A friend gave me his copy of "The Witcher" recently. I just finished "Dragon Age: Origins" and "Dragon Age 2". I hadn't heard of "The Witcher" and so looked around for some player reviews on the 'nets. From what I had gathered, this would be much better than the "Dragon Age" games I had fallen in love with. I was excited to play. People were describing a game with a great story that really draws you in and great dialogue.

Having started on Chapter Two, I'm having a difficult time deciding if I should even bother finishing this game. As far as I can tell, I've lost my memory and some people at a Witcher school saved me. Some crap was stolen and I'm supposed to care enough go find it for people I barely know?

In Dragon Age: Origins there is a blight taking over my homeland (right-off-the-bat I'm involved in the story because it is my homeland that is being intruded upon by the blight). As a mage being recruited as a Grey Warden, I am supposed to help stop the initial onslaught of deadspawn at the castle. When Loghain pulls his men out from the battle and leaves the king and my mentor die, I now have even more of a vested interest in seeking revenge for their deaths as well as the saving of my homeland of Ferelden from the deadspawn. In order to to fight the blight, I have to gather together an army of humans, elves and dwarves (so all the main quests help to push the plot forward). The music is appropriate for each place I'm at and helps set the mood for each area. The dialogue is professional sounding, witty and does not seemed forced. Each of the quests makes me feel like it is part of the story and moves the plot forward. This is not an open world and so you are forced to explore and walk in specific areas (reviews for "The Witcher" mentioned that it was more explorable than Dragon Age yet I find that you are still forced in to walking in a specific area. I cannot jump fences to make a shortcut so though the paths may be wider in "The Witcher", I am still being forced to walk in a specific path unlike "Skyrim" which really does let you walk pretty much anywhere). The cutscenes fade in nicely in "Dragon Age: Origins" and don't take too long.

So far as I can have seen in "The Witcher", the dialogue seems forced, cutscenes are awkward (like when showing the ring given by the reverend, you are behind the witcher right yet he wears it on his left hand and so the view is blocked by his body) and the dialogue takes much too long. For instance, towards the very beginning, there is about 30-45 seconds of dialogue before which I get to walk forward for about three seconds and then cut to another 30 seconds of dialogue (during which I'm thinking why I even was walking, why didn't they just merge the two scenes together, my interaction through walking seemed to be meaningless).

Through reviews, I was under the impression that "The Witcher" was more open in characters, dialogue and explorable environment than DA:O and DA2. The Chapter One inn had some characters fighting (that I could fight only a few). Each one said the same exact thing each time I interacted with them and in fact two of them had the same voice as well. When I go to fight "the Beast", there is a bunch of dialogue I have to go through and then on to the fight without anywhere in between to save so when I died the first time I had to go through all that dialogue again (what's the point behind that?). I found the word murderers spelled as "murders" in the subtitles even though the word was spoken correctly. Sloppy work there. I end up having to kill the inn fighters after killing the beast. To my surprise, at the Hairy Bear inn in Chapter Two, there are the same exact fighters with the same exact voices and choice of words as the ones I had killed in the previous chapter (sloppy work again). Everything so far makes me feel like, instead of progressing the plot, that I am simply being an errand boy for people I have no vested interest in. I have lost my memory and so logically have no clue who anyone is. Why should I care enough to do work for them? And where is the motivation to finish this game? It's exactly like watching a bad movie with bad acting and bad editing, who wants to finish watching it? That being said, I do enjoy the fighting and the inventory management. Very unique but the story isn't engaging and the acting and editing is so rotten, I'm hoping someone can give me a reason to continue playing.

Here are items I like about "The Witcher":
¤ - Combat system - it looks awesome when I fight
¤ - Amount of items and the ability to use them (oil and what-not for the sword)
¤ - Great artwork in the cutscenes
¤ - Music is nice

Here are items I don't like about "The Witcher":
¤ - Horrible sounding dialogue (like watching a movie with people who have never acted before)
¤ - Animation that doesn't make sense (eating bread, I pull it out of my pocket, I take one bite and put it back in my pocket yet the bread is no longer in my inventory)
¤ - Bad editing (jarring cuts during dialogue from one character to another, some NPC dialogue ending with "yes"? right away after speaking, yes to what?)
¤ - Characters that look like each other and have the same line(the reverend I kill in Chapter One can be seen walking around in Chapter Two [its not him but the model is the same exact one as the reverend]
and the inn fighters being the same fighters even though I killed them already (two different fighters both say the same line with the same voice [want a beating stranger, we fight for coin]).
¤ - Story that really doesn't make me feel engaged enough to desire to see it through to conclusion (yes, I'm a witcher, I've lost my memory, some people save me, its a school for witchers, someone comes and steals something, I have to go find it (why should I even care if it was stolen or that they allowed a situation to happen in the first place to help the professor to steal it?), I have to talk to people who have nothing to do with anything, I have to fight a monster for this village for what reason??? so I can end up killing the reverend to get a pass to a city in which when I go with the pass I get arrested and thrown into jail where I get pardoned for killing a monster and then to get my stuff back I have to walk back through the city to the jail instead of just going back the way I came? Why did I have to even go to the village in the first place? Why couldn't I just steal the reverend's pass in the first place or go get arrested or find a way into the city in a different manner?) None of anything I've done so far seems to further the plot in any shape or form.
¤ - Quests in the first chapter that make me walk a long distance with nothing happening in between. It was a lot of errand running back and forth quite a bit. Rather boring.

