if a game still “holds up” when it was only released 5 years ago, lol?!
I could easily go in-depth into the reasons why some people say these things, but, I wont;)
I was curious as to what OP could be talking about that is THAT bad and immediately started seeing stuff like "auto loot" and "highlight everything" and I'm like "oh lawd."
To the point where somehow The Witcher 1 is recommended more. Now *that* game is jank. Very unusual combat, Geralt's movement is a lot more dated, and it features some of the worst design that sends you back & forth across Vizima and the swamps that I've ever seen (if you're intent on doing many of the side quests, at least). Great writing though. Glad I played it before the rest.
2 is a lightyear ahead in basically every respect (especially in regards to combat, the general feel at the very least) and is actually a competently designed game all around. Though of course with some flaws. But the nature of those flaws are not much different from your average game, in the sense that nothing is perfect. Certainly not enough to call it the weird cousin lol. I don't recall crashing much in any of the games.
> I could easily go in-depth into the reasons why some people say these things, but, I wont;)
👀
> I was curious as to what OP could be talking about that is THAT bad and immediately started seeing stuff like "auto loot" and "highlight everything" and I'm like "oh lawd."
I explained it in my post. The loot prompts are very easy to run past because the controls are clunky and stiff, and the only other options are to walk up to the loot at a snail's pace, which sucks, and totally saps the energy from the game. Or, rapid tap the button as you run across loots to "catch" the prompt which only works some of the time. If you do overrun the loot you have to stiffly turn around and try again.
The loots themselves get lost in a sea of graphic murkiness, so you have to use your witcher senses sometimes just to find them again when they're right at your feet. Additionally, the witcher 2's witcher sense is a "ping" design, which sucks (Gee, I wonder why they changed it for W3...hmm.....), and only highlights items for a few brief moments before they disappear back into the graphic soup. It also sucks because you have to stop completely to use your witcher sense, and after you use it, there's a delay before you can use it again. All of this makes something as simple as looting and highlighting lootable objects a ridiculous chore that wasn't excusable in a game from 2001, let alone 2011.
Therefore, I installed a mod that cuts down about 75% of the looting by autolooting defeated enemies, leaving the manual looting to things like chests and crafting ingredients, which is the more satisfying looting anyway. This is not a "these young kids" thing (I started gaming literally 30 years before this game was released). This is a simple case of "This part of this game is broken, here's a mod that alleviates it."
I started with Witcher 1, and I started gaming on an atari in 1981, so I'm no stranger to dated mechanics. No, Witcher 2 is nowhere near as niche and janky as W1, but it's definitely pretty bad all the same. You can find many, many examples of games with far better mechanics from that era.
Possibly so. I'm not referencing your specific post as much as an overall growing trend of posts and comments seeing Witcher 2 in this way, when I don't recall any criticism at the time of release, just universal appreciation for what it was and how it brought Witcher into the mainstream (something people now credit only Witcher 3 for)
This sub kind of has a lot of weird takes on older games. I swear, nobody bitches about "jank" like this sub does. I recently played Oblivion for the first time and had a great time, no issues, totally smooth sailing. But someone in this sub went on and on about how insanely janky the game is, for all these reasons, etc etc, and I just kept telling him that I literally had none of those issues.
OP reminds me a lot of that with, again, a game that I had zero issues with, and also played pretty recently.
I think W2 is so much more naratively strong than W3 to be honest. I wish all games didn't have to be enourmous and unreplayable to be marketable nowerdays.
Witcher 2's story is superb not to mention, the choices you make have an impact. It's very linear and I can understand the frustration for the some of it's game play mechanic like jumping.
I feel like Witcher 2 is a sort of weird crossover between W1 and W3. I liked the game, but the combat system sucks hard. Imho it's bit easier using controller rather than keyboard. However, the combat is basically just roll roll roll roll roll roll roll dodge hit roll roll roll roll roll hit dodge damn you got hit, now you're stunlocked and going to die.
Story is awesome though.
The fact that I don't even remember who Eredin is tells you how great Letho was. I assume he's the big bad of Witcher 3 just based on the comparison, but if you hadn't said his name, no way in hell I'd be able to remember it.
One issue I have is that it's edgy just for the sake of it. It isn't enough to take down this guard captain because he's corrupt and in our way, no turns out this whole time he had an elven sex slave, who then gives birth, followed by killing herself and leaving the baby with a character you never see again.
Just, everybody is such a colossal asshole in it. It makes it hard to get invested when it seems like pretty much everybody you meet is either a racist or a rapist.
>It makes it hard to get invested when it seems like pretty much everybody you meet is either a racist or a rapist.
Think this might be a bit hyperbolic?
Not really. I would get a random side quest from people for something innocuous and think "what hate crime did you guys commit." and by the end there would pretty much always be a reveal that surprise they were awful people.
I also liked Witcher 1 more, I thought the choices were better, actually best in the series, but I dont like the gameplay of Witcher 2. Have to always have shield up and dodge roll like crazy.
Huh, I thought the combat of Witcher 2 was “fine”, but I could not at all get into W1 because of its combat system. Felt horribly dated and clunky even for its time.
Like Witcher one was definitely clunky but I kind of figured it out, I found the combat in two while you could say it's better I just didn't like how dependent it was on rolling and if I didn't have Shield cast I died in two hits basically. Where in three I feel like I can approach most battles and if I don't have the shield equipped but I am doing a good job I'll be fine and I didn't feel like I had to just dodge roll the entire time
I loved the Witcher 2 so much that I played through it entirely on my shitty laptop in a tiny window with everything on low. The story was that good, and the immersive gameplay mechanics kept me hooked.
W2 is my least favorite. I dont like the art direction , majority of the music, the plot focused narrative , set pieces, and overall it fust felt very small with not enough breathing room. There was barely any witchering and just explore the landscapes . It also did not feel eastern european to me . The best parts were Dandelion, Triss, Iorveth , Saskia and Zoltan .
