The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

aka: The Witcher: Bővített Kiadás, The Witcher: Enhanced Edition - Director's Cut, Wiedźmin: Edycja Rozszerzona, Zaklínač: Rozšířená Edice
Moby ID: 36421

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Critic Reviews add missing review

Average score: 86% (based on 43 ratings)

Player Reviews

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 93 ratings with 3 reviews)

The Witcher is an epic RPG that does justice to Sapkowski's novels and universe.

The Good
Most people that know me know that save for old school CRPGs and Fallout, RPGs aren't really my bag. But I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow when I heard of The Witcher, simply because I'm a huge fan of writer Andrzej Sapkowski's novel series. Awhile back I took a trip to Poland, but ended up in bed for most of it do an illness and my friend of mine lent me a copy of "The Last Wish" and I absolutely devoured it, the short story Wiedzimin being my favourite. When he told me that it had recently spun off into a novel, I quickly searched it down and quickly devoured "The Blood of Elves," the first in the series. Over the years he would send me fresh copies until the series was done. So what do I think of the recent game based on the series?

Well, all I have to say is "Wow." I figured it would be hard to channel the universe and stories properly, but CD Projekt Red plays it safe by not directly adapting any of the several short stories or the novels and rather creating a new story, naturally set in the same universe. The story is awesome, and will please fans, but the story is accessible even to those who have no prior knowledge of the series which is likely here in the states knowing that the English translations haven't been released here yet, save for the original Short story translated for a US release of "The Last Wish" and I doubt the majority of US citizens speak Polish. The story is worthy of the series heritage and an engrossing addition, and a good starting point for those unfamiliar with the series.

The gameplay is either behind the shoulder or isometric, either way the combat is very unique and very entertaining. At first, I was thinking it would be like Diablo, and just clicked fiercely on enemies but was quickly cut into ribbons by them. Although the combat system is as simple as clicking, what makes it unique is that its rhythm and time based. Clicking like a madman or clicking too slow will not work, but clicking in time with the rhythm of your weapon and enemy will bring results, and if you continue the rhythm it'll get stronger with each blow. Once you get used to this style, it is as smooth as glass and a great gameplay mechanic. You also use "styles," fast, strong, and group. Although this concept has been seen in RPGs and several beat 'em ups, The Witcher does a much better job and it adds a mild strategic layer requiring you to analyze each enemy. As you progress, you will also learn the difference between both Witchers swords, one silver and one steel.

The environments look great, and help immerse you into the world. There are some decent looking creatures as well, although most character models are rather poor (More on that later.) amongst other graphical hiccups. The audio is great as well, particularly the voice acting. I stuck with the original Polish, but you can use just about any combination for several different languages, and even the English dub is good although there are a few weird translation errors in some of the final lines of dialogue.

The game will last you a LOOONG time. It has an epic scope and practically thousands upon thousands of locales, characters, quests and objects. The scope is absolutely massive, and the game has plenty of quests to back it up. The game took me a good 8 months to beat, and I'm sure I still missed some things.

The alchemy system works well. While it may add a somewhat tough learning curve and the tutorial makes it seem much easier than it really is, once you get the hang of it it works well and is a great system for creating various potions and later in the game, Witchers' mutagens. Each potion comes with a positive and negative effect and requires certain ingredients on a chemical level (Although this complicates it slightly, it also means that you don't have to find 100% specific items or plants to get that ingredient, you just have to find an object that has said ingredient) and has some other requirements. This system is necessary for survival later in the game, and is necessary for survival if you switch to one of the harder difficulty levels.

Back on the subject of audio, the soundtrack is ABSOLUTELY FRIGGEN INCREDIBLE. From the awesome title screen music straight on until the final moments, the soundtrack is easily the BEST orchestral soundtrack ever written for a video game. Orchestral soundtracks have been becoming more common lately, but most of them are minimalist, downplayed, and don't really have much soul or distinction from real classical or orchestral pieces. The Witcher has a distinct sound, combining various Celtic and European sounds to create a beautiful and unique soundtrack. I'm glad I bought the store version instead of the steam version simply for the soundtrack CD. The music in this game is some of the most beautiful I've ever heard, regardless of a video game or not.

