So, following on my "Witcher 1 is a masterpiece" post, after finishing the first game and loving it, I went into the second one with pretty high expectations. And boy did it deliver.

I'm currently in Vergen, second act, having chosen Iorveth over Roche. The game is stunning, improves a lot of things from the first one (mostly graphics), has an addition of arm wrestle, which is really cool and it's a shame it doesn't exist in the third one, but, most importantly, has an entertaining story and characters.

The choice between Iorveth and Roche may be the hardest choice in the trilogy, I spend hours just wondering who I'm gonna pick when the time comes, and despite the fact I really like Roche, I decided to go with Iorveth. He convinced me more that he stands for the right cause.

Letho is fucking intimidating. Damn Wild Hunt sucked ass compared to him. I spoiled myself the shit out of the game, so I already know he will turn out to be a pretty decent guy, but he works really well as the antagonist.

The plot is very good, started off way better than the first game, and is so far the best in the trilogy. Kings, prisons, a huge dilemma? Sign me up.

But I gotta say the biggest improvements are in the smallest things - boxing is the best in trilogy, arm wrestle is great, and dialogues have upgraded a lot.

There are some things that the first one did better tho, the atmosphere there was just irreplaceable, dice poker was better, alchemy was amazing, but even through this game slighty downgrades on this parts, it's still amazing.

Later on, I'll definetly try Roche's path as well. At first, I thought I'll go with him, but with Iorveth I could go straight for Triss, which seemed more important to me.

Damn Roche, Iorveth and Letho are amazing new characters holy shit

I see a lot of people hold up S2E1 as what the second season should've been and an actual faithful adaption of the books. To be fair, it is a decent adaptation and episode, probably my favorite or second favorite of the season. But there was a lot of important themes and plot from the books that was missing or purposely changed in the show.

There are some changes I didn't mind at all because they don't really hurt the story. Nivellan knowing Geralt beforehand, Ciri being with him, that stuff doesn't neccesarily change the important details of the plot. I don't mind changes at all, as long as they don't ruin or miss the point of important book details

The stuff that really was missed in the show is the nuance over Nivellan's past and the Beauty and the Beast influence. If you don't know, in the book Nivellan is open to Geralt about his past of being a rapist. This is presented in a fairly nuanced manner. Nivellan is open and remorseful about what he did, and his actions were shown to have been influenced by the way he was raised, though Nivellan still takes responsibility.

Now regardless of whether or not you think Nivellan was capable of change or redemption, it doesn't matter. Geralt, who's been around the world quite a bit and has seen a wide variety of awful people, listens to his story but doesn't really comfort or condemn Nivellan. Whether or not Nivellan is still bad is left up to viewers interpretation. In the show however, it's delivered to the viewer in the most hamfisted obvious way possible.

Then, there's the loss of the Beauty and the Beast storyline. In the book, Nivellan uses the wealth he got from his raids to pay for women to join him, desperately trying to find a true love to break his curse. This is important as the entire name of the story, A Grain of Truth, is related to the theme that every legend has A Grain of Truth in it. Take out the Beauty and the Beast element and that comparison doesn't work as well. It also shows the contrast of Nivellan now vs him as the twisted youth he was, he's willing to give up his wealth (not that he would've used it anyway) and he also treats the women with respect after his curse forces him to reflect.

While it's by far the best episode accuracy wise of the show, I still think it's missing too many important details for people to be holding it up as the pinacle of book adaption accuracy

I'm currently replaying the first witcher game. After entering a room the was this glitch and I found it to hilarious to not share.

It looks even more fucked up when Geralt tries to talk /:

https://preview.redd.it/hdk4dbon0ch91.png?width=1923&format=png&auto=webp&s=4856c53f8624e1e11655ace73b77298a7ac5ca00

Food for thought, Triss was spiking Geralts food and drink with a love potion in an attempt to essentially force him to fall in love with her where as in the game when the djinn removed the wish yen still loved geralt and depending on player’s choice he still loved her point being their feeling were natural whereas his feelings for triss is hard not to say it was influenced by her drugging him