The Witcher Revisited

[Slowtrain]

It is a tough fight, no other way to describe it. And its not made any easier by the fact you have to click through all those cutscenes each time you reload it.

 

 

 

 

Probably the easiest way is just to try to stay alive and keep blasting the beast with your aard sign. Kill the bargasts when they swarm you, but don't waste time attacking the beast until you get a stun on it. Then whack it. Not very dramatic, but it works.

 

[Slowtrain]

I'm back in the cave and about to go on another attempt. I upgraded my Ard spell so I now have knock down and stun.

 

Thank the lord I won and I was about to get into Vizima and the game crashed. Either way I'm still confused. I hit him with like 2 or 3 ard signs and hit him a few times with my fast style. I was at about like 25% health and ran away with about 0 endurance or w/e so I popped a potion and I hit him with one more ard sign. Ran away again and was about to reload again when I did one fast style and he just fell over dead.

 

 

He must have been stunned when you hit him.

[theslug]

Yeah I think so becuase I hit him with like a weird style and he just dropped. Thank you guys for the help. I couldn't have done it without you. <3

[Tigranes]

Ohhh, The Beast. Odd, I didn't have trouble with that particular fight, but I think I leveled up quite a bit in Chapter 1.

 

Aard indeed is the best sign, I also like Igni + Strong Silver for the combination damage. Have hardly bothered with the other signs yet.

[Tale]

Igni is most of the damage I dealt in the later stages of the game.

[theslug]

Which signs should I specialize in? I kind of like ard but igni seems like it would be kind of nice. I looked at that shield one someone mentioned earlier and that seems like it could be really imba and good for me since I suck at the game. Also should I be kind of just doing general upgrades for str/dex/int/ect? And finally should I focus on sword styles or should I focus on specific silver/witcher sword? Or am I just going crazy becuase I'll have plenty of experience points to specialize all kinds of stuff? As of right now I'm lvl 10 and I just literally got out of the sewers into vizima, am I gimped or low level becuase it seems like I've fought every bad guy I've come across and I've done pretty much all the side quests I ever came in contact with.

[Tale]

I never bothered putting points into any sign except Aard and Igni until I ran out of places to put bronze points elsewhere. And Aard I never put any silver points into.

[theslug]

how do silver points work? Do I have to put a certain number of bronze points to make a silver or something?

[Tale]

You start getting silver points at later levels.

[Tigranes]

You get 3 bronze at levels 1-10, 2 bronze/1 silver at levels 11-20, and so forth.

[jaguars4ever]

I would say that if you're going for a melee character who primarily deals damaged with the swords, then specialize in Aard and Quen (in addition to str, dex, and stam). If you're going for a magic damaging character then pump Igni, Int, and all mana boosting/regenerating skills.

[Musopticon?]

Thanks for the tip on Igni, earlier on, Tale. It has saved me more times than I can remember.

 

A couple of Zerrikan Suns(a banger that blinds) will also help. A mass of Incinerated and Blind opponents isn't too hard anymore.

[Pop]

So I got the game, and I've made it to the big city, which is, I don't know, 4 or 5 hours in?

 

Review of game in progress -

 

Character / character creation: Geralt is no Nameless One, but he works. It's nice that they gave him a voice. Very JC Denton-esque, low on affect. Character creation is distinctive enough, although by the time I start getting silver points I wonder how many bronze-level talents I won't have bought.

 

Combat: System looks to be akin to Jade Empire's, with an emphasis on combos thrown in for good measure. It plays like the bastard child of Diablo and a rhythm game, but it's functional. Magic's fun, but I don't see the three basic fighting styles getting any more complicated or spectacular with upgrades.

 

Setting / Dialogue: Like every DM-created world I played in high school, right down to every (barely sketched-out) female NPC throwing themselves at the PC. Only this time, it's not akward between you and the DM when you successfully copulate with them! Yay! Truly, progress is being made here. There's a lot of stuff about racial tensions and corrupt society / religion, but it's all thoroughly cynical. When everything is dirty and blackened, it's not much easier to engage in the setting than if everything was squeaky-clean and kid friendly ala Oblivion. You distance yourself from the game all the same. There's science shoe-horned into magic and genetics shoe-horned into alchemy, but in the end it's just magic and alchemy.

