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The Witcher 3 vs Dragon Age Inquisition: Trespasser

I still have confused feelings about The Witcher 3, thought. Without a doubt, the Witcher 3 is better than DAI. The combat is more fluid. The world design is more beautiful. The inventory system is more organized. The crafting is less annoying. The characters are fuller and more complex. DAI has a far weaker companion lineup than other games in the series (most notably, DA2...). The Witcher 3 has better boss fights. But somehow, no part of the Witcher made me sweat and clutch at myself like the Trespasser DLC at the end of DAI did. I assume it's because Trespasser centred around one of my favourite characters and had massive implications for the future of the franchise, and I felt like I'd actually impacted that character's growth, whereas in the Witcher, only Ciri really grows.

Also, the music in Trespasser is better.

The Witcher 3 vs Mass Effect 2

Alright, the Witcher 3 has more depth, better quests, and more realistic characters, but Mass Effect 2 has less filler, better combat, a better main quest and final mission, and more straight-up awesome moments.

Also, the music in Mass Effect 2 is better.

TLDR: Near-perfect game, could use less filler (well-executed as the filler might be), I love the pessimism but it did make me distance myself from the game a bit more, emotionally speaking.

Small updates.
- The WItcher 3 Hearts of Stone was amazing. I'll write about it more later after Blood and Wine... but, wow.
- There's a PHD student who keeps asking me questions about the assignment 1 of the stats course I TA and because he knows where my desk is it's hard to get rid of him. I don't know WTF is his problem, he and this other dude keep asking the simplest questions even though I've clarified on the course website.
- Manisha messaged me again, and it's no easier now to think of what to say, IDK, this is way above my pay grade
- Nearly finished the cache puzzle I've been preparing...I love geopotato, but it's hard for him to find non-spoilery screenshots. So I composed the puzzle using only the season I've watched. Hopefully I can place the cache this weekend, though it's been unpleasantly... moist... of late.
- Three words: Structural equation modeling.

Well, I finished The Witcher 2 last night. I took Iorveth's path after Chapter 1.
- Gameplay does get a lot easier, especially when you toss half a dozen bombs into the melee, and stop carelessly dying ever fight.
- I felt relatively helpless as the protagonist - Geralt is getting manipulated by a lot of different parties, and there's nothing you can do about it. This isn't a bad thing. It's rather refreshing. Though at the end I thought "So this whole adventure was kind of pointless after all?"
- I felt a lot of character interactions - even with supposed friends of Geralt - were too expositiony and didn't really capture the warmth of it. Geralt also seems to be really, really tired and lacking enthusiasm in everything. Partially because it seems the whole world is out to manipulate or lynch you. Makes sense, but doesn't make for a very engaging protagonist.
- Felt a lot of the sexual content was tacky. Specifically, the encounter with Cynthia. WTF?
- The game economy was actually fairly well balanced. By that I mean that even at the end of the game, I couldn't buy all the weapons from the vendors that I wanted.
- Really enjoyed the journal entries by Dandelion. I'd like him to write my internal monologues.
- Monster hunting quests should really have quest markers.
- Some of the maps are really rubbish. I couldn't figure out how to access the wilderness north of Vergen for ages.
- I liked the Witcher 1 better.

On to The Wild Hunt.

- I definitely saw some pubes in the first five minutes of the game... not trying too hard already, are we?
- Temeria is a shithole.
- Combat is unforgiving. You go down in 3-5 hits on normal difficulty.
- I went down to two wraiths in a dungeon three or four times, turned down the difficulty, was taken down twice more. Probably just doing something wrong too.
- There's definitely a learning curve here... there's a lot of gameplay options. Alchemy, magic, crafting, armor enhancements...
- Might not be cut out for traditional RPGs.

I dreamed I was Geralt. I knew I was Geralt because there was a bit where I was obsessing over my steel sword / silver sword choices and my alchemical loadout.

The gameplay had a tutorial level in which the player has fully-upgraded skills and equipment, like Assassin's Creed 1 or Dragon Age II. Obviously after that, one is demoted in the Assassin's ranks for bungling up a key mission, or Varric admits that he'd be exaggerating a bit in the narration, and one starts back at level 1, (re)learning skills and (re)acquiring equipment. So as Geralt of Rivia, I was assaulting the castle of a vampire lord - which looked a lot like my neighbour's house on Halloween, but bigger, but walked into an ambush and was captured.

Then I was breaking out of the dungeon, slaying the undead left and right with a salvaged fireplace poker (why do vampires need fireplaces?). I knelt down to loot a fallen ghoul-boss and realized that he was carrying a silver sword. MY silver sword. I happily added it to the armory sticking out of my back and promptly woke up. Ugh.