I was disappointed in TW2. It was a good game, actually. It was a VERY good game; most games can only dream of being this good. But I didn't fall in love with it, the way I did with TW1.
The graphics are stunning, and some of the cutscenes and special effects are really jaw-dropping. There are a lot of "Wow!" moments in TW2, and I imagine that most players will like TW2 better than TW1. But I'm not most players. I wish I were, actually, but sadly, I'm not.
The game is more streamlined this time around, and it's focused on the story to such an extent that we don't get to know most of the characters all that well. Of course, there are an awful lot of nasty characters who I don't WANT to know, and that's part of it -- there aren't very many likeable characters in TW2. But there are a few characters who seem like they'd be interesting to get to know, but we don't actually get to know them. The characters are all business this time around.
I'd love to know more about Cedric -- an elf we meet in Chapter 1 -- but he gives information here and a quest there, but he doesn't just hang out and talk. I don't feel like we got to know him anywhere near as well as we got to know, say, Vaska, and nowhere near as well as we got to know Vincent or Kalkstein. Ves is one of the few decent people on the Roche path, and although we get to have sex with her, I don't feel like we get to know her all that well. More than any other character, though.
The only people I had strong feelings for (well, strong POSITIVE feelings for; I manage to hate Henselt and Dethmold just fine
) were the characters who repeated from TW1. But even there, it seemed as if Triss didn't have much to say. And Zoltan and Dandelion had a lot to say about various quest-related things, but it didn't seem as if there was much opportunity to just hang out with them and chat. Everybody was so damned focused on business that it didn't feel as if we all had a chance to breathe. In the beginning, I'd go back to the Inn (where T, Z, and D were) to talk to them every time something important happened, but they never had any new conversation, so eventually I stopped trying to talk to them.
The thing is -- conversation is cheap. A game company can get an unpaid intern to write conversation for them.
I guess voice-acting it all is expensive, though. I got the sense that whoever wrote the game this time around knew how expensive voice-acting is, whereas whoever wrote the first game didn't know.
And I hated the interface. I wanted to be able to
click on things, not have to run over them. Geralt kills a monster the size of a house, then loses its body in the tall grass? WTF?
And I hated the flashback art. I thought it was ugly, ugly, ugly. I really enjoyed the flashbacks from the first time around, but this time around, yuck. They even made
Yennefer ugly, and she's supposed to be stunningly gorgeous.
It's a very good game -- really, it is -- but to me, at least, it didn't have the charm or the heart of TW1. (Part of the problem may be that I played the Roche path the first time around, since what he wanted to do at the end of Chapter 1 seemed more crucial than what Iorveth wanted to do. But I hated just about everybody on the Roche path, once Chapter 2 started. I've started playing the Iorveth path, and I'm liking it better. Vergen is more fun to hang around in than Henselt's camp -- I love the dwarves! -- and you get to work with Zoltan for one quest. So even though taking out the Chapter 1 bad guy seems like a more important aim than rescuing a bunch of bad guys from a prison barge, I recommend the Iorveth path.)
I thought they concentrated more on the surface -- stunning graphics and wow cutscenes -- and less on the depth and heart. And that saddens me. Depth and heart were what made TW1 such a jewel. TW2
is a good game. But I'm not in love this time around.
Edited to add:
I also didn't like the combat much this time around, whereas I loved it in TW1. I never got tired of killing things in TW1, partly because I thought the combat system had just the right level of user input and partly because Geralt's combat animations were so beautiful. Even though a powered-up Igni was very strong, I rarely used it because I loved watching Geralt use his sword so much. The grace, the athleticism, the sheer beauty -- I played TW1 a LOT, and even after many hundreds of hours with the game, I still loved watching Geralt's combat animations.
In TW1, I thought the relationship between what my fingers were doing on the mouse and what Geralt was doing on the screen was clear and precise, and it was easy to get what I wanted done. And the strong-fast-group style and steel vs. silver sword -- plus clicking at the end of every combo -- made me feel as if I had plenty of input, without making me feel as if I had to micromanage Geralt's every move. In TW2, I didn't see a clear and precise relationship between what I was doing and what Geralt was doing. It often seemed as if the animations were doing something on their own, unrelated to what my fingers were doing. And the animations were no longer gorgeous to watch. I hated rolling, so I simply played on Easy, so that I wouldn't have to. But combat was no longer the pleasure it had been in TW1.
I also really missed my favorite Low Isometric camera mode; over-the-shoulder mode makes me motion-sick. And it's hard to have a good time while you're motion-sick.
And the alchemy system! I loved alchemy in TW1; I thought CDPR nailed alchemy the first time around. Then in TW2, they decided 1) That potions could only be drunk during meditation, and Geralt couldn't mediate if there were monsters nearby, and 2) That potions would last for five minutes. EITHER #1 OR #2 would have made sense, but both together meant that potions were pretty much useless, except for scripted boss fights.
I think that TW2 is a stunning achievement in many ways. But it's an achievement that leaves me cold and that makes me feel distant from the game. I thought TW1 was also a stunning achievement, but THAT was an achievement that drew me in and made me want more. It was warm, not cold, and it drew me in, in a way that TW2 -- for all its polish -- can't do.
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