The Games Gone By Podcast
Ramblings and retrospectives from three lifelong gaming enthusiasts.
The Games Gone By Podcast
The Witcher
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In celebration of The Witcher 3’s newly announced DLC, join Adam and Austin as they return to where it all began. Originally recorded in early 2020 following the breakout success of the Netflix series’ first season, this final episode "from the vault" explores CD Projekt Red’s ambitious, bizarre, and deeply imperfect 2007 debut: The Witcher.
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Intro
SPEAKER_01Hey guys, just a couple quick notes before we begin. Uh this is actually the first episode Austin and I ever attempted to record, and you are going to be able to tell. Uh I had some issues with the mics before we started. I had to use a built-in one on my laptop. It does not sound great. We didn't really have a handle on background noise yet. Uh in fact, we didn't even know what the name of the podcast was going to be at this point. So please bear with us knowing that for this episode, and uh hope you guys enjoy.
SPEAKER_00Today's episode The Witcher.
SPEAKER_01You know, this is where I would say welcome to the first episode of Blah blah blah, but we don't know what blah blah blah is yet, so we'll have to edit. That is no. Um but this is basically my name is Adam Baskell, and this is my cousin, Austin Baskell, and we are uh huge games fans, to say the least. And this is our passion project, our foray into talking about games that we love. And the main focus of this podcast is probably going to be games that came out a while ago, because we'll never be able to keep up with the number that come out and and and the hype that happens. Do you think that's a that's a fair assessment of of where this will end up?
SPEAKER_03There's just way too many new games, is really the problem.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh both of us have backlogs that go back longer than some people have been alive, and it's just we're never going to be playing the latest and greatest thing. Uh I wouldn't say never, but probably rarely.
SPEAKER_03I was about to say, occasionally. Like we'll probably do like Final Fantasy VII. I think we'll both take that up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that could be a good one to kind of keep up with. Um but but for the most part, this is going to be games that are a few years old, and and and there's two reasons for that. One we we kind of just talked about, but the other to me is I feel uh in in this era of gaming, a lot of things kind of slip under the radar either because they there's just not enough time just to grow on one thing or it never got to the surface to begin with. And what better place to start uh with that than the first Witcher game? Uh you know, The Witcher 3 was this huge game that everyone heard of, but the first two really kind of slipped under the radar, and and Austin, why don't you talk about what really sparked our inspiration for wanting to talk about these games?
SPEAKER_03Well, it's obviously the Witcher TV show that just came out on Netflix uh at the end of last year, I think in December. And I think we both really fell in love with that show, and I didn't really know what to expect from it. I had I known a little bit about the games, but I had only played Witcher 3 for a little while, and I was very interested in the story and the world of Witcher, but didn't really enjoy playing Witcher 3. So the show was really my gateway into that and brought me to this point where I was like, hey, we should probably play all these games.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think you and I had uh both taken a stab at Witcher 3 years ago, and we both kind of had our complaints, maybe me more so than you, uh, but certainly had uh just kind of like a hard time getting into it the same way, and you know, you and I are huge RPG fans, uh, so so I was kind of surprised by that. But then, you know, you kind of talked about how much you liked the show, so I decided to check it out, and it's like really damn good. Um, the the acting, the writing, the atmosphere, the world building. Um, you know, what what do you think is uh kind of the strengths of it? Like, why do you think it grabbed us so much?
SPEAKER_03Uh, one of the big things for me is definitely Geralt as uh a character, and particularly Henry Cavill's performance of Geralt. I think he really captured Geralt in a way that I didn't really feel like The Witcher 3 like enamored me to that character a lot. But the way Cavill plays him is just the very like gruff and like I don't I don't know what it is about him, but something
Witcher S1 Show Discussion
SPEAKER_03about the way Cavill performs that character really brought me into it. I got invested in him as well as Jennifer and series story arcs and just how they all mesh together. Um I think the world building in particular is really well done. The show flashes back a lot, like it covers all these story arcs at different times, but it never really tells you when each arc is taking place, and in the beginning that can be kind of confusing. But about midway midway through the season, though, I see it's interesting because it never really bothered me once I realized that's what was happening. Like, midway through the season, it becomes very clear that these story arcs are taking place at a different time in a different order. And once you realize that it all kind of fell into place for me, and I really liked the way it was introduced.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I did find it a little confusing at first, but they do a good job kind of halfway through making it more obvious, and they weave all of these different character plot lines back into the main plot. And, you know, by the last couple episodes, you're like, okay, yeah, no, I definitely get it. Uh, with with people being like united in the same story that they had existed entirely separate before. Uh but yeah, I think the the bottom line here is that was so well done and made both of us so intrigued by this universe that we said, hey, let's let's play the games. And at first, I think we both thought, let's just play The Witcher 3, but you and I uh are a bit too nerdy to start on the third iteration of something. So we we had to see it from the beginning. And that takes us to The Witcher one, released by CD Project Red in 2007. Austin, before we get too far into The Witcher itself, you and I were looking up what other games came out that year, and man, that was a hell of a year for games.
SPEAKER_03It's 2007, maybe one of the best years of games ever. I mean, just look at this list. The orange box, which the only new game out of that was Portal, but uh Portal's a very big deal. Uh Bioshock,
The Year 2007 - Setting the scene for The Witcher
SPEAKER_03Mass Effect, Crisis, Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Uncharted, like, what an insane year.
SPEAKER_01So many games came out that year that were just uh, I mean, huge hits, uh, critically acclaimed, like, you know, it and it was really impressive to me looking over this list because I thought there's there's an element to which Witcher 1 does a lot of things better than these games, but at the same time, there were a lot of things where I was like, hmm, maybe this game was just in development too long, because I feel like looking at some of these other games, I'm like, wow, this aspect might have already been a little outdated, uh, and so on and so forth. I think the easiest comparison to make is probably the first Mass Effect game, because they're I mean, the the engine that Witcher used is actually an engine created by Bioware who did Mass Effect, so there's a lot of technical similarities there. And it really just of all the games that came out, they're two huge, expansive, world-building RPG semi-action games, right? Like it's it's a mouth, it's a mouthful, but you really need a lot of uh qualifiers to describe exactly what these games are.
SPEAKER_03It's it's kind of funny because those are really the only two games that we found that were like super direct comparisons. Like that. There's not a lot of RPGs that came out in that year. There's a lot of JRPGs that came out, but none that really go for the same goals as Witcher and Mass Effect.
