The Witcher 2 First Impressions Thread

[Wolfram23]

After beating the game, I found it to be really, really good. Honestly if you find the combat too difficult, try it on Easy mode. Interestingly enough, the difference between the two difficulties is quite huge. It'd be better if normal wasn't so difficult so as to punish any mistake with death.

Easy: No real tactics in combat beyond the need to avoid being surrounded. Shielded opponents don't block, they only mitigate damage done.

Normal: It's incredibly hard. At the beginning of the game, an enemy can 2 or 3 shot you from behind. Very, very unforgiving for a "Normal" difficulty.

Anything harder than that would be insanity I presume.

I'm playing on Hard mode and finding it pretty manageable; you really gotta use all the tools at your disposal even in standard enemy encounters. Those little shits like Nekkers and Drowners can easily murder you if you get surrounded....and boy did I fucking hate Nekkers while in Flotsam.

Capcha: between essivila

I went and started on Hard and man it's tough!! Now unfortunately I've only had about 3 hours of play time with it, but it seriously took me at least 1.5hrs to finish the Assault lol. A lot of learning how to fight there! I made it to the very end of the last prologue thing, and got butt raped by 5 guys including one of those super heavy armoured guys... that wasn't fun. I think I'm going to drop it to Normal and just enjoy the game a lot more.

 

[Ascarus]

i have found something else that carried over from witcher 1 that really annoys me .. the inventory system still SUCKS.

there is still no indication as to what i can sell, what i might need later, what i can drop, or whatever! i ask again, WHY DO BOOKS I HAVE ALREADY READ STAY IN MY INVENTORY!? do i need them for later? can i safely discard them or throw them away? i got out of the prologue (if you will) and was suddenly carrying too much weight. since there didn't seem to be a storage chest, i was forced to throw away items so i could progress them game. really CD Projekt? that is what you had in mind?!

do i need all of this cloth, leather, dust and all the other crafting supplies that are sucking up my inventory space? why can't i seem to sell just a fraction of them to a vendor? why is it seemingly all or nothing? seriously if someone figured out how to do that, you would be my hero.

stupid issues like this just drive me crazy in games where the everything else seems so polished.

 

[Furin]

Hi folks, longtime lurker, just registered just to make this post.

My first impression is that this game is a finely crafted and polished gem sticking out of the heap of garbage that is made, and bought, as mainstream games today. The game is a challenge to learn, but rewarding and maybe even harder to master. I play on normal settings for my first run and it's unforgiving if you do not think ahead and plan your tactics. Just button mashing gets you killed but you know why, it is not because the game is unfair. It happens because you failed.

The graphics are phenomenal, the amount of detail is astonishing, the music is okayish, above average, sometimes great. Depending on how deeply you explore, you will find quests that will not be forced upon you (I watched the let's plays on youtube before I got the game, because I could not wait and the guys there did not find half the stuff you could actually do in the tutorial/intro mission(s)). The developer actually risks people not finding everything, sometimes you even cannot do two things at the same time, replay value is guaranteed.

There is real choice that matters, not simulated one or jut the "apperance" of choice. I am only a few hours into the Witcher2 and I have already seen multiple quests that really change depending on your actions. People whom you kill will not appear, people who you help will help you or attack you (way later in the story) if you did not help them, and so on and so forth.

Basically what this means is that the developer has made not only ONE game, but MANY games that he can only sell as one game. Because REAL choice needs all the places and people and choices to be existing along each other, while the player can only take one route. As far as my first impression after roughly 12 hours of playing concerns, the Witcher2 delivers.

The game starts relatively linear in the extended tutorial/intro mission but once you get into your first town the world map opens up and you can explore more freely. I decided to run into the woods in the night instead of following the main quest and started killing monsters (for crafting reagents), which fought each other. So I was sneaking around in the dark, buffed by an intoxicating potion, watching some sort of bugs killing some sort of zombie thingie and then jumped in to finish the both of, shortly before becoming swarmed by another wave of beasties that slew me right there.

As someone who has played RPGs since "The Bards Tale" on the AMIGA I can only highly recommend this game to anyone, who has just the slightest interest in the genre. And please, please do BUY this game. Do not pirate it! Tell your friends not to pirate it. It is worth every Nickel, Cent, Yen or whatever currency you fancy. It deserves to have good sales and totally obliterate the crap we nowaydays get served as mainstream games. I had almost given up on gaming in general and felt like one of those old folks just remembering the "good old times", but this game really gives me the wonderful "escape" adrenaline kick, I was missing so much with the modern games.

The Escapist should give this game at least as much coverage and credit as it did with Dragon Age2 even though it's "just" from "some European company".

Sorry for any weird sounding English and all typos I did not find, I am from Austria and English is not my native language.

Best vibes from Vienna!
Furin

 

[monkeyrevenge]

I just dumped about 5 hours into the game and I am... Unimpressed. I will say one thing... It is a system hog, I have a PC that is a little bit better than the reccomended specs and I can only run it at medium with 25-30FPS
Weaksauce

i run the game on "medium" and it runs pretty smooth. what i found amusing was the game recommended "ultra" based on my system configuration and specs and it was a horrible mess ... it looked like a freaking slide show.

Thats odd, it recommended Low for my PC and I ignore it and put it on ultra and get around 30+ FPS with one caveat, make sure you turn off ubersampling as that alone will reduced performance by 2-3 times.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

How were the books, by the way? I really want to read them, ever since the first Witcher game. I really want to learn the whole history of the "Butcher of Baklava" story, and the whole story of how Geralt of Rivia died and lost Yennefer. Especially since she comes up a LOT in The Witcher 2. They make tons of references to the books.