 

Story:

Like all games that seem to come from Eastern Europe, nobody seems to have paid any attention to context. You're just thrown into the game sans familiarizing information. However, unlike STALKER and the like, there's actually a story here. It's Bioware / Black Isle standard, complete with the obligatory amnesia and cult / secret society that will turn out to be more than it seems. The lack of context particularly hurt the game for me when I undertook the "Wall Cave" quest in the first village. When burying the bones in the church crypt, a ghost / lich king thing appeared. It was obvious that it knew my character from the past. The problem was that my character obviously knew it. And yet there was no context, and it all came off as confusing. I got that unpleasant feeling of being out of the loop you get when you're eating with a group of people and they insist on discussing in-depth something with which you are not familiar.

 

 

The expanded english translation is nice and helpful, if not for illuminating the original intent of the developers than for restoring all the utterances of "****" and "dog's balls" that were lost in translation.

 

The collection quests and constant lap-running on the map made the first parts of the game pretty damned dull, and I'm trying not to think of having to do it all again in order to experience all the plot-branching. The game is engaging, but only because it contains milestones, and it's easy to occupy one's time checking off such. All in all, I'm unimpressed thus far.

Edited January 5, 2008 by Gorth
Spoiler tags added

[Slowtrain]

I think it compares pretty well with Bloodlines: a lot of quality gameplay that is a little rough around the edges. Like Bloodlines, the combat is functional but that's about it. I would prefer the Witcher combat to be much more twitch-based, but right now I think it is squarely in an unhappy middle beteen stat and twitch combat. Making it more stat based would have been preferable to where it is now. I play it in the OTS camera and at least it helps the combat feel a tad more immediate.

 

The lack of any skills except combat ones makes the game a little flat as far as crpgs go. No sneak, lockpicking, dialouge, barter, repair, etc. Not being able to climb, crouch, jump, swim, or god forbid climb, or even vary your movement makes the game feel somewhat primitive.

 

Like STALKER, the gameworld has a good feel to it, much better than the somewhat antiseptic gameworlds of other crpgs I've played recently such as Bioshock and Oblivion.

 

Its still the best crpg I've played for a long while, probably since Wizardry 8, though not really in the same league with that excellent game

[Slowtrain]

Story:

Like all games that seem to come from Eastern Europe, nobody seems to have paid any attention to context. You're just thrown into the game sans familiarizing information. However, unlike STALKER and the like, there's actually a story here. It's Bioware / Black Isle standard, complete with the obligatory amnesia and cult / secret society that will turn out to be more than it seems. The lack of context particularly hurt the game for me when I undertook the "Wall Cave" quest in the first village. When burying the bones in the church crypt, a ghost / lich king thing appeared. It was obvious that it knew my character from the past. The problem was that my character obviously knew it. And yet there was no context, and it all came off as confusing. I got that unpleasant feeling of being out of the loop you get when you're eating with a group of people and they insist on discussing in-depth something with which you are not familiar.

 

 

2 things:

 

1) The WItcher is based on an extremely popular series of novels and short stories by the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. None of them are available in the States as of yet although Orbit is suppsed to release a short story collection somwetimes in 2008. From what I understand, Geralt died at some point during the stories and this game is supposed to pick up where he comes back from death and part of the appeal to the books fans are to find out what happened to him. SO there is a big tie in between the book Geralt and the game Geralt, so I imagine that a lot of the backstory and in-game references would be known to people who have read the stories.

 

2) From what I undersatnd some of the dialouge and story scenes were cut for the US release of the game. Generally when this happens, games get a little less clear for players who have to suffer through the edited game.

[Tigranes]

It must be noted that the Witcher is a lot better than Bloodlines with bugs/stability issues, though.

[Pop]

Indeed. Although I seem to run into a bug every now and then with fistfights where you can't attack. You have to reposition yourself and dodge with the right mouse button.

[Slowtrain]

Indeed. Although I seem to run into a bug every now and then with fistfights where you can't attack. You have to reposition yourself and dodge with the right mouse button.

 

 

Yeah, I've run across that as well. The fistfight "engine" doesn't appear as polished as it might be. There's a real lack of feedback to it, and so far I haven't really been able to understand extactly how the mechanics work. There are a couple bronze talent skills that open up additional fistfighting options which I haven't tried. Those might make a difference.

[Pop]

The one I bought is a talent that allows you to charge up a punch with your endurance / stamina / whatever for extra damage.

[Slowtrain]

The one I bought is a talent that allows you to charge up a punch with your endurance / stamina / whatever for extra damage.

 

 

I think its pretty cool how when Gerault gets close enough to a win, the game kicks into a cinemtaic beatdown sequence. That is neat. I also LOVE Geralt's animations after winning the fight. I don't know exactly what he is supposed to be doing, waving to the crowd or something, but it just cracks me up every time.

