The Witcher 2 First Impressions Thread

[TheIronRuler]

Seeing as it is really unlikely anyone has finished the game yet I wanted to make a thread so people could post their first impressions.

Right off the bat I'll say the game is absolutely stunning in the visual department even by modern standards. The environments and characters are intricately detailed and the settings obviously have a lot of thought behind them. However I can't speak to the quality on the lower settings; I have been running it on a mix of "High" and "Ultra" and have been steering clear of the scary-sounding "Ubersampling" as well as whatever "Dangling object limit" is... Considering the amount of nudity in this game I am frightened at the implications of that last setting.

The voice acting seems alright if just a little on the stale side. One little thing I noticed is it seems that they have different voice actors in the finished version than were in the trailers, anyone else notice this?

Also, the learning curve is... well, it reminded me a lot of this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23579228@N04/2335016192/

My inital thoughts is that the game is very challenging, I recall dying several times in the prolouge before I got the hang of it. I finally came to my senses and read the manual so things got a lot better from there.

So, what do you guys think?

**Anyone else have a hell of a time downloading this from Steam? My speeds were down around 200kbps for a hour or two there.

I finished the game four times already.
four. And I loved every moment of it.

 

[Alucard788]

[http://www.imagebam.com/image/32c516133079938]

[http://www.imagebam.com/image/98cd89133079961]

Can I just...I mean I know he's not 'real' but...gawwd....*swoon*

*swoons more*

Sorry *ahem*

I love the game. I just wish that those poor elves would catch a break once in a while. As a fan of the pointy ear lads, between this game and dragon age (and I love dragon age), I'm getting second hand elf depression. >_<

 

[Trishbot]

Can I post my impressions even though my computer sucks and I'm waiting for the 360 version because I'm not part of the "glorious master PC gaming race"?

I'm excited for this. Seen and read the reviews. The graphics are impressive, the gameplay looks deep, the music is stirring, and the variety of choice and options in the game are staggering. Having walked away from Dragon Age 2 very disappointed (though Two Worlds 2 was surprisingly enjoyable), The Witcher 2 hit my radar hard and then I realized my computer just can't run it... so the 360 port it is!

But it's great to see a game supposedly tackle some truly "gray area" morality, giving you genuine choice and decisions without a clear "good" or "evil" outcome. That's life, and the fact this game tackles things from love and politics to fate and free-will in such an adult fashion is refreshing.

 

[MisterShine]

Either way, it's an interesting moral quandary that his returning memories can only exacerbate, and it's something that people who haven't read the books wouldn't even pick up on (though there are some hints in the sequel, like when he asks her to tell him everything about Yennefer, even the parts she doesn't want him to know).

Yeah, what was the deal with that by the way? I'm only at the beginning of Chapter 2 (still..), will we get an explanation of what they talked about, or was the game assuming I would know what they said about Yennefer and Geralt because either it was in the first game (which I didn't finish) or because it expected me to read the books? Or is it supposed to remain a mystery and will be expanded upon later in the game and I just haven't gotten there yet? The only enthralling plot arch to me in the game is figuring out who Geralt was and what happened to him to bring him back, because everything I've seen so far suggests the Witcherverse is not a place where people just pop back and forth between dead and alive like your standard DnD or Comic Book setting.

 

[The Madman]

Yeah, what was the deal with that by the way? I'm only at the beginning of Chapter 2 (still..), will we get an explanation of what they talked about, or was the game assuming I would know what they said about Yennefer and Geralt because either it was in the first game (which I didn't finish) or because it expected me to read the books? Or is it supposed to remain a mystery and will be expanded upon later in the game and I just haven't gotten there yet? The only enthralling plot arch to me in the game is figuring out who Geralt was and what happened to him to bring him back, because everything I've seen so far suggests the Witcherverse is not a place where people just pop back and forth between dead and alive like your standard DnD or Comic Book setting.