Not being fluent in Polish, I've only read the two they've translated to English so far, but those have been excellent (if sometimes saddled with some odd grammar no doubt brought on by having been translated from another language). As for those plot elements you mention, the tale of how Geralt became known as the "Butcher of Blaviken" (not baklava) is one of the collection of short stories linked by an overarching narrative in the first book, The Last Wish, and it's one of the better ones - like most of the stories in that anthology, it's a very dark take on traditional European fairy tales (in this case that of Snow White).

The death of Geralt and Yennifer during a non-human uprising in Rivia takes place during the last of the novels though, so you can either wait... for probably a good long while, or learn Polish. I would definitely recommend picking up The Last Wish and the first "proper" novel Blood of Elves - the way the lore is handled in the games is done in a way that you really don't have to be familiar with the character and setting at all (I certainly wasn't, I read both of those books after playing the original and falling in love with it), but you'll get a lot of little references.

Spoiler: And some rather LARGE things that might otherwise not be readily apparent. Clicking this box may significantly alter your perception of a certain relationship in the games!

Triss and Geralt were never actually a couple, and she's sort of tricked him into believing that they were in the past thanks to his amnesia. They had slept together before, that much was truthful, but it wasn't at all like what she implies in the game. The truth of the matter is that she'd watched the relationship he had with their mutual friend Yennefer of Vengerberg, which - despite how destructive and unhealthy it was and how mutually unhappy it seemed to make them quite often - was strangely lasting, and it made her jealous.

So she'd used a little magic to seduce Geralt during one of the rougher patches in his tumultuous relationship with Yennefer - Geralt remained her friend afterward and cared a great deal about her, but he regretted their encounter and tried to put it past him; Triss meanwhile wound up unhappily in love with a man who didn't love her in return. And then he died, only to be mysteriously resurrected without his memories, and she jumped on the chance that provided her.

Perhaps he really does love her now after his return from the grave, but there's no denying the relationship you see in the games is based on a foundation of dishonesty on her part, and it certainly colors some of their interactions, like when she suggests in the first game that it would be better for Geralt to forge a new identity for himself than to chase after his missing memories or let other people tell him what kind of man he was - maybe she actually believed that was best, or maybe she just didn't want him to remember because then they might not be together anymore.

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).

 

[RaeveSpam]

I've just completed my 3rd play through (the 3rd on Insane, the other 2 on medium), so I clearly like this game a lot, but I'll try to be objective here.

This game takes some commitment to get used to. I loved the Witcher 1 aswell, and used 30 minutes to set the controls to my liking (had to edit the config files to get it just right).
Even after setting the controls as I wanted, I still had a hard time staying alive through the prologue. I found the dreaded dragon scene and even the normal soldiers quite hard to cope with, but I managed. The story was enticing, the characters believable and the scenery was just stunning.

I had a hard time staying alive through the first chapter even in 1-on-1 fights. But somewhere in second chapter I got the hang of it, something clicked and the combat just worked! It wasn't hard anymore, it was just challenging and a butt load of fun! (I'm not kidding here!)
I must say, as soon as I learned the combat I couldn't find any major problems in the game, of course there is still some minor bugs, like monsters locking up when they try to pick up a trap, but nothing that you couldn't work out by yourself.

My second play through I actually found the game even better, I had no problem with the prologue, and due to some different choices it felt like I played half part of the game for the first time.

My insane play through was just to see if I could, but I must say the the combat got even more exciting, not because I feared for losing 20 hours of my life if I failed, but because this fear made me use everything in the Geralt's arsenal, to anyone who find battling several opponents a hassle remember this: dodge, bombs, quen and dodge for gods sake! (Don't use block!)

I hope this is useful for someone.

TLR I find this game great! It has an issue with the learning curve, but when you get it, the game is just tons of fun!

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

Does the game get better after Chapter 1? Because I finished Ch.1 about a week ago and dropped the game, because honestly that damn forest around Flotsam sucked all of the fun out of the game entirely. Way too much running around aimlessly. I've been considering starting it up again, but I'd like to know the game (or at least setting) gets better in chapters 2 and 3.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Does the game get better after Chapter 1? Because I finished Ch.1 about a week ago and dropped the game, because honestly that damn forest around Flotsam sucked all of the fun out of the game entirely. Way too much running around aimlessly. I've been considering starting it up again, but I'd like to know the game (or at least setting) gets better in chapters 2 and 3.

This is obviously not going to be an easy question for me to answer because I loved that chapter, especially wandering around in the forest, but if the sort of maze-like overgrown forest littered with traps that are very hard to spot unless you keep stopping and using your amulet is what annoyed you, there's really none of that in the 2nd or 3rd chapters. Also, depending on a certain choice you make in chapter 1, the way chapter 2 plays out is entirely different - there are two separate cities/hubs with entirely different quests and all the consequences that entails.

As for wandering around aimlessly, what do you mean by that exactly? The only times you had to go out into the wilderness around Flotsam, there was a clear quest indicator telling you where to go, and all the sidequests except for the nekker and endriga contracts were also labeled. Sure, the game doesn't tell you where to find endriga cocoons or nekker nests, but those quests are optional, and the sort of thing I did as I happened to be wandering around exploring for its own sake (a particular facet of my psychology, I'm compelled to explore every nook and cranny or I feel like I'm missing stuff) or while I was doing other quests in the area. You were opening the journal and double-clicking on the quest you wanted to track, right?

There's never going to be a fast travel system if that's what you meant.

 

[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.