Finished The Witcher 1 today, after 4-7 years when I first played it. I like it. Or should I say I liked it again?
But what I wanted to say, since I've just started with the Witcher 2, are some things pertaining to Geralt's character which I've immediately noticed. In TW1, Geralt was more or less detached, calmed, perhaps even cold, but I would rather say "distant", even in those instances where characters for which he genuinely cared about were in serious problems, problems he was aware of. And I like(d) that. Also, there was something about the lack of overt cynicism, the non-aggressive sarcasm, the self-awareness with respect to the world in which Geralt lived, which was all conveyed via dialogue, which made Geralt quite... calmed, and even calming as a person. Hard to explain now in detail, since I don't have much time now for it.
Upon starting TW2, and going through the tutorial (yes, whatever), upon hearing Geralt saying how he is again stuck in the swamp with wet boots, I immediately felt that something was off. And that something is Geralt's character, at least when compared to TW1. Not only has Geralt sounded genuinely irritated by wet boots (that is "the tone"), but he also has been rather unnecessarily irritated by that guardsman's refusal to open him the doors to the arena which has caused a prolonged pointless dialogue...
I would have thought that, for a witcher, wet boots would be a normal thing, something for which no effort in either thought or talk should be invested. I would have also thought that Geralt would simply ask whether he can enter the arena, and if not - then when and under what circumstances. Avoiding the "trash" talk ("trash" as in pointless for Geralt's character). He would also show greater brevity in talk in general, not least because genuinely bitter jokes over frivolities such as whether he would be allowed to enter arena "now, or tomorrow" is really of no significant consequence for Geralt.
Now, I may have not really thought about this more, should the prologue, of which I've played like 10 min, hasn't shown me that Geralt may really be portrayed as he was in the tutorial... Which kind of worries me, by which I mean that I may be irritated as well as TW2's Geralt...