Game of the Month #28 (May 2017) - The Witcher

Representing the pinnacle of storytelling in role-playing games, The Witcher shatters the line between good and evil in a world where moral ambiguity reigns. The Witcher emphasizes story and character development in a vibrant world while incorporating tactically-deep real-time combat like no game before it.

I will participate. I bought the game back in 2007 (I was 13!) and I barely played it back then. I am now on chapter 2 and it has been a great experience so far (fast travel would have been nice though).

Right again a game I have already played so I'll give my opionion.

Personally I think this is the weakest witcher game in the franchise (which is good cause it only means the series get consistently better) and some considerable questionable design choices but considering this is CD projekt red first game i have to say it shows there growth as a developer and for a first game it's not bad but I can't say it's good either.

First i'm gonna go over the problems I have with the game. First the controls if i remember correctly is alot more complicated then they need to be with multiple different buttons used where they could be merged into a single set of buttons. I also find the card system for the sex scenes in the game bizarre and stupid. The opening and tutorial really don't pull you in and for me it took until Vizmia before the game opened up for me and finally the combat was very static with very limiting movement used when fighting.

What I did like was the potion creation and the preparation for battles which took place in this game. If you did not prepare for a fight then you will have a difficult time so you need to research the creatures your about to face, find there weaknesses and exploit it. There are mutiple different fields which can affect different creatures differently. Potions, signs and sword styles each with there limitations and apporiate uses. It works well and this style has kept throughout the series for good reasons.

I felt the story wasn't anything particularly special but it does set the world good and is later used extremly well in the future sequel for this game.

In the end I felt this game was alright. It wasn't spectauclar but it did is job and while could've been a whole lot better it wasn't bad for the start of a RPG series which I consider some of the best games of this and the previous generation.

Count me in this month! Been meaning to jump into this one for some time. :D

We've always been pretty laissez-faire, so go ahead and do whatever works best for you. Post your impressions anyway!

I'm planning to start this up as soon as I finish Nier: Automata, which should be within the next couple of days. It'll be my first time playing a Witcher game, so I'm pretty excited about it.

Started this today. Played about 7 hours total and stopped after getting out of the prison/sewer in Chapter 2.

First impressions: So far it kinda just feels average. The plot's holding my interest, but sheesh the combat is a disaster. I can ignore the issues during quick encounters, but sometimes when I'm fighting a handful of enemies, Geralt just decides not to attack no matter how many times I click. I've actually died because I spent so much time trying to get Geralt to attack a target that all the enemies whittled me down. Other than that, so far almost none of the enemies have posed a serious threat to me except for the Chapter 1 boss which basically amounts to "Hope you got that 'Immunity to Pain' upgrade or you're gonna get stunlocked!" Fortunately the ratio of combat to everything else has been pretty low so far and I'm kind of hoping it stays that way. Maybe I'll switch to the top-down mode and see if that works any better.

I'm also kind of struggling to get into the fantasy world. There's nothing wrong with it--I think I'm just personally at a point where every post-Tolkien fantasy feels the same. There's definitely plenty of original stuff in here, like the whole concept of Witchers and the Northern European folklore influences, but when I enter the first village and see a dwarf blacksmith, I feel the trope checklist going off in my brain.

I definitely don't dislike it, though. The individual characters are interesting, and even though the mechanic of seducing everything with a vagina feels weird, it makes for a funny metagame.

First impressions from about 3ish hours in (give or take the time I was afk), currently in the outskirts of the first town:

Combat is bad. Much more manageable in mouse mode than it is in keyboard mode, but still not great. To be honest it's one of the most off-putting combat systems I've worked with in recent years so that's obviously dragging my opinion of the overall thing down.

I'm not hooked on the story yet but I have enough questions and curiosity to continue playing. I mean I know his memory won't come back but I want to know more about the Witchers and this neat world and stuff.

I'm going to attempt to play through to the end even if it doesn't catch me though, since I do also plan on playing the second and third and some point and I've heard choices carry through and can backfire drastically haha.

First impressions from about 3ish hours in (give or take the time I was afk), currently in the outskirts of the first town:

Combat is bad. Much more manageable in mouse mode than it is in keyboard mode, but still not great. To be honest it's one of the most off-putting combat systems I've worked with in recent years so that's obviously dragging my opinion of the overall thing down.

I'm not hooked on the story yet but I have enough questions and curiosity to continue playing. I mean I know his memory won't come back but I want to know more about the Witchers and this neat world and stuff.

I'm going to attempt to play through to the end even if it doesn't catch me though, since I do also plan on playing the second and third and some point and I've heard choices carry through and can backfire drastically haha.

The combat almost had me bouncing off it as well when I played it years ago. I think it's because with nearly every other game of this type, medieval fantasy rpg, the combat takes the form of "free form hack & slash" whereas here you don't expect it to be essentially a rhythm game. I won't defend it as being a great system, but I will recommend sticking with it a little bit further to at least improve your spells and alchemy, by then you might be enjoying the combat a bit more. It's a strange combat system for sure, but at its best it does give battles a decent flow to them, at its worst, especially at the beginning it's just an unintuitive mess.

