The Witcher And The Magic Of Movement

 The Witcher And The Magic Of Movement

Today in this blog we will be talking about the Witcher 3 Wild Hunt. To give a brief description the witcher is a third person rpg. You are playing as a witcher which is a being created by using a human, magic, and a bit of alchemy. Basically they are modified humans who age slowly, use magic, and are very strong physically. They are also monster hunters. You are set in the role of Geralt of Rivia, a witcher who is trying to find Yennefer of Vengerberg, a sorceress or mage, who is a lost friend of Geralt’s. In addition, you are also trying to find his and Yennefer’s adopted daughter Ciri who was Geralt’s former student, and has a special bloodline. There is a lot going on in the main world as well. A war has broken out between a kingdom called Nilfgaard and the last kingdom that fights them, known as Temeria, which is the only one not conquered by them. The wild hunt, leader of basically what I believe are undead monsters, is also causing chaos and trying to find Ciri and wants to use the power in her blood to conquer the world. There are all sorts of monsters in the wild, werewolves, vampires, zombies, ghouls, corpse eaters, trolls, griffins, etc.  This game is open world, which means you can explore without having to do the entire campaign. There’s a lot to do:  from the campaign, to monster hunting, to helping villagers like farmers, hunters, etc. . 

Equipment used for this blog is an Xbox One and an Xbox controller. 

Controller and Xbox One. 

First Mission. Tutorial.

So let’s start with how the game begins and loads each time. At the beginning, there is a video that is narrated by the leader of Temeria who united his kingdom to defeat the invading kingdom. He explains an event that causes magic and monsters to appear called the convergence of spheres which opened the doors to the world of the witcher called the continent. He blames the Witchers and magic for the evil that is in the land. When you start the game, you are shown Geralt and his mentor, another witcher named Vesemir, trying to track Yennefer. The game  shows Yennefer in a battle and using magic to defeat soldiers of Temeria. Then they set up camp and all of the sudden you are in a castle. Welcome to the first time you can walk around. Now let’s talk about Movement. Movement is more complex than anything I have mentioned so far. Nidhogg and DK use a 2d movement. You can walk left or right but cannot go forward on the screen. This game uses 3d movement. You can walk forward using the left thumbstick of the controller, or in any other direction using the left thumbstick. You can also look around the room using the right thumbstick. This means there is more complex movement and also combinations of movement are now possible. You can go diagonal, left, right, and backwards all without moving the right thumbstick or you can look at where you are going using the right thumbstick. Visual on the screen you are in a room and your view of the room changes as you walk. Movement is smooth. The game runs pretty well.

Same basic image with a little twist.

Some games have enhanced vision techniques. This is one of them. This is called witcher’s vision:  it lets you focus and see more things, specifically objects you can interact with. Interactions with objects are mostly done by walking up to them and hitting the A button. This can also show you secret things you wouldn’t normally see like secret entrances, doors, or clues. Witcher’s vision is used by holding the right trigger. 

Voice Dialogs.

In the Witcher, there are speech choices which are one of the main rpg elements. You can be nice to people, put them under spells, or occasionally do an action, depending on the game. 

Magic System

Let’s talk about signs.  You select a sign by holding the left bumper, moving the selecter using the left thumbstick, and hitting A with the selecter. After that, you can cast a sign using the right trigger. YRDEN, which is the sign on the left, is a magical trap that will freeze your opponent. QUEN is a defensive sign that gives you a shield so that you don’t lose health to attacks by enemies. IGNI sends a wave of fire at targeted opponents. AXII charms an opponent and takes them out of battle temporarily. AARD basically confuses an opponent so they can’t do anything. These all help movement and create strategies for combat. You learn all the basics of the game and then it turns out the tutorial was just a dream. 