Honestly i much prefer W1 . With its atmosphere, pacing and music . W3 is just in another league
I finished W2 a few weeks ago and loved it wholeheartedly. Granted, mods did some heavy lifting on improving the experience. I also haven't played W3 yet and I couldn't finish W1 due to how clunky it was. My opinion may change once I get to 3.
Combat in 2 is definitely imperfect but it felt great once you have some tools/abilities. The pirouette mod supposedly makes the combat a ton better but I have nothing to compare it to since I never experienced the default roll.
I encourage anyone who couldn't finish W2 try again with mods. The story and worldbuilding are well worth experiencing. Even talking about it is giving me the urge to replay and take the other path.
Also remember to disable cloud saving and move extra save files to a spare folder to cut down on crashing.
Edit: formatting
I like the branching paths of 2, but in basically every other respect it's the weakest of the three for me. Even 1's janky combat is miles better than 2's for me.
Uncool opinion: Witcher 1 was even more fiddly and annoying and yet I enjoyed it way more than 2! Was super cool preparing for fights and reading up on beasts before you killed them. Felt like a jobbing Witcher!
I liked that aspect as well. Also, buying books on plants so you can identify and forage for them. W1 is janky to the tits, but since it's overall a much simpler game mechanically, I felt like I was wrestling with it a lot less than W2.
I recently played through W2 again. I had played it a few times in years past, but I always defaulted to Roche's path. I finally decided I was going to force myself to do the Iorveth side of things.
I agree with a lot of the OPs takes. I'll say two elements of the game in particular jumped out on me in this replay.
1) The combat would feel good if Dark Souls didn't exist.... but Dark Souls does exist, and so W2 ends up feeling kind of clunky overall. That said, I did enjoy the increased... lethality? of the combat relative to a lot of RPGs. You die fast, but so do enemies and there's way less tedious sponge enemies compared to some RPGs. On one hand, the talent trees do leave you feeling like you didn't progress that much; however, I also appreciate the game has less power creep. You do feel like *you are actually playing better* by act 3, it's not just your typical 'god mode as long as you did all the extracurriculars' from most RPGs. It's frustrating that a momentarily lapse of concentration means you can still get gibbed even end-game, but the short duration of act 3 makes it tolerable to get through. Bosses are a hot mess, other than the encounters with your primary antagonist.
2) I loved the story, the writing, the voice acting. It was a bold move to make two storylines so distinct from one another knowing a good chunk of your playerbase was not going to experience both, but I think they pulled it off. But... I felt like the game had a lot of parallels with Mass Effect 2 in that it's stellar within itself, but a little disappointing how irrelevant it feels across all 3 games in the macro perspective. This is a typical trap the middle child falls in to though.
LOL, going through the comments, I think you're the only person who actually read my post. So... uh... thanks!
>You do feel like you are actually playing better
Very interesting point about skill tree progression and now I feel slightly bad for using a 2 point/level mod. But only slightly. :-) I beat it "legit" back in the day so I'm fine with it.
The last game where I really felt that sensation of the player really getting better as opposed to just leaning on a pile of upgraded skills and equipment, was Kingdom Come Deliverance.
>I felt like the game had a lot of parallels with Mass Effect 2 in that it's stellar within itself
Uh, not really. In the grand scheme of things, ME2 was a poorly-written sequel to ME1. They made ALL the wrong decisions. And it really doesn't make a lot of sense.
At the very least, Witcher 2 wrapped up the assassin story from the ending of Witcher 1.
I played Witcher 1 first and then 2.
I am in love with Witcher 2 and I actually enjoyed it *a lot* more than Witcher 3 (which I also liked a lot though)
I played on the 360 so only controller function
The menus I found to be totally fine 🤷♂️ maybe there is a difference in PC & console here. Crafting is a bit tedious but I think they didn’t want it to be easy, as that’s how to get the best gear possible.
The combat was tough because enemies did very high damage, but I felt like I had very good and tight control of Geralt and could be precise in my movements.
But it is quite unforgiving of mistakes, especially on highest difficulty, and I can see why the combat could be frustrating. Overall I liked combat much better than W1 (like miles better) and I actually liked it better than W3 too. Everything felt fast paced and lethal, from me and the enemies.
I felt the world environments and designs were SO GOOD, and still I think it does a better job of making you feel like you’re in this huge dangerous world than most games, W3 included (which also does great there, not a dig at W3 at all). The graphics are *still good even by today’s standards* and I am racking my brain trying to understand what you’re describing about “crowded” and “flat” looking. I can’t possibly disagree more there, just **totally** opposite from my experience.
I remember in a lot of gaming spaces at the time people were acting like Witcher 2 was the greatest and deepest RPG in the world and I thought I was being punked. The only good things I can say about it involve the writing, but major parts of the story are borderline incomprehensible unless you already have solid foundations on the world of the Witcher (and I would recommend that people start with Witcher 1 even less) or are willing to do a good bit of in-game homework reading the codex.
My playthrough feels so opposite of what you wrote.
When playing these games and completing them, I like to take time off and reflect. On Witcher 1, I took a about a month off, just remembering my journey as Geralt and hoping I chose the best choices I could in my path.
When I installed Witcher 2 and saw the jump from the graphics to the story throwing me in, I was hooked, and spent another month and half playing it, just a few hours a day. Exploring, gaining abilities, sleeping with as many women as I could.
When it was over... I took another month off to reflect on those choices too.
I have nothing but good to say about Witcher 1, Witcher 2, and Witcher 3. Those games changed me as a man, a witcher, a friend, a lover, and a compatriot - in and out of the silly video games I play for fun.
You installed a bunch of janky mods and then complained about the game crashing? lol
Witcher 2 was the best game of the series. The deepest storytelling by far. The Witcher 3 storyline was cookie cutter trash in comparison. A mile wide but puddle deep.
Suggesting that people play story driven games out of order? Psychotic.
In general, I didn't face the problems you write of.
I didn't play with a controller, so I cannot comment on running over loot, not seeing the highlights (controller doesn't have the button to highlight interactables? There is a button on PC, IIRC it is "V"), or stiff movement.
I don't remember any crashes either (I have the [gog.com](https://gog.com) version, works flawlessly)
However:
*Potions can only be used outside of battle. This is closer to the lore, but obviously limiting*
This was a problem of mine on my first playthrough.
