Story spoiler thread.

[Perkel]

We never really understood the motives of the Wild Hunt. Ok, so they conquered their home world - got it, understood. What is their interest in Geralt's world again? What did they want with Ciri? Did they want the White Frost to come? I remember something about that from the ending of Witcher 1, but can't remember much.

After looking into the other endings, I'm glad I killed the spirit now, even though it meant the children died and Anna went insane. I spent most of the game regretting my choice, I was sure there was a better alternative, and it was nice to know that actually, I probably chose the best of two bad options.

Wild Hunt is just a name.

What is White Frost ?
Why Eredin killed his king ?
Why he seeks Ciri ?
Who is Lara Doren and why she was important ?
What is role of Avallah ?
Why unicorns ?

First TW lore is much like planescape. There are unknown number of different worlds or planes or dimensions.

White frost is end of the world state. Each of worlds in that lore will sooner or later will freeze. Sapkowski probably adapted our realistic end of the world to lore. Our own universe will die like that.

So first there was a world from which Elves originate. I think (as it is not said in books) their world headed toward white frost and in same world was occupied with unicorns which have natural ability to cross dimensions. So they probably struck deal with them and crossed to other world starting new civilization.

Unicorns and elves "worked" together and they managed to took a hold of other worlds including Geralt world. Problem is that Elves became conquerors which was not something unicorns liked. So unicorns tried to bail out. Elves naturally didn't want that so they probably tried to enslave them. Thus elves made war with unicorns and ultimately lost ability to travel worlds and from that time they are in conflict with them.

Sages on other hand, caste of elves with really huge power and weird abilites managed to learn ability to travel worlds but they are not able to do that freely thus rendering moving army to other world impossible.

So with that you have trapped elves in different worlds and White Frost being end of them sooner or later.

Here comes Lara Doren part.
Elven sages managed through pairing of different elves to create really powerful sage gen and product of that was Lara Doren.
Problem was that Lara Doren lived in human world and she fell in love in human wizard. Later she gave birth to girl and soon died due to humans hate.

So Elves plans again failed. Child of Lara was in humans hands then and they thought that it's gene will vanish. But it didn't. Due to incest mainly thanks to human sorceress who picked up experiment later it only strengthened itself. Later due kids being royalty they didn't have ability to do pairing and lost interest.

Then comes calanthe, pavetta and finally ciri. Pavetta due to probably being child from incest already strongly manifested itself which raised few eyebrows and this probably led to Duny aka Emhyr her husband to have plan in which his dauther will become his wife and will give birth to his son as in some prophecy.

Due to Avallah sheningans and Vilgefortz plot Ciri reaches En Elle world where she meets Avallah. She is treated good but soon realized she is a prisoner. Which at this point it should be obvious why she was held prisoner.
She was made to be Kings of En Elle mistress and bear child which will later allow En Elle elves to again travel and conquer worlds.

Here comes Eredin part of this story.
En Elle king tried few times to do something with her but problem was that for En Elle elves mating with human is like for us mating with dog. So king failed to do his thing. So Eredin being general in army being more level headed guy proposed himself as substitute which would be much better option for her. Gave Ciri poison which she had to add to king drink.

She did that, king died. Eredin then tried to claim her as she escaped from palace but failed as unicorns war party looked for battle with elves. She managed to escape.

So now you have Eredin as king which is much more focused on trying to conquer new worlds thus why he acts as Wild Hunt commander and seeks Ciri in her world.

Wild Hunt itself is basically slave hunting party. They hunt slaves to work in En Elle world.

Avallah himsef is a bit weirdo and a fag. It is highly probable that he was to be Lara Doren partner or she was even his daughter before her affair with human mage and he was probably in love with her.
This is why he sort of plays dual role. He tried to help his race but at the same time he doesn't want to hurt Ciri as she is kin to woman he loved or cared about.