The Bad
Although the environments look good enough, the graphics really aren't that great. You'll run into several clones, and the characters are stiff and creepy as they barely animate, especially in talk. If you thought the animations in Oblivion/Fallout 3 were stiff you obviously haven't played The Witcher. Character models seem weird and out of shape/proportion a lot of times, which gives them a weird surreal look. Geralt looks fine enough and a few key characters have good models, but that's really it. The graphics are also poorly optimized, and the framerate staggers at times.

As somewhat of a feminist, I can't say I agree with the games treatment of women. I'm not complaining about the nudity (It would be hypocritical of a nudist to whine about nudity) so much as I am the fact that it seems that most of the female characters in the game are often reduced to the status of nothing more than a sex figurine. The term "Objectification of women" has never been truer here either, since if you decide to have sex with a female character in the game you will get 'sex cards,' which literally makes the female characters into a dirty collectible card game. While I suppose the artwork on them is decent, I still don't like the concept and a few of them push the boundaries of taste in their art as well.

The games scope and size, as well as a few gameplay elements, may not appeal to some as they might find it too "MMO" like. I won't lie, I've never played an MMO, but I couldn't help but feel at times the game was a little too large and some of the side quests are merely fetch quests and "Kill X-Amount of monsters" quests, and a few of them are fun but it can be annoying, especially early on, when they appear frequently and sometimes block you from completing a main quest.

The games menu and inventory system can be a bit head scratching at first. There are tons of buttons that don't really give a clear enough example of what they are or what they do and you'll often find yourself doing something you didn't want to. One time I was simply trying to find my map, so I clicked on an icon that looked like a map, and I ended up erasing my journal leaving me stumped and confused. I had to read a few pages in the manual to figure out what each button did.

Although I have no problem with swearing, my mouth isn't exactly the cleanest when given the ability to curse, but I honestly don't think some of the cussing in some of the dialogue here really fits. I suppose I simply find it strange to hear a dwarf quote "The Exorcist" (Literally, the infamous "Your mother..." scene from the Exorcist. I'm sure you can fill in the blank if you've seen that movie) and hearing conversations in bars and taverns using modern street slang and having chats that sound like something out of "Clerks" rather than a fantasy game. It just sounds anachronistic to hear some of the slang they use in this game, and sometimes it ruins the immersion for me.

The game has a bucketload of bugs that can be game ending. The game loves to crash at the worst times and various bugs will crop up during gameplay that can annoy you. The game also uses the damn FADE anti piracy system, and due to a glitch in the game, sometimes Fade will be triggered by anti-virus protection or bugs in the game, and even other discs that use anti-piracy systems. What Fade does is if it thinks you are using a pirated game, it will delete certain data from your game and make it impossible to finish. One time Fade accidentally went off during the main quest line, and removed all key characters required for me to progress. I had to reinstall the game completely to fix this problem.



The Bottom Line
The Witcher, simply put, is an awesome and epic RPG that will wow you with its sheer scope and epic nature. There are thousands upon thousands of quests and the main story is awesome, and there are several stories within that story that are excellent as well. You get plenty to do in the games world and the combat is unique and satisfying. Whether you are a fan of the books or not, this is a top notch addition to them and a great starting point for new fans. If you enjoy a hefty RPG experience, than this is a game you should check out. It will last you a long time and leave a big impression.

Windows · by Kaddy B. (777) · 2009

The Witcher, a game you'll either love or hate. I love it.!

