The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on May 22nd, 2011

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Fights cannot be won on the cuff of the moment though and some like the big bosses in the game will require you to prepare before hand. You can level Geralt down 3 disciplines of Magic, potions, and sword combat. As you level these modifiers you will have the opportunity to mutate them with mutagens to propel your stats even further for extra benefits. More preparation can be done with doing alchemy to make potions you can drink to gain super natural effects like being able to see enemies in the dark or a full resistance to poison. My minor complaint about gathering items and recipes is that you will find yourself hitting maximum weight carrying capacity often and quickly. This does make you more choose on what you want to carry around and not be a pack rat, but for those who find it cumbersome then I suggest downloading a mod to remedy this. To further your prep work for fights the game will also allow you to coat swords with oils to increase their damage against certain foes or let them restore more vigor to cast spells. Finally, you can prepare for fights before hand by crafting new weapons and armor. Geralt will have a slew of weapons throughout the game and some will be more suited to fights than others either in the form of stats or how fast their swing speed or arc is. Witcher 2 will leave you with plenty to tinker around with before and during fights, and these will become necessary as the fights will demand more from the player such as the boss fights.

Dice poker, another mini-game with a series of related side-quests, is even more annoying, due to the fact that skill can only help so much in a luck-based game.

Several quests which I had every intention of completing were permanently failed for me when I accidentally progressed to far into the main story-line. Warnings from the game? RP-style warnings via dialogue, such as (We probably won't be able to come back after this. . .)? Even the mercy of convenient auto-saves? The Witcher 2 has none of these.

Finally, travel is incredibly repetitive, as you spend lots of time in the same cities. While the cities do change and evolve, keeping them interesting, the areas around them often don't change at all, which makes running from one side of the map to the other VERY ANNOYING.

The Witcher 2 isn't without its problems but they're vastly overshadowed by everything the game does right. The main quest is short compared to other RPGs, lasting around 20 solid hours, but the experience is a thrill ride from beginning to end. Because there are two entirely exclusive paths that branch into their own unique parts coalescing into one of 16 unique endings, the replay value is high. You cannot see everything in the first play nor the second or arguably the third. Unlike some RPGs, there is no filler; The Witcher 2 is a full-course serving that will be remembered as a classic for years. For $50 you're getting a real deal: this is PC roleplaying at its greatest. Take note, pretenders, because CDP Red shows how you make a real action-RPG.

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