Best Of

Moving on - I mentioned the graphics and the worldbuilding in passing, as though it were a small token received for trading away nuance. It wasn't. This game is graphically very impressive. Locations might feel a bit more static than in games like Skyrim, but they also feel more vibrant and part of a larger whole. You never find yourself looking at the skybox going 'boy, that's nice ornamentation.' Instead, you find yourself looking at the skybox going 'I wonder when I get to go there?' _Preeeeeeettyyyyyyy._ Locations also feel like part of a larger whole because of the amount of lore. There are so many books in this game that you can easily spend all of chapter 1 broke from having simply bought them all. Side quests and easter eggs provide tons and tons of tidbits and stories that you'll find yourself hunting for more and more - not completion for completionism's sake, but completion for story's sake. _Meanwhile, some of the easter eggs are just funny._ Some of the events are absolutely mindblowing. At one point, I found myself rescuing a king by safeguarding him as we crossed a battlefield whose ghosts were cursed to continue their bloody battle, day and night. Later, in an attempt to LIFT the curse, I found myself reliving pieces of that past battle as the poor sods in the trenches - only to find that the commander, the heart of the curse, was a massive demon in his own right. In fact, getting around this cursed battlefield was the major meat of chapter 2 - not trying to find some asshole mage, or simply fighting off a monster - curing the LAND ITSELF of a massive malady. _Wraiths. It had to be wraiths._ In all, I was very happy with The Witcher 2. Some of the more glaring flaws were compensated for by the lore, story, and general nostalgic feeling I get from going back to a franchise I love (okay, I MIGHT be a bit biased). Not to mention, finishing this game represents a culmination of my original backlog, and an unlocking of two new pieces of content for me: an art book that I won at Detroit in 2012 (which I promised myself I wouldn't read until finishing The Witcher 2), and (dun dun duuuuuun) The Witcher 3! ...except that I still have the second half of The Witcher 2 to do... welp! Back in we go!