 

I like a lot of the animations in the game. That one the npcs use a lot when they are talking where they sort of extend out their arm in a palm first gesture, I totally love that. I always laugh. I read some review that didn't like the animations, but I think they are fab.

[Wombat]

Pop, I think you are too early to judge story.

 

I think it compares pretty well with Bloodlines: a lot of quality gameplay that is a little rough around the edges. Like Bloodlines, the combat is functional but that's about it. I would prefer the Witcher combat to be much more twitch-based, but right now I think it is squarely in an unhappy middle beteen stat and twitch combat. Making it more stat based would have been preferable to where it is now. I play it in the OTS camera and at least it helps the combat feel a tad more immediate.

The combat is built up from point-click action RPGs such as Diablo. So, if you expect something like immediate action such as Oblivion, it leaves you unsatisfied. Quite many people seem to compare the system with Jade Empire, which I haven't played. I normally play on High Isometric mode for transitions and multiple hostiles and change to OTS one against a single one.

 

The lack of any skills except combat ones makes the game a little flat as far as crpgs go. No sneak, lockpicking, dialouge, barter, repair, etc. Not being able to climb, crouch, jump, swim, or god forbid climb, or even vary your movement makes the game feel somewhat primitive.

I definitely miss the dialog options - the present, drink contest and insignia are O.K. but annoying at times (I keep Wive's Tears available). I'd like to see sneak option with convincing gameplay but I wonder lockpicking fit the witcher.

 

Like STALKER, the gameworld has a good feel to it, much better than the somewhat antiseptic gameworlds of other crpgs I've played recently such as Bioshock and Oblivion.

I found the atmosphere of Bioshock is much better than that of Oblivion especially by fitting the theme but you brought S.T.A.L.K.E.R...hm...

 

 

Indeed. Although I seem to run into a bug every now and then with fistfights where you can't attack. You have to reposition yourself and dodge with the right mouse button.

The fist fights don't seem to work as it is explained in the manual but the timing seems to be similar to that of sword-fighting since I became accustomed to the fist-fight somehow.

 

I find that I play mini-games more often in this game than unusual. Probably it's related with the lack of game-play options, waiting NPC turns up for some quests and some stupidity makes me feel Geralt more human than a fighting machine. I even let Geralt seduce a town girl in

Dandelion's lute

quest just for comic value.

[Morgoth]

The Witcher is totally overrated. I played the first 2-3 hours and got bored, so I uninstalled it. And I don't see myself revisiting it very soon. I wouldn't mind getting NWX2 very soon though...but thanks to Atari's sucky situation currently, I doubt that will happen.

[Pidesco]

Did you play past the tutorial area?

[Meshugger]

The Witcher is totally underrated. I played the first 2-3 hours and got afraid by its awesomeness, so I uninstalled it. And I don't see myself revisiting it very soon. I wouldn't mind getting NWX2 very soon though...but thanks to Atari's sucky situation currently, I doubt that will happen.

 

Fixed

 

In all seriousness, having a mid-rage computer and playing only the tutorial level on low settings, would not only leave one unimpressed, but also annoyed by the whole lagginess and mediocre graphics.

 

The game didn't manage to grab me on until late CH1 - beginning of CH2.

Edited January 8, 2008 by Meshugger

[Morgoth]

The Witcher is totally underrated. I played the first 2-3 hours and got afraid by its awesomeness, so I uninstalled it. And I don't see myself revisiting it very soon. I wouldn't mind getting NWX2 very soon though...but thanks to Atari's sucky situation currently, I doubt that will happen.

 

Fixed

 

In all seriousness, having a mid-rage computer and playing only the tutorial level on low settings, would not only leave one unimpressed, but also annoyed by the whole lagginess and mediocre graphics.

 

The game didn't manage to grab me on until late CH1 - beginning of CH2.

Mid-rage computer? Are you spying on me?

I played into Chap1 I think, where I had some brawl fight, escorted some woman back to mommy and pappy (in return I got some hardcore-sex at the mill) and stumbled over some odd looking meat.

Well, the thing is just....every NPC makes such a sad, disinterested impression. Sure, there's poverty and prolly some plague, but the game just lacks the drive and excitement from a MOTB. The world feels rather oversized too, and traveling is just boring. I just saved some dwarfs arse on the way, and killed some demon doggies there. Is it just that I lost my hardcore edge? Whatever.... Maybe at some later point in time I go back and give it a real chance. But not now.

What I like so far is the interface, and the combat is astoundingly fun too. Not to mention that sorcerer in the Tutorial...what a woman!