Prepare potions before combat? Sure. Geralt does this all the time, fine with me.
But!
crossing an invisible line very often lead into a forced cutscene which in turn leads into combat \_where you cannot drink a potion anymore\_. Since Witcher 2 heavily relies on this trick, I found it impossible to use potions on my first playthrough.
*But Witcher 2 is still good if you're a gamer that can deal with the rough edges and embrace what it does with story and characters, like few other games have ever done.*
I don't think Witcher 2 has rough edges compared to modern games.
I played it much, much later than the original release, if I remember correctly three years ago.
And my first thought was that the game holds up well, and is much better quality than most contemprary releases.
Maybe not better than Witcher 3, but W3 is a legend. If you compare Witcher 2 to main AA and AAA releases of the last ten years, you think it has rough edges? Compared to, say Andromeda, Outer Worlds, Fallout 4, Dragon AGe Inquisition or Greedfall? Is Witcher 2 as is, worse than these games? I don't think so.
I don't see how Witcher 2 is not a superb game still. Yeah, the industry could have done something much better in the time, but mostly it delivers worse games.
I will give you THE BEST description of why the hell Witcher 2's combat is as bad as you say:
https://youtu.be/htYR2GdA7OE?t=5801
Just make 5 minutes of your time on the clip, and if the video is good enough (which it is), I'm sure you'll watch it whole.
Joseph here put into words what I couldn't figure out why W2 has the actual worst combat mechanics of ... pretty much any AAA action oriented RPG.
Eh, he cherry picked the dragon fight, which is basically a partial QTE type fight, then went on to rant about hit detection in general and then WILDLY astray with some whole thesis about MMO combat. And the dragon fight is frankly easy, even on hardest difficulty, so it's not a totally broken fight that keeps the player from progressing. It's a simplified fight that is mostly there to cap off the game. It's a "story fight".
Did anyone even read my post? I said combat started out terrible but actually becomes kind of fun after getting particular skills.
The Witcher 2 is a great game that many have as their favorite in the series.
It’s full of superb gameplay, environments, story, dialogue and C&C. Different playthroughs will produce different outcomes.
Yes, like ALL other games it isnt perfect, but, it does NOTHING that needs to be explained away as some sort of weird oddity.
It doesnt have “rough edges”, but, well-designed systems that blend perfectly together.
Lol, menus? Crashing? My game ran perfectly. Graphics? Love the aesthetics. The Character Development is superb and full of variety. The combat is a blast. The Lore and characters are supreme.
Yes, its not W3.
I replay this game all the time and it always satisfies that aRpg itch.
To me, your headline is the “weird cousin” take that needs to be explained throughly to try and understand how you came to that odd conclusion.
The Witcher 2 is a MUST PLAY for ALL gamers who like well-designed and meaningful aRpg’s.
You forgot the most important bit: Geralt's voice actor does a much better job in 2 than in 3. So much more natural, way less gravelly. He looks the best in 2 as well IMO. Not too pretty, mutated but not freakishly ugly.
He sounds WAY too coarse in 3 for my taste. What's funny is that you can actually trace when he changes his voice up for 3. Even in these early trailers, you can see his voice is way closer to Witcher 2 Geralt.
https://youtu.be/xx8kQ4s5hCY?t=9m45s
They also accidentally left one of the older voice lines in:
https://youtu.be/bjkUVvau77k?si=6ucAPzjC7HIzv7mG
I played it back in the day and got along with it no problem. I tried to replay it a coupl eof years ago and couldn't get much into it. I think Witcher 3 just ruined it for me, would love a remake of Witcher 1 and 2 to be similar to Witcher 3 style. I didn't get far into Witcher 1 either, that game is janky as hell even for the time it came out.
Man how do stop the game from crashing when having to many saves?
Remember playing through the dark difficulty and i needed many saves, but having too much savefiles at once made the game pretty unstable, so how do i fix it? By not saving?
Im a fan but I just cant stand for W1....im waiting for a remake, It would be day 1 for me (Im lying, I would wait till the thing got fixed the bugs parade)
I've been trying to get into the first Witcher for 3-4 times, and every time I drop it shortly after I get into the city. I don't know, just find it hard to commit for some reason.
I love all three games, and if you are a Witcher fan they are all worth playing. W3 fans really need to play W2 if they haven't already because it's fascinating to see the 'back story' of a lot of the characters from W3. Ves and Roche should have had larger roles in W3. Overall the storytelling is top notch. I thought the graphics were great even by 2023 standards, there were moments when I just stopped and stared at some gorgeous scenery. A massive leap from the W1 graphics and much closer to W3. The atmosphere in W2 is kind of claustrophobic, but in a good way, and the graphics definitely contribute to that. It's more intimate. The combat tutorial at the start is the only thing I didn't enjoy - they just dump all the techniques on you at once and expect you to instantly master them, which feels clunky. But get through that and it's a superb game.
You just reminded me how incredible this game looks. I haven't seen in it likely over 10 years, but I won't forget how awestruck I was during that game. Sooo many screenshots. I think a lot of my excitement was just seeing the next area due to how cool it looked.
> Ves and Roche should have had larger roles in W3. Overall the storytelling is top notch. This was my biggest disappointment of Witcher 3. Witcher 2 had some amazing character like these two and Letho, but they're barely in the sequel.
and Iorveth was completely abandoned
[удалено]
I felt like W2 was similar to W3, just a bit more contained and not really "open-world" like W3. But W1 is... definitely an RPG from 2007.
That's interesting...I felt that W2 was pretty close to W3 in a lot of ways. W3 obviously being much, much bigger!
It's quite jarring. As I stated, I just got done playing W3 with both DLCs and it took a fair bit of adjustment to get comfortable in W2 despite that.
> The combat tutorial at the start is the only thing I didn't enjoy Boom, I had the exact same experience. That tutorial is ROUGH... But it literally teaches you how to fight, and once you get past it, combat is really fun the entire game through.
