Defence of The Castle – Witcher 1 vs Witcher 3

The Witcher 3, in comparison to Witcher 2, has borrowed many of its themes, main storylines, and atmosphere from The Witcher 1.

The Witcher 1 prologue has many strengths and weaknesses. The few strengths can be pointed out as:

  1. the fantastic atmosphere and consistency of the theme, soundtrack, and characters.
  2. After the defeating the rushed invasion; it allows you to take a breath, learn about your friends and mentor, and history little by little.
  3. Creates the two important factors to consider:
    • The propaganda, and hatred towards the witchers by the commoners initiated by deliberately evidence by the pamphlet.
    • The wizards/sorcerer enigmatic, varied, and secretive attitudes. One wizard, Azar, tries to rob, and kill you; the other one, Triss, is the secretive, and while knows your background well (was present even at Geralt's initial death) starts the conversation by, do you remember your history? And avoids sharing it with you. One of your friends, boldly, accused Triss to use Witcher's secrets for her purpose.
  4. After the rushed invasion, you have a chance to know about your companions. Even the in-training witcher, Leo, witch Geralt has no previous interaction has a chance to be known by Geralt by talking about him and of course, the cinematic funeral for Leo which I found it most memorable part of the prologue for many players (mostly due to the wonderful soundtrack).
  5. the laboratory and the table which is used in the trial of grass gave the good sense of horror.
  6. The opportunity to walk in third, and basement of the castle. Most of the doors are open, you can walk in the library, armoury, and bedrooms and see with your eyes that the castle is dying.
  7. At the end of the funeral, your friends, and mentor decide to abandon/leave the castle. It is obvious that the rest of the story is made of other parts. For Gerlats, it would be Vizima.

The weaknesses are also several:

  1. as many times mentioned, the rushed invasion by these unknown entities and shower of information about their many characters, purposes, and powers created a sense of confusion for a new player. Although it allowed Gerlat to learn to fight and use one sign, it is too fast and sudden, that even the death of in-training witcher sound forced and rushed. You don't feel any closeness towards anyone to suffer any loss.
  2. the quality of animation is low. This 2007 game looks very shabby, especially for people who played the Witcher 2, and Witcher 3 beforehand. The engine has serious limitations to demonstrate anything better and talking heads (though it rarely is a talking head). The cutscenes and character animations can be looked funny in 2020. The best cutscenes are the simple 2D paintings without any animations and the simple narration.
  3. the most important one in my opinion: after knowing all of the witcher characters: Vesemir, Eskel, Lambert; they will be disappeared and leave the game permanently. This game spends time and character development to let you know all of these interesting characters, and then you just forget about them forever. I was waiting for them to

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