Now, now.. I'll contribute with my own review, not trying to discuss these points just leaving them here as an ordinary player impressions.. As I see this topic as a chance to share my thoughts about the game, now that I have finished it.

Sadly I don't have too much good to say for it, I like the game somehow but nowhere near I was expecting, because of the praising it has and cult following.. Okay, how to explain why.. The game is sold as "Enhanced", meaning its developers decided to rework it and re-release it from players feedback, fixing broken things etc..This is the issue I have, I do not know the first version, but what has really been taken into account and reworked leave me wondering..

Problems..

- Alchemy is wrongly done.. I have a list full of things but can't bake ONE potion at one of the last campfire.. This is wrong, as I usually grab plants here and there and take monster drops.. Too many different kind is needed!! If I can't find the requested items along the course of the game, to make at least ONE potion then, shit.

- Health.. Food.. does not regenerate much at all.. And this is my main problem, where is the HEAL SPELL..!?? How a game sold as reworked could not get players feedback about missing such an ESSENTIAL function, of taking care of your wounds, this is over me, I usually hide in a corner and wait, pff..

- Torches in dark places get removed as you open chests or combat, annoying. as it happens ALL THE TIME..

- Plot is okay, but not good or great one would expect from a professionnal novel author though.. I mean the background is here, very rich but it's all the same power games as usual.. Can't find that, "it's so mature, over Good and Evil" praise, so what I chose a side and call one the Good while another Evil, that is it.. ? Sold as "Only Choices and Consequences" it still can't help that drugs, easy violence, prostitution, money games are no good but evil, so yeah..

- The way women are giving themselves away like it's no big deal, is not pleasing.as a human message..I got Geralt in a monogamous love with Shani, I first liked how Triss was jealous/angry but she kept the grudge in the latest chapters, this was childish..

- Skill tree is not interesting, what about 5 spells classes if I don't like any for being useless, and combat skills I can't find the promised special moves using stamina.. Oh well.

The good, the game is technically well done, visuals and motions. I really liked the pretty lake in chapter 4 with all the colored particles, good engine and work.. Still many twins among the NPC but, ah well..

Character development is alright, I joined with the non-humans for their freedom, there is a decent feel of Geralt taking back his identity and rebuilding it with his decisions..

This is quite a tossed in, but so be it haha.. I just hope the Witcher 2 will be a better game overall, mostly a better use of alchemy and skills, I would rate this one hmm.. Being nice, 13/20!

Alchemy is awesome. If you can't make a single potion then you clearly were picking your nose, not ingredients. Especially when you can easily substitute one ingredient for another.

HEAL SPELL! Yes, because you cannot have a magic system without heals, fireballs and teleports. Also, if you don't totally suck, a Swallow is all you need. But since you can't make a single potion...

Sapkowski has nothing to do with this game. As far as Witcher's canon goes, this is all commercial fan fiction.

Ever heard of Middle Ages?

I find it very interesting. You have all the "spells" from the books, three fighting styles and some enhancers. But yeah, there's no heal spell so it sucks...

So let's summarize: alchemy sucks, plot is 'meh', spells sucks, skills sucks but at least the crappy unoptimized and outdated Aurora engine is good.

Well, from your post, I would think you have your mind pretty much made up on this one, so there's no way to sell it to you whatsoever.

It's unfortunate that you spent money in a game you ended up not liking, but sometimes that happens. If you were trying to troll us, then I guess I'm falling for it, but I honestly think there's nothing wrong in disliking a game when lots of other people enjoy it. If it's not your cup of tea, you have the right to say so. Personally, I love the Witcher games, both The Witcher and The Witcher 2, for different reasons -- I think each of them has positive and negative aspects over the other -- and I can't wait for The Witcher 3 (even though I most definitely won't have the computer to run it). But that's just me. If, by any chance, I didn't like the games, that would have been my prerogative, and wouldn't make me worse or inferior than the people who played these games.

If you still wish to somehow enjoy the game, you'll have to put yourself in a different frame of mind, and it's up to you to decide whether that's worth it or not. I don't think you should force yourself to like the game, if it's not your thing just uninstall it and have fun playing the games you really like.

At the end of the day, it's just video games, not that big of a deal. Happy gaming! :)

I'd hesitate at describing alchemy as "awesome", but it is functional and does a fairly decent job of communicating the methodical approach to preparing for battle in the Witcher universe. The problem comes in if the player starts taking any of the in-universe instructions for mixing potions as anything other than irrelevant flavor text (and given the large volume of such instructions, that's a rather counter-intuitive conclusion to reach), as the instructions list specific ingredients as opposed to following the more loose "colors" system the alchemy system actually uses. I almost drove myself crazy trying to get the scratch to afford naetzan salts for spectre oil as per Abigail's instructions until I realized that anything with the proper chemical ingredient would do.

