This was me too. I bought it based on the hearty recommendation of many others. I hated the combat, the characters, the gameplay in general. I've never bounced off a game this hard before. 3 at least plays a lot better, but Geralt still sucks
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Is The Witcher 2 still worth playing?
- Thread starter Clay
- Start date
Yes. Good games don't just magically stop being good because a better or newer game comes out.
I also still think TW1 is worth playing if you have a PC. It's not as good as the others, but it's still The Witcher, and it has some moments of excellent writing and character setup that don't really pay off until the later games.
I also still think TW1 is worth playing if you have a PC. It's not as good as the others, but it's still The Witcher, and it has some moments of excellent writing and character setup that don't really pay off until the later games.
if you're okay with dealing with mediocre combat that has weird difficulty spikes and valleys, yeah, sure. and since you're already a fan of the universe, you'll probably enjoy more of the writing in this game.
played it for the first time about a month ago and the first witcher a couple of months before that one for what it's worth
played it for the first time about a month ago and the first witcher a couple of months before that one for what it's worth
I didn't really like it, it felt like a prototype for Witcher 3. Rather short, and the side activities just aren't as interesting as 3. The world isn't very good, I remember getting to the third act and thinking "that's it?"
I think it really is, even as a standalone game it's fantastic. There are a lot of flaws, but the characters are excelent and I personally found it way more enjoyable on all fronts from W3. If you can play on PC where there are a variety of QOL mods which can remove some of the frustrations
100%. Even with weak combat (which is true for every game in the series) as a Witcher adventure I think it's the top. The choices, characters and storylines are just top quality and the overall plot is just fantastic. I also think it represents the Witcher world and it's politics the best.
I was just thinking of replaying this. I liked Witcher 3, but I still think Two is my favorite.
There were some choices made with W3 story-wise that I didn't love. After all the build up to the wild hunt and Yen, they were both just kinda plopped out there in Three. Geralt and Yen's reunion doesn't feel like a big deal to either of them. And it turns out killing the wild hunt isn't that hard.
I love Geralt and Ciri in W3. But, Two had Iorweth, Roche, Saskia, and Letho. All awesome. Only downside is that you have to play through the game twice to get all their stories.
There were some choices made with W3 story-wise that I didn't love. After all the build up to the wild hunt and Yen, they were both just kinda plopped out there in Three. Geralt and Yen's reunion doesn't feel like a big deal to either of them. And it turns out killing the wild hunt isn't that hard.
I love Geralt and Ciri in W3. But, Two had Iorweth, Roche, Saskia, and Letho. All awesome. Only downside is that you have to play through the game twice to get all their stories.
Absolutely, you will certainly be able to play through it without having played the first one....fuck it I'll say it, play the first one, it's janky as fuck but if you're a huge Witcher fan you'll fall in love with it since it has the most slavic atmosphere out of all 3 games. I replay the whole trilogy every year or two, shit never gets old.
I liked the combat in the third one. So I am hoping they remake the first two with the Witcher 3 combat.
I've tried multiple times to get into Witcher 2 and I've just found it to be a very grating game to play. The combat straight up sucks. Witcher 3 did everything better.
It's an alright game. The characters and are solid , and the events of the game can be felt in the sequel. If you enjoy political intrigue, you're in for a real treat. That combat though, good lord it's awful. I wouldn't blame you if you just lowered the difficulty to easy just to get through it faster. Also, the game was designed for 7th gen consoles in mind, and it shows. The areas all feel so tiny and constrained, resulting in a much more linear experience than 1 or 3. It's my least favorite in the trilogy by far, but despite everything, I do think it's worth playing.
Edit: I forgot to mention, the game has two branching paths that radically change the second act. That's cool and ambitious, but I honestly didn't enjoy it enough to go back and experience the second path.
Edit: I forgot to mention, the game has two branching paths that radically change the second act. That's cool and ambitious, but I honestly didn't enjoy it enough to go back and experience the second path.
I would say so. The focus of the game actually seems to lend itself better than the open world in WItcher 3. For what it's worth, I prefer W2 over W3, as others have echoed in this thread.
I loved it when I was in undergrad...in 2011-2012 ;( - its back compat for Xbox one and pretty amazing.
I had to change the difficulty to easy because the combat was horrendous. I also lost interest about 20 hours in and sped to the finish. Just not my cup of tea I guess.
Is it possible to play this via Xbox Series X backwards compatibility? I don't have a computer that can run it but I'll eventually get an XSX.
Absolutely, and it has way better pacing than TW3 by a huge margin. As others have said, the combat is pretty bad, but it's not really drastically worse compared to TW3. They are so similar in fact that it actually makes TW3 look worse by comparison, because they barely did much of anything to improve it. Geralt floats around from foe to foe more like Batman in that game though than he does in the followup. It was also actually more challenging when it first hit on PC and that was after the initial launch patch that nerfed the combat.
The atmosphere of the first game hasn't been rivaled by the sequels. There were glimpses of it in the third, but that's it.
Overall I suppose the second would be my favorite. It greatly improved the combat over the original (which I never hated, but I couldn't actually claim it was good and this was prior to 2009...), drastically improved the graphics due to their custom engine, had more fleshed out characters and everything just seemed more believable. IMO TW2 is the Mass Effect 2 of the series. Specifically talking about the PC version though. I've seen the console version of the game and it looks pretty rough at times.
The atmosphere of the first game hasn't been rivaled by the sequels. There were glimpses of it in the third, but that's it.
Overall I suppose the second would be my favorite. It greatly improved the combat over the original (which I never hated, but I couldn't actually claim it was good and this was prior to 2009...), drastically improved the graphics due to their custom engine, had more fleshed out characters and everything just seemed more believable. IMO TW2 is the Mass Effect 2 of the series. Specifically talking about the PC version though. I've seen the console version of the game and it looks pretty rough at times.
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