 

[Jools]

ENDING SPOILURZ AHEAD

I finished the game last night. I was more than pleased to be able to send Ciri to her death. REALLY pleased. I had been wanting to be rid of her long before. I can't stand her, not in the books, not in the game. In fact I was quite annoyed at being forced, on multiple occasions, to play the "Good Daddy Geralt" role (similarly to being ), not to mention to be forced to chase after her for almost the entire game. I was like, "just let me kill monsters and do contracts ok?".

The plot, despite some major shortcomings (namely: shit conversation options, the portals dilemma, forceful conversation outcomes, forceful relations with certain characters, meh C&C), and despite not being 100% my cup of tea, is still quite good. Way more enjoyable than most games out there. Definitively better than PoE, AP, or even MotB. The actual writing style and tone is especially good, and probably that alone contributes to most of the plot's enjoyability.

I must add, the ending is quite well done: after the last fight (quite easy) and the actual ending confrontation (verbal, in my case) which leads to the resolving event, there is a de-climactic, un-winding bit of gameplay which really adds to it. Well done on the whole ending's structure, CDP.

Last I was really annoyed at the powerpoint ending cutscenes (some of which, btw, did not reflect my in-game choices).

 

[Obsequious Approbation]

What decides whether Keira Metz lives or dies? In my game, I ploughed her, then told her to do with her Catriona-cure as she pleased -- after which I found her impaled on a wooden spike in Novigrad. I 'd wondered why I failed her get-help quest in Act 2 before it even began.

 

[Killzig]

What decides whether Keira Metz lives or dies? In my game, I ploughed her, then told her to do with her Catriona-cure as she pleased -- after which I found her impaled on a wooden spike in Novigrad. I 'd wondered why I failed her get-help quest in Act 2 before it even began.

Talk her out of going to Radovid.

I got the Ciri as Empress / Glorious Nilfgaardian Empire ending. I'm ok with that. I also rolled through New Vegas as a sneering imperialist.

 

[Mrowak]

Finished the game just now. Boy it was a ride. I was pretty satisfied with the ending:

Spoiler

Ciri went on Witcher's Path, Temeria reconstituated, Emhyr reigns supreme, Geralt and Yennefer live happily ever after

Gotta say though that second half of the plot kinda loses its impact. I didn't like handling of several characters, as they went contrary to the lore in the novels:

Spoiler

Eredin with his muddled plans, heck even look straight from Darth Vader's school for sinister villains. And what was his point again? To KILL Zirael? What for? Also the fact that he killed Elf king in muhahaha manner which was counter to the books. So bad this was, that I was sure Avalach somehow manipulated the dream that was supposed to prove his guilt. Alas...

Avalach - he became too goody two shoes. He was far more pragmatic in the novels. Also, his goals and Eredin's aligned and now somehow they are at odds. Lastly, he was the one to provide Eredin with "poison" (in reality, a substance for "vigor" that king overdosed - heck I suspected it would be him who in reality stood behind king's death).

Ciri - In the last book she seemed to have matured quite a bit, now we are back to square one.

Radovid - when did he become a madman?

Philippa - somehow got the impression there was more to this character than being a power hungry bitch in the novels. Meh.

I loved, how they fleshed out some characters

Spoiler

Witchas are bros foreva!!

Man, Vesemir's death was a downer.

Also Vernon Roach & Co. Had really hard time deciding whether to let Djiikstra have them killed. That a bunch of characters that appeared only in games managed to captivate me so much I had to kill Djikstra off, speaks volumes about how fun they were.

Djikstra - why, oh why you had to stand in my way?

Damn shame, I did not get to meet Baron and his wife again.

Overall, best storyfaggy thing that happened since Planescape Torment. Will play again once expansions arrive. Hope they will improve some core mechanics as well as add new story bits.

 

[Ivan]

I've some questions.

An example: doing the quest for King Radovid about finding Philpa.

Spoiler

Geralt mentions that he could ask Triss about the crystal he finds, but the quest journal only lists visitng Radovid. I wish the game were more consistent about what you could do. Like, if I were to somehow find Triss, considering that all of the mages in Novigrad have fled, would she be able to move the quest in a different direction?

 

[cvv]

I've some questions.

An example: doing the quest for King Radovid about finding Philpa.

