The Witcher 2 Spoiler thread.

Can you actually end the original game *with* Shani? I know I ended it with her when the time came to dictate the letter and I got the little narrated painting talking about how it was an impossible thing. Is there one where it's sunshine and roses?

I think all endings for TW1 are a downer, just some are less of a downer than others.
I'm just going to check now.

edit: No mention of Shani in my save going with her, it only deals with the orders/scoia'tael and to say the dealings with the Grand Master were mopped up, and Geralt went his own way which is another tale entirely. The TW1 relationship with Shani/Triss seems self contained within TW1.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Obviously I took the Ioreth line, partly because my carryover from game 1 was a Geralt who doesn't consider himself human so has sympathies with the Squirrels. Also because it was the line more focused on Triss, no doubt they all get to a similar place, but it seemed more in character.

Yes I decided that way too last night but I spent 20 minutes staring at the screen unsure what to do. Neither of them is really trustworthy, damnit I'm still not sure about it! I've been thinking about all day.

Finished the game the other day. The game was absolutely fantastic, went the Roche path. I think in a few months I'll give it another playthrough with Iorveth. The ending was kind of anti-climatic, but TW3 should take care of that.

So I beat the game. The vibe I got was Be sure to eat your Ovaltine. Tune in next week when all of this sh*t about The Wild Hunt is fleshed out.

To people who have not read the books does all of the last act and Nilfgaard make a lick of sense?

I walked away wondering why the game lacked the highs of the detective work or confronting the Hunt had in the first game.

So I beat the game. The vibe I got was Be sure to eat your Ovaltine. Tune in next week when all of this sh*t about The Wild Hunt is fleshed out.

To people who have not read the books does all of the last act and Nilfgaard make a lick of sense?

I walked away wondering why the game lacked the highs of the detective work or confronting the Hunt had in the first game.

KingGorilla wrote:

I walked away wondering why the game lacked the highs of the detective work or confronting the Hunt had in the first game.

I've seen similar opinions around, and I agree that in many aspects TW1 is still a very good game and depending on your opinion may be better than TW2 still.

I am loving this game at the moment. So many RPG's promise game changing decisions but this one really seems to deliver. Iv'e had a couple of instances where I've actualy walked away from the keyboard for a bit to ponder what I wanted to do, try and second guess the ramifications of my choice. As much as I love the setting and action of Mass effect and the KOTOR games this is not something I've found myself doing before.

Spoiler:

Do I allow the rapist king to be killed and risk the lives of innocents who may perish in the civil war/power vacuum that will follow? But then who could bear to be rulled by a rapist? But then aren't they all as bad as each other? Is it hypocritical to just stop at one? And aren't king killers the bad guys in this game?

Spoiler:

And later do I try to save Triss at the risk of losing the country?

As for QT events I was worried by them at the start but have been pleased to see they are few and far between and implemented for cinematic effect rather than a constant gameplay dynamic. Also it makes fist fighting more fun than the duck, punch, repeat of Witcher 1.

Good:
-Setting/world is beautiful and well realized
-Handful of interesting characters I cared about (Triss, Saskia, Geralt, the Dwarves, Iorveth, Roche)
-Humor (Trolls!!!)
-Combat is challenging and interesting in the beginning
-Crafting/Item management really doesn't make much difference

Bad:
-Kayran and Dragon boss fights were at best confusing and at worse terrible (hit animations causing Geralt to take extra hits, unclear objectives, QTEs)
-Triss/Letho storylines drop off the face of the map in the second Chapter, which is 40% of the game (Iorveth path, at least)
-Combat is trivial by midgame (heavy swordsman path with Quen buff)
-Crafting/Item management really doesn't make much difference

For those of you who played the game twice, which path did you prefer?

I think Iorveth's path ties into the story better, but Roche's is more background and atmosphere for the world and Geralt's occupation, a bit like TW1 ch4. I much prefered the atmosphere of Vergen, and the night and day music is great.

Agree 100% with Scratched.

Scratched wrote:

I think Iorveth's path ties into the story better

I just beat the game on Roche's path and I felt it had more relevance to the plot, or perhaps just the last chapter. You see all the other assassins, you get more of the politics because of talking with Henselt, in ch. 3 you get to impact the fate of Temeria etc. Iorveth's path focuses mostly on Saskia and that part of the story feels a bit disconnected from the rest. Even on Roche's path you can let the Dragon live so it feels like freeing her won't matter that much. Roche's character is also more developed than Iorveth's and he has more story moments, but on the other hand Vergen is definitely a better hub area.

I have to say though that I enjoyed the game more the 2nd time through and that's quite rare. This time I thought the ending made much more sense than it did the first time I beat the game (the ending put me off replaying it right away). It's great when there's enough to a game that you appreciate the story more by playing through it again. I'm tempted to play it a 3rd time since Vergen isn't as fresh in my mind and because I suspect I enjoyed Roche's path more simply because I enjoyed everything more, but three times might be a bit too much.