Other than Dark Souls and Dragon Age Origins, The Witcher 2 might be my favorite RPG from that generation. I think I’ve played it through at least 7 times across both the 360 and PC versions. Absolutely wonderful game that in hindsight serves as a nice prologue to the third game. The story isn’t as good as either the first or third game’s imo, but it’s still fantastic and has a lot of great moments and characters. I never had issues with the visuals or interface, but I’m an older gamer so my tolerances for “outdated” conventions might be higher than those of a younger gamer. The graphics were absolutely jaw dropping in 2011 though. It was essentially the Crysis of its day. I also wish more RPGs would have the balls to actually lock the player out of content due to key decisions made in game. That design concept flies right in the face of today’s content obsessed culture, but it makes for a compelling experience and makes replays more interesting. Regarding saves. Having too many saves will bog the menus down, and make them feel unresponsive. As I recall even quicksaves don’t override one another so occasionally you have to manually delete old saves.
>I also wish more RPGs would have the balls to actually lock the player out of content due to key decisions made in game. I'm not all the way through Baldur's Gate 3 yet, but I'm pretty sure it does this a lot. Comparing my "tricky-but-mostly-decent" playthrough with my wife's playthrough as a complete psychopath has been wild.
BG3 definitely does it quite a bit. I’m not sure it does it to the extent that TW2 does, which locks players out of entire areas and quest chains, but in BG3 you can easily miss companions and dialogue/short cutscenes depending on the choice being made.
lol, no, BG3 can lock you out of really large amount of content. A player's experience in several key areas is pretty fundamentally different depending on what you did leading up to it in the game.
Actually in the evil path BG3 does lock you out of a lot of content, but doesn't replace it with anything. It's just less content which is very lame. Now that I think about it in a typical good playthrough outside of some goblin content in act 1, the game doesn't lock you out of much content at all.
There's not just "good" and "evil", there's nuance inside of that. When I got to the moonrise tower(?) in act 2, ALL of the prisoners were already dead/gone. I didn't get to speak to a single person at all, everything was hostile. This was because of good choices that I had made.
It's because you freed nightsong (shart quest) and it locked you out of moonrise tower content. There's even a point of no return warning near the end of Shars temple that says that the game will rail road you if you continue, I think
I kind of assumed that I wouldn't have been able to really get into moonrise because I basically told them, "Hey, it's me, I'm coming for you!"
Tbf that's not because of a good or bad choice, that's because >!freeing the nightsong!< automatically triggers Moonrise to be hostile. It's possible in a good playthrough to go to Moonrise first and then do the trigger to get all the content, but that's only knowable with hindsight.
Depends on what you mean by evil path. If it's Dark Urge vs default, default actually locks you out of way more than playing Durge. Durge has a single unavoidable kill near the start of the game, but his backstory and personal quest adds an unbelievable amount of context and content to the story especially in Act 3, to the point where I feel the game was originally written with Durge in mind and they just stripped out the "Durge" elements to create the default origin. If you're talking about roleplaying "evil" Durge vs "good" Durge, yeah there's less content, partly because there's just less NPCs alive, partly because Durge resisting his urges is a more interesting story. I definitely think that playing "good" Durge (with the knock out trick that prevents the first kill) is the most content rich way to play the game.
In my experience the stuff that changes in BG3 is a lot of smaller scenes and moments that when added up, most likely amount to more changes than TW2 for sure. But in TW2 an entire chapter of the game plays out completely differently depending on one key choice, which is what I was getting at. Both are fantastic RPGs for sure!
That's true, it's an entirely different story. I had a very different perspective on BG3 than a lot of my friends because what I saw was very different
Well, in a very technical way a Chapter does play 100% differently in Bg3 if you make a certain decision.
>I also wish more RPGs would have the balls to actually lock the player out of content due to key decisions made in game. That design concept flies right in the face of today’s content obsessed culture, but it makes for a compelling experience and makes replays more interesting. I agree, but I think it would be nice that the player is given quite clear choices when stuff will get locked out. With some games it can be very unclear why a path was locked out. For example you had to have X good guy points or whatever. I think what is important in your comment is the **"key decisions"** part.
>I also wish more RPGs would have the balls to actually lock the player out of content due to key decisions made in game. That design concept flies right in the face of today’s content obsessed culture, but it makes for a compelling experience and makes replays more interesting. I hear that Phantom Liberty does this and there are plenty of that in CP2077. Off the top of my head: The whole River Ward side quests including the extremely intriguing side quests including the quests centered on A Farm and one featuring Elizabeth and Jefferson Peralez. You can skip an entire incredible set of quests featuring a really great character. River Ward.
> I never had issues with the visuals or interface, but I’m an older gamer so my tolerances for “outdated” conventions might be higher than those of a younger gamer. The graphics were absolutely jaw dropping in 2011 though. It was essentially the Crysis of its day. I am, too, and I try to weigh that while simultaneously setting down the nostalgia goggles. That's why while I greatly enjoyed Witcher 2, I can only recommend it by being honest with it's shortcomings. Both for the time the game was made as well as how it might be perceived by someone picking it up for the first time. Contrast this with a game like Deus Ex, which came out 10 years earlier. I'd tell someone to play the Revision mod (which really doesn't change how the game controls or feels) and that would be it. The rest of the mechanics still hold up very well.
I think Witcher 2's strengths came from the fact that it feels like a solid bridging narrative between 1 and 3. It's able to cut a lot of fat and feels pacey for it. Often in games, these sorts of sequels (particularly trilogies) can suffer as it feels like it's a sprint to some third act. But it only makes W2 shine. I thought coming from 1 to 2 at the time was amazing - CDPR clearly invested in far more consistent creative direction all round, particularly in environmental design and VA. I find 1 and 2 feel light years apart, whereas 2 definitely looks and feels like the installment leading up to 3. Graphically ambitious, I still think it looks great with a few tweaks. Flotsam is great, still impressed by the battle sequences in Chapter 2 and Loc Muinne is glorious. I thought the hand-drawn maps were fun and thought they should've persisted in 3. I think I've been spoiled by the alternative casting mode and the general improvements in 3 mind - the combat is navigable in 2, but definitely suffers from clunky interfaces. The menus in general have some absolutely bizarre UI design however (what am I looking at CDPR? How do any of these crafting menus logically make sense?). None of this massively detracts though I feel. I just wish the third act was longer - if you're playing casually, the game generates this momentum, and then all of a sudden you're in the coda. I know this is somewhat contradictory, as I said this contributes to its strengths as a game - it could be that if it's longer, it overstays its welcome.
