Hey everyone! This year I've been trying to focus more on my backlog rather than buying new games, and it's been pretty successful so far. One of the game I've been meaning to play is the original Witcher game, and I did just that!

Some brief history on my experience with the game. When the enchanted edition first came out, I was building my very first gaming PC. I was quite young at the time, about 13 years old, and along with my PC I also picked up The Witcher. You could say in a way that it was my first traditional PC RPG, and from what I played at the time, I really enjoyed it. At some point I stopped playing it though, because I got stuck and my monster slaying ended there.

Time went on and I was always thinking about how much I enjoyed it and this was the year I finally went back to it, and boy am I glad I did! From the moment I started to the moment I finished, I couldn't stop playing it. The whole game just sucked me in; the world, the story, the combat, the characters, everything. Of course the game wasn't flawless and there were a few things I wanted to be improved including some technical issues, how easy the game was, and a lack of things to spend money on. These weren't game breaking at all however so I overlooked them for the most part.

I found a lot of the characters interesting and I enjoyed having conversations with them. During the course of the game some decisions I made regarding politics heavily impacted my interactions with some of the characters I encountered. At one point it got so bad that I had to kill someone who I considered one of my favourite characters through out the course of the game, because I decided that I did not agree with some of the decisions he was making, and therefore didn't help him. Personally I decided to stay away from a lot of the political issues in the game and I was neutral in the war between The Order of the Flaming Rose and the Scoia'tael and of course that resulted in both of them hating me. It seemed like it could be quite different if I decided to chose one faction over the other, so it may be interesting to go back and see all the changes that will be made.

I was quite fond of the Epilogue as well, it wrapped the whole game up nicely, and it was quite touching seeing a lot of the characters I met through out the game reunite, even characters who I only met briefly, such as a talking ghoul named Vetala who I decided to spare in exchange for some information. It will be interesting to see if any of the choices affect my experience in The Witcher 2, as I know the saves can be brought over.

Something I particularly liked was that Geralt was a known figure in the universe. It was pretty interesting meeting characters which I apparently already knew and having a pre-conceived identity that you could change throughout the course of the game, even if it didn't match up with what the old Geralt would have done and if it didn't, people would let you know.

The soundtrack that went along with me conversing with people, slaying horrid beasts and meddling in politics was great. It fitted the world perfectly and hit a lot of the right notes in certain situations and just added to the impact the game had.

I'm a sucker for a good story in games and I really feel like The Witcher delivered. I don't know what made it so interesting to me, but it felt really unique and I feel like a whole new universe has been opened up.

At this point in time I haven't read the books or played any other games in the series, only the first, and I can't wait to explore more of what the world of The Witcher has to offer. After looking up some stuff about the books it seems that the translations may not be too good which is a bit of a shame, and not all of them have been translated. Still, I look forward to reading what I can, playing The Witcher 2 and The Witcher 3 when it comes out.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.