What really bugged me about this game is that it kinda felt short. After 50+ hours of the first part, I ended up with maybe 25-30 hours of the sequel, which seemed a lot shorter than the first part. I know that there are 16 endings, but I believe that is not what the game should mainly offer. If you ask me, I'd rather have two endings, have fun with the length of the game, than have 16 short endings. I'm not much of a replay person, not even for this game. I dislike doing things the other way, just so that I could see what happens. When I choose something in the game, I don't choose it because I want something to happen, but because that fits me more than the other options. Doing it the other way, disperses the story you can really get into, and the game becomes boring - the only thing pushing you is finishing it. So I really hope so that the third part (if there is going to be one), has more length than endings.

You pretty much have to play the game twice to understand the story completely, which should give you 50 hours or so. I'd say there are four very different endings (depending on whose path you take and who you decide to save in Act 3), the rest aren't really worth it unless you want to dabble into politics and see a different outcome every time.

Well, it is a shorter game than the original but it has much more details and care.

There is no dull fetch quests, and every side-quest seems to be carefully crafted and have something unique.

Every environment is beautiful, detailed and varied. I was constantly saying wow at the level of detail in my first play-through. The environments of the original were okay but they felt a little repetitive at times and though there were more acts, some places were boring (like the swamps).

I would like the game to be longer, I wish we could get an expansion pack or a sequel right away, but I also know that longer doesn't mean better necessarily .

The only buzz-word we need.

All the time you spend running circles in the swamps in order to talk to someone or deliver something, feels like it equalizes the amount of actual play-time between TW1 and TW2.

(yeah, I'm aware that TW1 would still be longer, but honestly it sometimes stretches unnecessarily by giving you long ways to run repeatedly)

Not to mention, it was actually a pretty boring location. If it was a well crafted location like the forest of Flotsam where you did all the walking around and backtracking at least it would be better. Still not very good though.

Good point. The amount of backtracking sort of inflates the game time. I don't remember how many times I clicked through this dialogue (roughly goes like this)
Q: Do you want to cross over to the swamp? It would be yyy orens
A: Yes.
Q: Are you ready to cross yet?
A: Why do you think I'm standing here?

I wish someone would post details on the different endings, because the four I have gotten so far don't seem very different to me at all and don't warrant additional playthroughs from me. The key plot points are all the same and don't seem to change the outcome much at all.

However, to answer what you asked, what matters is quality content. Because quality content is also replayable content. The Witcher 1 was longer, but alot of that was "fat". Boring, tedious, time-wasting stuff and I don't have much desire to replay the whole thing. I always start doing another playthrough and then end up loosing steam once I get inside the Temple Quarter and stop. While there were still a few boring parts in the Witcher 2, they were alot fewer of them and all the stuff I could do in town was alot more fun.

Plus the narrative was paced alot better in the second one. Parts of TW1 just dragged on. It's true, Yahtzee is not a source for good reviews, but one point he made in his TW1 review was dead-on. After spending all that time screwing around dealing with all those two-faced murdering religious posers in the outskirts, I had kinda forgotten why I was on this quest and why I should care.

The "16 endings" are not like the "Dragon Break" at the end of Daggerfall where there are 6 (or 7 or 8, depending on how you count) completely different outros and states of the world. They're different ways the endgame from the Council to the Epilogue plays out, depending on decisions you make earlier and during the endgame.

I'll put up spoilers for them only if asked, and ask that others do the same.

We discussed the 16 endings here.

Correction: ending states, not ending

I understand that the second part is better, and I never stated it isn't. It is just that I prefer even one storyline, than a huge number, as I really almost never cross a same game twice or more. As for the numerous endings and such, the game that hit the spot, by me, was Mass Effect 2. It was pretty long and still had enough endings to satisfy everyone. After playing the game for sixteen times, even though it changes, can become boring.

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that thread when I went searching for one the last time I checked. Only found the one where someone said that CDP confirmed they got all 16 but the user said he/she wasn't going to talk about them because we should go out and get them on our own. Now that I know this one exists I will check it out and see if getting all of them is worth it, but I doubt it.

I'm pretty sure those who aimed for the 16 endings merely loaded from a few saves (decisive points) and start from there. 16 complete playthroughs is probably too much.

Normally that would be fair, but Witcher 2 is a game where you haven't truly seen the storyline until you've played through both paths because each informs the other and the two combined give you a broader understanding of why things happen the way they do.

So taking that into consideration, you haven't really finished the game until you've seen both. It's not like you'll be facing the same decisions on both paths (save for in the prologue and Chapter 1)--they're completely different experiences. You're not only missing out on different endings by only playing once, but missing huge plot points, as well.

Forgive me if this seems harsh, but it's a bit disingenuous to miss out on half the game and a huge amount of plot and then call the game short.

It's no surprise, I couldn't find it either when I searched the forums. I had to google it because I knew the thread existed, it just wasn't coming up in the search for some reason.