Spoiler

Geralt mentions that he could ask Triss about the crystal he finds, but the quest journal only lists visitng Radovid. I wish the game were more consistent about what you could do. Like, if I were to somehow find Triss, considering that all of the mages in Novigrad have fled, would she be able to move the quest in a different direction?

That even shouldn't be a spoiler, so other people know to turn in the crystal to Triss before you send her packing. Geralt also mentions he could ask about it his other mage allies but that never comes up in a conversation either.

 

[Sulimo]

When Dijkstra and Roche first brought up the whole "Let's kill radovid!"-part, I was thinking "... Won't that mean Nilfgaard will just roflstomp the north though? Seems stupid for Northerners to consider." Which then got resolved when they continued the quest 5 hours later and they were doing it for a vassalized, semi-independent Temeria. Would have sided with Dijkstra but he wanted to kill Ves, and Geralt would never let his happy-fun-times-partners get murdered, in my opinion.

Still, I saw "Ciri becomes queen" coming from the moment I took her to Emhyr, so I figured I'd just help make Nilfgaard become the biggest and da strongest so Ciri would inherit more of the earth.

I've some questions.

An example: doing the quest for King Radovid about finding Philpa.

Spoiler

Geralt mentions that he could ask Triss about the crystal he finds, but the quest journal only lists visitng Radovid. I wish the game were more consistent about what you could do. Like, if I were to somehow find Triss, considering that all of the mages in Novigrad have fled, would she be able to move the quest in a different direction?

That even shouldn't be a spoiler, so other people know to turn in the crystal to Triss before you send her packing. Geralt also mentions he could ask about it his other mage allies but that never comes up in a conversation either.

Seems you can also ask Yen, checked my quest log after it was done and there was a failed "Talk to Yennefer about the crystal"-condition. So next playthrough I'm taking that gem all the way to Skellige.

 

[Ivan]

For the Radovid quest, couldn't I just talk to Triss @ Kaer Morhen after doing the mage escape quest?

 

[cvv]

Seems you can also ask Yen, checked my quest log after it was done and there was a failed "Talk to Yennefer about the crystal"-condition. So next playthrough I'm taking that gem all the way to Skellige.

Well shit, missed that one.

But wait, I did take the crystal to Skellige and it never came up as a conversation option with Yennefer. And I always go through all option in all conversations. Weird.

 

[Whisky]

Beat the game. Most of the best stuff was in the climax, rather than the conclusion.

Was satisfied with my ending

Spoiler

-Ciri became a Witcher.

-Radovid took over. I beat Reasons of State and killed Dickster despite his side being more reasonable, I just could not kill Broche. Then I reloaded and decided to be Witcher Neutral.

-Triss is Geralt's waifu. SUCK IT, BOOKFAGS!

 

[Perkel]

I've some questions.

An example: doing the quest for King Radovid about finding Philpa.

Spoiler

Geralt mentions that he could ask Triss about the crystal he finds, but the quest journal only lists visitng Radovid. I wish the game were more consistent about what you could do. Like, if I were to somehow find Triss, considering that all of the mages in Novigrad have fled, would she be able to move the quest in a different direction?

Why spoiler ? It is spoiler thread.
Many quests in game have different way of doing them than just fallowing what is written.
for example i didn't meet with emhyr after finding ciri even when there was quest pointing me to do it.

As for crystal i gave it to yennefer.

 

[cvv]

Perkel, goddamit, it's "follow".

 

[Mrowak]

You know guys, the more I think about it, the more dissatisfied I am with the end segment of the game (not the ending themselves, though). I mean the part when you lure out the Hunt into battle with combined forces of Nilfgaard and Skellige and onwards.

Plotwise, there is little wrong with this part (maybe the unlikely alliance(s) ). It's the tone that rubs me the wrong way. It stands in direct contrast with the start of the game and the novels. Witcher's world has always been down-to-earth. Here, however, it gets as epic as it can. And it just feels so wrong - holywoodish, with over-the-top mustache-twirling villain complete with a set of Sith earth-shattering powers. It's almost as if someone was pissed off at how novels ended and concocted up his "heroic" version to spit on Sapkowki's face.

