Fookin' Skelligers

Though it's considerably more playable than its predecessors, Witcher 3 still has its share of oddities and frustrations. Like the dramatic disparity between how many skills you can invest points into (80) and how many can be activated at once (12). And how the Alchemy menu doesn't allow you to buy materials directly from its crafting screen, even though armor and weapon crafting does, and the menus are identical.

Foremost in my mind is how incredibly picky the game can be about context-specific actions. Being able to interact with an object requires both that Geralt is roughly facing it, and that the camera is somewhat centered on it; and so many times, Geralt's wide turning radius has resulted in me awkwardly trying to dance into the right position to press the 'A' button. It can be ... maddening.

But - and I feel I'm repeating myself, here - these inconveniences melt away in the face of the game's character and intrigue. The writing is so charmingly fitting, that it never fails to draw me into its world. Even when that world isn't exactly on my side.

Here's a story I recently relayed by text message:

So I did a couple quests this morning. One of them was killing the ghosts haunting that lighthouse island [Eldberg], it turned out to be a curse because the lighthouse keeper collaborated with some thieves to turn out the light, make ships wreck, and collect the loot. I let the keeper go but put some fear of Freya in him.

It was a contract, so I went back to town to report it to the contract giver. He was a friendly warrior who had previously told some xenophobic Skelligers to stop harassing me in the pub. Those same guys came back and wanted to fight the contract giver. So I joined him and fought the two guys.

They brought out swords and killed the nice dude (nothing I could do to stop it). So I killed the shit out of them. Then their dad was outside, apparently they were his only two sons, and he ordered me to stand trial for murdering his kids.

Went to trial by the "Madman" jarl. He kind-of bought my self-defense story, sentenced me to death for murder, but allowed me to pay off the life debt by doing him a favor. The jarl's son was off on a dumb quest to prove his manliness (I guess to be king) and the jarl knew he would fuck it up without my help.

So I went to help him, he asked why and I didn't say anything about his dad, figuring he would be too proud to accept that help. We went into a cave of "dreams" which legend said would confront us with our greatest fears. (Actually everyone took a bunch of hallucinogens.) Sure enough his greatest fear was his father thinking he was weak, so we fought a hallucination of his father.

Then we saw Geralt's fear which was the king of the Wild Hunt. Before I could kill him, Geralt passed out. He woke up on the ground and saw the jarl's son glaring down at him.

The son said a messenger had arrived while I was out, saying that I had been sent by his father. Since I told the son that I was just here for money (instead of repaying a debt to his father), he thought I was trying to steal from him. He gave me the money but told me to get lost and not talk to their people again.

So I saved the island from wraiths, some nordic hicks smack-talked me in a bar, and now their whole clan hates me.

Progress: Level 26, swept through the Isles, collecting some contracts.