Yennefer was Geralts love in the book series which ultimately ended with Geralt dying. Triss was in the books as well, but Yennefer was Geralts 'true love', something Triss envied. How Geralt is back from the dead, what the Wild Hunt has to do with it, and where Yennefer vanished to is an overarching story that I can tell you now was never explained in the original game and only partially in the second.

I suspect it will play a much larger role in the inevitable third game thanks to certain revelations throughout the game, but throughout the first and second games it's more a homage to the book series than a hugely relevant mystery. A sub-plot for those more familiar with the book series, if you will.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Either way, it's an interesting moral quandary that his returning memories can only exacerbate, and it's something that people who haven't read the books wouldn't even pick up on (though there are some hints in the sequel, like when he asks her to tell him everything about Yennefer, even the parts she doesn't want him to know).

Yeah, what was the deal with that by the way? I'm only at the beginning of Chapter 2 (still..), will we get an explanation of what they talked about, or was the game assuming I would know what they said about Yennefer and Geralt because either it was in the first game (which I didn't finish) or because it expected me to read the books? Or is it supposed to remain a mystery and will be expanded upon later in the game and I just haven't gotten there yet? The only enthralling plot arch to me in the game is figuring out who Geralt was and what happened to him to bring him back, because everything I've seen so far suggests the Witcherverse is not a place where people just pop back and forth between dead and alive like your standard DnD or Comic Book setting.

No, that conversation is never touched upon later, and it's one of those things I'm rather curious about having finished the game. The details of Geralt and Yennefer's relationship were actually never mentioned at all in the first game, at least not by name anyways (the innkeeper in Murky Waters will, if you let him, tell you a fairly lengthy tale that ends in a description of your deaths, albeit without mentioning your names specifically), so if you'd never read the books the fact that the sorceress Geralt used to be in love with was someone other than Triss is as much of a revelation for you as it is for our amnesiac hero (with bits like the Crinfrid Reavers bringing up old history you had with a non-redhead serving either as foreshadowing or references, depending on the familiarity of the viewer).

As for what Triss said on the voyage, presumably she told him details of their former relationship that she'd been withholding up to that point because, hey, as far as she knew Yennefer was/is every bit as dead as everyone assumed Geralt to be - no sense troubling an amnesiac with details of his former love life when there's boning to be done in the here and now after all, heh.

...

Oh wow, as I was sitting here typing up and rethinking the next few sentences I planned on writing to wrap up that bit of speculation on just what transpired during that boat ride, I just had a very nasty thought about the seeming contradiction between Triss's apparent eagerness to help you regain your memories in the sequel and how she broached the subject in the original game.

Spoiler: If you haven't played the Iorveth Path until chapter 3's first major choice, REALLY do not click this box because HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

So in act 1, after interrogating the elf on the prison barge, Geralt has another flashback about the Wild Hunt somehow abducting Yennefer (from the afterlife? Still not 100% clear on precisely how either of them is alive!), leading to him giving chase, and after mentioning that, Triss suggests that she could use a Rose of Remembrance to help you restore all the rest of your memories. At this point we have the name, which suggests memories, and her word for it that acquiring such a rose would be helpful towards the restoration of memory. The way events transpire though that ritual never takes place, and the rose you picked ends up (assuming you followed Iorveth to Vergen) used to "save" Saskia after she was poisoned.

Only it comes out a bit later that that particular ingredient wasn't part of the antidote to the poison at all, but was instead used to gain control over Saskia - the way Phillipa explains the spell's mechanics is that it made Saskia fall unconditionally in love with her and believe that she was the most important person in the world.

And therein lies my nasty little thought - what if Triss knew about that use for roses of remembrance, and that was in fact the reason she suggested that you should get her some, under the pretense of assisting you with the restoration of your memory? We really only have her word for it that the roses could even be used to help with memory restoration - could it be that Letho's abduction of her actually unwittingly saved Geralt from an attempt at a (rather selective) sort of brainwashing? I mean, I'd like to think that Triss was really trying to help, and I know that for all the secrets she might keep from him she really does care about Geralt, but after watching the various intrigues of the sorceresses all throughout this game it wouldn't really surprise me that her motives might not have been entirely altruistic.

