...Just Play Another Game

Minor Spoilers

Yes, yay! I have finished Witcher Enhanced Edition. Although there is a lot of things I like about it, I must admit it was a slog. I was not inspired to try out the premium content. I don’t think it matters to the story arc anyway. The story, the characters and the alchemy system are cool and you can pick out advanced abilities to complement combat styles you like. The gift giving can lead to some hilarious NPC interactions. Unfortunately important characters can show up in unexpected places or at specific times and Geralt can’t meditate wherever he likes. Climbing and jumping is also restricted and he can’t take short cuts across some of the maps. This means a lot of tedious running around for Geralt. I’m not sure how many quests I failed or how many rewards I missed but I don’t care much.

The whole amnesia thing worked well for me because I didn’t know what to expect from the game and for the most part Geralt just goes along to get along until he’s forced into making some catastrophic decision. I didn’t want him to upset Shani but she really didn’t seem capable of protecting little orphan Alvin. But once he delivered Alvin to Triss, I learned that Triss still went gallivanting at night and left poor Alvin alone in her house. She was there the night trouble showed up but Alvin wound up transporting himself directly into a domestic dispute in another town. No wonder things turned out the way it did. On top of this Triss became very demanding. I now know how Geralt’s going to deal with her in Witcher 3.

I also did not want Geralt to upset Seigmund but I did not expect that negotiating with the Elves was a hard choice. I still could have picked the neutral option later but I took Roche’s path in Witcher 2 and I want to try the Iorveth path this time so I went with the Elves.

I also picked up some foreshadowing of events to come and I now understand why my impression of the Wild Hunt was so wrong. I am glad I finally persevered with this game.