SPEAKER_01That's definitely true. Uh I'm looking at the rest of this list. Um, there's none of them really have uh, first off, the the dialogue choices, right? That's a huge part of both of these games. Um and and how much impact they have throughout the story definitely kind of varies game to game. But, you know, Bioshock had nothing like that, Portal had nothing like that. Obviously, like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed and Halo have nothing like that. Um but Mario Mario's definitely had experience.
SPEAKER_03Really, really branching past at Galaxy.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and also yes, but uh you save the princess. But uh yeah, and and it really seemed like, okay, this was the era of like the FPS, right? Like Crisis, Call of Duty, Halo, Portal, like all of these games were really first person action games. I mean portal, not so much action, but you know, first person games. Um Uncharted and Assassin's Creed are third person, but are very like action-oriented. Uh this but really it was like Mass Effect and The Witcher kind of standalone in in that regard of this era. Um and they were both you'll probably get into more of this comparison later, but they were both games that took similar approaches in their sequels. To the detriment of a lot of what made the original games great in some fans' eyes, but I think it's probably fair to say Mass Effect 3 got somewhat of a colder reception than the Witcher 3 did.
SPEAKER_03Yes, definitely so. Uh but Mass Effect 2 got a much higher reception than Witcher 2. I would say.
SPEAKER_01Um why don't we go ahead and and kind of do an overview of what The Witcher 1 is all about? You know, if you've played The Witcher 3, it doesn't necessarily mean that you know anything about the first game because um both like in tone and story and mechanics, it it's a very different game.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Wit Witcher 1 is definitely a 2007 game.
SPEAKER_01Uh the the story in particular, I will say I I liked it probably more than the third in some ways, in that it stays on point, except for chapter four, which we'll get to. But basically, like you open up at Karamoran, which is kind of the the Witcher headquarters where the Witchers go through their training and they're born, or at least this uh particular school of witchers, right? Uh this is the school of the wolf, is what Geralt is is in. And he basically this this like
Story Discussion
SPEAKER_01rogue band of of like mages and and thieves and and brigands break in and they steal these these uh mutagens or mutagens. Um that's another word I don't know how to pronounce because I've never heard anyone say it out loud. Um I think it's mutagens, maybe. We'll go with mutagens. If someone wants to correct us, they are free to do so. Uh-huh. But please do the so Salamandro, which is this organization, they break in, they steal the mutagens, and they run off with them. And and uh the the head of the of the wolf school is basically like, Garrel, you gotta go get these back. Great, great simple RPG fantasy hook. They stole a thing that gives you power, it's in the wrong hands, go get them. And that really carries this game through until the final chapter. Uh there are plenty of diversions, and it's a little more complicated than that because you do different investigations, but the that's one thing I really liked was that most of the time it's hey, does this relate to finding Salamander? Okay, I'm for it. Does it not? Don't have time for this.
SPEAKER_03It's it's really true, and one of the things that they do really well is those other things that you kind of briefly mention, the the more complications, all kind of tie together. All of your like side quest and other main quests all tie back into ultimately finding Salamandra. Um even if it's something as simple as finding a missing witcher. A character you're introduced at the very beginning to by the name of Behringer has gone missing. You never actually see him, you just know that he's gone, and you're trying to find him for most of the game. And that all kind of ties back into Salamandra. So all of these other like little story arcs that they're giving you all kind of tie back into this main focus of finding these rogue mages called Salamandra. I think that's really cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you know, I'm gonna be comparing this to Mass Effect a lot. And the first Mass Effect game is one of my all-time favorite games. But I will say, what I think this game does better is really what you were just getting at. In Mass Effect, when you take a side quest, it is it is truly a side quest. It really has almost nothing to do with the main story there. Uh which in the city isn't good. Sometimes they're they're fun.
SPEAKER_03Um a lot of those side quests are really interesting and exciting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But they don't really wrap around. They'll tie in the same like the reapers or whatever. Uh in this game, I was really surprised how many of them at first seemed like they were unrelated, but eventually kind of involved a character central to your hunt for Salamandra, or kind of wow like wove its way back around to affecting something and either clearing an obstacle or creating an obstacle in your efforts to find uh you know Salamandra. So that that was really well done, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_03It it also kind of goes back to Geralt's personality traits that you're introduced to in this game. Because of dialogue choices and such, you can kind of steer Geralt in a certain way, and because he has amnesia, he doesn't know a lot about his like past and everything, so you can kind of steer his character certain ways, but he still does have some defining personality traits, and a lot of those are you know, stay on task, stay on mission. He doesn't really care about stuff if it doesn't pertain to what he's trying to do. And so it's really cool to see a lot of that stuff tie together because it makes sense for Daryl to only care about that stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then I I think part of the Witcher code is basically like you don't do a job for free. And so even the stuff that isn't completely related to Salamandra, he's like, Yeah, I'm gonna get paid for this, right? And um this what what I what I kind of like like about this series, and even though it's sort of a frustrating mechanic, you end up having to repair your gear a lot in these games and really like maintain that maintenance, but it kind of makes you realize, like, oh, maybe that's why the witchers need money for everything they do. Because there's a but between that and like the potions and everything, there's kind of a um there's like an upkeep to being a witcher, like a maintenance cost that needs to be maintained. And uh that's that's really like why they can't work for free. Like uh, I I've never read the books, maybe that's totally unrelated, but it it gave me sort of a uh in-universe feel for why some of these um mechanics exist and kind of vice versa, like a mechanical feel for why some of these uh like role-playing reasons existed.
SPEAKER_03Right, and that's always nice to see those elements combine. You know, when the story kind of serves the gameplay and vice versa, it's always nice to see. And I think it does that a lot in Witcher.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. And um, you know, go going back to Mass Effect, because I sorry, I'll be doing that constantly, but the the ch the sort of choices you get to make in Mass Effect, I think, have a lot more repercussions than they do in this game throughout the story. Which isn't to say they're necessarily not meaningful, but um there's there's a lot there's a lot of small things you can do in Mass Effect that have small changes later. And there's a couple of big things that have big changes later. In this game, there's hardly any small things that have small changes later, and then there's like a couple of big things that have small changes later. You know what I mean? It's uh Right. Like uh who did you end up picking uh of the like sort of three paths in this game?
