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Geralt is an amnesiac albino anti-hero back from the dead just in time to aid his fellow witchers against an assault on their home. Despite their best efforts, these mysterious invaders make off with their most dangerous treasure. So this small band of monster hunters scatter to the four winds in search of clues to defeat the mage behind this theft, and reclaim their rightful property. Of course, other complications arise... It's a suitably epic and morally ambiguous tale to match the source material. The world of The Witcher is true dark fantasy, where people are often cruel, monsters abound, and magic is used for everything from fireballs to hangover cures. Geralt himself is a reflection of his environment, from the scars upon his face to the clothes upon his back, muddy and worn from long travels. This is not some picture perfect world, but one of barking dogs, grime, and prostitutes under lamplights.
While not as open as Oblivion or as linear as most Japanese RPGs, The Witcher offers a series of missions that follow a main plotline, which moves Geralt through a number of areas, but in each area there's a chance for side missions, exploring, and chatting up the natives. Side quests here tend to have a little more meat to them in terms of story than in most RPGs, and also often dovetail with what you're doing in the main plot, so you never have to go out of your way to accomplish them. There are also a ton of them, easily doubling the length of an already robust RPG. Conversations are the standard choose topics from a list, but everything is superbly voice acting in nine different languages (and ten different subtitles), while the choices you make will impact the flow of the game, leading to one of three endings. You can also sleep with women and score naughty cards, if you're into that sort of thing.
The action-based combat isn't Devil May Cry, but holds just enough depth to keep each fight quick and interesting. You have four types of weaponry, with your swords allowing three different styles to suit the enemy you're facing. Getting the timing of your blows right lets you score combo hits for greater damage and other effects. Mix this up with tossing around magic and enhancing your abilities with potions means even the most fearsome monsters will fall to your blade. Aiding this is the game's unique character customization, where each level up grants you tokens to spend on many abilities, from greatly enhancing your fighting prowess while piss drunk to causing your fire spell to incinerate enemies where they stand. There's numerous options here, letting you build up Geralt to be the sort of fighter that's fun for you to play.
Visually, it's starting to look a bit dated, and it's hurt by the few character models that are endlessly recycled to form the bulk of the game, but the significant characters all display a deep attention to detail that leaves them as grim as they are memorable. The towns and cities are gritty, and feel like something designed as real locations first, instead of being a flimsy backdrop to already scripted gameplay as happens too often in the game world. Though the look could have benefited from a superior lighting engine to cast deep shadows and bring these settings to life. Sounds clank in all the right places and the music is haunting, building towards drama and fading into the background in quiet moments. It's no Crysis, but it doesn't disappoint.
If you enjoy RPGs with a rich fantasy setting, The Witcher should already be on your shelf. It's a game that shows a truly mature, well crafted, engaging story that's well beyond the usual watered down, kid friendly, clichéd nonsense that passes for a plotline in too many games. It also keeps to a quick pace and cunning action that never gets boring, allowing you to progress your personal version of Geralt at just the right pace to keep the enjoyment going over its extended length. If any of this has any interest to you, you're doing yourself a disservice by not giving it a try. |