Definitely food for thought.

 

[n19h7m4r3]

I have to agree Gildan, there's still a lot to uncover in the game story.
Although talking about Yennefer and the Wild Hunt.

Spoiler

It's mentioned in the game that the Wild Hunt is ubducting living people, apparently those with Elder blood in them.
That takes me back to the first game and Alvin, along with the Grandmaster, who people speculate was the same person. As it was stated that Alvin had so much power he could transport through space and time, also with the fact that the grandmaster had the same amulet as Alvin. It was only aged well, also earlier in the first game Alvin says he wants to become a Witcher.
Where Geralt replies, telling him he should become a Knight when he grows up.

At the end of the game the Wild Hunt appears and demands to have the Grandmaster.
At this moment, you have a choice, give him the Grandmaster or fight the Wild Hunt and fend him off/wound/kill him. ( They never explain what happened to him, although it's said in the Witcher2, that the Hunt and his spectres become manafest when trying to take people, so it is possible to kill them at that moment.)

At any rate, the Wild Hunt is taking living people with the Elder Blood gene, that could explain why Geralt and Yennefer were thought to be dead.

What if they were taken while still alive, although barely alive at that; and Geralt managed to find his way back to his world.

More of this is explained in the game if you collect all of the books relating the Wild Hunt, and talk to any and everyone about it. You'll get a few cut scenes and a few comic style ones explaining it.

On the note on Triss, I don't like her much. I picked Shani in the first game and I'm quite disappointed she's not here in the second. Although she probably never played a large enough roll in the books and main storyline to warrant it.

I have to state though, I do not trust Triss in the game at all. There's always something dark going on the background around her.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

I have to agree Gildan, there's still a lot to uncover in the game story.
Although talking about Yennefer and the Wild Hunt.

Spoiler

It's mentioned in the game that the Wild Hunt is ubducting living people, apparently those with Elder blood in them.
That takes me back to the first game and Alvin, along with the Grandmaster, who people speculate was the same person. As it was stated that Alvin had so much power he could transport through space and time, also with the fact that the grandmaster had the same amulet as Alvin. It was only aged well, also earlier in the first game Alvin says he wants to become a Witcher.
Where Geralt replies, telling him he should become a Knight when he grows up.

At the end of the game the Wild Hunt appears and demands to have the Grandmaster.
At this moment, you have a choice, give him the Grandmaster or fight the Wild Hunt and fend him off/wound/kill him. ( They never explain what happened to him, although it's said in the Witcher2, that the Hunt and his spectres become manafest when trying to take people, so it is possible to kill them at that moment.)

At any rate, the Wild Hunt is taking living people with the Elder Blood gene, that could explain why Geralt and Yennefer were thought to be dead.

What if they were taken while still alive, although barely alive at that; and Geralt managed to find his way back to his world.

More of this is explained in the game if you collect all of the books relating the Wild Hunt, and talk to any and everyone about it. You'll get a few cut scenes and a few comic style ones explaining it.

On the note on Triss, I don't like her much. I picked Shani in the first game and I'm quite disappointed she's not here in the second. Although she probably never played a large enough roll in the books and main storyline to warrant it.

I have to state though, I do not trust Triss in the game at all. There's always something dark going on the background around her.

Yeah, I got the gist of what the game explained about The Wild Hunt, having tracked down the scientific dissertations, old elven poems, and asked/discussed the topic with everyone I possibly could (also that sword from a parallel universe kicks ass and provides exposition, whee!), but all that information simply told us what the phenomenon represents

Spoiler

Elves from another parallel dimension, or their spectral servants

and what it does. That cutscene in the barge though kind of glosses over how they go from "Ciri sends the mortally wounded Yennefer and Geralt to (another dimension? a place that just resembles where an elf thinks he'll go when he shuffles off the mortal coil?)... somewhere, to the bit where "they get better, and are living in this peaceful place until the Wild Hunt abducts Yennefer".

