In spite of some technical issues The Witcher Enhanced Edition represents the very best tradition of the RPG genre.
After last year's critical acclaim, CD Projeket decided to rerelease The Witcher with many new additions, enhancements and goodies. Heavily inspired by Diablo, The Witcher begins with a convention and clichéd premise to start its adventure, but it quickly becomes apparent that this is a richly detailed game and in spite of some technical problems; it is one of the more compelling RPG games to be released for some time. Played from either an isometric perspective or across the shoulder, you control Geralt and must talk to townsfolk in several cities to solve quests that will earn you experience points and give you clues to the trail of Salamandra. Many of these quests are fetch tasks in that they require you to either talk to someone else in the village, kill a monster, or collect and return an item. You earn experience points by completing these quests and killing enemies, which can then be distributed on skills such as improving your attack with your sword, your magic signs or your defensive abilities such as parrying.
While this may sound highly generic – and some have criticised the world for being so – the attention to detail in all of the environments, as well as the mostly excellent voice acting and writing, create a fresh and compelling experience for the players. Each of the cities is detailed with far more authenticity than what has been seen in other games such as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It is a much darker world, where peasants and beggars lie in the streets, whores stand outside brothels coaxing you to come in and villagers complain about the miserable nature of their lives. The insides of taverns are particularly special, with drunken buzzards, gamblers and organised bare knuckled boxing matches you can take part in.
The use of a day and night cycle also adds authenticity to the world. Just as it would be in real life, when it is dark peasants will go to sleep, and during the daytime you will find them outside their houses sleeping floors and wandering around. Strangely they don't seem to mind when you come into their houses at night though. There are weather effects as well, such as rain, which can hinder how much you can see. It is also a great sight to see peasants running for shelter to avoid the rainfall. This is a game that really has some considerable charm. Visually it is well on par with the likes of Oblivion, with superb lighting and shadow effects and detailed textures throughout all the environments. The character models in the cut scenes look good too and the game claims that they are an improvement over the vanilla edition, with new animations. It is just a shame that some of the lip synching is either poor or just non-existent with some of the characters.
Much of the story is told through cut scenes and its compelling nature is derived mainly from the character of Geralt. His milk white hair and samurai like swordsmanship give a new twist to the typical squared jawed badass of most video game heroes. His snappy lines and punch attitude and frivolity towards women characterise him like a hardboiled medieval detective. The story itself is filled with many twists and turns and it is about as convoluted as a Chandler novel. It can be difficult to keep up with the intertwining relationships and characters, but thankfully your journal can keep you up to date with quests and a list of characters and monsters. The games attitude towards sex is questionable too especially with the tokens of naked women you can collect, but jaded gamers are unlikely to mind.
The Witcher's swordplay and combat is reminiscent of point and click titles like Diablo, though this feels like a much deeper experience. You have two main weapons, your Witcher sword and your silver sword. Some opponents are more sensitive to one of these weapons. Most monsters are better off attacked with the silver sword, though sometimes it pays to experimenting and see which works best. You have three stances or styles for your swords: strong, fast and group. It is highly essential that you choose the right stance to inflict the sufficient amount of damage into your enemies. It is for example inadvisable to use a group stance – used for taking out multiple opponents – on a single enemy. You will inflict must less damage. You do not have to worry about blocking since Geralt automatically dodges enemy attacks. When you click on an enemy your sword icon will turn to a flaming sword and you must click this quickly to build up your combos. These do look quite spectacular given that they were motion captured after a real master swordsman. As too do some of the brutal finishing moves you can perform when you have stunned an enemy with your magic or caused them to fall down.
The onscreen interface is superb, with the ability to either click on your sword styles on the screen, or use the keyboard to maneuver Geralt and change stances on the fly. You can also store a quick item such as a health potion to use immediately. It would have been nice though if Geralt didn't put his sword away or that he took it out immediately before a battle. The game has the tendency to drop you into conflicts after a dialogue sequence, so you have to keep on your toes. You cannot save the game at all during combat and it presents a problem in some parts of the game. At the end of the first chapter for example, you must enter a length dialogue sequence, make a choice, watch a cut scene and then enter the combat and you can't save it before the battle. If you die you have skip through this all over again. An autosave would have been highly preferable.
It is also unfortunate that as fun as the combat is, it is also highly frustrating at times. Geralt seems to lose health points very quickly, even when it appears as though the enemy has not landed a blow. There is either not enough animations or it is a serious glitch. Similarly, unless you acquire some very expensive armour, Geralt will usually take a lot of damage after a heavy battle and if players do not have health potions they can expect to wait up to five to ten minutes for their health to regenerate. As enemies get tougher towards the end of the game it can be frustrating when they inject "pain" into you – one of the games effects like stun – whereby you cannot move during combat no matter how furiously you click and enemies are allowed to stand around performing an old fashion medieval beat down on you.
The game is also marred by a series of technical problems that really should have been rectified in this Enhanced Edition. Some frequent crashes to desktop late in the game are just unforgivable. As is the lengthy delay for the save game menu to merely open when you have a lot of save games. It can take well over a minute just to open, though at least this edition claims that individual load times are up to eighty per cent faster. It is just as well because there are many load screens throughout the game such as every time you enter a house or when you enter a new area across the landscape.
The game has five chapters, a prologue and an epilogue and the campaign is likely to last most players between thirty to forty hours. Some will find great satisfaction in going back through the game and changing some of the moral decisions they made in the dialogue options. Unlike other games, these choices you make do have an impact on how people see you in the game, your relationship with them and sometimes whether they will come back to help or hinder you. The Witcher: Enhanced Edition also comes with a game guide, a short story by Andrzej Sapkowski. If you do not already have the game this is a superb and fun title that will last you for a very long time. In spite of some technical issues The Witcher Enhanced Edition represents the very best tradition of the RPG genre.