Also, didn't like it how Ciri out of the blue decides to stop White Frost. In the span of literally 3 minutes we shift from "save Ciri" plot to "save the world" plot where Ciri most likely (depending of your choices) will die - which pretty much invalidates plot no. 1. What was its point then?

Lastly, that the White Frost can be handwaved so easily it should count as a plothole. Pretty much entirety on novels + 1st Witcher game stress how the prospect of Armageddon is a realy complex issue, one which stems from natural, nonmagical phenomenon, and one which requires leadership, above all. The White Frost cannot be stopped. It can be mitigated or circumvented. But Lo and behold it just ceased to be an issue. Goddamn.

 

[cvv]

Witcher's world has always been down-to-earth. Here, however, it gets as epic as it can. And it just feels so wrong - holywoodish, with over-the-top mustache-twirling villain complete with a set if Sith earth-shattering powers.

I sense the mighty hand of marketing here. CDPR clearly concluded the nuanced low-fantasy world of Sapkowski would be too boring for mass-market retards so they've jazzed it up on the DRAMA!11!!1 factor. Although as far as hollywood moustache twirling villains go, the Aen Elle are one of the better ones out there. The thing when their voice changes after putting on the mask is embarrassing but I liked what little we saw from Imlerith and Caranthir.

Also, didn't like it how Ciri out of the blue decides to stop White Frost. In the span of literally 3 minutes we shift from "save Ciri" plot to "save the world" plot

Yes! The twist with the White Frost was a slap in the face of the logic, flow and vibe of the previous 120 hours of the game. CDPR should've fucking saved this plotline for the future game with Ciri which will inevitably come - and due to the nature of what Ciri is and how she travels the multiverse probably won't have anything in common with the original Witcher atmosphere.

 

[Mrowak]

Witcher's world has always been down-to-earth. Here, however, it gets as epic as it can. And it just feels so wrong - holywoodish, with over-the-top mustache-twirling villain complete with a set if Sith earth-shattering powers.

I sense the mighty hand of marketing here. CDPR clearly concluded the nuanced low-fantasy world of Sapkowski would be too boring for mass-market retards so they've jazzed it up on the DRAMA!11!!1 factor. Although as far as hollywood moustache twirling villains go, the Aen Elle are one of the better ones out there. The thing when their voice changes after putting on the mask is embarrassing but I liked what little we saw from Imlerith and Caranthir.

And it's just so damn wrong. Even major popamole dumb shit reviewers admit that Witcher 3 is at its strongest when it defies common tropes and conventions. To rely on them in the most climactic of moments feels like betrayal.

Yes! The twist with the White Frost was a slap in the face of the logic, flow and vibe of the previous 120 hours of the game. CDPR should've fucking saved this plotline for the future game with Ciri which will inevitably come - and due to the nature of what Ciri is and how she travels the multiverse probably won't have anything in common with the original Witcher atmosphere.

I liked that there was a twist - I just did not like what it was.

 

[yes plz]

Finished it recently with 109 hours altogether. Fully explored all the maps and did all the quests but the horse racing, fist fighting, and those fucking gwent ones. I mostly really enjoyed it, particularly the quests and the feeling of being a witcher traveling around and taking contracts to kill monsters. I also liked Ciri's story and wouldn't mind a sequel with her as the MC, though unless they decide to go the Fallout route and make one of the endings canon I can't see how that'd be possible now.

My biggest complaints were:
- The game wasn't particurarly reactive to your choices. Nobody really seems to notice if you kill Radovid and doing stuff like letting the doppler or the succubus live in their respective contract quests never does anything, even though the journal hints at possible consequences of it.

- By pushing Emhyr's attempt to take over the North so far into the background I feel they ended up making TW2 feel rather pointless.

