The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings: Difference between revisions

* [[And I Must Scream]]: A truly horrible one happens to {{spoiler|Triss}} in the sequel, when {{spoiler|she's}} transformed into a tiny figurine. Subverted in that it's a state more akin to a coma, but yeah.

* [[And Now for Something Completely Different]]: the perspective will occasionally switch to another character in another situation, such as Triss, Dandelion, Roche, and even Henselt.

* [[Arrow Catch]]: Geralt can deflect them back to his enemies.

* [[Art Shift]]: The game has a generally realistic look to it, except whenever a flashback plays. Those take on the appearance of a gritty comic book.

* [[Asshole Victim]]: The kings that are being targeted for assassination aren't really the nicest people.

* [[Badass Normal]]: Vernon Roche and Iorveth.

* [[Bag of Spilling]]: Pretty much averted; Geralt starts off knowing all his Signs and equipped with plenty of basic Alchemy formulas. He doesn't have any of the combat style changing from the previous game, but that's just because the combat engine is different.

* [[The Chessmaster]]: The Nilfgaardian ambassador Shilard and pretty much ''every'' sorceress in the game {{spoiler|or at least the members of The Lodge. However, every single one of them gets outplayed by Letho}}.

* {{spoiler|[[Clear My Name]]: The main plot of the game.}}

* [[Combat Pragmatist]]: Geralt and witchers in general are supposed to be this, and if you don't want the game to kick your ass, you the player will be forced to as well. Simply relying on swordplay isn't enough, you need to juice yourself up with potions, oil your blade with nasty substances, lay traps, toss bombs, turn enemies against one another and so on. Learning to be the guy who brings a grenade to a sword fight is a big part of the game.

* [[Contractual Boss Immunity]]: Major enemies are immune to instant kills.

* [[Evil Old Folks]]: {{spoiler|The Nilfgaardian ambassador Shilard.}}

** Also Loredo's elderly mother who {{spoiler|spends her days making drugs and helping her son abuse a kidnapped elven woman.}} Getting stabbed by her is possibly the most inglorious death in the whole game.

* [[Eyepatch of Power]]: Iorveth.

* [[Eye Scream]]: In the third and final chapter, {{spoiler|on Iorveth's path, Phillipa is taken into custody and has her eyes put out... with a medieval equivalent of an ice-cream scoop.}} You [[Squick|even get to see the after-effects]].

* [[Happy Ending Override]]: [[The Witcher (Video Game)|The Witcher]] ended on a relatively victorious note, with Geralt restoring order to the Temerian captial of Vizima and helping it forge an alliance with Redania in the process. Not too long in the sequel, though, {{spoiler|Foltest is killed and all of Temeria falls into chaos. By the end, it either gets divided up, breaks into [[Civil War]], or effectively becomes absorbed by Redania. And that's before [[The Empire|Nilfgaard]] invades the Northern Kingdoms.}}

* [[Harder Than Hard]]: The game features an "insane" difficulty, which in addition to being the toughest difficulty in general in terms of damage dealt by enemies and such, also features [[Perma Death]] where if you die, all your saved games from that playthrough become inaccessible and you have to start over.

* [[Hold Your Hippogriffs]]: Iorveth considers capturing Loredo's prison barge to be a "[[The Lord of the Rings (Literature)|piece of lembas]]", mildly confusing Geralt who apparently isn't familiar with the saying. Doubles as a [[Shout Out]].

* [[Hopeless Boss Fight]]: An interesting version comes up on the Roche path. {{spoiler|It's against ''you'', Geralt, while you're reliving the last few hours of a kingslayer you recently killed.}}

* [[Manipulative Bastard]]: {{spoiler|The three wraiths}} in the ''Little Sisters'' quest in chapter 2 plead for Geralt's help but in fact have a far more sinister agenda.

* [[Multiple Endings]]: There's sixteen.

** If Geralt chooses to help Iorveth instead of Roche prior to the first duel with Letho in chapter 1, {{spoiler|Loredo's men and the townsfolk massacre all non-humans in Flotsam}}.

** If Geralt chooses to believe {{spoiler|the three wraiths}} during the ''Little Sisters'' quest in chapter 2, he {{spoiler|allows an evil spirit to grow in strength, causes the death of an innocent man, and barely escapes with his life}}.

* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: {{spoiler|Letho}} looks like a big, dumb oaf, and perceptions of him generally go there at some point. [[Magnificent Bastard|He exploits this advantage every chance he gets]].

* [[Old Save Bonus]]: Now if only the "old save" in question wasn't horribly bloated, it might still be around...

* [[Optional Sexual Encounter]]: Triss, Ves, an elf woman you save, various Prostitutes, and a Succubus. Triss gets a 4 minute sex scene.

* [[The Other Darrin]]: The only returning actor is Doug Cockle (Geralt), with all other characters being recast. More obviously, Iorveth switched actors between the first trailers and release, gaining a thicker accent to boot.

** He does want Geralt to do his dirty work, though. Employing a nonhuman to hunt other nonhumans wouldn't make a very convincing argument.

* [[Press X to Not Die]]

* [[Refusing Paradise]]: Played with. {{spoiler|After Geralt and Yennefer died during the Rivia Pogrom, Ciri transported them to a private paradise island. Geralt had to will himself back to life from there after Yennefer got kidnapped by The Wild Hunt.}}

* [[Restart At Level One]]: Played straight, though it at least averts [[Bag of Spilling]] in that Geralt keeps the Signs from the first game.

** Also, Geralt asks if [[Action Girl|Ves]] joined the army by pretending to be a man, so her old father wouldn't have to go.

** The final quest in the game is called "[[Enter the Dragon]]".

* [[The Stinger]]: The Enhanced Edition adds a scene showing {{spoiler|Nilfgaardian forces beginning their northern invasion.}}

* [[Take That]]: One to [[Assassin's Creed]], where in the prologue you can stumble upon the corpse of an Assassin who missed the haystack by ''that'' much.