Before I first tried The Witcher 2, I was surrounded by completely opposite evaluative views of this part of the series. Some advised me to never touch it, while others practically urged me to try it out. And as I immersed myself in the tumultuous world of the game I was constantly being tossed from one evaluative extreme to the other, until I landed on the shore of truth. The one in the middle.
The events of The Witcher 2: Assassins of the Kings take place one year after the assassination attempt on the king of Temeria Foltest, which Geralt prevented. After that, Geralt stayed with the monarch as his personal bodyguard during the investigation of the assassination attempt. As time went on, the investigation came to a standstill. Geralt accompanied the king throughout Temeria on his march, the purpose of which was to quell all sorts of pockets of civil war. However, no sooner had the ground dried with blood than the Baroness of La Valette rebelled against the King, infuriated by the fact that Foltest was unwilling to legitimize the children born to her without giving them the right to the succession. With the support of part of the earldom, she intended to diminish the monarch’s influence and undermine his authority in the eyes of the nobility. The king immediately marched with an army and laid siege to La Valletta Castle, and then launched an assault, in which the witch doctor also participated. After the successful assault, the king and the witch doctor went to fetch his children, whom he was going to take with him to the capital. However, at the most unexpected moment, a new assassination attempt occurs on the king, which this time Geralt was unable to prevent. The king dies, and Geralt, in the absence of any witnesses to what happened, is accused of the monarch’s murder and thrown into prison. Now the hero has to figure out who and why killed the king, and restore his name by proving his innocence.
From the very beginning of the story campaign the game plunges the player into an abyss of intrigue and suspense, luring in interesting questions and situations. The protagonist, as well as the player himself, seems to be in a fog, in which sometimes barely discernible outlines of significant events emerge. This allows the game to sustain a special atmosphere of mystery and invisible scale of events. Who is responsible for the death of the king? Who benefits from the weakening of one of the strongest states of the North? Who is behind all these events? Although some of the answers lie on the surface, the script skillfully takes the player’s attention in another direction, leaving simple answers out of his sight.
In general, The Witcher 2 has become a real political thriller. From now on the decisions made by the player depend on the fate of entire states, and the witch will meet with several rulers of the northern lands, each of which will pursue their own goals, completely opposite to the other participants in the events. And therein lies the problem. On the one hand – it is very interesting to watch and even take part in such large-scale political events, having a direct impact on the fate of the North, but on the other hand – the game itself seems to not understand what it wants to be: a story about Heralt or a story about the North. The constant shift of emphasis from the witch’s personal story to the history of the kingdoms and back creates a feeling of inferiority in both story arcs and leads to a lack of proper empathy for the characters.
But despite this, the story of The Witcher 2 still manages to catch and hold the player’s attention, immerse in the atmosphere and tell a rather interesting story about a little witch in a huge geopolitical mechanism of the North. In addition, unlike the first and the third parts of the series, the plot in The Witcher 2 can be called really non-linear. Yes, in the end all events will lead to one of two opposite outcomes, but the opportunity to pass the game though only two, but VERY different ways – really pays off. In fact, dramatically changed only one chapter of the three, but even that is enough to re-pass, because it allows you to look at the same events based on different points of view. True, and in this barrel of honey has a fly in the ointment. It’s about the consequences of choices made in the original The Witcher. What’s wrong with them? They just aren’t there. And yes, perhaps for some it’s something not very significant, but personally for me, the choices made in the first part were very important both emotionally and logically. And the sequel… just flushes it all down the toilet, telling the player, sorry, but you’re going to play by my rules. And yes, I understand that this was necessary in order to create a coherent and coherent story, but you could have at least explained it somehow. Because of this, it was much easier for me to make some “hard” and emotional choices as I went along, simply because I was already preparing myself for the fact that these choices would have no real consequences for the plot of the entire trilogy. And, spoiler alert, I turned out to be right, but that’s a whole other story.