The Good
I'm no hardcore RPG fan but I can find myself playing the more traditional old school, dungeons and dragons like RPGs , some JRPGs and WRPGs. Based on a group of Polish novels The Witcher to me is one of the more modern like RPGs in the veins of Mass Effect minus the suckage. I played The Witcher back in 2007 and decided to try the Enhanced Edition which is as the named suggests enhanced. The Witcher is a Dark medieval fantasy set in a fictional world of Temeria. You play a Geralt a Witcher, which is a human undergone through mutation to achieve greater agility and powers with some side effects; Infertility is one example. They also do rely on potions. A witcher's job is to protect humans from monsters that lurk the regions for a fee. The Witcher has a very dark and gritty story and setting. It deals with many mature topics such as racism, drugs, rape, sex and bringing many out of place modern day swear words to the medieval age. Geralt is interesting to me as I like the antihero character. He's also one of the few characters in the game that is voiced very well. He makes good use of his infertility by banging a lot of women in the game without protection for some baseball cards. What's awesome about this game is that it also focuses on other characters giving you some really fun and interesting side quests which are very important for RPGs.

The game opens with a lengthy but impressive FMV. In between cut scenes have some well placed camera work. And my favorite are the cut scenes narrated by Geralt with just still Hand painted pictures, they tend to come at the right moments making the story telling even better. There are moments of the game where you do make critical choices which affects how the game plays out. For example choosing to kill or save a witch after having hot occultic sex with her.

The landscapes and cities are rendered beautifully using a modified version of the Bioware Aurora engine. Got to love the water effects, foliage, day-night cycle and the details here and there. The game can be colorful and gritty at the same time. And in the Enhanced Edition it's much better moving around from area to area as the loading time has improved greatly. You'll see people walking around, chit chatting in the day and only guards and homeless people around in the night, gives the feeling of life and realism in the world.

There are some awesome concepts in here. The point and click combat has a twist of using a timed click to string attacks together. You have 3 different fighting styles; strong, fast and group. Using your judgment you'll know which is better for what enemy. Another cool fundamental is the whole steel sword for human and silver sword for monster. Not entirely groundbreaking or original stuff here but at least it works. Worth mentioning you can play with just a mouse or mouse+keyboard combination. And view with an Isometric camera which most RPGs use or Over the shoulders in similar veins to Tomb Raider or Gears of War.

Alchemy plays an important role, allowing you to brew potions, blade coating oils and bombs using a base and ingredients which can be found or purchased and gathered from plants and monsters. The Witcher has a much more stripped character development system. Where many games make you level up stats and then skill, it's unified here. Less technical than, say a Bioware RPG but much more accessible.

One thing you cannot deny is the music is freaking awesome. Whether it's the ambient like tunes, the music during battles or the creepier stuff. Everything is epic and moody. Perfection in this part.

The Bad
While some of the animations seem good, the flow of them is really stiff. Also you'll notice that the character models are rehashed even some key characters like Declan. The monsters can tend to be just re-textured models. Can you tell the difference between a Drowner and a Drowned Dead? As for the location, the swamps is rather dull and uninspired. Fighting the constantly spawning monsters can get boring. What sucks is that if you want to enter a cave or exit the area and if there's a monster on your tail you'll have to defeat it to interact with anything.

Late game you'll tend to find frustrating as there's a lot of running about; and running between different areas can be annoying as you have to go through loading screens. The clichéd endgame is a disappointment; the typical return to city, it's under flames, people are going crazy, you're fighting hundreds of enemies.

The voice acting ranges from good to average. Mostly the civilians and small role characters have suitable voice overs. As for key characters Geralt's deep booming voice is superb and fitting. Dandelion, Zoltan Vincent and Siegfried were decent enough. But damn Trish has a strong American accent, the rest were pretty average like Carmen for example.

The combat system while it works it tends to wear thin by the end of the game. It's not the combat systems fault though it's that the game throws enemies at you at random in certain areas rather than being well thought out. So switching between swords, styles and constantly clicking becomes a chore. There are some useless magic powers too. Besides the knockdown one and the Igni (fire) spell I wasn't using any other of the 3. They were just fillers and I hate it when designers put these fillers in just to add quantity to a game.