- The way they pushed aside Dandelion, Zoltan, and Triss bothered the fuck outta me. You do some of the most boring quests to find Dandelion... and then he disappears into the background for the rest of the game. Zoltan helps you out constantly in TW1 and is with you for almost the entirety of TW2 yet here he's barely even a background character; they do nothing with his marriage arc they started in the first game and continued into the second one, even though the end of Assassins of Kings (at least the enhanced edition) sets it up to continue. After basically becoming the deuteragonist in the second game, Triss feels tacked on here, like they added her just as fan service.

- The Wild Hunt needed to be better fleshed out. Could've let us hunt down more of their generals or something along those lines.

- The Lodge of Sorceresses felt... weird. In the second game they're set up as this cabal of evil witches bent on taking over the world yet in this one they're made out to be a helpful, almost nice, bunch of mages who are being wrongly prosecuted, even though they killed at least one king and had further shit planned. Philippa's characterization shows this the clearest, I think, going from making her a straight up antagonist by the end of TW2 to sympathetic ally in TW3.

- In the grand scheme of things, Skellige felt rather superfluous. I feel like they could have cut it and directed those resources to better fleshing out the story and making it more reactive. Nothing of importance really happens there and the plot stuff that does take place that could have easily been transplanted elsewhere. I'd have rather visited Dol Blathana or a Nilfgaardian occupied Vizima. The former could've tied in with the Wild Hunt seeing as how they're elves and the latter could've better fleshed out the war.

- Itemization was kinda shit. After you start making the witcher gear everything else pretty much sucks. Not only that but the leveled loot always meant that those cool unique pieces of equipment with background lore to them were all pretty much useless before I even got them. "Oh, cool, a sword an eccentric wizard had that Geralt named himself... annnnnd it was useless five levels ago."

Oh, and not a complaint but I'm curious as to what the White Frost really was. You can find a journal from a mage that notes that you can see distant planets having already succumbed to it, making it sound like it was some sort of heat death of the universe, which makes me wonder how the fuck any amount of magic could stop that but I guess the 'Elder Blood' is the witcher universe's equivalent of the Speed Force.

In Witcher 1 Triss had character identical to Yennefer(in russain localization Triss spoke in direct Yennefer's quotes from the books), now that there is Yennefer in the game, I feel like they have changed Triss'es character and appearance to be more "young". Which I don't mind, but it still feels like a retcon in-game universe wise.

I realized this too. I don't think it's TW3 where Triss changes but rather TW2, when I guess the writers decided Geralt's ultimate goal for the overarching story was to find Yennefer and Ciri. I figure that either:
A) Triss was meant to be Yennefer but late in development of TW1 they changed their minds and swapped in Triss.
B) The original writer (who left early in the development of TW2) really didn't like Yennefer (I don't think she's ever mentioned by name in the original game) and decided to make Triss an amalgam of Triss and Yennefer so that he wouldn't have to use Yen.

 

[Mrowak]

Oh, and not a complaint but I'm curious as to what the White Frost really was. You can find a journal from a mage that notes that you can see distant planets having already succumbed to it, making it sound like it was some sort of heat death of the universe, which makes me wonder how the fuck any amount of magic could stop that but I guess the 'Elder Blood' is the witcher universe's equivalent of the Speed Force.

In the novels it was Ice Age, pure and simple. No magic to it, no demonic machinations, no curse to lift, just a grand environmental catastrophy - and slow death of civilization.

Book spoilers:

Spoiler

From the very start, Avalach and other mages establish that being of elder blood, is a means to avoid this catastrophy. For human mages it was about breeding a supreme leader whose powers and leadership skills would guarantee survival of mankind. Think: plot of Witcher 1.

Avalach, on the other hand, wanted to create stable inter-planetry portals which would let him lead an exodus of elves (and maybe other races, but not likely) out of doomed world to the kingdom of Aen Elle. Funnily enough in the books it's heavily implied that some time in the future he succeeded.

That as you discovered Devs decided to make it some sort of curse saddens me. Kinda cheapens the effect.

