Been playing Witcher 1 for the first time.
It's pretty okay, and serviceable. It's any wonder this series took off if I'm being honest. I like a lot of concepts for both the gameplay and narrative, but the execution isn't there to elevate the rest of the game.
For the story, take Chapter 1 for example. I don't know if I missed anything here, but it seems a fairly straightforward goal of solving quests, and figuring out information about Salamandra while doing them as you try to find Javed. At the end of it, Abigail mentions all these twists and turns about how the people you've been working for the entire time are all rotten to the core, and have done evil deeds that caused them to unintentionally conjure up the beast. I love the idea behind that if there were a bit more foreshadowing around this concept. Instead of having clues here and there (the most you get is maybe a small scene with Odo's dog), it's just a bit of a twist that turns the narrative on its head instead of a proper build-up leading into a crescendo.
Similarly, Chapter 2 starts out by giving you a list of suspects that might be working for Salamandra, and you even work alongside a detective. That's great, but the structure for that plot thread isn't there. You just casually cross off suspects as you do quests, or Geralt will extrapolate some loose "connection", confront the suspect, and then essentially give up, mentioning that he'll drop it for now until new evidence comes to light. Again, much like Ch. 1, it's a great idea that doesn't get fleshed out. On the other hand, Chapter 3 felt more straightforward of a crossroads which, after the last chapter, was a nice change of pace.
What can I really say about the combat? It's there, it's serviceable to a degree. Game gives you 3 fighting styles, 1 of which is completely useless (or I've never felt the need to use the group style), and to pad things out, there's 2 different skill sets you can upgrade for these 3 fighting styles -- one for the silver sword and another for the steel sword. Potions are a nice idea, and I like that not all of them are combat related, the toxicity mechanic rarely ever comes into play, but I like the idea behind it. Side quests are generally okay; my biggest gripe is the need to go out of my way to get books in order to be able to pick up certain herbs or get certain items (i.e. a drowner's brain) from dead monsters.
To be honest tho, one of the best parts of the game is getting these.