The Witcher 3 part 2

So, I set a goal for myself: An insane challenge to beat The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in under 1 month.

Part 2; Sex, drugs, dodge and roll

I’ve finally found some fun. In the game’s first major city, Noveria, shrinking down the map size, moving gameplay into the town streets and indoors, makes this more of a manageable RPG. Open-world as a gaming term has gotten out of control.

Skyrim, at least, allowed you to fast-travel from anywhere outdoors.

Dragon Age Inquisition, at least, had pithy party dialogue in between camps.

The Witcher 3 has Gerry riding or running for miles and miles hoping to stumble upon a signpost.

I’ve finally figured out the trick to combat: the crossbow.

Roll away, shoot bolt. Roll away, shoot bolt. This turns every fight into a dance macabre, plunking away 5 damage at a time. Load up on potions and food. Meditate after every fight to avoid spending resources. Soon your inventory will be 50% raw meat and 50% water. Now you are the Wildest Hunt of all.

Quest breakdown:

• Helped an insane, demon-possessed woman reunite with her fat, abusive husband.
• Met a witch who had me kill a bunch of rats. Then we had a lovely moonlight picnic and had sex.
• Met a man named Whoreson Jr. No jokes here at all.
• Hooked up with an old girlfriend, the only other person in the world who speaks with an American accent. I helped her kill a bunch of rats, went to the Winter Palace masquerade ball, and freed her mage friends from Templars or some shit. Then we had sex.
• Put on a stage play, complete with morality tale, to trick a shape-shifter into shape-shifting.

Aren’t I supposed to be a bad-ass, monster-slaying bounty hunter?

The real main quest of the game is searching for a young woman named Ciri. This involves talking to every named NPC and asking, “Have you seen Ciri?” The response is always, “Yep, you just missed her.” It’s almost a farce. Every few hours you actually get to play as Ciri for 5 minutes at a time. I fully expect her to fall out of the sky soon and say, “Hey, Gerry. I was here the whole time.”

And who is Ciri, you ask? Great question. There was absolutely no mention of her in the previous game. The excuse of course, being Gerry lost his memory in between the first 2 games. Magically, he’s got it back for the third. This, ultimately, is the real problem with the story and characters:

CONTEXT

The Witcher game series is actually based on several European fantasy novels. If you’ve not read the books, you don’t understand the nature of any characters' relationship to any other. If you only played the previous game in the series, as I did, you’re wondering why “The Wild Hunt” is no longer an event, but now a group of guys in goofy-looking armour. It’s great whenever Gerry bumps into someone and says, “Oh, I remember you.” Really? Because I don’t. You wanna help me out here, game? Oh, read the journal you say? Yep, that context-less story told from another person's perspective really helps.

Why am I doing this? Who is this person? Why does the game assume I’ve read the books to provide context? 

Okay, fine, you've got me.

I’ll read all of the Witcher novels too.