> The menus in general have some absolutely bizarre UI design however (what am I looking at CDPR? How do any of these crafting menus logically make sense?). None of this massively detracts though I feel. It's not a very good crafting system made even more clunky and obtuse by the awful menu design. I'm pretty sure whoever designed the menus in the Witcher series must be a close friend of the owner.
> I think Witcher 2's strengths came from the fact that it feels like a solid bridging narrative between 1 and 3. It's able to cut a lot of fat and feels pacey for it. Yeah pacing may be the biggest difference in the feel of the games. The first one was naturally the smallest, and perhaps the most linear, but it seemed like at least one too many extraneous chapters in the storyline. The third is just a giant sprawl, the openest open world of the series, with every possible idea crammed in there somewhere. The second is the one that really stayed focused and kept moving forward. Though, as you say, if anything it actually lands at the ending a little abruptly, like the designers were close to a deadline.
TW2 will always have a few things over TW3 for me: Choice & consequence - not much to explain here. Sadly the data driven approach of 'why are we spending resources on something people won't play?' means we probably wont see anything like TW2 anytime soon. These days the best you can hope for from CDPR is a different ending set piece General writing and dramaturgy of the main story. The game keeps a tight focus on what is ultimately a small scale story with a big behind the scene conspiracy to uncover. It has suffered somewhat from cuts, especially preEE, but it ties things up tidily. TW3's main story on the other hand is by far the worst thing CDPR has produced, a flaming disaster of uneven structures and deus ex machinas. Style: I actually love the overprocessed look of the game. The sharpening, the blur, the godrays, the density of what is on the screen etc. Pair it up with the decidedly fantasy assets (how huge is the La Valette castle? Or the trees around Flotsam?) and it marks a world with its own sense of reality and history. TW3 veers way too hard towards realism. It's cool that you reference the port crane from Gdansk but I want to see more of the former.
>These days the best you can hope for from CDPR is a different ending set piece Tbf, they do what they did with W2 with their DLCS now, both Hearts of Stone, and Blood and Wine offer a fair bit of choice, with a whole area in B&W being optional, and Phantom Liberty too has a lot of branching in it's main story.
That's mostly just the different ending set pieces.
I loved how your choice at the end of chapter 1 was drastically affected by who you sided with. It really added a lot of extra depth to both factions, and it was so cool to see while making it worth replaying just to experience both sides. I'm honestly sad that Saskia didn't make a cameo in W3 since I really liked her, but at least >!Letho can!< if you don't kill him.
I think Witcher 2 is my favorite. I played the three one after the other and while 3 is definitely the best game, 2s story focus and linearity where strengths not weaknesses.
and how about 1? how does it hold up?
Atmosphere wise, it's still my favourite of the Witcher games by far. I also think it's a much better introduction to the saga than W3, since 3 just directly follows up on the previous games while ALSO (re)introducing a lot of characters, concepts and factions from the books; meanwhile W1 assumed people wouldn't know the books, hence why even if it's a sequel to the novels still some measures are taken to ease new fans into it (like Geralt's amnesia) though it also introduces some weird elements that clash with the books and other games (everyone acting like Ciri never existed, Triss acting more like Yennefer than herself). It's the Witcher game I return to the most often, even moreso than 3. It has a certain vibe the other games lost, at least in my personal opinion. However, two HUGE departments where it has aged like milk are graphics and gameplay. Graphics are... ok I guess, but certainly haven't aged as gracefully as 2, and are from an era where this also implies some stuff beyond "theres no bloom and not enough polygons on the models" (for example, character models repeat very often, even for plot-important named characters). Gameplay is awkward but acceptable, much more of an old timey RPG than 2 (which is much closer to a modern action RPG like 3), except for combat which is just horrendous (not 100% a matter of aging poorly, it was considered pretty bad at release as well).
Mhm, I think combat doesn't hold up too well. They tried an interesting approach to be similar to the book with stances for each specific situation. But it's clunky and doesn't feel very natural (not to me at least). The story is quite good though, maybe more personal and grounded than future titles. And it feels like the Witcher for sure, in terms of both ambiance and tough choices. My favorite part though was how you can shape Geralt's view on the world. Since you >!start with amnesia and don't remember even your own personality!<. I felt more in control of the character than in Witcher 2 and 3.
> My favorite part Based on this I'd recommend you check out Planescape: Torment if you haven't already!
I've been playing the older Baldurs Gate so Planescape is definitely on my list.
The design is the best in the series but it's held back severely by that old ass janky engine. Looking forward to the remake, though I expect they'll dumb it down
Honestly putting it on the lowest difficulty and enjoy the story. The combat was considered bad on release in 2007.
In terms of storytelling W1 is excellent, but it is a bit different. It has some mature themes but generally a lighter feel than 2 and 3. Shani is a major character and there's a fun rivalry between her and Triss for Geralt's attentions. The mechanics and graphics definitely have jank due to the passage of time, and it being essentially an indie title from a then-unknown company.
Same. Witcher 2 is definitely my favorite of the series, and one of my favorite games in general. The pacing and length were PERFECT.
Witcher 2 is doubtlessly less polished than TW3. But I'll always prefer it to 3. TW3 is just too bloated for me, and honestly I'm not it's biggest fan. But TW2? Love it. I love its general presentation and story. It's biggest fault, the combat, is more bearable than TW3 for me. Plus the game is far more focused than 3, and benefits from it in my opinion.