SPEAKER_03I originally went with the order early on, whenever it was just order versus Scoyatel, I ended up picking the order, but then later in Act 4, when you kind of had to make the final choice, I went neutral and chose to stay out of the conflict, which led to some interesting stuff in act five where everyone's trying to kill you. You don't have a side because you're just in the middle, so you have to fight everybody, and everybody hates you. And it makes for some tough battles. Like, there's some tough moments there, and I don't really regret it though, because I think it was an interesting path to take when I was in that moment. I was like, I don't really want to pick either of these sides. I'm not really for either of you, and I think this is a stupid conflict, so I'm gonna stay out of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and for those listening who may not know this, basically, you have the Order of the Flaming Rose, which are kind of these religious zealots, they're all humans. They're not like inherently pro-human, but like with their clashing with the Skoya Tell, which is a group of like elven and dwarven rebels, they kind of end up becoming kind of like a pro-human organization. And um, there's multiple points in the game where you can kind of take one side or the other, some having more consequences than the other. Uh, and if you choose to remain neutral, as Austin was just saying, in the fifth act, where there's these huge battles going on in the city that you're exploring, if you picked one side or the other, then that faction's NPCs will be friendly to you. But if you stay neutral, then just everyone in the city wants to kill you. And uh, listening to Austin describe this part of the game was kind of funny to me, because at this point he was already so frustrated with many of the mechanics, and then he was just like, oh my god everything's trying to kill me now.
SPEAKER_03It was a brutal. There's this one fight at the end that I know you'll know what I'm talking about, where you're going to meet Shaney in the little makeshift hospital that she's created during this big battle. And I don't know how this went for you, but for me, like, waves of both of these factions kept coming into this hospital to kill me. And I just had to sit there and like beat all of the order, and then as soon as that was over, the Skoyatel walked in and tried to kill me too. And I was like, just please stop. Like, there were so many.
SPEAKER_01And and what's funny about that too is I think there's various points where if you picked Order, Siegfried shows up to help you, and if you picked uh the rebels, like this elf named uh Yaven shows up to help you. Triss is kind of the person who stands in for them if you're neutral, but she doesn't seem to actually show up in all of those spots, so you end up like fighting just alone sometimes.
SPEAKER_03Oh god, yeah, that whole time I was just fighting by myself. Well, like Triss was nowhere to be found. Like, thank you, Tris.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and uh the story more or less, like we said, stays on point. You eventually find out that like um once you kill Salomantra, it was like, oh, the the the leader of the order was really the one like pulling the strings. Um, which is pretty typical fantasy stuff, like, right? The big bad guy turns out to not be the actual big bad guy. Uh right, it was like, ah, there was another one all along. But the the epilogue of that game was actually really awesome to me. I really enjoyed it. You're kind of in this vision of the future in which the um the wild hunt has like destroyed this universe, which is plays a much bigger role in the third game. I mean, it's called Witcher 3 Wild Hunt. Um that they're kind of this weird phantom group that brings with it this eternal winter, and you're kind of fighting through that to go kill the new big bad guy. And um you either get Triss or Siegfried or Yavin with you doing that, depending on what you picked. Some other characters show up. There's some like visions, you know, some uh odious like visions of the future, like some some foreboding kind of things. Really well done. Um I thought it was it was a good way to close it story-wise. It kind of sets it up uh for the second one with like that cutscene at the very end that happens.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I didn't realize that cutscene tied directly into the second one until I started the second one because I thought it was a little weird the way it just kind of came out of nowhere and then ended. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. But then once I started the second one and realized that it's picking up like directly on that, I thought it was a lot it made a lot more sense. It was almost like a Marvel post-credit scene, like, ah, we're teasing this next one. Um But going back to the epilogue specifically, I really liked the way it showed all the visions and you know, all these like callbacks to these characters that you've been talking to and helping. And they would like I remember for me, certain characters would show up and like give me power-ups or potions or whatever, and like by the end of the by the end of that, I had like my whole ring of power-ups was like full because they just kept giving me stuff. And I thought that was cool because it was like all the people I helped were like, hey, thanks for helping. You know, it's it's almost like your typical RPG um ending where everybody kind of comes back and tells you thank you, or whatever. You know, it's like your final like Mass Effect 3 extended cut somewhere. Um where you're seeing all of your choices kind of matter, and I thought that was cool.
SPEAKER_01It's it's always a good feeling in an RPG when they can nail the like everything you've been doing up to this point is now going to you're going to see a payoff in some form. I think that was I mean, that was really one of the big complaints about the first ending of Mass Effect 3, was just like so much of what you had done over three games amounted to nothing at the end. Which I I think there were reasons they did that, both like technical and and just storyline-wise.
SPEAKER_03That's a whole that's a whole podcast episode to be. I was just saying, let's discuss the matter.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, you know, I would say overall, the story of Witcher One, it's solid. You know, nothing to write home about necessarily, but it it it's better than a lot of uh game stories that you play. Uh solid kind of seven out of ten sort of thing, I would say.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I never really had a problem with it. I thought it all stayed pretty on task. Act four is maybe the one moment that things kind of go off the rails a little. Uh just because I think the game is already kind of long to begin with. And it's no longer than any other other RPG, I guess, but being that I'm playing it in 2020 and it's a 2007 game, a lot of the mechanics are dated, and I I'm not enjoying playing it the whole time all the way through. So Act 4 being kind of a very standalone act, and it's really the only one that feels almost like a side quest for the whole act. And that kind of made that act kind of drag. But other than that, I think it's a very focused story that kind of drives you through plot points and brings you through some like interesting political stuff and kind of really makes you think about the world, that it really builds up the world in an interest.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think really that was just the the biggest problem with the third act, or I'm sorry, the fourth act, was that the game had done such a good job up to that point staying on point and really staying focused, that the fourth act is the exact opposite of that. And it's not even one of those moments where it's kind of like a nice welcome break. It's just like like a pointless diversion, is really what it felt like.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because I like a lot of the stories that are told in that fourth act. Uh there's like a marriage story between um some of these local townsfolk, and the sister's jealous, and the, you know, there's like a lover that there's like two, like two people are getting married, and there's a lover for the wife, and then the sister of the wife is like jealous of the wife. It's just this big, like, complicated like love thing going on. But I thought it was an interesting story, and the way it ends really caught me by surprise and caught me off guard. And so like I liked a lot of that stuff, and I liked the battle between these town folks and these like dryad races, this like other race of like fish people. Um, I forgot exactly what they were called, but I I kind of liked those conflicts. It just didn't feel like it fit into the story where it was placed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a well-done side quest diversion kind of thing, but ultimately in a game that was already starting to drag by that point, I felt it was probably unnecessary, like all of it. So Yeah, that's not entirely wrong. So, uh, you know, story-wise, I think at this point you guys probably have a pretty good impression of of what we think of it. Um so getting more into the gameplay mechanics, oof, okay. Um I wouldn't even say like There's a lot to do. There is, and it's not even that they're they're bad, but they are very 2007, and there were some moments where I was just very frustrated with it and came close to not finishing this game more than once. Uh did you run into anything like that?