 

[Cromwell]

Fuck Ciri and fuck this story. I never Read the books in which she has played a role, and now I probably never will. Ciri is the most unlikeable and fucking annoying character I have seen in quite some time. Everyone seems to love her, shes all ultra powerful and 90% of the times she opens her mouth I get the sudden urge to punch her in the face. Of course she also saves geralt, lambert, triss and the whole battle of kaer morhan would have ended in defeat even sooner if she werent so awesome and broke rules.

The same shit happens again in the last battle, were everyone would be absolutely useless if mary ciri wouldnt have jumped in and put everyone in danger once again. In the end in the tower she again has her moments and tells you how awesome she is and how everybody knows she just has to break the rules and then... "this is my story" and this small line really pissed me off. For the whole game you are forced to here everybody whine how awesome she is and that shes in danger, have to play her and hear her whining about everything, completly forgettiong that she also just could have sit where she was because she was in no danger of beeing found there, but she had to come back and therefore cause the whole fucking mess.

I wanted a witcher game and I dont give a fuck how sapkowski wrote this character like he did and why, they had the opportunity to keep her out, instead I got 100 hours of running after a fucking child which just happens to be even more awesome then everybody else combined.

 

[Jools]

Fuck Ciri and fuck this story. I never Read the books in which she has played a role, and now I probably never will. Ciri is the most unlikeable and fucking annoying character I have seen in quite some time.

Actually, she is even more hideous in the books. If I based my judgement on the game alone, I probably wouldn't have hated her so much. Too bad (for her) I had read the books. In fact her character is what got me fed up with the books too. Not "her character" per se, but the way she has been written and force-wedged into the books' story arc.

I wanted a witcher game and I dont give a fuck how sapkowski wrote this character like he did and why, they had the opportunity to keep her out, instead I got 100 hours of running after a fucking child

This. This annoyed me too, a lot. Rather than "The Witcher", the game should have been called "Chasing Ciri".

 

[cvv]

 

[Keshik]

I'm still unsure of how she stopped the White Frost, or if she even did - she seems to have seen something when in the world of ice and snow. Ciri wasn't that annoying, can be a bit petulant and is fed up with being shielded - that makes a bit of sense. Shame playing as her was so dull though, the last bit before Calanthir is just ridiculous.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Dandelion and Zoltan did have a lot of screen time (Dandelion especially), but it was a little disappointing how their stories were basically dropped in the third act. The lack of consequences bothered me too, with the talk of all the endings it was possible to get, I thought there would be some reactivity to decisions made in Witcher 1 and 2 as well as 3, but there wasn't really.

Triss could have been given a bit more to do. I actually think Keira Metz had more screen time than her. Triss had a few quests in Novigrad but that was it. Maybe she showed up more if you kept up her romance? I don't know, because I went with Yen.

I think the game did a great job with Yen and Ciri by the way, not having read the books I cared about the characters by the end and wanted to know what happened to them. But I also had a lot invested in other characters too, like Dandelion, Zoltan, BROche, Ves and Triss and they were completely ignored. I can't quite believe CDPR did this.

 

[Nryn]

I just finished the game, and got the Empress ending. My thoughts on a few aspects of the story:

On Ciri: First off, I've never been a fan of Ciri based on the books (haven't read Lady of the Lake yet). I find her to be a walking talking plot device waiting to happen -- when her powers manifest in the Kaer Mohen battle, it actually lessened the significance of Vesemir's passing for me since I was wondering if she was going to use her special powers to bring him back from the dead as she apparently did to Yennefer and Geralt.

Another reason I don't like Ciri much is that her story deals with those aspects of the Witcher universe that I find least compelling. Dealing with unscrupulous bastards, politicians and all manners of officials whose motivations are hidden is what I love about the series. On the other hand, Ciri's plot eventually culminates in a grandiose saving the world story trope, and this just doesn't interest me anywhere as much. I thought Witcher 1 actually subverted this White Frost issue quite well. Having you murder the supposed savior of the world on account of him hatching a daring, if not absolutely insane, plan made me second guess my actions, which has always been the strength of the writing in these games. In this game, the White Frost issue is so neatly wrapped up with none of those messy compromises that the first game hinted at that I came away from Ciri's plot feeling disappointed.

