The Witcher: Versus might be one of the more accessible fighting/RPGs on the iPhone. But that doesn’t necessarily make it one of the best. Although it’s easy to get into, the gameplay lacks the sort of excitement that will keep many players coming back for multiple rounds.
It certainly does get going easily enough however. After a brief tutorial, instructing players how to upgrade their character’s weapons and items, you can jump right into battle. But that’s where things get sticky for The Witcher: Versus.
Battle in this universe consists of a predetermined set of rocks-paper-scissors-inspired attacks. Players either challenge other humans or are challenged by them, and then they quickly choose which attacks and defenses they will perform during their upcoming battle.
From there, you can watch the battle unfold and see if you’ve made the right moves, or you can go back to the menus and await the results. Oddly, one option isn’t really any more exciting than the other. Watching the preset battle unfold lacks much in the way of drama. The moves unfold slowly, and whatever drama exists within a close fight is sapped by the feeling of not actually participating in the game.
What’s strange is that for as bland as the fighting system is, the game has some of the best-looking menus I’ve seen. They’re explained adequately in the tutorial, and nothing feels foreign or confusing. They also have a crispness that can’t be overlooked. So many turn-based games seem to have menus that were cobbled together sloppily, but The Witcher: Versus is organized quite nicely.
If the game itself were more entertaining, you’d really have something here. Unfortunately I don’t think this gameplay is deep enough for RPG veterans, or entertaining enough for someone new to the genre. It’s not a bad game by any means, just simply a rather uneventful one.
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