For many the start of the game doesn't really tell you how you need to get about things. For example collect 10 drowner tongues, you need to have drowner tongues entry in your journal. It doesn't mention that you need to read books, scrolls or tales from locals to get entries about a monster, ingredients and herbs in the journal. I've seen many complain about this so I thought it's worth mentioning.

Okay now a screw up I think I should mention. Sometimes when you're engaging monsters you may accidentally click on another character who you can talk to. It goes into the dialogue cutscene with the monsters waiting like dumbf**ks for you to finish. I think this is quite embarrassing for the developers.

The Enhanced edition comes with 2 new stories which you can play and I couldn't even stand one of them for 10 minutes.

The Bottom Line
It was the storyline that kept me playing this. I was in love with the dark fantasy setting and the simple RPG gameplay. But really if you took the storyline, characters and setting aspect of this game and mixed it with the combating system of an action game like Devil May Cry or God of War you'd have one hell of an action adventure game. Some people may even get bored with the game in the first hour as it doesn't really have good first impression unless you count the intro FMV but really just give this game a chance. To be fair I did enjoy The Witcher a lot and thought it was a worthy debut for the company Cdprojekt. The game is quite accessible as an RPG which is good for people like me and RPG enthusiasts wanting a taste of Modern RPG done right.

Windows · by dreamstealer (126) · 2011

A great RPG and a labor of love, but hardly without its flaws

The Good
When talking about what I like, I must start with the fact that The Witcher is so obviously a labor of love. It's also a good game, of course, and that's what the rest of this review will focus on, but if you read the books and know the story, characters and lore, you'll see so many little, or at times not so little, moments and elements in a somewhat different, more complex and, more often than not, overall better way. This doesn't mean you can't play it without knowing the background from other sources, because great care has been taken to ensure that's not the case, but simply that there's significant added value if you do, and that these elements were implemented in a way that makes it clear the developers were fans of the books and did their best to do them justice.
This obviously also helps the atmosphere and the feeling that you're part of a living, breathing, believable world, but prior knowledge is once again not exactly necessary, the game itself doing a good enough job even on its own, despite limitations due to the engine, possibly the available hardware, and definitely the team's size and experience at the time. The nice dialogues and decent implementation of NPC schedules also aid in this, along with the books and journal entries which, while shorter and more utilitarian than what can be found in the most memorable games from this point of view, you will actually want to seek out for both information and benefits, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and you will end up caring about the consequences of your actions not merely in terms of which will do more to aid your progress but also of how they'll affect certain characters and events for their own sake.
On that topic, I must also say that the story shows proper planning and tackles real and important issues in a relatively mature way, putting before the player moral choices that are far from black and white, at times the decision regarding which may be the slightly lesser evil being uncomfortably difficult. Some of the consequences of those choices could have been handled better, however, considering that they can at times be particularly significant and only become apparent much later, but later is also when I'll get to that. For now, I'll say The Witcher is a notable example of implementing this concept at a time when it was noticeably less popular and developed in games than it is now, several years later.

But I wrote a fair amount and didn't even mention the combat, which makes up a large part of the game and is quite enjoyable and fluid, at least once you figure out how it works and Geralt gains a few useful skills. Some kill moves, especially those usually performed on people, are too long and leave you exposed when fighting multiple opponents and it may at times be somewhat difficult to continue attacking the same single enemy when surrounded and using the over-the-shoulder camera, but for the most part, and regardless of the chosen style, the combat simply flows with a smoothness that's very rarely seen in games, and it does so thanks to the character's skills, without making it too difficult for the player.
In addition, the enemies are varied and actually different, requiring tactics you'll want to learn before facing them, as Geralt's skills won't do much good if you, the player, won't know which ones to use or how in any given situation. This adds another layer of realism and makes it feel that you actually need to prepare for a fair number of fights, including the first few with just about any type of enemy, as even opponents that would otherwise be easy can cause trouble if your approach is particularly careless or simply wrong, while those meant to be difficult tend to become impossible without the correct tactics, and at times also potions or various other items. Which, at least in my view, is exactly how it should be.

