The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review
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Writing and Sound Determined not to repeat the mistake of a butchered English script that lead to the Enhanced Edition patch for The Witcher, The Witcher 2 was written in English from the start and it shows. It has a lot of fantasy-type phrases such as using (ploughing) as an expletive but it reads like it was written in English rather than localized to English, the writing flowing naturally and being of pretty high quality.
The voice acting matched the quality of the writing, my only negative note being Geralt has the tendency to be a bit monotone, though this disinterested, abrasive attitude kind of matches his personality. The characters generally talk with vaguely British accents, and combined with the unique idioms written for the game it helps immerse the player into the fantasy world. To further improve on this, the Elves have their own ancient tongue which is occasionally used for multiple lines, with translations in the subtitles. A language that often sounds very Dutch to my ears, an effective method of crafting a fantasy language by borrowing from non-English languages. Dwarves speak with unique, Gaelic accents. The sound and music overall is strong, appropriately designed for different areas and combat situations. One oddity was the music being at such a high volume at times I had to turn it down just so it wouldn't drown out the characters talking.
The writing of both the main quest and side quests is pretty much consistently excellent. In many cases, the game surprises you with unexpected turns as new facts come to light, in a politics-heavy rollercoaster of a plot that sees multiple factions turn on each other, and people aren't necessarily on the side you expect them to be on. What's more, pretty much every character, whether they take a side in the struggle or remain mostly neutral, have believable motivations, even if they're not always what they seem at first glance.
The main plot starts with Geralt being witness to and soon accused of a successful assassination on king Foltest, and soon learning of another king's death. Geralt's own motivations can be whatever you pick, either he feels justice needs to be done here or he just wants to clear his own name. Regardless, the story brings you to chase the kingslayer, who is hiding out amongst Scoia'tael, chasing him through one of two army camps and finally to a high level political gathering, where the political fate of an entire region is decided, impacted by your choices. It's a politically and morally charged story that doesn't shy away from being complex, and lacks a clear good or bad side as both sides are populated by killers and power-mongering individuals. In all the game, there is all of one new NPC who could be called (good) without too many footnotes, Saskia, and even in her case not everything is what it seems.
That plot progresses through the main quests, presented in dialog, cutscenes and texts you find. Additionally, during the main plot and occasionally in side-quests, you will recover memories of Geralt's, as he started the Witcher 1 with amnesia and at the beginning of the Witcher 2 still doesn't know how much of his past leading up to the moment he lost his memory. It's an interesting sideplot, with memories presented in a highly stylized animated side. It can be a bit jarring as they sometimes occur in the middle of conversations and the style break is noticeable, but it's yet another interesting plot woven into the tapestry.
It's a convoluted plot, but one that is interesting and draws the player into unraveling it. I feel one of the game's biggest problem is assuming some familiarity with the original game or Sapkowski's novels and some of its characters. For new players, Triss is introduced only as a naked woman lying in bed with Geralt to kick off the game. Dandelion and Zoltan Chivay, who also featured heavily in the previous game, are similarly thrown at you with little introduction. You can read up on them in your journal which somewhat mitigates the problem, but it's a lot easier to feel connected with the game's more interesting characters, such as Roche, Iorveth, Ves, Saskia or many others of the cast. The Witcher 2 does not feel the need to really explore the personalities and motivations of Triss, Dandelion or Zoltan, assuming you're familiar with them already.
There are some other, more minor quibbles. The options for sexual encounters have been reduced compared to the Witcher 1, which is fine. Instead of awkward sex cards they are now handled by awkward sex scenes. The romantic encounter with Triss in Act I compares favorably to the industry standard of 3D dolls flailing at each other, but most of the sexual encounters are just there without much of an impact. The whole theme of Geralt's sexual voraciousness is brought to a kind of unintentionally hilarious climax when you encounter a Succubus, and the weirdness of it all is highlighted as you witness her putting her hoof on Geralt's shoulder while in the throes of passion. It's all optional, and easy enough to ignore, but this isn't true for every but of corniness in this game, and it can get very corny, both in easter eggs to AD&D (an elf named Drizzt) and Lord of the Rings ("a piece of lembas"), and just groan-worthy remarks, such as a dwarf going (paraphrazed) "ah, my favorite kind of magic: lesbomancy!" These type of jokes won't appeal to everyone.
Another point of criticism is the way the game rounds up the plot. We'll talk more about the strangeness of Act III later, but let me note here that it's very exposition-heavy. Now personally I didn't mind, because I wanted to find out about all this, every sordid detail of the various plots people had going against one another. But as a rule of thumb, an exposition-dump at the tail end of a videogame plot isn't the best way to round things up. But again, if you don't care, you're free to skip it, as this game never forces you to sit through dialogue or cutscenes if you've seen it before or know it already, and you can freely pause or skip as you prefer. Finally, I want to note the game's plot depends rather heavily on happenstance. To launch Act II, the king happens to smash a priest's skull (for no real reason) against a rock which happens to trigger an older semi-broken curse while Geralt just happens to be arriving at that exact moment. It's pretty standard for fantasy plots to work this way, but The Witcher 2 stretches it to the point of snapping.