SPEAKER_03Oh, god yeah. Like starting at Act 3, maybe, maybe even Act Two, like God yeah. Like, there were several times where I was like, alright, I'm just I'm done. I don't
2007 Gameplay Mechanics
SPEAKER_03want to play this anymore. And again, it's not to say that it's bad, it's just dated and playing it now, a lot of the times it felt like, oh boy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's you know, it's it's built on on the Aurora engine, which is similar to what Bioware used for a lot of these other kind of isometric RPGs, computer RPGs of the early 2000s. And the game kind of takes place almost in between that and like a third-person action. It's like really straddling that line. Uh the view is a little zoomed out for the most part. Like, I think you can switch it to a third-person view, but I found that it was just terrible and didn't work. But like, instead of just clicking on something and you auto-attacking and casting spells like a Never Winter Knights or a Baldur's Game, you kind of you switch between three different combat styles. There's like a strong style, a fast style, and then a kind of a group area of effect sort of style. And you're clicking in sequence to do these combos, and you kind of have to change it up based on the enemy, although not really enough for it to be satisfying or in-depth. And then in between those, you're kind of weaving your five magic spells. There's these five spells called signs. You basically have a force push, a shield, a fire blast, uh kind of like a stun mind control, and then like a trap you lay on the ground that kind of slows things. And and sort of the key to the combat is getting in the right positions where you're not being surrounded, which is really hard to do in a game without real dodge and positioning mechanics, making good use of your spells with your limited stamina meter, and otherwise just spamming the hell out of your sword attacks.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, part of the problem comes in in what you said with no real no real way to dodge. The combat is very much like you have to sit there and take hits, and you're going to take hits, but you don't really have enough health, I find, or the weapon the armor systems don't really give you any armor to use to help diminish that damage, so you're constantly chugging potions throughout the game. Uh potions will give you different boosts, like a swallow potion will give you a vitality regeneration boost. Um I don't remember what they all do, but I know like one's an endurance boost. Yes, some shit. Swallow AC in the dark. Yeah, stuff like that. It different bonuses, different boosts. Um but you had to get you know certain ingredients to use those, and I found I didn't always have those ingredients. And it's just a lot of like mechanics that work together, and when they're all working together correctly, it can be pretty fun, but oftentimes I found they didn't do that. Like the signs, for example, it bold of you to assume that you're using all five of them. Um because I think I just used Ard like 90% of the time, which is your force push one. I used Axie, which is your mind control one, maybe once or twice, but not enough to matter. And I I never found that many of them did much besides Ard being completely overpowered. Uh because Ard would cause a stun. And so the enemy would be frozen in place, and you can do like a finishing move, which would kill them no matter their health. And there was never any reason to not do that, I found.
SPEAKER_01Ard remains way too powerful throughout all three of these games. Um I mean, I'm talking about like the last area of the third game, I'm still just knocking like three guys down at a time and stabbing them in the chest. Like it just it stays that way.
SPEAKER_03It's it's such a broken ability, and it's what I put most of my upgrade points into. Um, speaking of the upgrade points, how did you feel the upgrade systems of this game were? I I know one of your big issues with Witcher 3 back when you played it a while back, uh, was the upgrade system. How did you find the upgrades here?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so in Witcher 1, I at the beginning of my playthrough, I was really enjoying it because I felt like you got them at a pretty decent rate, and they were pretty significant upgrades for the most part. I mean, you so it's weird, right? You basically have a bunch of different categories. You have like strength, dexterity, and intelligence, and then uh the
Upgrading Skills
SPEAKER_01the three different styles for both your silver weapons that attack monsters and your steel weapons that attack humans. So it's sort of nine paths. Okay. And then within each of these paths, you had sort of like a straight line that kind of leveled up one, two, three, four, and then horizontal lines coming off of that, which kind of further altered those things. So it was kind of up to you, like, did you really just want to get the baseline parts of like strength and strong style, or did you want to get further points in there to kind of more fine-tune it, right? And at the beginning I was really enjoying it because I felt like you can kind of play a hybrid style, you can go in kind of multiple directions at once, you really start to feel the upgrades. But also toward the end, I started to just have so many points, particularly um, you get bronze, silver, and gold depending on how high level you are. And it took it took a while to start getting the gold, and so at some point you're just like throwing brawn points in anything you can because you've gotten what you actually wanted so long ago. Uh so really by the end, it no longer kind of felt like I'm building the character I wanted. It was more of I'm getting everything, and it was more of just the order that I got it in. And uh that's that's not necessarily a bad thing, but I I'm more into systems where you feel like you made a character no one else did, or if you played this again, you could play it in a fundamentally different way. I don't know that that's necessarily the case for Witcher 1.
SPEAKER_03I think you definitely nailed it with the bronze points in particular, because at the end there, there's one ability I remember specifically that made you like more cognizant when you were drunk and fighting. And I never drank before a fight. Like I would never be drunk for fights. But I was like, guess I'll throw a point into this thing because I just have these spare bronze points that I'm not using any.
SPEAKER_01I feel like that's there because of the one story mission that like forces you to get drunk before you fight it. And if that was like too difficult, they were like, oh shit, here's something to make it better because I think it's exactly.