Since I'm reviewing this particular edition of the game, before moving on I should also mention the included additional adventures, obviously starting with the official ones, which are both quite short but can be seen as canon and would have almost certainly been paid DLC if the game would have been released by bigger studios. Of the two, Side Effects seems like the better one overall, likely due to the areas and characters included, though it's nasty that the different paths and quests aren't clear and you don't know what you might have done. The Price of Neutrality seems to have less actual content and its duration is somewhat artificially extended by needing to cross the river only in certain spots.
Then there are two others made by Ifrit Creative Group, and they both show a fair amount of thinking outside the box. Wedding is definitely different, weird and hilarious, but I'd rather dwell more on Merry Witchmas, which truly is a great piece of work. It has a few small issues, but overall it features a fair amount of content and shows a lot of effort, care and creativity, including custom assets. It's also interesting to notice all the included references, though they and the particular type of creativity and humor used do hurt it a bit in my view when it's at such a high level otherwise, as I'd call it outstanding if it'd feel more natural and fit better in the game world. Others may appreciate it even more just for these reasons, however.
Of the remaining three, Damn Those Swamps! barely deserves mentioning, being very amateurish, extremely short and featuring extremely little content. Deceit tries to be more, though it seems to go through a checklist of elements to include in order to do so, but it has writing issues and is a buggy mess, requiring me to download an updated version to even be able to finish it. Wraiths of Quiet Hamlet, on the other hand, is very nicely done and feels quite natural. There are a couple of notable bugs, one with a fist fighter and the other being that everything goes in satchels and nothing in alchemy bags, but I liked what they did with NPC schedules, all the details like house gnomes or blue smoke, the way the sexual encounter was implemented, and of course the ending, when everything is put together and you're presented with the results of your actions and choices.

The Bad
Despite all of that, however, I repeatedly had to force myself to continue, initially requiring a long time to be able to do so. The reason for that? Just those choices and consequences I was mentioning above and the fact that a fair number of times the only way to find the right solution, or even simply the order you need to do some quests or phases in for best results, is to make a lucky guess, possibly even before being made aware of any need to do so. That made me feel that whenever I did one thing I was likely to break three others and won't even realize it before it'll be too late.
Now I appreciate it when choices require careful thought and consequences are significant, long-term and at times even undesirable, but with the way I play, and in fact with the way I am, I need ways to do things right and to fix what I see as wrong, and obviously also need to be aware of the need to do so in time. When that's not available or what is available is insufficient, it goes past frustration and turns into a feeling of powerlessness and an actual fear of advancing or deciding anything, which is something I'm all too familiar with on a daily basis and most definitely don't want to experience while playing games as well. Others have embraced this completely, but for me it's a terrible aspect of the realism which I have otherwise appreciated in this game and was very close to making it unplayable from my point of view.
And in the above paragraph I wasn't referring to the times when things don't work as intended, mind you, because sadly the game still has quite a number of bugs. Many are only nuisances, if they're triggered at all, but a few may be major and require the player to know how to avoid them ahead of time. In addition, there are also some purely technical problems, possibly due to a memory leak, since they're more likely to occur the longer you play. These usually result in crashes, especially while saving, which in that case will destroy the old save game as well if you were overwriting, but a couple of times the game even caused my computer to freeze. The first time I eventually resorted to the reset button, though after that I found that there was a way, albeit a rather tricky one, to end the process even in that situation.

