I'd say Witcher 2 is at least close, just smaller and less refined. The potion system is significantly more interesting in my opinion. That said, 3 is a masterpiece.
Even the original Witcher game is solid and has some interesting systems for its time. I wouldn't recommend it though to anyone who doesn't have an absurd amount of free time, or a real passion for the characters. It's been really neat watching CD Projekt step up their game, as it were, over the years.
Witcher 1 had some serious pacing issues, but I personally enjoyed it more than 2. 2 got too flash for me, whereas 1 was more about the characters and the story.
But it most DEFINITELY had pacing issues around the swamp area.
Witcher 2 is a good introduction to the state of the world in 3. You can read the books (or watch the whole series after it concludes), play 2 and understand the geopolitics of 3. It is also short, has a good but nearly-linear story (there are choices that significantly change your playthrough and outcomes, but when you play a second time taking the other road at every fork you've seen it all) and can be had for cheap. Oh, and it has a really touching story arc with the best love scene I've ever seen in any game.
Witcher 1 was a good game for its time, but unless you consider yourself a serious fan of the universe, I would recommend skipping. It's the only one in which Sapkowski was involved, it has some very good dialogues in random places and it's the only one which gives you a very good feel for what a "normal" Witcher's life is. But the voice acting is only good in Polish, up to the point it's recommended everyone use Polish audio with subtitles if they don't speak the language. And the plot is quite disconnected from the books -> Witcher 2 -> 3 line (I'm really bummed we never got closure on the plot of 1).
No, but you'd very possibly do yourself a disservice by skipping them.
Personally I prefer the first two games over the third in most respects, with notable exceptions for graphical polish and inventory management.
I watched the TV series first, and Witcher 3 has a much better and coherent story than the TV show even though the game picks up after the events of Witcher 1/2. I finished the game mostly for the stories.
Even having read all the material and played all the games, the show was pretty convoluted and confused me until near the end. The time jumps give little to no notice.
They could've very easily had text on the screen saying what time period the current scene was in. It seems like they left it out deliberately for artistic reasons and many people have been confused as a result.
It does stray quite far from the books though. Especially the angle on infertility is hilarious. In books the infertility was a side effect of hormonal imbalance caused by the use of magic. Impossible to recover from for males, nearly impossible for females. With how they changed it in the series, I wonder how are they going to explain all those important characters, Geralt included, being sons of sorceresses.
They could have very easily made the series a collection of short stories too, but they trued to tie them tigether in an incoherent way instead. Very poor attempt, in my opinion, and I often enjoy cheap TV shows.
You can pick up the story just fine, and 1+2 aren't remotely close wrt quality.