The Witcher: Enhanced Edition is a whole lot improved than the original one. You'll love it.
A pair of new stand-alone adventures has been added to bulk up gameplay outside of the main storyline. Just about everything seems more solid and stable, from the smooth-as-glass combat mechanics to the speedier interface.
Core gameplay is more polished than revamped, so in some cases, you have to look pretty closely to tell the difference between old and new. You still play the lank-haired Geralt of Rivia, a monster-killing mercenary known as a witcher who travels a medieval fantasy kingdom in search of jobs.
Character development is equally clear-cut and carried over unchanged from the original Witcher. Skills are purchased and buffed with bronze, silver or gold talent coins earned every time you level up. These abilities allow you to increase Geralt's basic chance to hit, along with adding special effects, such as stunning opponents or causing them crippling pain. Nobody's reinvented the wheel here, although there is a broad range of abilities to choose from that let you specialise in various areas. You can roll all of your coins into spells and turn into kind of a wannabe sorcerer. You can go for strong sword skills and become a melee brawler. Or you can do the jack-of-all-trades thing and spread your abilities across the spectrum of choices. Geralt remains a sword-twirling fighter first and foremost no matter what you do, although you can at least tweak his talents to favour preferred combat methods.
Visuals have also been renovated, albeit not as dramatically as the script. The original Witcher looked pretty good in the first place, so there wasn't as much room for improvement here. The big changes come with the colour palette, which has been made more vibrant while keeping the game's overall grim and grey atmosphere. Spell effects - particularly the fire-based Igni sign ones - practically flow right off the screen now. Basic background colours for such things as foliage and clothing have also been given more pop. Character art has been given an overhaul, while facial and body features that didn't pass muster last year have been given a once-over with additional details. Although some non-player character faces still appear almost mannequin-like, particularly common village peasants and streetwalkers, major characters now have a more realistic range of expressions. There are also more facial types, so you're not running into the same people over and over again. Geralt was pretty nimble last year, but now he twirls his swords and jumps around like an acrobat. Best of all, these improvements have no effect on game performance. This new Witcher actually runs a lot faster than the old one. Loading times have been slashed, and there are no more combat slowdowns, frame-rate hitches or pauses to bring up the interface.
Barring the initial installation bugs, this is what The Witcher should have been last year. While the original game was an undeniably very good RPG epic with one of the most authentically adult storylines to ever grace the genre, this overhauled edition has turned that near-classic into a near-masterpiece.