Back to the characters
The characters in Assassins of Kings are real gold. Every more or less significant character that appears on the screen evokes a palette of different emotions. Some the player will wholeheartedly despise, some will respect, but what each character succeeds is to instill in the player the belief that they are real, that each of them is a person. Each of the characters pursues their own goals through their own methods, and few of them can be reproached for being too grotesque. As a result, by the end of the game you don’t want to part with them at all, even those who evoked sharply negative emotions.
Even the in-game communication with the characters became much more lively. The characters are not just talking heads as they were in the first part, now they gesticulate in every possible way, interact with objects, and in the end do not stand still. In general, the production in the game has reached a new level. Epic battles, magical cataclysms, and eventually sex! The Witcher is now not only enjoyable to play, but also enjoyable to watch.
However, it’s time to talk about the gameplay, which was the most ambiguous part of The Witcher 2. The gameplay concept compared to the original The Witcher is almost unchanged. In front of us is still a full-fledged Action RPG with a third-person perspective, with a focus on combat, which in comparison with the first part of the extremely strongly evolved. Henceforth the combat is not a mini-game where you have to press the attack button for a continuous combo, no – now the combat system has become a complex and demanding to the attention and tactics of combat. Opponents hurt, and The Witcher has become somewhat less agile. These conditions force the player to be constantly on the alert, to have time to block or dodge the blows of opponents, choose good moments for a counterattack and be able to make a tactical retreat in time. That said, a bit of a problem for me was the intuitiveness of the controls, which I spent a good portion of the game constantly confused, leading to unpleasant and seemingly unfair deaths.
The game has introduced an energy mechanic, which Geralt spends on using signs or blocking blows. Energy is spent for each individual active action and is restored gradually. Fighting stances are gone, so in battle with different types of enemies (which, by the way, is much less than in the original The Witcher) have to adjust to their style of battle is not a change of stance, and their own tactics and various devices, such as traps, bombs or throwing knives, as well as the competent use of the signs, which have also been redesigned. From now on signs began to work not on the area, but point by point on each individual enemy, which the player has chosen as his target. This greatly complicated the battle against a large concentration of opponents, as now you can not, for example, knock down several opponents at once with the Aard to seize the initiative, now signs have to be used more thoughtfully and try not to waste energy in order not to remain defenseless at the most inopportune moment. Due to the inability to block all blows, as there is not enough energy, from now on the sign Kwen became the most useful and used sign, leaving the others far behind in terms of frequency of use. Because of this poking skills associated with other characters almost lost meaning, because the usefulness of them has become much less.
Speaking of pumping. It too has undergone significant changes and has become more simple and familiar to the modern RPG. From now on skill points do not differ by level of their application (bronze, silver, gold talents in the original The Witcher), and represent the most common skill points, issued for the achievement of a new level, which can be spent to improve the available abilities in each of the four branches of skills – basic, alchemical, weaponry and magic. And, as in the first part, the alchemical skills are only useful at high difficulty levels.
Difficulty
In The Witcher 2 the situation is very strange. The difference between difficulty levels here is built disproportionately and unevenly. On a light difficulty you don’t have to worry about combat tactics, but as soon as you try to increase the difficulty to medium, the game becomes much harder and more demanding, as if you’re playing not on medium, but on high. And the high level of difficulty itself is practically the same as the medium. Began to pass the game on medium the first time, because of unpreparedness, I could not overcome the first boss, and when I decided to pass it on easy, just shut him up with a sword in a few seconds. The game is very lacking balanced medium difficulty, which would not be too much bother to customize the build, but do not relax more than necessary to get pleasure from not the easiest victory.