SPEAKER_03Like you would never be drunk in a fight for pretty much any reason whatsoever. Um it just a lot of those upgrades, like a lot of them were really useful and helpful, and I found myself picking certain paths, but like you said, towards the end, it's just like, well, I guess I'm gonna get one of everything because I have enough points. Uh, except for gold points. I found you got gold points way too late. And I only got like two gold points the entire game, I think. And I was a little underleveled because I didn't do a lot of the Witcher contract stuff, but it just I never really felt like I had gotten to see any of those gold stat stuff. And you could I know you could get them like through potions, but I never had the materials for the potions, and so it was like the gold felt almost completely useless, whereas I was picking up stuff in bronze that I would never need.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So towards the end there, I kind of felt like the the balance fell apart on the upgrades. But I agree with you at the beginning, it it made a lot of sense and was really fun to progress.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. By the end, it really did kind of lose a lot of its luster. I I just did appreciate that it was kind of letting me go into different areas because and when we do our Winter 3 podcast, I will I that'll be three hours of complaints for a game I still otherwise loved. It'll be an interesting one. Um I I it wasn't particularly frustrating toward the beginning and toward the end. I wouldn't say it was frustrating for me, but it was just a little like eh meh. Like a game to level, cool.
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, it it just started to lose its luster. Something I had much more problem with though was the way equipment was handled. Uh, particularly your swords and I had upgrading.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I have very little good things to say about the equipment system in this game.
SPEAKER_03It sounds like you feel that way for most g most of the games in this uh series.
SPEAKER_02You know.
SPEAKER_03We'll get to that. But particularly here, I felt that you were often given equipment at the beginning of the game. For the first three acts,
Equipment Progression
SPEAKER_03really, whenever you defeat somebody, they would drop a sword or an axe or something, and you would go to pick up that weapon, and it would say, like, ah, minus 10% damage, or minus 20% damage. Like, every weapon that you could pick up was objectively worse than your starting weapons for over half of the game. So, me as somebody who plays RPGs very much loot-driven in general, I would say, I would expect to pick up a weapon that would be better than my previous weapon. So I never spent a lot of time upgrading with like the meteorites or any of the like upgrade items that you collected throughout the game. I was waiting for a better weapon to upgrade to make even better. Yeah. And that just never came for most of the game, and that was infuriating.
SPEAKER_01Well, and the worst part is that's not even how those upgrades work, and you wouldn't be able to tell. Really, what it is, is it's like, hey, here's a way to just improve your two starting weapons. That's the only ones you can use them on, right? Like they just become meteorite this or like runeforged this. And then towards that, that really isn't clear. And not only that, this, you know, we kind of talked about this before we started recording. This game has like all the signs and tells of a loot-based game, and then it's just not a fucking loot-based game. Like, it's it's so weird.
SPEAKER_03It's it's really awful, honestly, to me, where it feels like I'm constantly managing my inventory and like picking up loot, but like 90% of it is useless, and none of the weapons and none of the upgrades like really matter until late in the game. And I just could not fathom why the game was designed that way.
SPEAKER_01It really seems like a system they didn't get to implement as as thoroughly as they wanted to. I mean, toward the end, you get like the best suit of armor in the game. It said, like, oh, there's an extra secondary weapon slot. Okay, the secondary weapons in this game don't do anything. You can pick up It's like, hey, you can pick up an axe, which is supposed to do more damage, or it's supposed to break shields or something like that, but you can't use your witcher styles for any of the secondary weapons. So immediately you're like, okay, these aren't gonna do any damage, I don't know why I'm gonna use them. And then on top of that, you you can't like upgrade those weapons, you don't get any of your stat bonuses to any of those weapons, because half of the bonuses you're getting in damage are from upgrading your strong style and your group style and stuff. So it's like, okay, I can't use this against monsters because it's not silver. I can't use my Witcher styles, I'm not getting any upgrades. Like, why does this exist? I don't think there's any use for them in the game. Uh, I I think it was something that they started to work toward, never really got around to finishing, and kind of just left in half baked.
SPEAKER_03That would make the most sense, because none of it ever seemed useful. And, you know, the the big thing is not being able to use your Witcher styles. Like, that's such a crucial element of the game. Is like if there's a big enemy, you want to use strong style. If there's like an assassin type enemy that you're fighting one-on-one, you want to use your fast style. If you're fighting a group, you're using your group style. If you can't use those styles, it's like taking the fundamentals of the combat away. Why would I ever want to do that?
SPEAKER_01It was weird. It would be like if you were playing Mass Effect as a biotic and you got a gun that was like can't cast biotics, you'd be like, well, I'm not gonna use this.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. It would be completely pointless to ever use. Like, it doesn't even matter how much more damage it does. If I can't use half of my abilities, why would I do it?
SPEAKER_01It was odd, man. Uh and and like I kind of figured out how useless it was early on, so I just stopped worrying about it. But I can definitely see where if you were still poor, like I had upgraded my weapons like the first act, and so hearing that you were just waiting for like three acts, I was like, oh poor kid.
SPEAKER_03Like Oh god, yeah. I mean, I'm in the fourth act still using my base weapons and just getting destroyed repeatedly. And then finally I managed to get like I actually bought a better steel sword, used most of my money to do so, but it was worth it because I finally started to feel like I could do damage again, and then got a silver sword, the same silver sword that I'm pretty sure you got, um, for doing some like peace route in act four instead of just killing people. And those those two weapons felt significantly better than everything else that I had been using before, but it just took four acts to get there.
SPEAKER_01And that's and I think is at the core of the issue is it isn't just that all this crap that drops is useless. It's that all the stuff that drops is useless and the opportunities to actually get better weapons are incredibly few and far between. I mean, you end up in the last couple of acts being able to get these really good swords from very specific quests. But like, unless you happen to come across the one corpse in the swamp and like act two, then you don't have a good silver sword until pretty much act four. And then, like, if you don't come across like this one cabinet with a decent sword and like Siegfried's house, I mean it's just they're like randomly placed, it's not obvious. Uh there there's not really any traditional or uh reliable way to get better weapons other than like the meteorite upgrades, but those are kind of limited. And it's just, I don't know, it's and also not while it's played. This part of the game just gets like really frustrating a lot of the time, and it's like easily to me the worst part of this game.
SPEAKER_03I'd agree with that. It's it's the part that made me want to quit the most, because the actual like fighting, the combo system with the sword, like you have to kind of time your your attacks to perform combos, and you can kind of increase those with your upgrades. You know, if if you upgrade your your group style, you can end up doing like a five or six combo attack by the end of it. And the actual method of doing that, the timed button presses for the combos, was a lot of fun. Like I found it kind of kept me engaged, and it's just managing all of
Actual Combat & Difficulty
SPEAKER_03your inventory and and stuff around it was really frustrating, and it made certain fights really difficult that I just didn't want to fight through. And there was no way to change difficulty or anything, so you were just stuck, like trying down some potions and hope you can get through it this time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and that's you know, when you start the game, you're picking a difficulty setting, and it basically tells you, like, on normal, like, alchemy's helpful, but it's not required. Well, there were some fights where I felt like, no, I don't know, man. If I didn't have like three potions on right now, I'm not I'm not getting through this boss fight, particularly that that big.
