Duel of the elites – The Witcher 1 vs The Witcher 2 vs The Witcher 3

Duel of the elites – The Witcher 1 vs The Witcher 2 vs The Witcher 3.

Ten years ago, the premiere of the first part of The Witcher took place. Four years later, the second installment of this noble game was released, and already in 2015 we could admire the masterpiece in the form of the third and probably the last part of the game. Which version was the best? What were the advantages and disadvantages? Let’s settle it!

Scoring as usual. The game that performs best in a given round gets the most points, and the game that is the weakest gets the least. At the end, we add up the points and choose the winner. Sometimes draws can happen.

Round I – Plot

Let’s start with the plot. Eh… It will be hard because each of these parts is supposed to be one. I like the plot in The Witcher 3 the most, mainly because there are a lot of branches, there are several ways to go through the game, and the plot itself is very long and, most importantly, not boring. I put The Witcher 1 in second place for almost the same reasons as The Witcher 3. Were the two weak? Yes, no! It had its charm, but it was relatively short to get into seriously.

• Punctation
  • The Witcher 1 – 2 pts.
  • The Witcher 2 – 1 point
  • The Witcher 3 – 3 pts.

Round II – Graphics

I guess you can guess what will win, right? And soon a million people will come here with comments “Yyyy, but why compare games from 10 years ago to games from 2015!?!?!?!”. Well, because when The Witcher 1 premiered, many other games had better graphics than it. I would compare the two to Skyrim in a slightly weaker edition, but also quite nice, and the third part … Computer killer in 2015 …

By the way, do you know what annoyed me the most in The Witcher 1? No scabbards for swords. I specifically installed an additional mod so as not to watch Geralt’s back being cut by his own blades.

• Punctation
  • The Witcher 1 – 1 point
  • The Witcher 2 – 2 pts.
  • The Witcher 3 – 3 pts.

Round III – Climate

Let’s start with what it should be. Dark, black, danger lurks everywhere. And that’s the atmosphere I remember in the first installment of this game. Although in many aspects it is worse than the other parts, the climate cannot be beat by any “Wiesław”. Two was a bit too colorful. It seems to me that CD Projekt RED focused on the beauty of Slavic nature, although they miscalculated a bit.

• Punctation
  • The Witcher 1 – 3 pts.
  • The Witcher 2 – 1 point
  • The Witcher 3 – 2 pts.

Round IV – Music

In three, Percival rocked the music. Well composed, it could certainly compete with Skyrim and I think it would win. Eh … I remembered how sometimes I turned on TES V to listen to music in the menu. I mean, well… Let’s not stray from the topic. I don’t know what to do with the first and second parts of this game, because I liked both here and here on a very similar level. Well, maybe a tactical draw!

• Punctation
  • The Witcher 1 – 2 pts.
  • The Witcher 2 – 2 pts.
  • The Witcher 3 – 3 pts.

Round V – Combat

Click, wait, click, wait, combo, click, click. The most boring combat system I’ve come across in an RPG game. The Witcher 1 didn’t do much. Well, maybe once Geralt’s fanciful animations were impressive, but these constant groans as if he had constipation? Not! Categorical no!

second part? More dynamic which I liked much more. However, there was one drawback. Until the game got an update, we were forced to use the Quen Sign pretty much every step of the way. Soon there will be some “Mati, coke from elementary school PL”, who went through the whole game with his eyes closed …

In The Witcher 3? The signs didn’t play that big of a role anymore, the combat was a bit more varied (crossbow, firecrackers (I know they were in two)), but it’s still rolling and the occasional attack. If it wasn’t for this Quen, it would probably be a draw, but so three wins with two. It is also worth noting that from the second part of CD Projekt RED gave up different fighting styles, so we didn’t have to care about what to hit with.

Since we’re on the topic of combat, it’s worth looking at potions. We only drank potions during the fight, so they helped us from the moment we wanted.

In the second part, CD Projekt RED focused on a more book edition, i.e. preparing Geralt for battle. Was it a good solution? Well, I don’t think so, because I remember the most annoying moments where, when setting the stats to alchemist, I couldn’t fight with potions, when the fight was preceded by … Dialogue. Yes! Dialogue was the biggest bane. You’re supposedly drinking potka before the fight with Letho, you’re supposedly getting ready, but then you want to hear what he will tell you about Yennefer and the story of Geralt himself, and the potions time has magically passed. You could use a save game and load it after a conversation, but was it the same?

There is nothing to write about the third, a repetition of what was in the first part, only slightly varied (improvements of potions).

• Punctation
  • The Witcher 1 – 1 point
  • The Witcher 2 – 2 pts.
  • The Witcher 3 – 3 pts.

Round VI – Dialogues

Each part of this game had its dialogues, but the funniest ones were in the third part. So why not give 2 and 1 the same amount of points, and put 3 in the highest place? Mainly because I remembered the first act of The Witcher 1 and the last dialogues with the Priests of the Eternal Fire, and those were just brilliant. The actors got into their role and really did a great job, so the only one will get second place.

• Punctation
  • The Witcher 1 – 2 pts.
  • The Witcher 2 – 1 point
  • The Witcher 3 – 3 pts.

Round VII – Side quests

I will not even comment on the latest part, because it is known that it is a masterpiece, and the side quests were almost as addictive as the storyline, but I can say a bit about the second and first.

The most important thing is that there were not a lot of side quests in The Witcher 1 (in the case of The Witcher 2 as well), but did they give any satisfaction? Eh… Most of it was running back and forth (almost like the main story, hehe) and it could be quite predictable to finish it. Jobs were mostly boring, and the bulletin board was really just about posting applications.

And the second installment of the game? There are also few side quests, but they drew me in much, much more. I especially remember the “Hangover” and “Little Sisters” quests, which were great and I liked to come back to them every time I played the game on Roche’s side.

In the third, the atmosphere of these boards was better, because apart from the orders themselves, there were also various NPC speculations, warning against something, hiring someone for something, or even references to various books.

• Punctation
  • The Witcher 1 – 1 point
  • The Witcher 2 – 2 pts.
  • The Witcher 3 – 3 pts.

Round VIII – World

The world in The Witcher 3 was big, vast and open, which allowed you to do literally whatever you wanted, from killing cows for farmers to making markers and looking for all sorts of treats.

Unfortunately, the second installment of this game was closed in this aspect. There were road guidelines and we were not allowed to deviate from them, because we ran into an invisible wall. One fared slightly better, but its world was not so vast either.

City life is also worth mentioning. There was something going on everywhere. Someone is forging something here, someone is beating someone there, two sly guys are haggling here, we just felt that this world was alive. And the best part is that we could observe it in every part of this fine game.

• Punctation
  • The Witcher 1 – 2 pts.
  • The Witcher 2 – 1 point
  • The Witcher 3 – 3 pts.

Summary

The duel was won by – who would have expected – The Witcher 3 with 23 points. In second place was The Witcher 1 with 14 points, and the final, honorable third place was The Witcher 2 with 12 points. What’s there to talk about. The Witcher 3 is simply perfect, and its previous installments compete hard with each other. In my opinion, you should play each of these games to find out how good (I don’t want to use profanity) The Witcher game is.