Finally I think all the different storytelling techniques they use in the game are great. The flashbacks, playing as different characters, playing through a memory etc. the whole game feels really inspired. Definitely GOTY for me!

edit: does anyone know why the dragon attacks Foltest's forces in the prologue btw?

kyrieee wrote:

you get more of the politics because of talking with Henselt, in ch. 3 you get to impact the fate of Temeria etc. Iorveth's path focuses mostly on Saskia

I haven't done Roche's path yet but I have to say I found the politics stuff very tiring, all the names and intrigue and who worked with who and secretly against them, bla bla bla, didn't really care about it after a while.

Saskia and Triss made the story more personal and Geralt more human, I liked the emotional consequences of the story.

(Goddamnit that's so damn female of me! Next I'll complain about math being hard! Grrrr!)

kyrieee wrote:

edit: does anyone know why the dragon attacks Foltest's forces in the prologue btw?

I do remember it being menitoned in chapter 2, that there's some common interest or alliance between the band Saskia leads and the LaValettes.

kyrieee wrote:

Even on Roche's path you can let the Dragon live so it feels like freeing her won't matter that much.

That was tough for me on my replay. 'I' knew the Dragon's secret, but 'this' Geralt didn't so killing the Dragon seemed the only obvious thing. A mind-controlled Dragon available to the sorceresses seemed like a seriously bad idea.

It's weird how in such a limited RPG series I take the 'role' playing part so much more seriously than those with more choice.

Argh, I need to finish my second playthrough. Too many other things to play are out right now. One of these days. I know I'm at least half way through it.

43 hours later, I just wrapped this bad boy up. Mostly Roche's path (let him kill Hanselt, but saved Iorveth, I also picked Triss at the end).

I'm definitely feeling like I'm missing parts of the story. I certainly want to play it again with different choices.

My only confusion is about some itemization in the game. Often times the game gave me upgrades all at the same time, but I usually got the better item first, then just slightly lesser item(s) closely behind. Very confusing.

--Edit--

OMG. I just found Enzio's (?) body in a broken cart of hay and Geralt proclaimed: "I guess they never learn."

There are two things I'm still a bit confused by.
First thing is, I don't think you can find any evidence that proves that Stennis poisoned Saskia so it's never clear who actually did it. Right before the summit in Ch. 3 there's one of those animated sequences in which Geralt says that Stennis poisoned her, at least if you lynch him, but that could just be Geralt saying what he thinks and not stating it as a fact. The journal entry for "Vergen Besieged" says something else however (after you've completed it):

"Philippa had not only feigned being the Dragonslayer's friend. While treating her, she had poured her own venom into Saskia, a venom that affected the mind, not the body.

Among Philippa Eilhart’s abandoned possessions, Geralt learned a shocking truth. It turned out it was the sorceress that poisoned the Dragonslayer!"

The last sentence makes it sound like Philippa poisoned Saskia, but at the same time the journal refers to the mind control thing as a poison so it could be talking about that. Maybe we can cough it up to a translation error (not entirely unlikely since there's another error in the same sentence, 'that' should be 'who'). I also don't know if Philippa knew about the dragon until Saskia was poisoned.

Second thing!
If you follow Roche's path you meet Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen when you get back to the Kaedweni camp after the curse shows up. He asks you some stuff about Triss and if you ask him why he's asking he says he just received an interesting figurine and something like "even a witcher would be interested in the beauty contained within". I don't know the exact line but it's very obvious what he's talking about.

However, later on in Ch. 2 Roche spots the miniaturized Triss when the Nilfgaardians emerge from the mist. It seems like a slip up in the writing because Shilard obviously did not have Triss and apparently she wasn't in the figurine because then Roche wouldn't have seen her. Maybe Shilard knew Triss was captured when he spoke to Geralt (because she should've been at that point) but it's a bit of a stretch.

I suspect the investigation is like the one in TW1 ,where you can mess it up. Also I think they would be taking certain liberties for the sake of the plot. Philippa also mentions (during Ch3 I think) that she only decided to mind control Saskia when Geralt said he had a rose of remembrance, it was just taking an opportunity and added it to the poison cure.

Regarding Triss, I remember one cutscene, probably on my Iorveth playthrough and I took the choice to rescue Philippa rather than Triss, and there was a cutscene where the Nilfgaardian restored her from the statue with another sorceress.

I'm not 100% sure the Iorveth/Roche paths are consistent. It might be that the two paths are different in the events around Geralt, and you're not just taking different paths through events playing out exactly the same, if that makes sense.

Just beat it.

Sided with Roche pretty much the whole way through. Killed the dragon. Rescued the King's daughter and faught Letho at the end. It had been a long time between starting and finishing chIII so I forgot quite a bit. There is definitely too much political intrigue about people with confusing names. Witchers are supposed to avoid politics and be all about monster slaying. Not enough monster slaying for me but there is a lot of political intrigue. I do find it intersting how Letho pretty much abondonded the Witcher creed and actively engaged in politics but so did Geralt.