It's just a wee bit frustrating because the game does a pretty good job explaining why it is that Geralt lost his memory and all, but it literally jumps from "I remember dying" to "I remember being somewhere nice and totally not dead" without really explaining the whole "not dead" part, which was frankly more important to me than the memory loss per se - I was happy to assume that was just a side effect of whatever it is that brought Geralt back from the grave (evidently not).

As for Shani, I couldn't really say how significant her role in the books is as I've only ever read the first two thanks to that pesky language barrier. I never ended up giving Alvin to her in the first game simply because I was pragmatic - boy was a source after all, and of the two women trying to look after him only one of them was a sorceress - but it is nonetheless somewhat annoying that the sequel kind of throws that decision out the window a bit.

 

[n19h7m4r3]

Very true, the game does kind of bounce between memories Geralt are having. Although given he as amnesia it is understandable. He's getting bits of memory back here and there.

They went into a lot more detail this time round since the first game, so I'm sure in the third installment they'll be adding even more to it.

I have to admit though, I prefered the artistic route taken in the first game when it game to memories and Geralt's little narrations compared to the very comic book style they went for now. It's bad, it's just not as good as the first in my opinion.

I do believe the game could have cleared things up a bit more, but we have to remember there's more to come. So getting chunks of memories is better than nothing. That part about Triss and Yenner is probably going to be very interesting; as I see Triss going to try everything she can to try and keep Geralt for herself.

For all we know she "got rid of" Shani, that could be why we don't see or hear from her. Given she has such close ties with Dandilion and the dwarf fellow.

Never trust a sorceress I say.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

For all we know she "got rid of" Shani, that could be why we don't see or hear from her. Given she has such close ties with Dandilion and the dwarf fellow.

Never trust a sorceress I say.

Not to dissuade you from the whole "don't trust sorceresses" position you (probably wisely given the available evidence) have taken, but I'm pretty sure that Shani mentioned she was going back to Oxenfurt once the uprising in Vizima died down - she was only there initially to assist with an outbreak of the catriona plague after all.

At least, that's what I remember her telling me in my particular game where I gave Alvin to Triss and stayed neutral in the conflict between the Order and Scoia'tael. I might be remembering it wrong, and I've never actually seen the other possible ways chapter V plays out because despite replaying the game for... 3 times now? I think that's how many times I've officially "finished" it... anyway, I can't seem to bring myself to ever make those really big decisions differently (or if I did it was only to see what happened and then I went right back), so I've never seen what she might say to you if she isn't still kind of pissed at you about the whole Alvin thing.

But yeah, pretty sure she's not in the game because she's back in Redania, not because Triss made her disappear. Foltest sort of latched onto Geralt as a lucky charm and Triss used the Viziman uprising to become a fixture of the royal court as his adviser, so the fact that you're back together in the sequel whether you left things that way or not may just be a case of "loving the one you're with" rather than a "we're ignoring your decisions in favor of our version of events" style retcon.

 

[n19h7m4r3]

Since I chose Shani, she basically wanted me to stay with her and Alvin. As he started seeing me as a father. Basically as a family unit, later on Geralt came to the conclusion that he loved Shani and wanted to be with her. She even stated that she doesn't care that he's a witcher or that it was dangerous as she'd always be there for him as he'd be for her.

Specially after writing a letter to her about it all. Later he also admited he loved her.

So to myself it kind of seems like a retcon really. Although I understand that if Tris is the main lover in the books besides Yennefer that they'd probably be forced to remove Shani from it all really.

I just think it's a pity given how Geralt ended up falling in love with her, also Triss at that time wanted nothing to do with Geralt anymore because of it all. In the last few chapters she even said " Speak and then get out of my sight", showing that things were over between him and Triss given he's now with Shani.

It's a pity really, I hope she makes an appearance again, either through content added into TW2 or in the next installment.