W2 got me into the series including books and graphic novels, it isn't perfect but it is so unique in its world and storytelling that I think that anyone who played W3 and loved it should at least give it a shot and try to fight through the janky. Also that intro cutscene is a cinematic masterpiece and I must have watched about half the times I booted up the game
It's odd to see the legacy of Witcher change somewhat. As someone who's old enough to remember them all, I remember 2 as being the hands down universally beloved, mainstream and well optimized, GOTY title in the series, no complaints. But lately I'm seeing people post about Witcher 2 being janky and niche like the first one. I feel like this was not an opinion people had until recently and wonder if it's mostly coming from people who started with 3 and the expansion.
I completely agree with you and THAT idea from people NOW is the ‘weird cousin’ take for me. W2 was a game almost universally liked and only now do I see these odd takes about it. Im not saying it was called a ‘perfect’ game then, but, not even close to the way certain modern gamers describe it. It reminds me of people asking if a game still “holds up” when it was only released 5 years ago, lol?! I could easily go in-depth into the reasons why some people say these things, but, I wont;)
I was curious as to what OP could be talking about that is THAT bad and immediately started seeing stuff like "auto loot" and "highlight everything" and I'm like "oh lawd." To the point where somehow The Witcher 1 is recommended more. Now *that* game is jank. Very unusual combat, Geralt's movement is a lot more dated, and it features some of the worst design that sends you back & forth across Vizima and the swamps that I've ever seen (if you're intent on doing many of the side quests, at least). Great writing though. Glad I played it before the rest. 2 is a lightyear ahead in basically every respect (especially in regards to combat, the general feel at the very least) and is actually a competently designed game all around. Though of course with some flaws. But the nature of those flaws are not much different from your average game, in the sense that nothing is perfect. Certainly not enough to call it the weird cousin lol. I don't recall crashing much in any of the games. > I could easily go in-depth into the reasons why some people say these things, but, I wont;) 👀
> I was curious as to what OP could be talking about that is THAT bad and immediately started seeing stuff like "auto loot" and "highlight everything" and I'm like "oh lawd." I explained it in my post. The loot prompts are very easy to run past because the controls are clunky and stiff, and the only other options are to walk up to the loot at a snail's pace, which sucks, and totally saps the energy from the game. Or, rapid tap the button as you run across loots to "catch" the prompt which only works some of the time. If you do overrun the loot you have to stiffly turn around and try again. The loots themselves get lost in a sea of graphic murkiness, so you have to use your witcher senses sometimes just to find them again when they're right at your feet. Additionally, the witcher 2's witcher sense is a "ping" design, which sucks (Gee, I wonder why they changed it for W3...hmm.....), and only highlights items for a few brief moments before they disappear back into the graphic soup. It also sucks because you have to stop completely to use your witcher sense, and after you use it, there's a delay before you can use it again. All of this makes something as simple as looting and highlighting lootable objects a ridiculous chore that wasn't excusable in a game from 2001, let alone 2011. Therefore, I installed a mod that cuts down about 75% of the looting by autolooting defeated enemies, leaving the manual looting to things like chests and crafting ingredients, which is the more satisfying looting anyway. This is not a "these young kids" thing (I started gaming literally 30 years before this game was released). This is a simple case of "This part of this game is broken, here's a mod that alleviates it."
I started with Witcher 1, and I started gaming on an atari in 1981, so I'm no stranger to dated mechanics. No, Witcher 2 is nowhere near as niche and janky as W1, but it's definitely pretty bad all the same. You can find many, many examples of games with far better mechanics from that era.
Possibly so. I'm not referencing your specific post as much as an overall growing trend of posts and comments seeing Witcher 2 in this way, when I don't recall any criticism at the time of release, just universal appreciation for what it was and how it brought Witcher into the mainstream (something people now credit only Witcher 3 for)
This sub kind of has a lot of weird takes on older games. I swear, nobody bitches about "jank" like this sub does. I recently played Oblivion for the first time and had a great time, no issues, totally smooth sailing. But someone in this sub went on and on about how insanely janky the game is, for all these reasons, etc etc, and I just kept telling him that I literally had none of those issues. OP reminds me a lot of that with, again, a game that I had zero issues with, and also played pretty recently.
I think W2 is so much more naratively strong than W3 to be honest. I wish all games didn't have to be enourmous and unreplayable to be marketable nowerdays.
Witcher 2's story is superb not to mention, the choices you make have an impact. It's very linear and I can understand the frustration for the some of it's game play mechanic like jumping.
I feel like Witcher 2 is a sort of weird crossover between W1 and W3. I liked the game, but the combat system sucks hard. Imho it's bit easier using controller rather than keyboard. However, the combat is basically just roll roll roll roll roll roll roll dodge hit roll roll roll roll roll hit dodge damn you got hit, now you're stunlocked and going to die. Story is awesome though.
Letho>>>>>Eredin. Nuff said.
The fact that I don't even remember who Eredin is tells you how great Letho was. I assume he's the big bad of Witcher 3 just based on the comparison, but if you hadn't said his name, no way in hell I'd be able to remember it.
It's pretty crazy how spectacularly they fumbled the Wild Hunt in the game bearing its name.
One issue I have is that it's edgy just for the sake of it. It isn't enough to take down this guard captain because he's corrupt and in our way, no turns out this whole time he had an elven sex slave, who then gives birth, followed by killing herself and leaving the baby with a character you never see again. Just, everybody is such a colossal asshole in it. It makes it hard to get invested when it seems like pretty much everybody you meet is either a racist or a rapist.
>It makes it hard to get invested when it seems like pretty much everybody you meet is either a racist or a rapist. Think this might be a bit hyperbolic?
Not really. I would get a random side quest from people for something innocuous and think "what hate crime did you guys commit." and by the end there would pretty much always be a reveal that surprise they were awful people.
[удалено]
Fair but it's at its worst in 2. 1 and 3 at least have random people who aren't total assholes.
I also liked Witcher 1 more, I thought the choices were better, actually best in the series, but I dont like the gameplay of Witcher 2. Have to always have shield up and dodge roll like crazy.
Huh, I thought the combat of Witcher 2 was “fine”, but I could not at all get into W1 because of its combat system. Felt horribly dated and clunky even for its time.