Are you playing the standard rather than enhanced edition? Before the enhancements, I understand the dialogue was a bit ropey in the English translation.

I actually enjoyed the game and story - without having read any of the books. The gameplay was good - you just have to remember that you're playing an Eastern European game that was a breakout game for the developers internationally - it's rough around theedges but worth sticking with.

"The Witcher: Enhanced Edition"

Dialogue aside, the story-line confuses me. If I lost my memory why in the second chapter do I know what the cockatrice is as the dialogue I have would suggest?

I'll attempt to push myself to finish this however. May take awhile. I have to stop every hour or so of gameplay through sheer frustration and bewilderment. I'm still failing to see the story here.

* Keep the subtitles English but change the voices to a different language. (creates a better atmosphere, and you don't have to deal with the lacking English audio)
* Well, that's a bit oldschool. Old games just did silly things like that (for example Gothic). Just imagine he's throwing the stuff away.
* They say yes to you, as in 'Yes, how can I help you?' but in a rude way.
* Were all Dragon Age models different? I find it hard to believe, but I haven't played the games, so I don't know.

I can't help you with the story, because I have the same problem.
I'm playing and hoping it will get better and there will be less fetch quests.

The story of the Witcher is pretty different from those in other RPGs. It's not really about the world being in danger from some external threat, as is usually the case. Instead it's much more personal. Yes, Geralt's memory is gone (mostly... I think he still remembers some things, like the cockatrice), but he was rescued by his fellow Witchers and the man who trained them all, people he's known for a long time, and he understands that even if he doesn't remember them. When their school is attacked, he takes it personally, and sets out to get revenge. And also to reclaim the Witcher secrets, which would be very dangerous in others' hands.

I personally found the story refreshing, and rest assured that there are still many revelations and twists to come. But I also really like the world of the Witcher. I liked how I had a lot of chances to make difficult decisions with no clear right or wrong answer, and how these decisions could have surprising repurcussions later on. I liked how much thought was put into the monsters as a part of the world; they're not just there like in many RPGs, they have specific habitats and behaviors, and there are specific ways to hunt them. And I liked how the game managed to be so interesting while being limited to a single city and its surrounding areas.

It's possible that these things will not appeal to you as much. I would suggest that you at least try to finish the second chapter before you give up, to see if the story developments start to interest you.

Also, about he dialog: I highly recommend playing with the original Polish audio and English subtitles, which is possible with the Enhanced Edition. The original Polish voices are much better than the English ones. I also personally preferred playing the game on the highest difficulty setting because it really makes alchemy necessary, and I like carefully preparing for battle beforehand by mixing up and imbibing the right potions.

I wouldn't bother, you sound more like a DragonAge 2 sort of person.

Changing the audio to Polish I will do. Sounds like a winner to me. I'll keep going with the story. I'm not saying I dislike this game highly. It isn't the worst game ever made. I do like the combat a lot. Thanks for all the help and insight.

A bit of suspension of disbelief is required!

The story worked for me because you have choices in how you deal with problems - let the Witch burn or side with her and take out the villagers? The choices you make in the game do have an impact on the story - it's a bit like Fallout 3 in that regard.

Haha, I'm just playing to catch em all (if you know what I mean...;D).

I got into the Witcher after playing the Demo, then I bought both games here on GOG. TBH, the story does confuse me, a tiny little bit (only when I think about the in-game trailer. That story with the girl occured before the current events, didn't it? But that dwarf tells you in Chapter 1 he saw you bleeding out after being impaled with a pitchfork :D).
I guess I'll see the bigger picture when I progress a little more.

I'm also interested in the books, how many are there, anyway? And does the Witcher take place after all the books, or somewhere in between?

There are 2 collections of short stories and a cycle of 7 novels. Not all are yet translated as far as I know. The games take place after the cycle, and while they reference them heavily, since it's an amnesiac-plot no familiarity with the books is required.

EDIT: I meant official translations. There are bound to be fan-translated versions of all the books, there's a thread on that subject on the TW2 GOG forum.

Thanks for letting me now. So it's after the cycle, guessed it was like that, but still good to know for sure.
Getting to read the books would be a good idea though if you want to learn more about the setting, the lore and the characters. The books are on my to-read list for sure - but like with all the games I still have to play, it will probably be a while till I'll get to read them :D

Just to explain this: the story with the girl from the intro happened a long time ago (they chose it for the intro, because it looks cool + will be relevant, as you suspect). She hurt him really bad, but he lived, and went on witchering.

The story with the pitchfork happened not long before the game.

That's actually from the very first Witcher short story (although not the first in the chronology of the stories, just the one that was written first) and it's included with the Enhanced Edition of the Witcher game if you are interested in reading it.

Anyway, to answer your question: she had only partially transformed back (it was just at the edge of dawn) so she still had claws, which she used to tear at Geralt's neck. He thought she'd fully recovered so he wasn't ready for the attack.

So she did use the claws!! I honestly had that impression anyway, don't know why I mentioned her biting him now (maybe because I saw her face and it was already transformed back =) ).

Ah, cool! Knew there was a short story in there, but forgot about it. Wouldn't it spoil some stuff if I were to read it, though?