The game has introduced an energy mechanic, which Geralt spends on using signs or blocking blows. Energy is spent for each individual active action and is restored gradually. Fighting stances are gone, so in battle with different types of enemies (which, by the way, is much less than in the original The Witcher) have to adjust to their style of battle is not a change of stance, and their own tactics and various devices, such as traps, bombs or throwing knives, as well as the competent use of the signs, which have also been redesigned. From now on signs began to work not on the area, but point by point on each individual enemy, which the player has chosen as his target. This greatly complicated the battle against a large concentration of opponents, as now you can not, for example, knock down several opponents at once with the Aard to seize the initiative, now signs have to be used more thoughtfully and try not to waste energy in order not to remain defenseless at the most inopportune moment. Due to the inability to block all blows, as there is not enough energy, from now on the sign Kwen became the most useful and used sign, leaving the others far behind in terms of frequency of use. Because of this poking skills associated with other characters almost lost meaning, because the usefulness of them has become much less.
Speaking of pumping
It too has undergone significant changes and has become more simple and familiar to the modern RPG. From now on skill points do not differ by level of their application (bronze, silver, gold talents in the original The Witcher), and represent the most common skill points, issued for the achievement of a new level, which can be spent to improve the available abilities in each of the four branches of skills – basic, alchemical, weaponry and magic. And, as in the first part, the alchemical skills are only useful at high difficulty levels.
The main incentive for the player to get into all these battles, as usual, are the quests. Both the main and additional tasks, in comparison with the first part, became more varied and diverse. Sometimes you need to solve a riddle, and sometimes even pass the level on a curve, but still stealth. Many additional tasks can be performed in different ways and get completely different results in making your own decisions, which, again, contributes to the replayability.
The only problem is the locations themselves and the endless backtracking, which became though less than in the original The Witcher, but still a lot. Locations became more compact, but at the same time Geralt cut the speed of movement, so I had to pump up the skill roll to the maximum, just to roll faster and more to reduce the time of empty running.
And perhaps this running would not be so depressing if the environment did not introduce boredom. The game locations, in general, can’t be called terrible, but they lack some… charm, some atmosphere, or something. They are rather monotonous and quickly get bored because of the constant running back and forth. And because of the not very handy map, navigating the area often becomes very problematic, which leads to even more running. Of course, my point of view on the location design is pure subjectivity, but even I remember the damn Swamp from the original The Witcher more than any location from The Witcher 2.
But what you can’t take away from the game is the really beautiful visuals. Compared to the first part of the series, the graphics level is on a cosmic level. Shadows, textures, characters’ faces and especially the lighting – everything looks great even today. Furthermore, we want to highlight the design of the characters. Costumes, hairstyles, makeup, various features of appearance – all this makes you fall even more in love with any fleeting hero. Only minor optimization problems and, of course, bugs and crashes, of which I had quite a few, overshadow this idyll. Almost every third quick save caused crashes, which at one point made me quit the game for 2 months. Perhaps this problem is rare enough, but extremely unpleasant and painful.
And with what there is no problem – it’s the way the game sounds. There were no revelations and no revolutions, but the game sounds and the soundtrack generally work well for atmosphere and dynamics, intelligently highlight accents and in the end just please the ear. It doesn’t reach the level of the original The Witcher, but it doesn’t fall to the level of “average”.
So what’s the bottom line?
Is The Witcher 2 worth the time invested? In my opinion – definitely worth it. Yes, the game is uneven, in some places it is problematic. But after I’ve completed the game three times, I really enjoyed it. It is completely different from its predecessor, and so it was more interesting to get to know. I loved The Witcher for its ambiguous but interesting, challenging combat, memorable characters, interesting story, and beautiful visuals. But I also disliked it for its abundance of backtracking, its dragging out in places, and its technical state. And no matter how many times I polled people who played The Witcher 2, I never heard the same opinion. And that’s the sign of a true work of art.
Pros
Thrilling story; interesting combat system; memorable characters; overall picture quality; non-linear narrative and quests; soundtrack and overall game ambience; memorable bosses.
Cons
Technical condition (crashes, bugs, FPS slumps); poor environmental design; lack of balanced difficulty; little variety of enemies; unintuitive controls; lack of results from the original The Witcher decisions; plenty of backtracking.