Healing spells might not be a part of Witcher lore (more on that later), but relying on Swallow as an alternative if the player doesn't suck isn't exactly helpful. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there is something wrong in a system of this kind where you can be doing everything right and still be getting reliably hit as opposed to getting hit if you have your timing off or are letting yourself get surrounded; in the Witcher, I can be dead on with clicking the ghoul to death, but I'm still going to get the living hell beaten out of me. Being forced to rely on Swallow to counteract this is doubly problematic on top of everything else since Swallow is toxic, and thus relying on it felt more appropriate as a last resort as opposed to standard operating procedure, and since Swallow makes you regenerate, it feels almost like cheating to just let your Healing Factor in a bottle tank it up. I initially tried going without Swallow and eating/drinking once I saw that food and drink were supposed to regenerate health, but they did no such thing, or if they did, then it was in microscopic amounts.

If Sapkowski were behind the Witcher, I could get a lot of slavish devotion to the lore; as it stands, he was not at the helm, and a lot of the Witcher lore doesn't make for a good action RPG. CDPR ditched the severe impact injuries are supposed to have (which kept the pace going), but their attempts to adhere to canon by not introducing things like healing spells or anything else that might have made the game more player friendly did nothing for me; furthermore, when they did deviate from canon, it was in ways that actively made the game more cumbersome. In the Last Wish, Geralt corrects someone who claims that Witchers carry steel and silver swords, when they really carry iron and silver, the former being able to carry double duty on most monsters and the occasional human and the latter being reserved for werewolves; in the game, instead of having a single main weapon to rely on and a secondary one, the player has to level up two different weapons and sets of fighting styles for monsters and humans, which slows down the development of Geralt's abilities and makes monster fights early on harder than they should be.

Ah, the Middle Ages, a time of people being horrible to each other and populated by elves and dwarves. The problem with comparing fantasy worlds to the Middle Ages is that by the very virtue of them being fantasy worlds, they are not obliged to follow any of the tropes surrounding the Middle Ages. If the argument is that, as seems to be the case with Sapkowski's work, to model the setting after the Middle Ages in an attempt to examine old fairy tales in the context of the society that created them, then I might start seeing the point; unfortunately, while that might explain the horrible state of gender relations when dealing with the average commoners, it doesn't explain why female characters who otherwise defy traditional gender roles by being in positions of power and influence act within the confines of that status quo by doing things like wearing clothing designed to titillate members of the opposite sex.

Again, there are instances where adherence to canon is not always desirable for the purpose of making a game. It's established in Planescape that magic works differently on each Plane without a spell key for that Plane, but PST forewent having the player gather spell keys for the various planes they went to because it ultimately bogged the game down needlessly. Given that Geraly is running solo and is constantly getting hit, some tweaking of the magic system by providing a quick heal spell that recovered a few HP in a pinch for when Geralt is otherwise almost keeling over dead from drinking potions of Cat's Eye and other things to be able to use a Swallow safely would have been in order.

The engine did *look* nice on its own (Geralt's hair notwithstanding); it's a shame that it was poorly optimized to the point of making my relatively new computer dry heave and the way it was used to further the story by having the camera teleport between focusing on individual characters standing stock still and taking turns to talk in turn in a way that would feel natural only to someone who has never watched an actual conversation in their life.

@Jonesy89
When I play the Witcher, I always use the FCR mod on highest difficulty setting. My sword is always sharpened or oiled and I always drink a single Swallow before any non cannon fodder fights to mitigate some enemy cheap shots. Since the enemy you're currently comboing cannot strike you back, all you have to do in battle is not allow yourself to get surrounded. You have a lot of tools to ensure that - mobility, Aard, petards... If you're not blindly rushing into enemy groups without any preparation and not just trying to click them to death, you should never find yourself in need of an instant heal.

As for the Sapkowski argument. Koima57 was disappointed by the plot and blamed Andrzej's writing. He had nothing to do with it, The plot is all on CDProjekt and whether you like it or not, you can't compare it to his writing. IMHO, the narrative is very good compared to other RPGs but very lacking if compared to the books.

"The problem with comparing fantasy worlds to the Middle Ages is that by the very virtue of them being fantasy worlds, they are not obliged to follow any of the tropes surrounding the Middle Ages"

True, but Sapkowski's universe actually does. This is not D&D where basically anything goes.

"The engine did *look* nice on its own (Geralt's hair notwithstanding); it's a shame that it was poorly optimized (...)"

Yup, the engine is capable of some flashy displays but the fact that Witcher 2 runs better than Witcher 1 sums Aurora pretty nicely.

I tried the combat mod, but it went way too far in the other direction, making it so that the gameplay felt virtually non-existent. I might not have minded standard combat too much if some enemies, like ghouls and plant monsters, consistently kept hitting me even though I was giving them a sound thrashing, or if weren't for the game's nasty tendency to spawn Geralt inside a building where he is automatically surrounded and has no real hope of isolating himself. As for the universe, I did note that Sapkowski seems to model his universe after the middle ages. However, there is only so much leniency this affords him and the game, as I pointed out in my earlier posts.