Witcher 2.
Its...pretty popamole.
I mean, the graphics are nice and the combat is better than the first game's, but the UI is worse (seriously, why the fuck did they not put knowledge about monsters under bestiary?! That's where it should go! Not in the character screen under more attributes), there's fewer monster types, your choices don't seem to matter as much, the characters aren't as good, the skill tree is pretty minimal and alchemy is a lot worst. Like, you don't have potion bases, additional substances and you can't see how many potions you already have because the UI sucks. Also you have to meditate before taking potions which makes it needlessly inconvenient, especially when potions don't last as long now and the game really likes throwing you in situations where you aren't allowed to meditate.
The mutagen mechanic is stupid too. You can't reuse slots, which means that if you use anything that's not a greater mutagen you basically lose a slot. They should have either allowed you to use slots multiple times (destroying the previous mutagen in the process), or just had one grade of mutagen.
How do mutagens even work? How the fuck is Geralt able to inject a mutagen directly into his genes? In the first game it made more sense, because you had to drink a specific potion made from the parts of certain creatures, and the ability you get reflects that creature's abilities. In Witcher 2 its just weird.
And then there's the crafting. Now, whilst I do appreciate its inclusion and I like the idea of having traps in the game, I don't like how the recipes work. You see, some of the recipes require very specific monster parts, which would have been fine if the monsters weren't isolated to specific chapters.
Take the conflagration traps. For some reason they require Endrega Embryos, which are only found in Chapter I and in Chapter III, and in both cases its limited, especially if you finish the Endrega Contract in chapter I (because punishing the player for progress is good design, right?). Which means that you used up all of your embryos then no more traps for you. Which is annoying design.
At least you can meditate anywhere, which is nice.
Witcher 1 had its faults. You spent way too much time in swamps, it was pretty jank (although Witcher 2 is pretty jank as well, with teleporting NPCs and monsters phasing through trees. And the hitboxes. The fucking hitboxes) and the combat is dull and pretty easy (Witcher 2 improved on that at least), but at least you had a lot of content to work with, the UI wasn't complete crap and it actually felt like a CRPG.