If you can get past that, the other issues are minor and relatively easy to overlook when compared to the game's many positive aspects. Still, the terribly limited inventory, especially when it comes to weapons, remains a nuisance throughout and will be the cause of many boring trips after fights in places where items on the ground don't vanish as soon as you leave the area if you have a need to sell everything you can, as I do. Also, the fact that you can only customize the functions of the two main mouse buttons severely restricts what you can do with the mouse unless you have one that supports multiple profiles and binding key presses to buttons. And, while this may seem like a very little thing, it can be an issue that there are a few cases where a dialogue path changes following certain events but the starting point remains the same, in which case if you had already tried it it'll stay grayed out, not letting you know there's anything new there.
Otherwise, the dice poker is poorly done, leaving little room for anything but blind luck, and at the same time causes the video card to heat up significantly more than when doing anything else in the game. Also, the voice acting, while decent, could be better and has jarring differences in some spots, likely for lines that were changed in the Enhanced Edition. And it can be annoying that one fist fighter doesn't move from the center of the arena, forcing you to get around him every time you fight, or even that it rains so often and yet some NPCs always say it hasn't rained hard in a while. And, if I may, I'd also like to mention that I was rather put off by the idea of the sex cards and annoyed by how two particular choices are connected and by the fact that a certain outstanding bit of pillow talk originally between Geralt and Yennefer was pulled straight out of Time of Contempt and implemented in the game, in a different location and situation and with someone else taking Yennefer's place.

The Bottom Line
I started playing this game in June 2013 and then abandoned it later that same month, after doing pretty much what I could do without really advancing the story much in chapter two, the attempts to pick it back up over the following two months ending very quickly, after only some grinding. Eventually continued in October 2014, once again temporarily abandoned it later that same month, but this time I did manage to get myself to pick it back up the next and more or less kept playing until I finally finished it this February, with the included adventures also finished in March.
Based on that, you may be inclined to believe that it failed to grab my attention, at least in the early parts, but that'd be completely wrong. Closer to the truth would be to say that it rather drove me away despite all of its good parts and I had to make an effort of will to force myself to continue in face of the one issue that triggered unpleasant and undesirable reactions in me. And that issue is not one of the few rather clear problems the game has, as I found those quite easy to overlook when compared to its many positive aspects, but rather because the developers achieved one of their stated goals perhaps too well. As I already said, what bothered me to such an extent is something that others appreciated, perhaps even more than any other aspect of the game.

To conclude, if you like RPGs, games with a good atmosphere and a fair degree of realism, smooth, flowing combat and some thinking, including about deeper issues, alongside your action, while at the same time being able to handle some technical issues and making decisions without knowing exactly what the outcome will be and being unable to do everything just right or at least fix everything that didn't work out properly on the first try, you will most definitely enjoy The Witcher Enhanced Edition. Having read and enjoyed the books is obviously a bonus in most cases, but it's not necessary, and I did also see a few people saying they were bothered by the fact that a story with a clear end was continued in such a manner.
If, however, you're like me and get yourself worked up when none of the available choices seems quite acceptable or, far worse, when you can't know exactly what the consequences will be and, unless you use a guide, at times won't learn until it'll be too late, you will definitely be torn about this game. On the one hand, it's extraordinary in so many ways and, as I was saying above, it gets even better if you enjoy the books as well, but on the other it will cause you to feel frustrated, powerless and even quite afraid of advancing even if you can understand and, to some extent, appreciate why it does so, which is most definitely not what you want from a game. Still, the good outweighs the bad even so, but it requires an effort of will which may be too much at certain times and under certain circumstances, depending on your state of mind.

As for the additional adventures, it's nice that they're included and, in most cases, they're quite enjoyable. If you want, you can look for others as well or, if you're willing to spend the time and effort, even make your own using the included editor, though if you haven't already it may be too late to start now. In addition, while I for one did not, you may even look for and apply mods which will alter and possibly enhance the experience of the actual game as well, some even being recognized by the developers as particularly useful. Just make sure that, whatever you do, you save often enough and preferably in different slots, and taking the recommended breaks while playing and actually quitting the game while doing so definitely helps in more ways than one...

Windows · by Cavalary (11610) · 2015

Contributors to this Entry

Critic reviews added by Jeanne, Đarks!đy ✔, Picard, Tythesly, T a z, Wizo, Editor In-Chief, Xoleras, Patrick Bregger, Cantillon, Klaster_1, Kabushi, Tim Janssen, FloodSpectre, Scaryfun.