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You can pretty much select up to three potions and call it a day, or if you spec into alchemy you can take an additional one, but even then there's no real risk in drinking potions. As I mentioned, you could die from drinking too many potions, now the toxin meter just serves as a gauge or allowance of what you can drink without any risk. No more freewheeling and drinking potions when you wanted to, you had to do it before any sort of encounter which to be fair is maybe more fitting to Geralt since he would realistically drink them beforehand, allowing him to measure something without the risk of overdosing, but even that is nonexistent. So how is it handled in W2? It's painfully watered down and reduced to a feature you can ONLY use during meditation. Whether you just drank a few and had a disoriented effect on your screen or really push it and just straight die from potion toxins, it was something you REALLY needed to be mindful of during gameplay because if you lost track you could have just killed yourself without noticing. It was a great risk vs reward system since despite Geralt being a mutant he still had a sense of mortality in regard to his potion consumption. Previously it was a juggling act where you could take potions at your own leisure with the caveat being you gain toxicity meaning you had to balance whether you wanted to have a slight edge over enemies or just heal vs slowly poisoning yourself. One thing that does bug me the most is how they handled potions. Overall, it feels more lively than the static sit in place and slap an enemy until it eventually dies method introduced in the prior game, essentially having you embody some of Geralts movements, which is refreshing. You could pretty much jump between enemies rather fluently, striking them from behind, landing a critical hit or stunning them for an insta kill that gives you a cinematic kill animation as per 2011 standards. They decided to introduce movement that flowed well in large areas and with this movement came a better flow when it came to using swords, magic, and throwing weapons like bombs and newly added knives. The combat in W2 is by in large functional, but not overly complicated. The combat in this game is a MAJOR improvement from its predecessor, and honestly I think fans of that game can agree that it's probably one of the most divisive combat systems for a game which yes, I got use to but even adjusting to it barely gives it a pass for criticism. Granted I want to preface this review with the idea that this game was released in 2011, a time when a lot of trends infected games such as QTEs and rather saturated appearances which is the case for this game, but I can sort of let that slide since again 2011 was ripe with that kind of design and aesthetic and if it wasn't for the vastly improved combat and superb writing that CDPR has become known for I could probably shrug my shoulders, but I won't. So, what did The Witcher 2 improve? Honestly, it made a lot of excellent changes and some questionable ones. When I reviewed the first game, I made sure to list a lot of what made the game feel so painfully janky/antiquated. When it comes to sequels I usually have small criteria of what to expect, such as what did they change, improve, add, or remove. This is how you combine real-time combat with deep RPG mechanics… this is what games are all about. In conclusion, this game is how you tell a mature, complex story with interesting characters and meanings to your actions. If you only play it once, you only play half the game. I don't think many developers take such a risk, as replaying this game is mandatory. You meet different NPCs, get different quests, visit different areas and can experience the main story from both sides of the opposing forces. You make an early decision and the entire rest of the game is vastly different based on your choice. They're big enough to go off and explore, but they're not vast like so many other games where half the gameplay is driving around from point A to B. I wish more games did hubs instead of open worlds. Geralt was part of the world, not just some interchangeable tourist without a backstory. I remember TW2 ruining Skyrim for me, every time I tried to play Skyrim I kept saying to myself “why isn’t this as good as TW2.” Geralt was a much more interesting character to play as than Skyrim's generic player character. While I love The Witcher 3, I prefer the hub based game world of TW2. I love Geralt of Rivia, like me when I was younger, he’s always looking for a wh*re.
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