The Witcher 2: Continued

When I last wrote I had just finished the prologue to ‘The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings’ and I had thoroughly enjoyed it. I said the game was hard and that I had to lower the games setting to easy to even progress. Well, I finally learnt how to play ( and returned to playing on Normal Setting).

Upon learning how to play the game, my enjoyment increased significantly. As I downloaded the game off www.GOG.com  I did not have a manual on hand; as I have heard a lot of the problems I had a game could have been avoided by looking at the manual, an old tradition in gaming that had died out with tutorials. So I won’t complain about this aspect of the game, as it was my fault and I actually respect the game more for its choice not to baby sit me.

In my last post, I had just finished the prologue, so in the first chapter, many mechanics of the games have come in to fruition, such as monster hunting, traps, alchemy/ herb gather, Potions, boss fighting, story changing choices, and character progression.

Monster Hunting:

The profession that the game is named after, a Witcher is a monster hunter, so the game has mastered the art of this hunting. The game requires you to study a monster, to know their strengths and weaknesses so you can fight them adequately. To do this, you must know the monsters fighting habits, how many numbers they come in, what kind of damage they use (Poison, bleeding etc. etc.), and what they are vulnerable to. Each encounter with the monsters of Witcher 2 is unique and challenging, even the weakest monsters can pose a threat to Geralt (the Witcher) if un prepared.

Traps:

                The use of traps in the Witcher is fantastic, each having their own unique strengths and weakness, they can turn the tides of battle or back fire if you trigger them yourself. Your basic trap is a snare, which can be deployed and reset infinite amount of times, allowing you to reuse the traps. Other traps come in the forms of Fire traps, which do high amounts of damage, but can damage you if you get to close and are not reusable, but are fixable and craftable.

Herb Gathering/ Alchemy:

                The herb gathering in The Witcher 2, is very second nature. Unlike other RPG’s the herbs are everywhere and easy to find, which makes the need to go hunting for herbs less tedious then other RPG’s such as the Dragon Age series.

Alchemy is also intuitive, allowing you to replace some ingredients with others to create potions, which helps if you are low on a specific herb. Alchemy of The Witcher 2 is a necessity and the game makes it easy and hassle free which is a blessing in such a deep RPG such as this.

Potions:

                The potion system in the Witcher is incredibly complex, whilst meditating you can drink up to 3 potions (so no health potion spamming in this game, sorry Diablo fans). Each potion has their positive effects, their negative effects, and toxicity. The toxicity of potions limits the amount of potions that you can have at once, you have a limit of 100 toxicity at the start of the game (may be changeable) and each potion has their own toxicity. For example; a health regeneration potion would have 25 toxicity, but a stronger potion would have 30-50 toxicity. The potion system is deep and requires you to drink the right potions for the right fight. I see this being be implemented in future games due to its fluency and customization.

Boss Fights:

                The first boss fight in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a giant squid monster known as the Kayran (Kraken). The boss fight is hard but as a supporting character is shouting advice at you, it makes the experience a lot easier. The thing about the boss fights is that, as there is no easy way to heal (save for hiding and waiting for regeneration) you really have to be quick and dodge the behemoths large strikes, forcing me to reload the save every time I got hit early in the fight, knowing that my death was inevitable. The boss fight did require some Quick Time Events (QTE) but it wasn’t done to excess and wasn’t a huge part of the fight. I’m really looking forward to some more of these huge fights.

Story Changing Choices:

                Choice is a huge thing in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, everything that Geralt says is a choice by the player. And in the long run there is a lot of choice, I shall not give any spoilers, but you have the choice to help certain groups in the first chapter, and these choices will cascade in to the rest of the games arching story, for example, siding with elves will make the elves a bigger part of the story.

I’ve yet to see much of my choices show through except for my battle worn elven ally. I look forward to seeing more of my choices shine through to personalize my experience of ‘The Witcher 2’.

Character Progression:

                Geralt ‘The Witcher’ goes up in levels as you progress through the game, with each level is given a skill point, you can spend you skill points in The Witcher’s  four tiered skill tree, allowing you to improve you general witcher skills (Health, mana, parrying skills, throwing knives), Swordplay (Extra damage done with swords, countering), Magic (Damage increase, more powerful signs), and alchemy (Trap damage increase, improved potions) there is a lot of customization options given to the player to create their own Geralt.

The Witcher 2 is not without it’s faults though, I’ve had a few AI problems where towns people have trapped me in corners, forcing me to reload saves. But the problems are very minor and easily overlooked in the grand scheme of things.

In my next post I will give an in depth look at the town NPC’s as what I’ve seen is so far is incredible scripting.

Catch you next time readers.