I think it’s the player’s interpretation that’s the problem. The game seems pretty agnostic about the ending. Whether Ciri dies, or comes back to Witching, or becomes the princess, the world is saved, right?
Man, I almost wish they’d gone straight up point and click adventure game with Witcher 3. I’d love to get to these interesting decisions you guys found, but I got so damn sick of getting attacked by wild dogs every fifty feet.
I don’t think so. I remember there being some very specific scenes at the end of the game that were either positive or negative based on a few decision points in the game. I didn’t think it was agnostic.
This reminds me that I had finally just found Ciri after 55 hours of fighting, searching, Witchering and being easily distracted during my playthrough, and then the game decided to suddenly corrupt my entire save folder. All of them.
I’ll run off sobbing now, thanks for the memories.
I was under the exact opposite impression:
If she dies, the white frost is not defeated and will eventually destroy everything. If she lives, she ‘defeated it.’ I’m not the best with lore, so perhaps I’m off on that point.
You can think it’s “bad” but it’s not like the game tells you “Hey, man, you really whiffed it back there!”
I concede that any time Geralt died in a random fight with Drowners is technically the worst ending.
End spoiler:
AFAIK, the ending players consider “bad” is the one that has Ciri never returning from the portal. Geralt goes and fights Weavess (remember that she escapes the big fight) and he retrieves Ciri’s amulet. Then he gets swarmed by monsters. It’s kind of ambiguous, really.
Ah right I just meant in terms of :
“Whether Ciri dies, or comes back to Witching, or becomes the princess, the world is saved, right?” In the event of the first option, the world is temporarily, but not ultimately not saved right? Whereas the White Frost is kaput in the other two endings. Not trying to say you’re wrong, I’m honestly curious if I misunderstood that.
You have a complexity complex
More spoilers for the “bad” ending:
AFAIK, she’s successful at stopping the Frost. She just doesn’t come back.
I could be wrong though.
Heh, well, I teach that subject so I suppose I have a vested interest.
Unhappy endings aren’t bad endings. And happy endings are a dime a dozen. You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have, the facts of life.
Yeah, I think we’re spoiled by games where you “win” or “lose.” The entire W3 experience involves making decisions that aren’t clearly right or wrong and which may give a sadder result. But that doesn’t mean it’s the “wrong” choice.
What I loved about W3 was that, like real life, you can’t assure that you’re going to end up with the happy happy results in every area. It’s kinda like a pre-Hays Code film noir, where you aren’t guaranteed the good guys win and the bad guys lose. It is, IMO, totally appropriate that you may make parenting decisions that result in Ciri being less self assured, or less of a free and wild spirit, but that may also be what results in her not being what is needed to defeat her foe and end up being queen or princess or whatever. Yeah, sad, but that doesn’t mean it’s the "bad’ or “lose” ending. It’s just a different ending.
W3 is one of the few open world games where I refused to look at Wikis and walkthroughs to figure out the “best” choices. I just played it in a role play, what would I do way. And that may be what I loved about it. The results of your choices were the results of your choices. At no point did a choice stop you from continuing the game or stop the world from going on. The world didn’t owe Geralt a happy ending. I loved that.
The Ciri thing… eh. I felt like the right decision was pretty obvious most of the time and not just because of external morality but because of Geralt’s behavior and narrative throughout the game. It’s like creating a game where you have to save the princess and the character spends dozens of hours doing this, only to have a scene after you’ve found her where a weaselly courtier says “well, you could keep the princess… or you can have this shiny watch!”. It’s just, as the fankids like to say, out of character.
The Yennifer/Triss things is the same way… but worse to me, because Yennifer’s vixenly scorn of everyone doesn’t seem to fade even at the end (at least to me). But the whole arc of Geralt searching for Yennifer for essentially three games seems tossed aside if he goes for the hot redhead again.
I did like the political endings though. Each possible outcome - even the “good” ending with Ciri, are full of compromises and imperfect conclusions, and there are legitimate arguments for all of them
Horrifying. Why. Why do you post this here.
Too bad about that second picture with the eyes and hair.
That first picture is really impressive though. That’s just incredible if you focus on just that part of the cake.
I’m crying, lmao. This is gold.
So, I know I’m about 2 years late to this party, but I finally finished Witcher 3 and the two DLCs today. Apparently, I had played the game originally up to the point of Priscilla’s song, but it was going on for so long, and I wanted to play other games that had come out, and by the time I was done, I knew I’d have to start over again. And didn’t really hit a nice lull in new things coming out until semi-recently (like 200+ hours ago).
Overall - I’d agree with what CraigM said back in June. From a pure gameplay perspective, the game was decent, good even. I’m mean, it’s 2015 - why can’t the GPS lead me to a custom map marker? I know not everyone likes that sort of thing, but I don’t play games so I can open the map every 20 seconds to make sure I’m heading in the right direction (and since you can’t just straight-line it a lot of times, following the roads is important). But the annoyances with the actual gameplay didn’t detract from the story, which does far and away blow away any other RPG ever made.
I can’t say this is my favorite game ever. Certainly top 5. And as long as it was, it’s good enough to make me want to start it all over again (including the first two games - I only played them once each, and don’t remember a thing from them).
Addendum: One thing I found interesting in reading through this thread (and the spoiler one) is how the Yen/Triss thing breaks down. Seems that those who read the books almost exclusively pick Yen, and those who’ve only played the games pick Triss. I mean, like 95%+ effective in figuring out who someone picked.
Oh man, I just assumed that was something I couldn’t figure out. Kind of gratified (I guess?) that it wasn’t me.