and I still think the first game was a much better experience. This game and the second were great games without a doubt. Well worth the money I paid for it. However the climax was half as exciting as I hoped it would be.

Should of had Alvin appear to rub it in to your face that he was right all along.

I didn't necessarily love the way they chose to present the ending (post-epilogue), but I've seen many far less satisfying game endings. Also, those last few main quests were done incredibly well, in my opinion, and the experience of playing through them was enough to definitely leave me wanting more. I'd love to get a Ciri-focused game at some point (they could definitely do amazing things given her abilities to hop through time and space), but alas that will probably remain a dream.

Incidentally, W3 was my first entry into the series, and I loved it so much that I just purchased and started my first ever playthrough of W1, and I plan to do W2 right after. I'm still only in the outskirts of Vizima, but I'm having a blast with the game so far and wondering how and why I never gave it a try when it originally launched.

Good to see you gave the original game a chance. Most new starts just don't do that because it does not hold their hand. If you think the story climax in Witcher 3 was good, you are going to love how it is done in the first game. It also makes the end of Witcher 3 have much more meaning. So many references people won't get unless they've played the original.

I also recently managed to finish the game, I explored every nook and crany and didn't had to many issues with bugs (alteast when not charshing to desktop), few side quest related issues, and most of those I managed to work around on my own, I even discovered unlimited Experience exploit (at lvl 32 tho) :)

Anyhow, I like it a lot, but there were still couple of things missing to make is satisfying. I'm okay with the ending as such, but not so much with the "ever afer" that's implied to every world/character state, no cliff hangers at all, no room for future visit to this characters, makes me kinda sad (yes, I know it's conclusion for Geralt, but saying he spent rest of his 100+ years baking with Triss or sleeping till noon with Yenn kinda devalues all the story and character developents so far.

Also, I was left disapointed with relations with Triss (love interest) after the lighthouse, she was mostly support charater since that point having no greater importance then Phillipa.

But probably my biggest gripe is how I was disappiinted at the start by transition from W2 ending to W3 start. No word of any of the people I set out to search Yenn with. What's up with Iorveth and Triss, last time I saw it they were going into the sunset together with Geralt. Now it's Vesemir (how did they meet?) and no comments about Triss or Iorveth, I had play for may hours to even find out that Triss and Geralt decided to be just friends. Frustrating. Also, decisions from previous games were unimportant tho they had potential to change "geopolitical" landscape. Ada should be Radovid's wife, what's up with that? Not a word. Big part of the first game revolved around Ada. Also Alvin... how "delusional" vissions turned out to be true, but Geralt had no comments? Another amnesia? That letter you find in bookstore in Novigrad gives a not to Alvin, but it's ended with that. And many many more stuff. Only charatcer that does make appearance in the W3 is Letho and I killed the bastard so I missed out on that. And Geralt didn't see witchers since attack at Kear Morhen in W1, and they just meet up and are like "sup bro". If you take a look at how they parted (burrying Leo) they should atleast ask geralt did he ever got to find Salamandra (it's time before FB and instant messaging)

But still, great game, could be deeper and more meaningfull, UI is bad. but hey... can't have it all I guess, but most importantly I'm looking forward to expansions :)

Yeah I agree that it seems that they just wanted to wipe the slate clean completely. I was also very disappointed at no mention of Iorveth and the fact they completely ditched Triss' relationship with Geralt was quite frustrating. You would of thought they would of at least involved Alvin into the whole situation. I mean he predicted the whole thing by the end of the first game. Of course people ignore the game because it isn't the usual trendy stuff so no one knows this. Ignoring the previous games get irritating.

*SPOILERS for W1 and W3*



....



You do know Alvin is dead right? Also, there is a message from Alvin in the bookstore in Novigrad at Hierarch square.

Well we don't know for sure. We don't know at which point that Alvin takes up the persona we killed in the first game. We also know he can travel through time so... we don't know he's dead.

***SPOILER FOR EVERYTHING*****

- serious, ofc this whole thread is full of spoilers, it's about what happened in the game :)

Regardless of the Alvin's time travel abilities, for the sake of the linearity let's say he is dead. But still when Ciri started talking about white frost I expected Geralt to say either "this woman be trippin like crazy Grandmastah" OR--- "crazy bastard was right all along" I mean, it WAS the whole point of the first game :)

Note in Novigrad bookstore is just more (obvious) implying that Alvin is Grandmaster

Actually the Grandmaster was wrong. His stance was, that you couldn't save the world without killing all those people he thought expendable. What Ciri did, proved that you indeed could get the job done without doing all that crazy shit the Grandmaster deemed inevitable. So...

And no, this wasn't the whole point of the first game, especially not for Geralt, who never really cared about all that stuff. :D For Geralt the first game was about stopping Salamandra and getting the witcher secrets back.
It's a theme of all the Witcher stories, that he stumbles into things that are too big for him, or at least that there's more going on than he's aware of or cares about.

Well, I never meant to say that Grandmastah was right for doing the things he did, but what was explaind as a "vision of a madman" (something crazy person invented in his head and thus is false) turned out to be true. It still leaves Geralt in the right for stopping him, his way was wrong, but I meant that white frost vas not something crazy peroson came up with, it's was a serious problem for the universe. And at the end of the W3 geralt should be kinda shaken by that realization since untill that point he thought it to be nothing more than madmans ravings.

And W1 is multilayered game, but it's climax was stopping Grandmastah who was behind the Salamandra the whole time. It was not only thing in that the first game is about, yes. And it was revealed pretty late,yes. But in the end it was given the most important parts of the game's story.

And I kinda liked story in W2 a lot since it was all about political intrigue, while third one had a little of that, while falling for the usual one where you save the world. But I guess one could argue that W3 is about finding Ciri and helping her, while her story is about saving universe and thus game's story is not about saving universe but it's related to someone who does that :)

Yeah but the thing you're forgetting is Geralt thinks that the ice age is coming many many years after he is gone. Not a few years down the road. So naturally he doesn't really care too much. Had he known it was coming within a decade he would of cared a bit more don't you think?

Uhm, no. Actually it was always explained as Ithlinne's Prophecy [1], this too was nothing the Grandmaster himself came up with (first).

[1] http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Ithlinne's_Prophecy

I actually don't think that it would have changed all that much, don't forget that among Geralt's most famous quotes is stuff like "If that's what it takes to save the world, it's better to let that world die".

I do miss the original games combat.

I miss the romance in every city and get a card :)
There are so many villages in this game, it would bring back memories from the Witcher 1 .

I also finally finished the Witcher 3, had a little tear for Ciri and Geralt at the end.
Very good game. Can't wait for the DLC stories.

Ah yeah being able to shag everything was fun. You can tell Geralt is getting old when he doesn't pump any woman infront of him. :D