An interesting discussion about the game :)

RPS Verdict

They bitch too much (DOORS! DOORS! DOORS! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DOOOOOOO), but the verdict is "go buy it", so it's all good :-).

I had to skip around their discussion because there are a lot of spoilers. I haven't finished the game yet :\

Having said that, I do think that what I did read brought up good points, especially about how the game thrusts players into the game with nary a proper tutorial. It's not like it has to be a long, casual introduction like some modern Zelda game, just... more explanatory. That and the menu system. I'm still baffled by the alchemy system in my few short hours of playing the game.

For now I'll just say that this article was great, and I'm glad RPS revisited it in whole and ended up giving the game a thumbs up. Despite my challenges with the game, I do think it was money well-spent and very entertaining so far.

Liked it, I very much agree with most of what they said. :)

Thats so true, for half the game i thought Nilfgaard was a person...

Even though that may be attributed to my derpiness, they really should've explained the set-up better.

The RED's made the game as if every player had at least played The Witcher and if at all possible, read one or two books. I did both and had enough insight, but I can also imagine how you'd be struggling, if you haven't. Yep, definitely lack of basic info about the world. The combat tutorial in the first game in Khaer Morhen was perfect, they should have made it similarly (and kept the PAUSE).

Kraken fight? Okay, that bothers me. Once, fine, but it's used three times. That's like me writing a Final Fantasy 7 review and talking about how great that "Clod" fellow was or bemoaning how I hated fighting "Orcspawn" in DA:O. Awful.

Sure, random people won't know what a "Kayran" is and it's basically a kraken, but still. Something about that shouted, "We don't know what we're talking about!" After all, it just takes one line of explanation and they could call it by the right name for the rest of the article without confusing anyone. I had completely forgotten the first game and never read a Witcher book in my life when I first played, and everything still made sense. It's not revealed like, "Hi! I'm from Nilfgaard where we wear black and invade places," but rather, subtly through things like indirect dialogue with Foltest. Maybe it helped that I was playing with subtitles enabled.

I agree with the part about having to read the books or look outside the game for info to see the big picture.CDPR can fix it with Dandelion. Dandelion can tell anything about everything maybe they can do something like while Geralt is resting at the inn Dandelion tells stories about all the stories we missed or some peasants can talk about stuff while having drinks.

Its a good read, and i agree with many of their points.

LOL
I had a great time reading it! Thanks for the link! And yeah, this is the game we'll be playing and talking about for a long time, IMHO!

Well, to make this a little bittersweet, how about a review that runs over TW2 with a steamroller - and I'm not talking about Destructoid's one, this is more serious:

http://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=233

Good read, don't agree on all points though. I think that the political story of the game is really well told. Maybe not perfectly told and a bit hard to get into, but better than any other I've experienced yet.

Sure, you are a bit unsure about Redania, but they make a great job at characterizing Kaedwen, Nilfgaard, Temeria and Aedirn situations and allow you to get into the conflict. That's unprecedented for me
ugh, some thing really bothers me

"Unfortunately, the game [Witcher 1] was far from perfect and had a number of glaring issues. It was too difficult and too hardcore, and what’s worse, it was clearly designed with only PC in mind. It had soon become clear that if the game were to be brought to the wider audience, some things had to be changed."


I really hate it when people say this. Witcher 1 was not more hardcore or harder. Just because it was point and click, does not make the game more hardcore. Perhaps bitter fanboys want to make us believe that, but the truth is that the combat in the witcher 1 was really simple and specially easy.

So, when people say that the combat has been consolised, I say "sure, considering that action-oriented games tend to be more on consoles", but when people equate that to "simplified, dumbed down and casualized", then I have to disagree completely. The combat may be more similar to something you expect on consoles, but its actually MORE hardcore.


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"While the extent of Dragon Age 2's influence on Sapkowski’s work isn’t clear, most players will find the gameworld eerily familiar"

Wat?

Mr Sapkowski travelled 30 years to the future and stole all ideas from a brilliant gaming masterpiece called Dragon Age 2, how is that not clear?

I agree with Kitad. TW2 is more hardcore, simply because the game is harder and the in-depth story elements and choices haven't been abandoned. Once you figure out alchemy in TW1, even the hard setting is a breeze. I regret the loss of secondary effects in alchemy but the tactical usage is still there. also, bombs and traps are now much more useful in TW2.

And the DA2 comment...wtf are they smoking??