Steam had the entire Witcher series on sale for a few dollars. I bought everything for the first 3 games.
There was some discussion of it at the time, and folks seem to agree that the first one in the series sucks hard.
As that seemed to be the worst plan, I went with it.
Yes. “It’s rough.” I guess the engine and content have gotten some backports and extensions. I’m not sure if you could play other characters besides Geralt before, but now you can. (EDIT … Sorry, this seems to be BS. My bad.) They updated the graphics a lot. Its not great, but I think they fixed most of the really bad problems.
I don’t know about the story. Seems pretty awful. Awkward acting. Its been fun just trying to play the damn thing.
Um … I sort of like it. Gonna play some more now …
I get that people don’t like it for a wide variety of reasons. However, there are 2 things I absolutely adore about it:
The combat. Not so much the clunky clicking, but the way it strong-arms you into engaging with the alchemy and bestiary like an actual witcher would have to. Witchers don’t stand a chance against most of the monsters they fight without those stupidly potent potions and acute knowledge of their weaknesses.
The atmosphere. The game may be ugly up close, but every single map, every environment oozes with dreary medieval vibes or swampy fantasy. I don’t even think I can say that it’s good “for a low budget game” because the atmosphere stands the test of time. The developers had an idea for how the game should feel as soon as they started designing it and it shows.
I went back to play the first 2 games before replaying the third and finally finishing CP2077 a few years ago because I wanted to see how CDPR’s skills changed, and honestly? They haven’t, at least not in regards to making a game immersive. The only thing that’s changed is the budget and scope of their games because holy hell I’ll be damned if every one of CDPR’s major releases hasn’t been among the most immersive video games ever created.
Your first point is why I often recommend playing the third game on the highest difficulty setting actually. It’s so much fun to actually use the ointments and oils and shit.