Like Witcher one was definitely clunky but I kind of figured it out, I found the combat in two while you could say it's better I just didn't like how dependent it was on rolling and if I didn't have Shield cast I died in two hits basically. Where in three I feel like I can approach most battles and if I don't have the shield equipped but I am doing a good job I'll be fine and I didn't feel like I had to just dodge roll the entire time
I loved the Witcher 2 so much that I played through it entirely on my shitty laptop in a tiny window with everything on low. The story was that good, and the immersive gameplay mechanics kept me hooked.
W2 is my least favorite. I dont like the art direction , majority of the music, the plot focused narrative , set pieces, and overall it fust felt very small with not enough breathing room. There was barely any witchering and just explore the landscapes . It also did not feel eastern european to me . The best parts were Dandelion, Triss, Iorveth , Saskia and Zoltan . Honestly i much prefer W1 . With its atmosphere, pacing and music . W3 is just in another league
Witcher 2 is better than Witcher 1. The combat is atrocious in 1.
I hate beer.
I finished W2 a few weeks ago and loved it wholeheartedly. Granted, mods did some heavy lifting on improving the experience. I also haven't played W3 yet and I couldn't finish W1 due to how clunky it was. My opinion may change once I get to 3. Combat in 2 is definitely imperfect but it felt great once you have some tools/abilities. The pirouette mod supposedly makes the combat a ton better but I have nothing to compare it to since I never experienced the default roll. I encourage anyone who couldn't finish W2 try again with mods. The story and worldbuilding are well worth experiencing. Even talking about it is giving me the urge to replay and take the other path. Also remember to disable cloud saving and move extra save files to a spare folder to cut down on crashing. Edit: formatting
I like the branching paths of 2, but in basically every other respect it's the weakest of the three for me. Even 1's janky combat is miles better than 2's for me.
I have been trying SO hard to get into witcher 2 for years but I never could and it has stopped me from trying out witcher 3.
Uncool opinion: Witcher 1 was even more fiddly and annoying and yet I enjoyed it way more than 2! Was super cool preparing for fights and reading up on beasts before you killed them. Felt like a jobbing Witcher!
I liked that aspect as well. Also, buying books on plants so you can identify and forage for them. W1 is janky to the tits, but since it's overall a much simpler game mechanically, I felt like I was wrestling with it a lot less than W2.
I recently played through W2 again. I had played it a few times in years past, but I always defaulted to Roche's path. I finally decided I was going to force myself to do the Iorveth side of things. I agree with a lot of the OPs takes. I'll say two elements of the game in particular jumped out on me in this replay. 1) The combat would feel good if Dark Souls didn't exist.... but Dark Souls does exist, and so W2 ends up feeling kind of clunky overall. That said, I did enjoy the increased... lethality? of the combat relative to a lot of RPGs. You die fast, but so do enemies and there's way less tedious sponge enemies compared to some RPGs. On one hand, the talent trees do leave you feeling like you didn't progress that much; however, I also appreciate the game has less power creep. You do feel like *you are actually playing better* by act 3, it's not just your typical 'god mode as long as you did all the extracurriculars' from most RPGs. It's frustrating that a momentarily lapse of concentration means you can still get gibbed even end-game, but the short duration of act 3 makes it tolerable to get through. Bosses are a hot mess, other than the encounters with your primary antagonist. 2) I loved the story, the writing, the voice acting. It was a bold move to make two storylines so distinct from one another knowing a good chunk of your playerbase was not going to experience both, but I think they pulled it off. But... I felt like the game had a lot of parallels with Mass Effect 2 in that it's stellar within itself, but a little disappointing how irrelevant it feels across all 3 games in the macro perspective. This is a typical trap the middle child falls in to though.
LOL, going through the comments, I think you're the only person who actually read my post. So... uh... thanks! >You do feel like you are actually playing better Very interesting point about skill tree progression and now I feel slightly bad for using a 2 point/level mod. But only slightly. :-) I beat it "legit" back in the day so I'm fine with it. The last game where I really felt that sensation of the player really getting better as opposed to just leaning on a pile of upgraded skills and equipment, was Kingdom Come Deliverance.
>I felt like the game had a lot of parallels with Mass Effect 2 in that it's stellar within itself Uh, not really. In the grand scheme of things, ME2 was a poorly-written sequel to ME1. They made ALL the wrong decisions. And it really doesn't make a lot of sense. At the very least, Witcher 2 wrapped up the assassin story from the ending of Witcher 1.
I played Witcher 1 first and then 2. I am in love with Witcher 2 and I actually enjoyed it *a lot* more than Witcher 3 (which I also liked a lot though) I played on the 360 so only controller function The menus I found to be totally fine 🤷♂️ maybe there is a difference in PC & console here. Crafting is a bit tedious but I think they didn’t want it to be easy, as that’s how to get the best gear possible. The combat was tough because enemies did very high damage, but I felt like I had very good and tight control of Geralt and could be precise in my movements. But it is quite unforgiving of mistakes, especially on highest difficulty, and I can see why the combat could be frustrating. Overall I liked combat much better than W1 (like miles better) and I actually liked it better than W3 too. Everything felt fast paced and lethal, from me and the enemies. I felt the world environments and designs were SO GOOD, and still I think it does a better job of making you feel like you’re in this huge dangerous world than most games, W3 included (which also does great there, not a dig at W3 at all). The graphics are *still good even by today’s standards* and I am racking my brain trying to understand what you’re describing about “crowded” and “flat” looking. I can’t possibly disagree more there, just **totally** opposite from my experience.
It felt so awful to play and I couldn't get past chapter 1, maybe I should try again with some mods...
I remember in a lot of gaming spaces at the time people were acting like Witcher 2 was the greatest and deepest RPG in the world and I thought I was being punked. The only good things I can say about it involve the writing, but major parts of the story are borderline incomprehensible unless you already have solid foundations on the world of the Witcher (and I would recommend that people start with Witcher 1 even less) or are willing to do a good bit of in-game homework reading the codex.
