The Witcher 2 Storyline Discussion

[nnecron]

I was recently reading various reviews of The Witcher 2 Assassins of kings while thinking that nobody would be able to point out any kind of significant flaws in the storyline. But to my surprise, some of them did, and they are not some kind of trolls or anything. They are only few of them, but their opinions matches almost exactly.


Their general complaints are as follows:
1. If Gerald has amnesia, how come he remembers about various kingdoms and their respective leaders, as well as other things he couldn't have known? It is inconsistent.

2. The story throws all these names and technical terms at me, but most of them are either appeared only briefly with little explanation, or not explained at all. For example, why are the Nilfgardians are hated by so many people?
3. The story tends to be talky and uninteresting.



I'll try to make some counter arguments for these issues they addressed:
1. Being an amnesiac person does not mean losing his memory entirely. Google the words "amnesia definition". It'll say PARTIAL or total loss of memory or a GAP in ones memory. The critics said the nature of his amnesia is inconsistent, but I’ll say its false, since his loss of memory is related to something that defines his background like his lover/ex-lover Yennifer, Letho, or anything that he had personal attachment with. His background as a Witcher was revealed in the first game. Even though Gerald said "I remember nothing", he spends two days at Fort Ker Morhen before the game starts, which is more than enough time for someone in the fort to explain about Witchers. If they understand this, then I can only say that they missed some details because a lot of things are going on in the world.
Tell me if I am wrong, but I think whenever Gerald mentions about kingdoms and their leaders, it always happens after he was told about them.



2. This is the part, which I am not so confident. I am not an expert at English language since I am still learning it. All I can say is, despite of my poor knowledge of vocabulary, and the fact that I kinda got lost after the end of chapter 2, I understood the overall story. So it shouldn't be that hard to follow. I think they have explained enough to let the player know the story line, and for the main characters like Iorveth and Vernon you get to know them personally. Yes you don't get to know few characters like King Henselt or Prince Stennis since you are stuck on either side. But that is part of the replay value. You'll be motivated to play the game again because you want to know more about other characters. Plus, if you missed something along the way, you can always refer to it in the journal. I think most people who didn't enjoy the game tends to forget about the usefulness of the journal. If you have been playing RPGs since the 90s, you should know how important a journal is. Planescape did the similar thing too because it has descriptions of characters, races and monsters.

The only plot hole I found while having a good grasp on the story is that despite the fact that Philippa Eilhart has an access to the room where one of the pieces required to cure the Dragonslayer's poison is stashed, why couldn't she get it for Gerald instead of revealing its existence right after he collected the other ingredients? It didn't cause much of a problem, but it makes no sense why she was so hesitant to mention about it. Even if this was part of her scheme, it didn't buy her any extra time. And I think the new comers will be confused about the Nilfgardians.



3. I'll just say it wasn't their style.





What are your thoughts on these issues they stated? Whether you liked the story or not, you are welcome to participate in this discussion. My only wish is you guys to say something substantial and relevant.

[Pedro]

Hallo Nnecron and welcome. I played the Witcher II and gave up about halfway through. Some of the reasons were a) my machine wasn't quite powerful enough to play it without lag, which led to annoying boss fights in particular, especially agains the first big octopus-y thing, b) I didn't realise Geralt couldn't do anything when his stamina was low, making me think there were key-recognition issues as well as the lag.

However, one of the other reasons was the story. At the beginning of the game I liked it a lot, and liked the idea that it was introduced gradually and naturally, and the player wasn't spoon fed chunks of plot. It was really promising, I thought. I was looking at the game map on the internet and pieceing together the plot.

But the thing that kind of killed the game for me was that along with the frustration that was building from the lag/combat issues, was that at a point in the game I took control of a character I'd never met before (the king with the beard and the Irish accent) and was asked to make a decision (attack or don't attack the witch queen or whomever she was) which I was totally unprepared for, and as I didn't know any of the backstory, I didn't like making. That ruined the immersion for me. If I'd known more of the story then I'd have been more comfortable.

As regards the amnesia, that's fine by me. It's a valid plot device and if it enhances the story/the way of telling the story, that's cool.

As regards your point about if the story was more insopired I would have kept playing, maybe. But I'm sure the story was decent once you got to it.