SPEAKER_03Right, like it's it's feeling pretty required. If I wasn't using Swallow in pretty much every major fight, then I was dying. And part of that could be because I just had bad weapons, but I felt like the game didn't really give me an opportunity to get better weapons. So I don't know how much of that is really my fault.
SPEAKER_01And and the second two games give you a more reliable way to like avoid damage, which is a huge plus. Because in this one, there's there's this thing you can kind of do where if you double-click on the other side of an enemy, he'll kind of jump over them. But I found it pretty unreliable. Like it didn't always seem to work. And there would there would be these fights where I got absolutely destroyed in five seconds. And then I would reload it and manage to get the flip over dodge and reposition myself, and I would destroy everything else without taking hardly any damage. Like it it became a lot of these fights would hinge on this really kind of gimmicky, unreliable dodge mechanic that I could only get to work about half the time I wanted it to. And if I couldn't get it to work, I was probably going to end up reloading that fight.
SPEAKER_03That dodge mechanic was really bad. Like it's it's a very 2007 dodge mechanic. It's comparable in a lot of ways to Mass Effect's like cover system in the first one, where like I felt like you never really snap to cover very well. You always had to like crouch down, and it just didn't it never seemed to work quite right. That's how I feel about the dodge here. Like, it never works quite right. You're always having to just hope you nail it.
SPEAKER_01So so many things in this game kind of hit that like, uh, this seems to be about 85% of what they really wanted it to be, and they they could never quite flesh it out.
SPEAKER_03And I wonder if that's just constraints of time or constraints of like tech, like they just couldn't do it. Why exactly that happened, but you're right. It feels like so many things are just there. They're almost right, but they miss the mark by just a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and this is something that I think with each iteration of The Witcher, I was really seeing their improvements. Um, particularly thinking about when these games came out. Because like 2007, I mean that's like the Xbox 360 PS3 era, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like the very early years of the 360.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so they're they haven't fully realized how to use some of these consoles, right? Um, which I guess I think this was a PC only game, which I won. Uh but the same kind of thing where it's just like they've they've made so many changes to this Aurora engine to try to get it to do what they want to do. They've had to completely rewrite certain components of it. It's really kind of cobbled together. You can sort of tell. I think what they're able to do with it in some areas is actually impressive and given all that. Um it's an okay looking game. Like it's certainly not ugly, but there's not really a ton of color variety. Uh the graphics weren't particularly sharp at the time. I think just again, like the nature of the tech at the time.
SPEAKER_03Um Yeah, I find a lot of the environments were kind of were kind of bland and boring.
SPEAKER_01Especially comparing it to Mass Effect, like I really thought Mass Effect managed to do a whole lot more with visual design and character models than than
World Design & Backtracking
SPEAKER_01this game really did for the same exact time period. Um, other than maybe like Geralt's attack animations are like really smooth. Those are really fun to watch.
SPEAKER_03Yes, they're very flashy, very over the top, but other than that, like they're they're fun to watch and they work really well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh not not a lot otherwise to say about this game visually. Um it's also not really like it's kind of hub-based, it's not really open world, and they don't even really do a great job as far as um oh, of course you can't like go to this area, but you can kind of see something cool beyond the borders. Like, yeah, I don't know. Just more of the same forest and like not a very detailed sky, and it's it it never like the world never felt all that interesting to explore.
SPEAKER_03Whereas like with Mass Effect, every planet you landed on felt very distinct and different. You know, Novario is a very different planet than uh I can't actually remember all the planet things right now, but like the lava planet that you immediately are on. Like, those planets were so different, and every area in this game kind of feels the same. It really does. It's like, oh, a gray swamp versus a gray city. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Also, man, thank god I was playing this game in in 2020 and 2019, though, because every time you enter a building, there's a load. And I get it, the tech at the time. But like, if I had to sit through the loading screens on like a normal hard drive back with like a 2007 processor, I don't think I'd have finished this game. Oh god. I really, I really don't.
SPEAKER_03Uh uh, yeah, almost definitely no, because there is a lot of load, there's a lot of and there's a lot of backtracking in the game too. So it forces you to load often. Because you're often going back to areas. Like certain quests felt like they could be streamlined a lot. Whereas often you're just going back and forth talking to the same like three people, and you just have to keep walking back and forth, and it's just draining.
SPEAKER_01Like you know that like one trope that occurs in sitcoms where there's basically this big dispute that could be solved with like a five second conversation if the characters just fucking talk to each other? Like, that is what so many of the questions. In this game, I wouldn't say so many, but more than one of the quests in this game felt like. Because it was basically just like, I have a problem with this person. Geralt, go tell them this. And you walk your ass all the way across town. No fast travel, no shortcuts. Eh, Carol, tell them I said this. And it's like, can you two just fucking talk to each other? Save me a lot of time.
SPEAKER_03Like it's that was the most infuriating part, is that so much so many of the side quests it felt like you weren't doing anything besides just being the middleman for these two people to talk.
SPEAKER_01And the stories surrounding that weren't even necessarily bad. Like I think in particular I'm thinking of uh that captain of the guard who's actually a werewolf and is involved with that that like uh prostitute that runs the brothel. Um really touching kind of like love story and about like identity and societal expectations and stuff, but actually having to play it out the way you did, I was like, God, I hope you both die and never find love.
SPEAKER_03There's so much just going back and forth that really it does take away, kind of like you said, from the actual stories happening. Because the overall writing, voice acting, all of that stuff is really strong in the game. I'd say 95% of the time. It's just the actual mechanics of going back and forth and having to backtrack and having no fast travel, all of these things kind of pull away from that and really doesn't let it shine as much as it probably should.
