#WITCHER 2 ASSASSINS OF KINGS REVIEW UPGRADE#

#WITCHER 2 ASSASSINS OF KINGS REVIEW UPGRADE#

Vigor (i.e., stamina) is used to cast spells, defend yourself, or deal damage-which means you can’t efficiently do all three at once-and after a certain level, an adrenaline meter is added, which, when filled, allows for powerful finishing moves/abilities.īattles are still fairly complex, though, in that rushing in blindly-particularly in the early game-will get you killed, even if you’ve done nothing but upgrade your Swordsmanship skills. Doing away with the three styles of the original Witcher, the game has drilled down to two main weapons: a steel sword (for humans) and a silver sword (for monsters). Or, that is, you’ll meet some of them: The game forks after the first of three acts, so while you’ll hear of rivals King Henselt and Lady Saskia (equal parts Holy Virgin, Joan of Arc, and dragon slayer), you’ll have to play through twice to get to know both.Īs for the gameplay, it’s not unique, but it’s certainly robust enough to warrant a second playthrough (on the Dark difficulty, if you dare). From there, you’ll meet old friends from The Witcher-your lover, Triss Merigold the loyal dwarf, Zoltan and the lovable lothario, Dandelion, the bard responsible for narrating your adventures-and a slew of new characters with questionable motives, from the mages Sile and Phillipa to the elven resistance fighter Iorveth. You, it seems, are suspected of the murder, and the flashbacks that make up this prologue serve both to teach you the mechanics behind the often brutally difficult combat and to reveal your actual involvement in the plot. The game’s narrative picks up immediately with your character, Geralt of Rivia, being tortured in a Temarian prison and interrogated by the recently assassinated king’s right hand, Vernon Roche. (There are a rumored 16 possible endings, and though the differences between them are subtle, there’s a sense that your choices do matter.) All the bitter political consequences and anti-heroic or tragically flawed characters make the game feel like a cross between Choose Your Own Adventure and Game of Thrones. Nor do they hold your hand, as in the Mass Effect series, where your choices are always clearly “good” or “bad” there’s no morality meter here, and sometimes all your options suck. The one key distinction is that unlike American developers, the Polish team at CD Projekt RED, working from source material by Andrzej Sapkowski, doesn’t censor out any of the violence or nudity from their medieval fantasy. For a game centered on the actions of a mutant outcast, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a remarkably normal experience that fits right in between Assassin’s Creed and Kingdoms of Amalur.

Witcher 2 assassins of kings review