Like a grand adventure, there is gold behind the cobwebs and dirt
I initially picked up The Wicther when the Enhanced edition came out. Being a CRPG fan, I went ahead and got the collector's edition. My first attempt at a play-through ended with a barrage of rather unflattering verbal critique followed by a 2 year hiatus from the game. In this time either (a) the game was patched or (b) I matured as a person and over the course of the last month or so I've had a far more playable and enjoyable experience than my first go-around.
The story of The Witcher centers on the enigmatic Geral of Rivia who suffers from the mandated memory loss which is required for a CRPG character whose prowess outside the scope of a game outmatches the requirements of a scaled experience. Based on a character from a series of Polish novels, Geralt's amnesia is severe indeed.
It is clear that CDProjekt wanted to tell a grittier and more mature story with The Witcher than the standard CRPG fare. In some ways the game succeeds. Often one is faced with a moral quandary that has no simple or clear outcome. Sometimes I felt guilty for my choices, but I stuck with them anyways as none of them are made to feel incorrect or broken.
Not all attempts at mature story-telling are successful however, when the game attempts to introduce sexual themes, one feels like you are peering into the sparse sexual experiences of the game's developers. A realm of pure fantasy where an awkward pickup line and colour coded gift will lead to a night of pleasure that can neatly be framed as a collectible card. It's the Dungeons and Dragons handbook of Sex and it is telling that the dice poker mini-game is implemented in more depth.
The greatest slight against the story in The Witcher however, is the way in which it is told. For future developments, I recommend that CDProjekt dedicates a person to the study of camera angles and the entry and exit of characters in scenes - from my experience with The Witcher 2, they did. Often drama would nicely build through the completion of quests, only to tumble apart at the end of a chapter as one short cut-scene jumps to another, with little visual coherence or flow. The drama of the story-telling is negated entirely, and one is left with the impression that disparate story outcomes were hastily edited together.
If the first paragraphs of this review do not match the score, let me get to the meat of the matter. Even though she dresses poorly, The Witcher is a pretty girl. At the core of the experience is a an engrossing monster hunting game enacted as a cycle of gathering lore on a monster from NPCs and books, concocting potions to negate the nastier aspects of its nature, and tipping the scale with blade oils, magic runes, and the selection of the correct strategy. Sun Tzu's "Every battle is won before it is fought" holds true for the Witcher and while it is not the deepest RPG system, every aspect offers enough depth and interactivity to keep the player engaged.
Like the story that it structures, the quest system of The Witcher is ambitious though imperfect. The player is offered both linear and non-linear quests, yet the distinction between quest types is not always clear. A word of advice: some quests carry over from one chapter to another and can only be solved during the subsequent chapter. Many hours of wasteful exploration was spent on my part due to my confusion over whether a quest could (and should) be completed in a chapter. I do not expect to be lead by the nose, but a clearer representation of objectives and their urgency would have been useful.
I could go into greater depth about the sub-systems that form The Witcher experience. In every case, I could summarize the specified system by stating that it makes a brave attempt at pushing genre mechanics forward, with varying success. The combat mechanics and role-playing systems more than made up for the areas where the story-telling and quest structures fell short.
For the investment of some patience, I found a wonderful RPG at the heart of The Witcher. The game offers a mountain of potential for where the genre can go. I cannot wait to see how that potential was executed in The Witcher 2.