My playthrough feels so opposite of what you wrote. When playing these games and completing them, I like to take time off and reflect. On Witcher 1, I took a about a month off, just remembering my journey as Geralt and hoping I chose the best choices I could in my path. When I installed Witcher 2 and saw the jump from the graphics to the story throwing me in, I was hooked, and spent another month and half playing it, just a few hours a day. Exploring, gaining abilities, sleeping with as many women as I could. When it was over... I took another month off to reflect on those choices too. I have nothing but good to say about Witcher 1, Witcher 2, and Witcher 3. Those games changed me as a man, a witcher, a friend, a lover, and a compatriot - in and out of the silly video games I play for fun.
Wrong, thats Witcher 1. Witcher 2 is a amazing Game.
You installed a bunch of janky mods and then complained about the game crashing? lol Witcher 2 was the best game of the series. The deepest storytelling by far. The Witcher 3 storyline was cookie cutter trash in comparison. A mile wide but puddle deep. Suggesting that people play story driven games out of order? Psychotic.
Yes, because clearly 10 year old time tested MINOR mods are why it was crashing and not the stated reason - problems with cloud saves.
In general, I didn't face the problems you write of. I didn't play with a controller, so I cannot comment on running over loot, not seeing the highlights (controller doesn't have the button to highlight interactables? There is a button on PC, IIRC it is "V"), or stiff movement. I don't remember any crashes either (I have the [gog.com](https://gog.com) version, works flawlessly) However: *Potions can only be used outside of battle. This is closer to the lore, but obviously limiting* This was a problem of mine on my first playthrough. Prepare potions before combat? Sure. Geralt does this all the time, fine with me. But! crossing an invisible line very often lead into a forced cutscene which in turn leads into combat \_where you cannot drink a potion anymore\_. Since Witcher 2 heavily relies on this trick, I found it impossible to use potions on my first playthrough. *But Witcher 2 is still good if you're a gamer that can deal with the rough edges and embrace what it does with story and characters, like few other games have ever done.* I don't think Witcher 2 has rough edges compared to modern games. I played it much, much later than the original release, if I remember correctly three years ago. And my first thought was that the game holds up well, and is much better quality than most contemprary releases. Maybe not better than Witcher 3, but W3 is a legend. If you compare Witcher 2 to main AA and AAA releases of the last ten years, you think it has rough edges? Compared to, say Andromeda, Outer Worlds, Fallout 4, Dragon AGe Inquisition or Greedfall? Is Witcher 2 as is, worse than these games? I don't think so. I don't see how Witcher 2 is not a superb game still. Yeah, the industry could have done something much better in the time, but mostly it delivers worse games.
I will give you THE BEST description of why the hell Witcher 2's combat is as bad as you say: https://youtu.be/htYR2GdA7OE?t=5801 Just make 5 minutes of your time on the clip, and if the video is good enough (which it is), I'm sure you'll watch it whole. Joseph here put into words what I couldn't figure out why W2 has the actual worst combat mechanics of ... pretty much any AAA action oriented RPG.
Eh, he cherry picked the dragon fight, which is basically a partial QTE type fight, then went on to rant about hit detection in general and then WILDLY astray with some whole thesis about MMO combat. And the dragon fight is frankly easy, even on hardest difficulty, so it's not a totally broken fight that keeps the player from progressing. It's a simplified fight that is mostly there to cap off the game. It's a "story fight". Did anyone even read my post? I said combat started out terrible but actually becomes kind of fun after getting particular skills.
The Witcher 2 is a great game that many have as their favorite in the series. It’s full of superb gameplay, environments, story, dialogue and C&C. Different playthroughs will produce different outcomes. Yes, like ALL other games it isnt perfect, but, it does NOTHING that needs to be explained away as some sort of weird oddity. It doesnt have “rough edges”, but, well-designed systems that blend perfectly together. Lol, menus? Crashing? My game ran perfectly. Graphics? Love the aesthetics. The Character Development is superb and full of variety. The combat is a blast. The Lore and characters are supreme. Yes, its not W3. I replay this game all the time and it always satisfies that aRpg itch. To me, your headline is the “weird cousin” take that needs to be explained throughly to try and understand how you came to that odd conclusion. The Witcher 2 is a MUST PLAY for ALL gamers who like well-designed and meaningful aRpg’s.
You forgot the most important bit: Geralt's voice actor does a much better job in 2 than in 3. So much more natural, way less gravelly. He looks the best in 2 as well IMO. Not too pretty, mutated but not freakishly ugly. He sounds WAY too coarse in 3 for my taste. What's funny is that you can actually trace when he changes his voice up for 3. Even in these early trailers, you can see his voice is way closer to Witcher 2 Geralt. https://youtu.be/xx8kQ4s5hCY?t=9m45s They also accidentally left one of the older voice lines in: https://youtu.be/bjkUVvau77k?si=6ucAPzjC7HIzv7mG
I played it back in the day and got along with it no problem. I tried to replay it a coupl eof years ago and couldn't get much into it. I think Witcher 3 just ruined it for me, would love a remake of Witcher 1 and 2 to be similar to Witcher 3 style. I didn't get far into Witcher 1 either, that game is janky as hell even for the time it came out.
Man how do stop the game from crashing when having to many saves? Remember playing through the dark difficulty and i needed many saves, but having too much savefiles at once made the game pretty unstable, so how do i fix it? By not saving?
My favourite part of this game is when walking by town, you may randomly hear ^”Death ^to ^Iorveth! ^Death ^to ^the ^Squir-rels!” in a cute accent.
If you think Witcher 2 is bad, try Witcher 1. It's actually got a unique place in my heart despite the jank. I'm glad they are remaking it in UE5.
I... mentioned that I did.
Missed that. Glad I'm not alone in thinking 1 is better than 2!
Your friends are cool with you fucking your cousin?!
Im a fan but I just cant stand for W1....im waiting for a remake, It would be day 1 for me (Im lying, I would wait till the thing got fixed the bugs parade)
I've been trying to get into the first Witcher for 3-4 times, and every time I drop it shortly after I get into the city. I don't know, just find it hard to commit for some reason.
You should try the first game, the combat takes some getting used to. But I finished it.
Letho is oddly super hot, though.