I also felt that her personality came off as unlikable. I get it -- she's young, headstrong, has gone through a lot of crap, and has a desire to prove herself as capable and independent, but I found it hard to empathize with her -- not enough character flaws/vulnerabilities, but the blame for this might lie in the source material. It was one of the fears I had about the game's narrative when it was announced that Ciri would feature in this game, and I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to like her as much as the narrative wanted me to.

The Ending Sequence is Fantastic Though: Even though I didn't like how the White Frost subplot was handled and rushed, I loved how the game pulls a Witcher 1 by having your interactions with Ciri matter a great deal, just like how those nonchalant conversations with Alvin mattered towards the end of the first game.

That final conversation between Ciri and Geralt, when she informs him that they must part ways, made the ending stand out. Despite all my prior failures to feel as strongly for Ciri as Geralt does, when Ciri reveals to Geralt what the future holds for her, I thought that was a powerful and moving sequence. Geralt refusing to maintain eye-contact with Ciri until he came to terms with her decision was a great bit of writing/directing.

Unfortunately, the Antagonists Weren't Allowed to Shine: The Wild Hunt were the weakest antagonists in the series given all the buildup. The Grandmaster in the Witcher was bolstered by the revelation behind his identity and his efforts to convince you about the logic behind his actions. Letho was a fascinating and morally ambiguous character who managed to ultimately convince me to let him go. With the Wild Hunt, thanks to the presence of Jesus Ciri, I never felt threatened because she thwarted their efforts almost every single time they were about to capitalize on an advantage.

The presence of a Jesus like figure in Ciri is why I don't want future games to feature her as the protagonist. When you have the most powerful known being in the setting opposing you, your chances are slim as the antagonist, as this game shows. I'd take conflicts with a far more level playing field as was the case in Witcher 2.

Main Quest was Carried by the Supporting Cast and Smaller Stories: Despite my issues with the "stop the prophesied evil/save the world" direction the main quest eventually veers towards, I adored the journey on getting there.

The Bloody Baron questline was a gut-punch like none either. I had agonized over freeing the spirit, but I thought it was the right call. Heading back to Crow's Perch and seeing a figure dressed in red and swinging from a tree was depressing.

Keira Metz was a fun character. I remembered her from the books, and the writing did justice to her. Her questline was fantastic and it boggles my mind that it is more or less optional content.

Dijkstra was one of my favorite characters in the game. His sarcastic back and forth with Geralt was a constant source of entertainment, and I made it a point to pick those conversation options that seemed like they were written to get a rise out of Dijkstra. The Reason of State quest was another gut-punch as a result.

In other words, almost every single character arc (Lambert and the Witchers at Kaer Morhen, Priscilla and Dandelion, returning cameos from Roche and Letho, Yennefer' and Triss' quests, Radovid and Philippa, and so on) drew me in so much that they more than made the journey worthwhile.

From an overall story perspective, I have to say I'm satisfied. Witcher 2 featured a tighter story with fewer moving parts, but W3 does an admirable job of deftly juggling with so many characters and their intertwining stories.

 

[Whisky]

Dandelion and Zoltan did have a lot of screen time (Dandelion especially), but it was a little disappointing how their stories were basically dropped in the third act. The lack of consequences bothered me too, with the talk of all the endings it was possible to get, I thought there would be some reactivity to decisions made in Witcher 1 and 2 as well as 3, but there wasn't really.

Triss could have been given a bit more to do. I actually think Keira Metz had more screen time than her. Triss had a few quests in Novigrad but that was it. Maybe she showed up more if you kept up her romance? I don't know, because I went with Yen.

I think the game did a great job with Yen and Ciri by the way, not having read the books I cared about the characters by the end and wanted to know what happened to them. But I also had a lot invested in other characters too, like Dandelion, Zoltan, BROche, Ves and Triss and they were completely ignored. I can't quite believe CDPR did this.

If you continue Triss's romance she shows up at Kaer Morhen. Actually she had such a presence I'd be surprised if she didn't show up with a flimsy excuse if you didn't. Did she show up for you?