Just out of curiosity, did you ever play the first one? When the first one came it, it was a total surprise. Here was a Polish developer putting out their first game, on the PC of all things (things have always been relatively sparse for PC games), that had a really interesting world and story. It definitely had clunkiness to it, but if you made it past the first act, the story really sucked you in. Geralt was a very interesting protagonist for me.
The second one turned out way better than the first, but I can still see your point on the clumsiness of it. I know you've tried multiple times so it's probably not for you, but I'm definitely curious to know if you played the first one at all. Also, this latest time trying it, did you try out the battle system mod the developer put out to address a lot of peoples issues? They released it after I finished the game so I never tried it out.
Nah, I never played the first one. A lot of people said that while it was a good game, it had its issues and that going with Witcher 2 was probably better. It sounds like the situation where if someone wanted to get into Mass Effect, I wouldn't recommend the first game at all, but to start with ME2 lol I haven't tried the battle mod though. What does it actually change to make it better? To me, it felt like it needed a real overhaul to be any good.
Well this looks like some of it.
overall purpose of the mod is to increase Geralt’s responsiveness and mobility
- Geralt can parry attacks while he’s walking and running (new animations)
- Geralt reacts faster to keyboard/gamepad buttons
- active block was replaced by active Quen
- during heavy battle Geralt uses pirouettes and focus (new animations)
- difficulty levels were rebalanced
- Geralt does not “bump” away from opponent’s swords when his attacks are parried which allows quick continuation of the attack sequence
- opponents explode when particular attacks are used, e.g. Igni causes opponent explosion, just like in The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition intro
- elixirs have negative influence
This video shows off the differences.