Brawl

Speaking of combat, let's talk about that for a minute. This started with me just talking to some nice people who wanted to beat me up. People tend to dislike witchers, as most people view them as gold hunters who will only kill monsters or take contracts for gold. Geralt and some of the surviving witchers who weren’t hunted and killed tend to do things to just actually help people and don’t always take gold. I tried to use a spell on one. It worked but his two friends were mad so they tried to fight. Combat in this game is interesting. Most games like this require you to use a weapon. The Witcher can let you fight without one, just using your fists. That is exactly what I did. Light attacks are used with the button X and heavy attacks are used with the button Y. You can lock onto targets by pressing the right thumbstick like you would a button. I will go deeper into combat a little later. 

On a horse after my brawl

Horse travel is an interesting thing. You start with your horse named Roach. You can call your horse by pressing the left thumbstick like a button twice. You can climb onto a horse by pressing A when you're close enough.  You press B to dismount. You can move like normal with the left thumbstick to move and the right thumbstick to look around. You can hold A to go at a slightly faster pass. You can gallop and ride very fast by hitting A twice and holding it. This is from a comment which I can address now that I have played the game: autopilot systems are very interesting. The Witcher’s is not the best I have encountered, but it’s still very good and very useful. This also could be because I move too much. Basically to autopilot, you go to a road on a horse and hit A twice and hold it, or you can also use the slower walking by holding A and then your horse is glued to the path. It becomes a self-driving horse. As long as you hold A it follows the road turns included. If you run out of road, it will still run straight. If you move the direction at a crossroads with the left thumbstick, it will follow the direction you moved it and can catch another road or just move off road. This is very useful for when you get tired of having to pilot your horse. 

The Griffin

So let’s get back to combat. You can unsheathe your sword by pressing left on the D pad for steel and pressing right on the D pad for silver. You carry two swords. I think that sometimes a silver sword may do more damage to some enemies and sometimes steel will. Lock on is still done by pressing the right thumbstick. Combat is still X for light attacks and Y for heavy. Casting signs(or spells) is the right trigger. Eating and drinking food can restore health by pressing up or down on the D pad. You can also drink potions which will have different effects. It could make you stronger, give you health, make you resistant to certain attacks. You can also use long ranged weapons like crossbows and bombs by selecting them like you would with spells: by holding the left bumper, moving the left thumbstick and hitting A. You can use ranged weapons by pressing or holding the right bumper to aim and fire. You can block by holding the left trigger, or parry by pressing it before an enemy hits you. You can dodge by pressing B and moving in a direction. You can jump out of the way and do a combat roll with the button A and by moving in any direction. Most enemies are ground enemies. Ghouls are similar to zombies but faster. They are quick creatures with teeth and claws. Humans are technically an enemy you have: they move as they would in any other game. They act like knights. Griffin can also fly but only attack grounded really. 

Tavern Fight

An area where there is fighting may be a very wide area where you can do combat rolls and all sorts of other movement or it may be cramped and give you limited movement. There are three examples in the pictures I have in this blog. The Griffin photo shows me fighting a griffin in the field with an open sky. Here there was a lot of dodging and things. The Tavern fight was pretty limited. Combat rolls are useless in a tavern. The brawl was in the middle of the road. There was a lot of room to move if you didn’t get cornered. 

A scary hunter dressed like a noble man. Castle. 

There was a mission where you were in a castle. They took away your Witcher outfit and gave you noble clothes. You had no weapons or armor. This is a no fight scenario in a game. You wouldn’t want to fight if you could. There is an army of guards. 

Inventory

The last thing I want to talk about is the inventory system. You hit start, which is the button to the right of the Xbox button on the controller. Then you can go to the inventory and equip a lot of different things by looking through your inventory with the left thumbstick and hitting A. You can equip weapons, food, potions, water, drinks, torches, clothes, armor, trophies, saddle bags, saddles, horse blinders, and probably more. 

This sums up the movement of the witcher. It is a 3d open world game with more complex movement. It is definitely more complex than Nidhogg or Donkey Kong(DK). I hope you have enjoyed this entry. If you have comments or suggestions please provide feedback in comments. Something I forgot to do last week was say that DK is a Switch game that can be bought in the physical stores or in the nintendo store on the switch device. The Witcher is an Xbox One game in my case, but can be bought in the store or in the Xbox store still. I am suggesting this if you would like to see the movement for yourselves, though it’s not required.