For me as well The Witcher is retrospectively a game I could say falls victim to its own hype. It's a great game, as in the developers knew what they were making and put time and effort into making it, but over the years with the series' very high profile sequels have given the first game a much grander image than it really has. I know I was surprised at how restrictive the game was, it feels very fenced in (literally) and that combat style really had me thinking "this is what people fell in love with ?!". I ended up enjoying my time with it, but it really had me working for that enjoyment at the start.

I know people have been complaining about the combat since the game first came out ten years ago, but I didn't mind it. I didn't think it was amazing, but it worked fine for me. It definitely is a bit weird and takes some getting used to though. I imagine it's much harder if you have the timing indicators disabled (I think the highest difficulty might do that?), because if you can't time stuff right and land longer combos you effectively do no damage.

Aside from that, I thought it was pretty great. The intro/prologue/whatever they call the first bit before chapter 1 officially starts really didn't do much for me, but once the game actually got going I got progressively more into it the more of it I played. I really appreciated the grey morality and consequences of actions having just come off of playing BioWare games like KotOR for the first time before I played The Witcher, and while it does have some fairly standard fantasy stuff in it I found it a lot more interesting than the usual generic stuff because of the heavy Slavic folklore influence, which you rarely see, and the tone. I read all the in-game books and everything I could find just because I wanted to know more, unlike something like the Elder Scrolls games where I just find most of them incredibly boring.

It definitely does have its flaws and isn't as well put together or polished as their later games, but I still liked it a lot.

Snapped this screenshot: Vivaldi's beard kept flipping around like there was a bird nesting inside it and trying to get out. Gave me a good chuckle.

The combat almost had me bouncing off it as well when I played it years ago. I think it's because with nearly every other game of this type, medieval fantasy rpg, the combat takes the form of "free form hack & slash" whereas here you don't expect it to be essentially a rhythm game. I won't defend it as being a great system, but I will recommend sticking with it a little bit further to at least improve your spells and alchemy, by then you might be enjoying the combat a bit more. It's a strange combat system for sure, but at its best it does give battles a decent flow to them, at its worst, especially at the beginning it's just an unintuitive mess.

For me as well The Witcher is retrospectively a game I could say falls victim to its own hype. It's a great game, as in the developers knew what they were making and put time and effort into making it, but over the years with the series' very high profile sequels have given the first game a much grander image than it really has. I know I was surprised at how restrictive the game was, it feels very fenced in (literally) and that combat style really had me thinking "this is what people fell in love with ?!". I ended up enjoying my time with it, but it really had me working for that enjoyment at the start.

It just feels... weird. Like Diablo but not as polished. I'm starting to get used to it after playing a bit more today. Not super enjoying it (there's a lot of going back and forth for quests which is never REALLY fun) but still interested enough. I have a feeling it'll get better, story-wise at least.

It just feels... weird. Like Diablo but not as polished. I'm starting to get used to it after playing a bit more today. Not super enjoying it (there's a lot of going back and forth for quests which is never REALLY fun) but still interested enough. I have a feeling it'll get better, story-wise at least.

The first i played this i was like this is hard to handle in batle, but then i used the over the shoulder view and just use the keyboard and it felt more playable for me that time.

More glitchy fun:


Geralt decided to cosplay as Ghostface. Went away after I loaded another area, but I still spent a good half hour like this while turning in quests in Vizima.


Part of the same glitch, every time I ran Geralt had a lovely axe tail behind him.

Still liking the game well enough, but also questioning a lot of choices and bugs. I've had to train myself to Quicksave every 5 minutes in the Swamp because it keeps crashing in there. Frustrating, but I've yet to lose a lot of progress to it. In Chapter 3 right now, hovering around a 6/10 at this rate.

Count me in, I like this sort of "challenge" or pick of the month to complete a game.

I might give this a try again soon, now that it's game of the month.

It has been a while since I played this. Only played it for 47 minutes before I gave up with the combat. Too soon? Maybe.


I have a friend who has been telling me to play it through because he thinks it's the best witcher game ever. There's a lot of games on my "I need to play this ASAP" -list so I can't give any promises of actually finishing this one. It couldn't hold my interest for even an hour last time, so I don't know how it would be any different now.

I might give this a try again soon, now that it's game of the month.

It has been a while since I played this. Only played it for 47 minutes before I gave up with the combat. Too soon? Maybe.


I have a friend who has been telling me to play it through because he thinks it's the best witcher game ever. There's a lot of games on my "I need to play this ASAP" -list so I can't give any promises of actually finishing this one. It couldn't hold my interest for even an hour last time, so I don't know how it would be any different now.

