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Sunday 8 May, 2011
There are A LOT of great things to say about The Witcher. It has exceeded my expectations in every department. Coming into it, I was hesitant from the slew of negative things I'd read about it (alongside the positives of course), but it seems the Enhanced Edition and patches have polished it up big time. My current verdict is that it's damn good. I played all day today and got just into Chapter 2. What to say, what to say...
The Witcher is based on some Polish medieval fantasy novel(s), which I now want to read, because the game world is realized with great detail in a kind of setting I enjoy being fictional in, and the story, characters and presentation of it all are phenomenal so far. The main character is a Witcher (a monster bounty hunter) named Geralt. There's a cool intro cinematic as a prelude, in which Geralt gets hurt and suffers convenient amnesia (phenomenal story besides amnesia ploy), and is rescued by other witchers and taken to their home. The Prelude chapter serves as an action-packed and meaningful tutorial, and ends with the event that spurs on the remaining chapters. A mysterious sorcerer stole the alchemical and magical secrets of the witchers, and is using them (for now) to begin creating mutant dogs and such. You can imagine the mutations will get much scarier to fight. The remaining witchers scatter to the four corners of the earth to track the sorcerer and the Salamandra, this cult/order/guild group full of thugs and assorted villains.
Geralt heads south to the city of Vizima, the capital of the country. Chapter 1 exists on the outskirts of the city. There's a plague, so the city is quarantined. And outside the city, there's the Beast, a terrifying hellhound and its ethereal pack, which collectively maul townsfolk. Obviously this is a problem, and it's up to Geralt to fix it. This involves figuring out where the Beast came from, who summoned it, and how to kill it. The outskirts are big and there's a lot of running, and lots of fairly interesting quests. One main quest was to go at night and light 5 shrine flames to try and banish the hellhounds (doesn't work), but it was a neat quest because you had to take advantage of Meditation and it forced you to wander at night, which is more dangerous because the Ghouls, Drowners, and Barghests (the dogs) come out to play. In the end, I reasoned, given the evidence, that the Beast was a manifestation of the sins committed by the townsfolk. This was one of two choices, the other being that the town witch summoned the Beast. It's interesting because neither one was right or wrong. Evidence was there to interpret either way, and neither character ('townsfolk'/high priest vs. witch) were morally good characters. This is a major reason I'll call this game realistic.
Back to the point I was making, the world has a day/night cycle with four points: dusk, midnight, dawn, noon. NPCs have schedules, will be at different places doing different things. There are also nice weather effects, and NPCs actually react to weather, something I don't think I've ever seen before. I noticed when it rains, they huddle under shelter, except kids, who apparently like playing in the mud. It's almost endearing to watch. So, you can manipulate the time by 'meditating,' which is the same thing as resting in any other RPG. You meditate at a campfire or a bed or inn. The unique thing about mediation is that it's during meditation that you can level up, perform alchemy, or configure your witcher medallion.
Leveling up is normal, with an XP bar and a little twist on the talent tree idea. When you level you get 'bronze' points, or silver or gold later, which you spend on bronze (or silver or gold, respectively) talent points. These increase damage, add a knockdown effect, improve a spell range, etc. etc., basic stuff. The witcher medallion you can configure to track either enemies or magic. It starts glowing and shaking whenever whichever is near.
Alchemy gets its own paragraph since it's an important aspect of the game and story. Witchers become witchers through a series of grueling trials, training, and mutation by imbibing potions. The potions enhance combat abilities, defense, grant night vision, alleviate drunkenness (you can get SERIOUSLY drunk, and often have to to talk to NPCs -- think 'drinking buddies'), and so on. To create potions, which are incredibly useful, you need ingredients, which you loot off corpses or pick from plants. To pick plants, you need to have read about the plant in a book. There are also monsters in books, but I forget why you need to read those. I know you can't do bounty quests without having read about the monster first, but I dunno if for anything else. Anyway, this is not as tedious as it sounds and as I feared it would be (Oblivion flashbacks!). Herbs are scattered around, and you just go pick them up or loot materials off corpses that you would loot anyway. You've got a whole separate backpack for alchemy stuff, so it doesn't take up space. Then when you meditate, just make some potions. To make the potion, I forgot to say, you need to learn recipes, so look out for recipe books or NPCs who will teach you. You can also experiment to figure out how to make your own potions, but I haven't been successful yet. There are like 5 or 7 elements that ingredients contain that you need for whichever potion in some combination, plus always alcohol as a solvent. Then you can also create weapon oil, like poisons, and explosives. It's a neat system, and I like how it's tied into the lore.
So, alchemy is useful for fighting. Fighting itself looked a bit dull initially, but I'm enjoying it now. There are three 'stances,' strong, quick and group. You can change stance on the fly, and each stance is suited for particular enemies (or groups of enemies) depending on their strengths and weaknesses. You've also got two types of weapon, steel and silver. Steel is ideal for humans and animals, whereas silver works best on monsters and magical creatures. You can also swap between these on the fly, plus you have extra weapons (a torch/small one-handed weapon slot, a mighty 2-h weapon slot that you can't change stances with, and something else I forget). Then defending is fun too. Double tap a direction to roll or jump that way and avoid damage. There's also a fistfighting minigame that involves blocking and punching (duh), and a dice poker minigame, both of which hopefully will stretch the entire game because they're fun little diversions.
Aside from swordplay, you use 'signs,' which is magic. Right now I've got a telekinesis spell that knocks down enemies and destroys weak blockades, and a fire blast spell that deals damage and lights fires. I think there are 4 spells total, maybe 5. You also use signs on the fly. The combat feels very fluid with all the things you can swap between. You basically get combo moves with your swords, and it's a matter of button timing to execute. They're easy enough and add some variety to combat. If you time it right, you can execute enemies by stabbing them when they're down or doing one of various hilariously cheesy decapitation moves.
One last thing for now -- I had read this game was incredibly masculine, like its sexism would be appalling, specifically regarding the sex minigame throughout. I definitely think the game's content is mature, and applaud it for that, and for not being too over-the-top about it, but it does offend me a bit, makes me look sideways and cock an eyebrow. I've been trying to think of the sex in the context of the story and game world. A female character named Triss helps Geralt recover from his wounds...tenderly. However, they had a thing going on in the past, so explained. And witchers are infertile, so it's not like his lasciviousness is making babies and single moms. He's just a really sexual guy. What I don't like about it is that he will hit on and try to sleep with A LOT of female characters, whether they're named story characters or simply waitresses or women walking down the street. This is the kind of thing in real life that would piss me off, the guy who feels the need to hit on every girl he sees. Girls don't walk around waiting for dudes to try and sleep with them, but lots of guys seem to believe this is the case, or that they can at least try their luck, which is arrogant and assuming and sexist. So while I understand that Geralt at least can't knock anyone up, the game makes women out to be easy if you just say the right thing. Also, when you sleep with a girl, you're rewarded with a sex card, yes, a sex card, which is like a photo of the girl nude and provocative. The first one I saw, I was like what?! But yeah, it's like a collect-em-all thing, kind of ridiculous. It's like a more adult version of Fable.
So, overall Day 1, I'm very impressed with the polish. This is a great product.
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