The Witcher

Like so many other games in my collection, I really don't remember picking up The Witcher - not when, not the motivation, not even how much I spent on it - and so it remained in my games list for a while until someone suggested I play it. I thought, "Sure, why not? What could it hurt to try an RPG every now and then?" I had no idea what I was in for, but luckily found myself playing a great game.

You take on the roll of Geralt of Rivia, a legendary Witcher. Witchers are trained in combat from a young age, learn the art of brewing different potions, bombs, or weapon coatings, master some basic magic, and have their bodies altered through the use of mutagens - all with the goal of protecting humans from the monsters that roam the earth, though if you want them to do work for you, you'll have to pay. Sadly, you've lost your memory, so you'll have to pick up a lot of those things from scratch.

And when I say a lot, I do mean it. This is just one page of your talent tree.

After stumbling around in the forest, you are eventually discovered by a few friends, who bring you back to the witcher strong hold. Unfortunately, witchers are a dying breed, hated, and even hunted, for being different. Their limited numbers makes them vulnerable, and shortly after you come to someone takes advantage of that fact. Things do not go well during that confrontation, as your enemy is very well organized. You later come to know them as the group Salamandra, led by a powerful mage who has a keen interest in mutation, such as those that make the witchers such fierce fighters, but who also seems to lack the necessary Latin influences to justify naming his criminal organization Salamandra. When the dust settles, things don't look too good for the witchers, and so they split up and scour the continent for that which has been taken from them, and those responsible for the act.

When the game starts in earnest (so far I've only covered the prologue), you'll find yourself in a town that is under siege by demonic forces - in this case a monster that looks like a green flaming dog, which is led by a particularly nasty hellhound. To progress to the next chapter you'll have to do a bit of detective work, talking to the various townsfolk for clues about what is going on, exploring certain areas such as crypts or caves, and basically sticking your nose into everyone else's business. In addition to that main quest, there are also plenty of side quests you can encounter. There are basic ones that just require you to kill a certain number of monsters, or bring someone a few alchemical ingredients that you acquire by extracting them from a specific monster, though that only happens if you have previously gained a journal entry about that monster. Information like that can be acquired in a number of ways, such as talking to the right people, providing someone with the right gift, bribing someone, entering a drinking game with someone and not passing out, or finding a book that get's you the information, either by purchasing it from a book seller or searching through every chest, wardrobe, and barrel you come across.

Some people have very useful information, but it's not easy to get it out of them.

Of course, you'll find plenty of interesting things during your searches on these quests. You'll discover there is a gambling game within this game, which is a side quest and a nice way to generate a bit of extra cash to fund the book buying you'll be doing. Some quests will only activate if you discover a certain item, such as is the case when you kill a trophy monster, which you are then rewarded for if a large sum of money, as well as completing progress towards a metaquest that the game doesn't tell you about, and you'll only discover if you use a cheat sheet or get lucky and complete the whole thing accidently. Another form of quest, or rather more of an accomplishment, you could easily overlook in the massiveness of this game are all the romance cards you can acquire, done by persuading the right young lady to...um...accept you. There is even a relationship option later in the game, but that didn't stop my version of Geralt from having a tryst with a pair of nurses.

You can guess where this one is going...

You'll be doing a lot of detective work in this game, and not all of it for a quest. Those alchemical ingredients serve a purpose for you as well, as you'll need those for your potions, bombs, and weapon coatings, which, depending on your chosen level of difficulty can be an integral part of the game. You see, when it comes to fighting monsters (which you'll be doing plenty of), particularly the large ones, you'll find the preparation is as important as the actual fighting. You'll need to collect ingredients via drops from monsters or gathering the pieces you need from flowers - both of which require knowledge before the fact, from books or other sources - and also acquire the recipe, which you get in much the same way you get all your other information in this game. Since I played the game on normal, in which alchemy is helpful, rather than hard where alchemy is required, I would generally focus on potions and bombs. There are some potions that you should always keep with you, such as ones that increase the rate at which your health regenerates, or one that allows you to see in the dark of caves or crypts. Others were less necessary, but very useful, such as one to increase the rate your endurance regenerates, which I expend a lot of to use magical attacks during big fights, or one bomb that sets down a layer of combustible gas. That last one is just plain fun. Just be careful how many potions you drink, because they come with the negative toxicity effect if you drink too many at once, which is just not good

The crafting screen, which can only occur while meditating by a fire.

So that gives you a taste of questing, alchemy, and some of the incentives for being thorough when searching through each chapter of the game. But what about that combat? Well, in this game, it's pretty simple. You have, after a time, two swords. One is a steel sword which you use to kill men, and there is plenty of that in this game. The other is a silver sword which does more damage to monsters. In addition to different swords, there are three different combat styles, which you switch based on who you are fighting - strong, fast, and group. It's pretty simple really, when you are fighting a large enemy you want to be in the strong style, while fast enemies require the fast style, and so forth. This is something you should pretty quickly grasp, and if you're still uncertain, you can just look at the combat messages on the screen and realize you are missing all your attacks in the strong style because your enemy is too fast, or your enemy is parrying your attacks because you need to be in the strong style.

