So, I'm a fair way into act 1 now. In many ways, this game is utterly amazing. The storytelling and dialogue have been top-notch, and already it's clear that decisions really matter - and a feeling of "there's more to everything that what you might see". Very cool. The graphics are jawdropping, not just from the fancy engine (though there is that) but mostly from the incredible attention to detail in everything. The world is full and real and engaging. The characters so far are great (well, except Dandelion). The prologue did cinematic grand battle better than any first/third person game I've ever seen (and sure puts Bethesda's weak attempts to shame).
BUT it feels like it hasn't been playtested
at all.
It's clear from the start that it isn't a hand-holding sort of game BUT it takes that waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far. The UI is utterly abysmal. The basic tutorial stuff of how to actually do stuff is a whole heap of tiny text that flashes on screen for about half a second. What are the fighting controls? Don't know, it all went too fast, and I was too busy getting slaughtered in half a second in the FIRST FIGHT IN THE GAME. Oh I can block, that's nice to know after I'm dead, what about the rest? No idea, there's no obvious help menu, there's no list of keybindings in the controls menu which might tell me how to get to anything. I had to quit the game to find the manual to get past the very first fight. Did you know there's some perfunctory tutorial text stuffed in the journal when you press the "j" key? I didn't until I mashed the keyboard at random trying to figure out how to drink a potion. In fact I strongly suggest buying the boxed version just so you have the manual because the game doesn't explain ANYTHING (and I played Witcher 1, I can only imagine how newcomers feel). Even then, I had to google to figure out what the deal is with mutagens and armour enhancements etc. Also did you know that a critically-important bit of stuff is hidden in a chest at the start of act 1 at a point when you're supposed to be hurriedly following someone? No, me either!
The UI follies go way beyond that too. The alchemy screen is, if anything, even worse than the first game (though at least the "alcohol base" thing is gone); information boxes about stuff are so small you have to wait for three lines of text to slowly scroll up; the meditation system is slow and cumbersome; changing the active sign is clunky; "attack" and "use" are the same key; awful save system and bad autosave timing; the map is useless and the minimap rotates and has no north marker; the difficulty of armwrestling is heavily reliant on framerate; picking up ingredients/loot is made as tedious as possible, with no "autoharvest" or even "take all" key; half the game's options are only available in the launcher, requiring you to quit the game; in-game references to go "visit gog.com for your quest reward", etc.
And beyond that, the game so far is BRUTALLY hard. That's fine, refreshing in fact, BUT... the first fight in the game is you getting mobbed by three guys. The second is you getting mobbed by seven guys, then a quicktime event, then another wave of about five guys, then another wave of guys. The SECOND FIGHT. I died at least ten times in those fights alone, and probably about fifty times total in the tutorial/prologue, on normal difficulty. Fine, I didn't know the flow of combat, I didn't know about potions or how to choose signs (I still don't really know - there's no information in the journal about three of my five magic signs), but it's the tutorial, isn't that the time when I get to figure that out somewhat gently? From what I've read elsewhere, the tutorial is actually the hardest part of the game (it's certainly getting somewhat easier now in act 1). Yeah.
And I agree 100% with
Rock Paper Shotgun on the combat system (and most everything else, it's a spot-on review):
Normal is much better, as you have to think, move, parry, and use magic in a timely fashion to win. This is a real challenge, however, and often just too hard. Frustratingly, Geralt is slightly too slow for this to really be a fluid experience. You will find yourself hammering keys while waiting for animations to play out. Although the system is extremely elegant, and soon mastered, your own skills then become limited by this mechanical system. You want Geralt to get up faster, to cast the spell when you demand it, and so on. Hes simply not agile enough to make for a truly satisfying combat experience. Its very close to being dynamic, and the wandering cursor which hops from enemy to enemy (but can be locked by holding down Alt) sends you leaping about and means it occasionally feels very alive. But only occasionally. You can see exactly what CDP were trying to do, but actually just the wrong side of being frustrating. This is probably the biggest problem The Witcher 2 faces.
The combat is so close to being great in an Arkham Asylum kind of way - a skilful dance of timing and ability use that makes you feel impossibly badarse when you beat a bunch of guys - but it just isn't quite there. So it ends up being mostly just lots of rolling and running around in circles, which just feels like the wrong kind of hard, and makes even the toughest victories feel kind of cheap. And if you get hit once, it's almost all over because you can't react with your pain animation and so just get hit over and over by all and sundry because you can't roll away. I dunno, I realise I'm no master and maybe it'll all click soon, but it just feels clunky at the moment. A bit more response speed and less/no vigor drain for parrying would probably make it fantastic.
Ugh, I'm ranting like crazy and I've made it sound like I hate this game, when nothing could be further from the truth. It's amazing and I'm having a blast, but it desperately needed some playtesting and balancing and it's going to scare a lot of people off - which is a shame.
) and that the devs are porting it to the consoles later. However, it works perfectly fine with a keyboard/mouse, I don't know what your problem is.
. I may end up dropping this down to easy, then back up to normal later. But so far I've just been exploring the camp.
