johannes1212: They're much more fluid now and transitions between each and every sword stroke is now seamless, unlike Witcher 1 animations where each and every round of attacks is heavily scripted and has no dynamic fluidity to it, simply put, Geralt is now much more of a fleeting blademaster who moves like a raging waterfall in battle rather than a robot cycling through 6 default fighting stances.

I personally think Geralt should have all his swordsmanship skills unlocked by default, such skills like riposte and arrow deflect makes no sense in terms of lore if Geralt has to "learn" them during his journey, these are the two most basic techniques a novitiate witcher has to learn before even becoming a witcher.

KnThrak: Oh, I didn't actually know that - I suspect that's in Swordsmanship (going Alchemy here, myself)?
Not so bad then. Although I still kind of miss the stances. Also, is it me or were the TW2 animations no longer choreographed by an actual swordfighter? The moves look very different, even simple swings.

Fayth: Its the disadvantage of no longer using a QTE combat system. In the Witcher 1, all combat animations could be scripted based on when you clicked and what point in the combo you were at. The animations looked spectacular and really made Geralt seem like a supernatural fighter. That being said, I find the new combat system far more fun to play, which in my opinion is worth the trade off for worse animations.

VoodooEconomist: It's still wonderfully animated, but you have to try really really hard to get to see it - did you noticed how Geralt's speed and finnesse increases with each consecutive hit that lands on an enemy without being deflected and therefore causing him to loose footing? It's like a dance, especially when he jumps over to another opponent nearby, continiuing this beutiful art of slaughter...

Stormrage: Well then, maybe they should've unlocked all the skills and made him a powerhouse from the beginning and this wouldn't be an RPG, but a third person action game, where you just gather little "bonuses" along the way?
This is an RPG, it has RPG progression, what more can be said?

johannes1212: Progression is fine, but the need to progress just to obtain the most basic of all Witcher techniques, riposte and block from all directions, is simple a waste of skill points. You're telling me that a witcher who single handedly stopped a revolution in Vizima and killed the Grandmaster of the Flaming Rose can't riposte a simple sword attack a month later? Please, amnesia was fine as an excuse in the previous game but this is just a bit stupid.

darkwoof: Well, you *could* just keep clicking only the LMB for the Fast stance and just the RMB for the Strong stance, but of course they'd still look different from the TW1 counterpart. From what I heard, they not only did NOT drop the emphasis on real swordfighting - they went a step further. The swordfighting in TW2 is more than just cheoreographed - it is now motion-captured. This meant that swordfighting was designed to look more realistic, and with realism, sometimes it means they had to cut back on the more exaggerated, often overpowering moves.

Like I said, I loved it in TW1 when I was the total badass slicing up 6-8 people in a single circular swing, but while that's often seen in "kung-fu" movies, it doesn't happen all that often in real life.

fishboy11: theres no dwarves or elves in real life either or mutated human freaks called witcher who go through crazy trials that most don't survive just so that they can be inhuman killing machines

VoodooEconomist: Nope. The witchers kill monsters, the military kills who it's told to.

darkwoof: It was meant to be a joke; but from a serious perspective, some countries did tend to paint their enemies as actual monsters (not literally of course, but morally) or inhuman (incapable of having values equating them as 'human') during previous wars.

And if I understand the Witcher series correctly, an ongoing point made in the stories was that "monsters" are not always non-humans, and "humans" sometimes turn out to be the real monsters.