In addition to using your sword, you also have the ability to use signs, which are a basic form of magic. There are a total of 5 in the game, though I found I really only used two - one that harnesses the wind to knock down enemies, which makes for a very easy kill, and another which blasts a wall of fire in front of you. The others are nice too, and all have the uses, but I found few things could resist fire. One lays down a trap that will deal damage over time to any enemy standing in it. Another allows you to shield yourself from damage for a brief time, which is perfect if you need to use a potion. The final one allows you to turn one foe into a friend for a period of time, which is great when you're fighting some stronger enemies. Specific signs, as well as your different attack styles with each sword, can all be upgraded as you level up, as seen in the talent screenshot towards the top.

Not counted as a weapon: your sharp tongue and quick wit. Though it is good for getting those romance cards. And a fat purse.

To be fair, that's mostly just more preparation, but it's still critical to the combat. Actual fights, all of which take place in real time right out there in the open world, are simple. A left click of the mouse attacks with your sword and style of choice, both of which can be quickly changed by hitting the correct key or by pausing the game and using the mouse to select them, and a right click uses your current sign. It really is just that simple, though you can do things like do a back flip over your opponent, run away a bit, and then charge up a wall of fire. Then, when your enemy get's close, and is hopefully burning, start chaining together a combo with your sword, which just requires you to successfully time your next attack. Don't worry, you'll see a little sword icon on your screen for something you can attack, and it will change when it's time to hit that mouse button again to continue the combo. If you do it too soon, you'll interrupt your attack, and if too late you just missed it. Either way, the combat in this game is very simple and straight forward.

You'll probably pause the game when you want to drink a potion or drop a bomb, though, depending on your armor, you can have a quick slot on the left side of your screen.

While the combat is enjoyable enough, the story is pretty good, and the detective work, while long, is still pretty rewarding, what makes this RPG stand out is it's choice system. I've played some other games what have a choice system, such as Mass Effect, but generally the result is always immediate - do you leave crew member A or B to die here? That's not the case here. Many choices that you make will have lasting consequences. In one chapter you are asked to defend some supplies from monsters, but when you complete that task an Elven rebel approaches you and asks for some of those supplies, stating that his people are starving. Despite the unease between humans and non-humans, which is part of that human zeal to destroy that which is different, including witchers, I sided with the non-humans this time, feeling that I couldn't let those people starve. Later, much later, that choice came back to bite me in the rear when I discovered those supplies included weapons, which were used to murder someone I needed to talk to complete another quest. There really was no way to foresee that outcome at the time the choice had to be made, and that's just one in a game full of them. Do you side with the rebels and support their right to life, despite hints that it might result in a war or even genocide, or a fanatic order that has questionable origins, but increasingly seems to be devoted to defending humanity, fighting monsters, be they cockatrice or non-humans. Sometimes you can dodge the issue, delaying your choice or attempting to remain neutral. At other times, you are forced to decide, and the result, even if it seems like it's the best possible choice, isn't always pretty.

Unfortunately, I couldn't always make the choices I wanted to either. I mean, I just want to be friends with everyone.

Even though I greatly enjoyed The Witcher, there were issues with it that detracted from the experience, both aesthetically and technically. Aesthetically, it'd be easy to cite the dated graphics, but the title is from 2008 and there are mods to fix that (though I didn't use any). Likewise, the sometimes odd movements of character models (no motion capture here), was a bit jarring at times, but again, I can let that slide a bit. Rather, I take more of an issue with the voice acting, as it seemed that many times whoever was hired to play a certain character must have missed a line or two on the day he or she came in, and so those lines were later read by another person. It's more than a bit odd when a major character during a chapter suddenly switches from more of a French accent to something closer to that of an American doing a poor French accent. Though, given the game's massive size, I can even let this one by.

The technical issues were more the problem, as they always are, and not unique to just myself, but also not the same for everyone. Mostly it crashed, a lot. This would generally happen during loading screens, and when half the game takes place in a city where you are constantly entering and exiting houses, well, that's not good. Thankfully there is a quicksave function, but when each save is about 18 megabytes, and you have over 500 of them by the end of the game, you end up creating this huge slowdown whenever you go to the load game screen, since it needs to process over 9 gigabytes. If it hadn't been such a good game in other respects, I might have gotten a bit feed up with it. Actually, I was quite feed up with it, but the game was engaging enough I stuck with it, and generally did not encounter too many issues outside of chapters 2 and 3. There are solutions out there, but none seemed to work on my operating system, which might have been partially to blame, as it is outside the recommended system requirements.

The most I changed about the game was setting names to always be on, which is useful when hunting items, or to be aware of enemies.

Overall, I would say The Witcher is a great game, bordering on exceptional with the way it presents the variety of moral choices it does. The combat may be simple, but is also easily approachable and fun. The rewards for exploration and being a completion freak are really nice, since you can find some great new weapons or armor if you stick it out. Or just come across useful information if you realize that that one woman in a bar will tell you about monsters, adding them to your journal, if you bring her a glass of milk, or that this spoiled woman wants a diamond in exchange for services rendered. It might almost help to consult a guide just so you don't miss too much. I didn't, but did check one out at the end, and I realized I missed out on a fair bit, which just drives home how much content is in this game, considering I put over 50 hours into it, and if I had the time, I would want to play through it again just to make the opposite choices and see where that goes. The full price for this game on Steam now is $10, and I'd be more than okay paying that, but it's possible to wait for it to go all the way down to $2.50 during special sales. As an added bonus, if you get the sequel, your save file can be imported, though I haven't gotten around to it yet to see what exactly transfers over, but with a system like this game had, I've got my hopes up for something great, because this is a great game in and of itself - 9 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 9/10

Suggested Price: $10