Let's talk about The Witcher

[Gladion]

Honestly, I'm pretty surprised that there is a healthy portion of people who prefer the first game over the second. I guess to me, the second one "felt" just so much better than the first that I didn't really see that as an option. The more you know.

Anyhow, playing the first Witcher game a few years ago actually felt like "playing a role" in a Role Playing Game, instead of playing an action game with numbers. I liked that I spent about an equal time talking as I was fighting. I actually was sort of impressed with the different stances and such when I was taught them in the tutorial, but afair they remained pretty much the same the whole time, so the fighting system was disappointing in that regard. The story itself wasn't very good but I didn't mind that because I enjoyed exploring the world around me. In the end, I think that CDPR had aspired to a bit more than they could've handled (noticable in the voice acting, animation and dodgy last chapter), which I don't say as criticism because it was their first game and I think that was an impressive feat.

The second improved basically everything I didn't like about the first game, although not to perfection. The story, voices, animation are all at least one step above the predecessor and it was one of the rare games that I want to replay - I even wanted to the moment I finished it, which says even more about how much I enjoyed it.
That said, the game still has flaws that I hope will be eliminated in the next installment (which I have preordered, something I also don't normally do). Most of that boils down to what people call "production value", I think. I doubt I'm going to have to worry about that, so fingers crossed that opening the world didn't harm any of the previous' games' qualities.

Edit: Yes, consider me a fan. I haven't been as enthusiastic about a video game series since I don't know what.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

They're both among my favourite games, but I'll put it to the first one being the overall better game. It's certainly a bit rougher around the edges but it makes up for it in charm and atmosphere. Where as the second game got all political and large scale, the first game felt more personal to Geralt as a character and you did a lot more actual Witcher-ly things. I also prefer the combat in the first game. I was initially quite pleased with the transition from the timing-based combat of Witcher 1 to the "real time" click-for-attack combat at the second until I learned it mostly consisted of rolling and a pretty useless block. Nah, I vastly prefer the different combat styles of the first game, and I think the animations were better as well. I don't often feel like the lightening fast, reflex-heavy fencer in Witcher 2 as I did in the first game, or as written in the books. I agree about the alchemy system as well. That was done better in the first. Also, dice poker! They made it wholly uninteresting in Witcher 2, but I could spend hours playing dice poker in the first one. Goddamn was that fun.

I do like the second game, of course. It does have a very strong, if different, storyline and vibe to it and the voice acting and characterisation was definitely improved. Those forced stealth segments were really terrible though. Fortunately there weren't many of them.

I am really looking forward to the third game though. Looks like they're removing some of the things I didn't like about the second, so it should be good. I am nervous about the open-world, though. One thing the first two games have in common is a sense of scale. The locations all look big and realistically sized, and you do feel as though you're in the middle of a living, breathing world. I'm worried it'll become Bethesdaficated this time around, with tiny "cities" and things being jammed in around each other. I guess we'll see how they pull it off.

 

[The Madman]

I'm pretty fond of them both. Witcher 1 has some serious pacing issues and is riddled with the sorts of mistakes you'd expect to find from am ambitious project created by a first time developer, but with a lot of those mistakes also comes a sort of charm. You can tell The Witcher was the product of people who genuinely wanted to make this game and had a love of the source inspiration, and for all its faults what it does well it often does really well.

Witcher 2 by contrast is a lot better of a game, just looking at it as an overall product, it's more stable and focused so that it better accomplishes what it set out to do... but it also lacks a bit of that 'mad ambition' vibe the original game had. I can see why some people prefer the first game, though for my own part if I had to pick one I thought was better I'd have to go with 2 simply because while it might lack some of the original games ambition and size, it's also lacking a fair bit of the crippling pacing issues and problems that plagued the original.

Great series. Not for everyone perhaps, there's a couple forum posters here for example who normally flock to any topic about the Witcher so they can comment on how terrible they think the games are, but I've enjoyed them. Looking forward to the third game as well.