Hang on, there's more to it than that...
At this point I was pretty much willing to start writing the review for The Witcher as I thought I had a fairly good handle on everything but, as is the way with some RPGs, The Witcher might start off incredibly slowly but it comes on in leaps and bounds later on. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that the first task your set, that of getting into the castle is pretty much one massive training and levelling exercise.You learn about different combat styles, various psychic powers and other skills such as alchemy and herbalism all of which become essential if you’re going to get anywhere later in the game. But all of this is spread out in the village surrounding the castle so, as you trudge back and forth, you’ll rack up around 4 or 5 hours of playing time just to get to that point.
Keeping track of quests should be fairly simple but for some reason CD Projekt have opted to allow you to view all your past quests, completed or not. This adds to the slightly confusing and less than intuitive interface for all of your character stats, skills levelling up and all that malarkey. It’s not that the system is unusable, far from it, it’s just more work than it should be.
Click for larger imageFor example, you’ve limited inventory slots, which is fine. Duplicate items stack up in the slots as is the way with pretty much all RPGs. But to split one item off the stack, even if you’re giving it to someone, you have to have a spare slot to put that item in. Why? But gripes aside, the inventory and character screens do give you access to a massive range of options, little extras that bring loads more depth to Geralt’s character.
Alchemy is probably the biggest area where you can do your own thing and create new and exciting concoctions. For both this and herbalism you need to find books on the subject to get you started, each of which opens up the art that little bit more. But alchemy is where the real fun is at as you muck around with various ingredients to see what the mixes do. You can pick up basic recipes from various NPCs and the best thing to do is build on these to see what happens.
Click for larger imageFrom practising a bit of alchemy you can create potions to boost your damage, increase your armour, speed, dexterity… all manner of good stuff. And if alchemy doesn’t sound like you bag, then you can always opt to play on the easier difficulty, where alchemy isn’t so important. You can, if you like, just go and get pissed. No really, you can drink yourself into that happy state of euphoric drunkenness where, though you’ll be staggering like a sailor in a hurricane, you’ll take less damage ‘cos you’re too smashed to feel it… like I said, adults themes, yeah?
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