Need to replay this while making different choices and playing through using mostly magic (went swordsman).

Vector wrote:

Just beat it.

Sided with Roche pretty much the whole way through. Killed the dragon. Rescued the King's daughter and faught Letho at the end. It had been a long time between starting and finishing chIII so I forgot quite a bit. There is definitely too much political intrigue about people with confusing names. Witchers are supposed to avoid politics and be all about monster slaying. Not enough monster slaying for me but there is a lot of political intrigue. I do find it intersting how Letho pretty much abondonded the Witcher creed and actively engaged in politics but so did Geralt.

Need to replay this while making different choices and playing through using mostly magic (went swordsman).

Nice! I played with Roche my first playthrough too. I'm maybe 3/4 through a second playthrough going with Iorveth, but I haven't played it in awhile. Each playthrough has been really different. Totally worth playing through a second time on hard. Also, I actually got to play all the DLC stuff my second time through because it wasn't broken like when I played it right after the release. That troll mission was fun.

I went really heavy into magic my second time after playing swordsman the first time. It's worked out well. When you fully upgrade the Quen sign, it starts doing damage to multiple enemies when they hit you. It rocks.

As far as the politics go, you pick up a bit more when playing through the second time. One thing I missed while siding with Roche was the part about. It's hinted at way more in the Iorveth path:

Huge spoiiler if you missed it regarding the dragon:

Spoiler:

Saskia is the dragon Saesenthessis that you killed.

I was probably just a little thick headed and didn't think about it much my first playthrough. There are a few hints dropped even when you side with Roche.

Too lazy to read through this thread right now, but just wanted to say I finally got around to playing and finishing Witcher 2. I enjoyed it, but feel about the same as I did for the first game: these guys are good, but far from great, storytellers. There's so much talk of various territories and rulers, and no way that I actually can understand who or what they're talking about. It takes time (at least for me) to understand the politics of a new universe, and all too often in this game they'd refer to somewhere, something, or someone in a way that was much too brief for me to have a clue.

There were also a few similar moments not related to the politics-end of the stories, e.g. Geralt's conclusions from his returning memories. After a couple of these I honestly wondered if the right one had played, as he said things that made no sense to me, and made conclusions that seemed out of no where.

Anyway, still enjoyed it. Although mostly disappointed that the ending didn't follow through on the promises made during the game (Geralt and Triss were supposed to run away together - wtf ending?).

I can appreciate that, TW2 seems to be part of (at least) a trilogy, and the games are based off books with a pre-existing history. The other thing is that unlike a lot of games with a blank-slate character, even with the amnesia, Geralt has a fairly detailed pre-existing history. There's a far amount to read in the journal for TW1 and TW2, but after that it's off to the various wikis.

I think I had heard somewhere that there was other media covering this character, but had assumed it wouldn't be required reading to understand what's going on here. I suppose it's not required, and perhaps if I looked up all that's available there might be some inconsistencies or plot spoilers, but I do feel like I was just not getting all the info I should have within the game itself to really understand what's going on.

I think that's purposeful and it's one of the things I enjoyed about the game. There are constant references to things that haven't been introduced or that are just mentioned in passing and the reason I like it is that it avoids some of the artificiality of having long monologues about lore or having your character ask questions about things he'd reasonably know but that the player doesn't. It does make you uncomfortable while you're fumbling around trying to get a grasp of the fiction, but if you overcome that it's more rewarding. I think I've compared it to The Wire where they throw you into the lives of this huge cast of characters and you gradually figure out what's going on through osmosis. Even though you might feel lost the first few episodes you appreciate that the show treats you like an intelligent person who can figure things out. It can backfire though because you need to have a very well developed world in order to convey anything about it implicitly. If your fiction isn't robust it'll just sound like a bunch of nonsense fantasy tripe but personally I think TW2 pulled it off. I was happy to replay the game a second time and pick up on all the things I didn't catch the first time because of my increased familiarity with the fiction.

Also, if you didn't already it's worth it to replay chapter 2+3 on the different path.

Yeah, I like when any medium provides the sense of an actual larger world than the impression that the world exists purely to present the game/book/movie/whatever. The Witcher games, and The Last Wish, do that whereas most games and books do not.

I don't recall any other inconsistencies regarding Geralt's conclusions. They may be there, but if it was glaring I'm sure I'd remember. And it's been ages, but I'm pretty sure Geralt and Triss did run away in my first game. Maybe you made a decision with unexpected consequences.

Huh, maybe I did. Ooops. *shrug*

They did walk out of the place together, but there was none of the same tone as in the beginning of the game, e.g. "let's give up this life and go away together". That part seemed to just disappear. Or I screwed it up somehow.

Ah okay, no I think you may be right then. I think the introduction of Yennifer screwed that up and Geralt feels obligated to her.

That's one thing that would benefit from reading The Last Wish. I don't think it's necessary, but will clarify things.

Ciri also gets mentioned in the games, I'm less certain that CDPR will include her in the games than Yennifer, but it wouldn't surprise me.