SPEAKER_01It's one of these things where like, I'm glad I played the game, I really enjoyed the experience, but it would be really hard for me to recommend it to someone that isn't just like as over-the-top enthusiastic about games and RPGs as I am. Like uh and I mean I'm talking about even friends I have that play a lot of games, they just don't like like these kinds enough, and it'd be like, oh yeah, I recommend the Witcher One, and be like, yeah, I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_03Read the wiki and like I I actually had a friend ask
Recommendations
SPEAKER_03me if he should play Witcher 1, and I was like, just go to see. Like, I I just don't think it's worth the time investment for what the game is. It's fun, and I wouldn't say I regret playing it, but I can't necessarily recommend putting the 40 hours or so that it takes to beat this game, whenever you could put that 40 hours into Witcher 2, or you know, a fourth of the Witcher 3.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. A fourth of the Witcher 3, if you're lucky. Um and that's really the thing is like when I think of something like Mass Effect, someone was like, Should I start at one? I'm like, oh absolutely. Because so much of that game is about your decisions carrying through to the other games. Even if, like we kind of said at the end of the third game, they don't necessarily amount to much. It's like you get to see them affect things throughout the journey so much that the destination being kind of meh was kind of acceptable. And Witcher 1, there's not much you do that changes what happens in Witcher 2. Like, there's just really not. Most of what you do changes what happens in Witcher 1. And then you get to Witcher 2, and it's like, yeah, you may have taken this organization's side, so this specific part of the game you get to has different people there, but for the most part, it's it's just not on the level of Mass Effect, and that's why I feel like, yeah, you can pretty safely skip straight to the second game and not feel like you've really like missed your opportunity to shape your gameplay experience. You really haven't.
SPEAKER_03I think part of that is because Mass Effect was definitely envisioned as this experience that is supposed to carry over, you know. It was designed with these ideas in mind. I don't think Witcher was designed that way. It they feel like three very different games, and I've I've only gotten part of the way through two, and I my only experience with three was that old experience that I didn't exactly love. So I can't speak to it as much as you, but it feels like these games are very different in what they like set out to do, whereas Mass Effect feels like a single story from beginning to end, and it's very much envisioned that same way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Mass Effect 2 is a much more I'm sorry, Mass Effect, the series, is a much more cohesive experience than the Witcher games. I mean, if you had told me that the three Witcher games were made by three different studios, I would believe you, except I'd be like, wait, three different studios were this terrible at inventory mechanics? But otherwise, like, yeah, there's there's a huge tonal difference between one and two and three. Um one and three are a little more similar, but like two has this really down-to-earth, like political dark tone. The third is definitely a little more lighthearted and high fantasy. Um some of the way the combat and leveling is approached. There they're actually three very different leveling systems. I mean, I give them props for that for at least attempting new things. But yeah, it's it's they they don't connect well enough for me to say you should play it. You should like slog through the first game. The first game has some awesome high moments, but you really have to go through some shit to get to get to them, and I'm just not sure it's worth it.
SPEAKER_03And and a lot of it feels like it's some of the side stories that are some of those high moments. Like the main story is fine and is, you know, serviceable, and it's got its moments, but a lot of the stuff that seems really interesting is a lot of the stuff that you may not even see if you don't play it a certain way.
SPEAKER_01I think we were we were talking before we we started recording about how there is a uh brothel near Trist's house in the third act, and there's like a vampire that runs it, and this one guard wants you to find his sister who ended up working there, and he thinks she's been like kidnapped or something, and it actually turns out uh the lady who runs the brothel is a vampire, and she turned you know the dude's sister into a vampire, and he ends up coming in to like attack him, and you can either side with the guards or side with the vampires. And I was talking to you about this, and you were just like, wait, I don't think I ran into that at all.
SPEAKER_03I never did any of that. You saying it again does not jog my memory at all. I don't know any of that stuff. Um, I think I just completely missed that. And I I've I never felt like I was, you know, mainlining the game or anything. I tried to do a lot of the side stuff, I tried to explore the world pretty fully, but it's just stuff gets missed in RPGs like this. It it happens to everybody. And that's kind of where I'm hesitant to be like, yeah, go play Witcher 1, because if you miss some of that really good stuff, like it's not really a whole lot of point otherwise to play it.
SPEAKER_01I think if this were 2007 and we were giving a review and we were particularly talking to an RPG audience, I would recommend this game. But just given how much games have changed since then, how much better games of this type have become, and just how many more other games there are to pick from than 13 years ago. I would say, like, unless you're just incredibly curious about the Witcher story, which like you and I were, that's why we started to play this. Um, but unless you feel that passionate about understanding the universe and seeing the origins of some of these characters and backstories, you may just want to kind of read over, watch some YouTube videos, and and give this one a pass.
SPEAKER_03I would agree with that. I I think one of the coolest things for me coming into Witcher 1 was honestly talking about how the show is what inspired me to pick it up in the first place, and seeing some of those moments from the show almost directly translate, like with the Striega, uh with Princess Ada and the Striega, like seeing some of those moments almost directly translate into the game was really cool. And seeing a lot of like the show stuff, being able to reflect on what I knew from the lore based on the show was cool to see how it compared in the game. But unless you, like you said, feel really passionate about seeing this series through the whole way, I can't say I'd recommend it.
SPEAKER_01You bring up a good part with um, it's like the opening cutscene to the game is basically like the fifth or sixth episode of the show. It's like where he takes the curse off of uh this this king's daughter, and uh she's like a strega, which is this monster that forms when like a kid is uh like abandoned in the womb or something. I forget exactly how that plays out. Uh but there are some shots, particularly when like the traitor dude is tied to the bedpost um that are like shot for shot from the the show. So I it like the person who directed that episode definitely saw the opening sequence of Witcher One and took inspiration from a couple parts of it. And I thought, and that was a really satisfying moment to see. I just don't know if there's enough of them to to kind of recommend trying to find those.
SPEAKER_03I would say no. For for me personally, this is one that I would say probably skip and just hop to the second one if you're interested in Witcher. If you're really interested in Witcher, then you know, you can give it a shot, but there's not enough there for me to be like, yeah, this is a must-play. I'd be better off reading the books if you're like super interested in it.
SPEAKER_01Um kind of kind of reading over the inconsistencies between like book and show and game. The game just does like its own fucking thing sometimes with with almost no rhyme or reason. And there are some moments where you're like, oh, I remember that from the show, but none of it really lines up time-wise. I mean, I was I kind of felt like I knew what was going on in the show, and then when I tried ever to think about it in comparison to the game, I was like, there's just no comparing them. The timelines, I don't think, add up at all.