If it helps, the first hour or so is easily the weakest part of the game, in my opinion. That doesn't mean you'll necessarily end up liking it or finish it, but as someone who almost didn't stick with it past the intro, I'm glad I did.

If it helps, the first hour or so is easily the weakest part of the game, in my opinion. That doesn't mean you'll necessarily end up liking it or finish it, but as someone who almost didn't stick with it past the intro, I'm glad I did.

I'll try to play for longer than an hour this time. And if it does get better, I guess it's worth a try at least. As long as it doesn't take 10-20 hours like in FFXIII.

I'll try to play for longer than an hour this time. And if it does get better, I guess it's worth a try at least. As long as it doesn't take 10-20 hours like in FFXIII.

I concur with nalgas, the combat in the game really doesn't provide a good first impression, but it shouldn't take 10 - 20 hours to start gaining momentum though. If everything goes well, there will come a point where the combat starts to click and feel more engaging, and from there your options will expand and combat becomes more varied. 1 hour really isn't enough to let that happen though.

I concur with nalgas, the combat in the game really doesn't provide a good first impression, but it shouldn't take 10 - 20 hours to start gaining momentum though. If everything goes well, there will come a point where the combat starts to click and feel more engaging, and from there your options will expand and combat becomes more varied. 1 hour really isn't enough to let that happen though.

Also aside from that part of it, I just didn't find the starting/tutorial area very interesting even if it's a very important location lore-wise. I felt more engaged once I got out into the world and started exploring and investigating things myself.

I might give this a try again soon, now that it's game of the month.

It has been a while since I played this. Only played it for 47 minutes before I gave up with the combat. Too soon? Maybe.


I have a friend who has been telling me to play it through because he thinks it's the best witcher game ever. There's a lot of games on my "I need to play this ASAP" -list so I can't give any promises of actually finishing this one. It couldn't hold my interest for even an hour last time, so I don't know how it would be any different now.

Oh hey dat's me

Try to at least make it to Chapter 2--I know that's a pretty big commitment on its own since it took me about 7 hours to get through Chapter 1, but if you can make it there, it's worth continuing. It gets progressively better, but it is a VERY slow burn. If you get overwhelmed by the harvesting/alchemy/spell mechanics you can honestly just ignore them entirely (at least on Normal difficulty). I'm going into Chapter 5 and I've managed to get by with just the basic health potions and the night vision potion for caves. Now maybe there's a huge difficulty spike at the end, but considering I haven't died since Chapter 1 when I was still figuring out the styles, I think I'm in the clear.

After putting a couple more hours into it the game's starting to grow on me. I wish it would've started this sooner but oh well.

Still not past chapter 1. Currently going to find... Mikal I think his name is, so I can gain his trust and get closer to getting into the city. Game's crashed on me a couple times which is annoying and hasn't helped me get any farther haha.

Also Geralt doesn't screw around. In the sense that he really REALLY does. With like every talkable character with boobs. Why not when the Witcher process makes you infertile, right? xD

After putting a couple more hours into it the game's starting to grow on me. I wish it would've started this sooner but oh well.

Still not past chapter 1. Currently going to find... Mikal I think his name is, so I can gain his trust and get closer to getting into the city. Game's crashed on me a couple times which is annoying and hasn't helped me get any farther haha.

Also Geralt doesn't screw around. In the sense that he really REALLY does. With like every talkable character with boobs. Why not when the Witcher process makes you infertile, right? xD

Infertile and immune to disease, which I guess has to count for something?

I had a hard time before, I could not play for more than an hour.
But now that I've given it a second change, its not so bad actually, I think I got the hang of how combat works.

Oh and btw, spanish voice acting is abysmally awful. English voice, spanish subtitles is the way to go.

After putting a couple more hours into it the game's starting to grow on me. I wish it would've started this sooner but oh well.

Still not past chapter 1. Currently going to find... Mikal I think his name is, so I can gain his trust and get closer to getting into the city. Game's crashed on me a couple times which is annoying and hasn't helped me get any farther haha.

Also Geralt doesn't screw around. In the sense that he really REALLY does. With like every talkable character with boobs. Why not when the Witcher process makes you infertile, right? xD

Brings up an interesting question, how do you all feel about the whole "sex as a reward" aspect? in this game specifically and in general.

Maybe it's too early to ask that question if people haven't played enough to really encounter much of it but I'll put it out there anyway.

Brings up an interesting question, how do you all feel about the whole "sex as a reward" aspect? in this game specifically and in general.

Maybe it's too early to ask that question if people haven't played enough to really encounter much of it but I'll put it out there anyway.

More often than not it plays out like one big joke, honestly. This game is no exception so far, except with Triss.

It's like... when you say a word too much amd it loses meaning. Being able to sex all the women in games has reached that point I think. There are some exceptions, like when there's an actual relationship and character development.

The bed encounter with Triss in the prologue feels like the exception this time cause it's obvious that there was something meaningful there before he lost his memories, but the rest? Nope.