SPEAKER_03Um, uh characters are completely replaced and like changed, like tr like Yennefer and Siri are nowhere to be found in the entirety of Witcher 1. And those are two super important characters in the Witcher show. Yeah, and they're just not here at all. They're like replaced, and Triss is basically functioning as Yennefer, but she's also a character in the show, so it's just like these things don't really mesh. So it's it's definitely not a one-for-one comparison or anything, but it is cool to see the moments.
SPEAKER_01It's not a bad game, right? Like I think if I came across this in 2007, I would have really enjoyed it. And when I first picked it up a couple months ago, I thought to myself, wow, I feel like this would have been ahead of its time for 2007, until we looked at the list of games that came out in 2007. And I thought, okay, it doesn't have the atmosphere of Bioshock. It doesn't quite have the companion characters and world design of Mass Effect, it doesn't have the graphics and fluidity of an Assassin's Creed, uh, it doesn't have like the high-stake moments of like Halo 3 and God of War 2 and Call of Duty. It's a decent game. It's just, I'm looking at that list and I was like, God, if I had to play any game that came out in 2000 right now, or 2007, I'm picking any one of those before I pick the Witcher.
SPEAKER_03I I agree. There's not much on this list that we had kind of mentioned at the beginning that I wouldn't play before I played Witcher again. But that being said, it's not a terrible game, it's not a terrible time. It's just not one that I would take over a lot of other experiences from 07, and definitely not over new, more modern day experiences.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think if you're really into video games and kind of the design of them and the history of them, it is a really cool case study to see how a studio builds on something. Because when you play through these three games, you can really see how they they learn how to like improve various aspects and take a step forward most of the time. Um about all these all these different mechanics. I would I would definitely argue there's a couple step backs here and there in the series. And when we get to Witcher 2, we'll talk about how stupid Dice Poker is in Witcher 2 for no reason whatsoever. They were just like, how makes this worse?
SPEAKER_03I've only played Dice Poker in Witcher 2 once, and it was awful.
SPEAKER_01So there are some things where they kind of take a step back. But um, as someone that's always been like really interested in how games are designed, and kind of like the history of them and how they come through in different errors and the different feels of different genres, it was super cool to experience this. But it's just like, if you're just trying to pick up a game and have fun with it, don't make it this one.
SPEAKER_03I agree. I think it'll be really cool for the purposes of this podcast that we're doing to go through each game and kind of compare the compare them all and see how they change and how they grow and the differences that come with the years of improvement that CD Project Red had and the game industry as a whole had. I think it'll be very interesting to, you know, compare all those things. Which year two? What year did that come out? Do we know? So that would be the same year as Mass Effect 2? Yeah. Right? That came out? Or no, Mass Effect 2 came out in 10 or 11?
SPEAKER_01Um this this would have been the kind of stuff that podcast hosts would have looked up ahead of time, but we're, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm you know, um uh yeah, you're right. Uh Mass Effect 2 is 10, and then Mass Effect 3 is 13. So like I think it'll be interesting to see, since we compared this one so much to Mass Effect, how these future games in the series compare to games of their time, and you know, I I think that'll be neat for from a game historian type standpoint. But just to like have fun, eh. I'd pass.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, honestly, like if someone wanted to experience this universe in game form, I would say read about the first game, try out the second game. If you like it, stick with it, if not, just go to the third. If someone were to ask me that about Mass Effect, I would say like, no matter how much you don't like the beginning of the first one, get of yourself, stick with it, because all three of those games work together so well. It's a beautiful experience, and um maybe it's it's just kind of one of those pie in the sky things it's unfair to compare anything else to. Very true. But like Witcher Witcher just does not, it's not Mass Effect 1.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you'd be you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you played Mass Effect without playing all three of them together, and I don't feel like Witcher has anywhere near the same level of like cohesiveness where you need to experience all those games in order to really get them. My my best friend played Witcher 3 without having played any of the other ones, and it's one of his favorite games ever, if not his actual favorite game ever. And I think that just goes to show like you can't do that with any of the Mass Effect games. I I don't think it would hold the same way.
SPEAKER_01It wouldn't. You I mean, especially if you just jump right into the third one, you would be so confused about everything. Oh god.
SPEAKER_03That'd be such a that'd be such a weird experience.
SPEAKER_01Which granted, that was kind of me playing Witcher 3, but I think there's just um there's more there's more there that is independent of the other two games than something like Mass Effect.
SPEAKER_03I I definitely agree with that.
SPEAKER_01So um I I guess ultimately that's that's our verdict here is it's a neat experience. If you're really into it, check it out. But it's it's hard to recommend it to most people. And um yeah, man, I I don't know if you have anything else to say about this game. I I feel like the last half of this episode has just been us complaining about it, but really you would too if you had just played this game.
SPEAKER_03So I think I think we had done a decent fair
Final Thoughts
SPEAKER_03balance of like pointing out the highlights, but overall, there's I just say there's more negative to this game than there is positive. And I think that's just kind of indicative of one, it being an older game, and also just kind of not being the most cohesive experience altogether.
SPEAKER_01Some things just don't age well, and I think this game is one of them. It's uh might be the Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Especially compared to all the other games that came out this same year. I'd rather play pretty much any of those games besides to that, uh besides Witcher.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, especially um Bin Ten and um Airbender, right?
SPEAKER_03Those were the Oh god. That last Airbender game is invisible.
SPEAKER_01It's not the worst game of 2007, Witcher 1. We can safely say that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure, for sure.
SPEAKER_01Alright, well at this point, there will probably be some heavy editing here because I do not know how to close this show. Um I might have some kind of like signing off for blah blah blah. But um, yeah, guys, I hope you like this, and I hope you stick around for the remaining episodes of this series. We're gonna we're definitely going to record these weeks apart, but release them in close succession. So uh if I s and hopefully get a little more cohesive with how we say that. Yeah, it also sounds like he's physically aged after playing the next two. He probably has. Uh both because it'll be forever and those games, man, they are they are exhausting to play in and in a good way. It's hard to explain.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's not at all it's not at all around bad experience.
SPEAKER_01And I hope you stay tuned for whatever we have planned after this. It will mostly be us giving our thoughts on games gone by. Oh man, that could be a good name. Has anyone done Games Gone By podcast? Signing off for the Games Gone By podcast. My name's Adam.
SPEAKER_03And I'm Austin.
SPEAKER_01And we will see you guys next time.
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