Press B 204: You really need to play Witcher 3 in 2024

[00:00:00] Toss a coin to your podcast and why Roach is the true hero today on

[00:00:26] Welcome in everybody welcome to another episode of the Press B To Cancel podcast your favorite podcast

[00:00:34] Well, at least if you don't have a migraine, it's your favorite podcast

[00:00:40] Uh

[00:00:41] I'm uh, i'm your host today Sinistar 77

[00:00:45] But i'm not alone. Thankfully you guys have somebody else here

[00:00:49] To to buffer me

[00:00:51] I'm joined by my good friend Jake Jake. How are you today?

[00:00:55] Doing pretty good been a rough week health wise but today I feel great

[00:00:59] And I honestly i've been waiting years to do an episode about this game in depth

[00:01:04] I've been waiting for somebody on our team to actually play this game besides me

[00:01:08] This is one of my favorite games of all time. So i'm really excited for today's episode

[00:01:13] Excellent excellent. Yes. So, um, I mean it was spoiled a little bit before

[00:01:18] Uh the intro and we may or may not put that into the audio podcast. So for those

[00:01:23] That weren't here for that or didn't hear it, you know in the audio podcast, etc, etc

[00:01:29] Today we are talking witcher 3 in particular

[00:01:33] uh, although

[00:01:36] We can talk a little bit about some of the other, you know, the media whether it's witcher 1 2

[00:01:41] Or the tv show or the books, etc, etc. So

[00:01:46] There's even an anime now

[00:01:47] There's an anime movie came out. I think like last year. I believe yeah, is there really

[00:01:52] Do the the author of of the books that the witchers series based on is based on a polish novel series

[00:01:58] That guy will will sell his property to anybody who gives him money

[00:02:03] So and then he'll get angry about it and then he'll get angry about it

[00:02:07] Yeah, we should talk about that too. But yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so, okay. Well

[00:02:13] so a little backstory

[00:02:14] um if you were new to the podcast or

[00:02:18] Um just as a refresher

[00:02:20] uh every year

[00:02:22] Uh, this is a tradition now. I think this is our third year. We do what we call our sisyphean game

[00:02:28] Uh, it's a it's a game that we feel like we should have beaten whether it's

[00:02:32] We didn't because it was difficult or we didn't because we bounced off of it or you know something or we don't understand the hype

[00:02:41] Uh, you know, but we feel like we should um, we we challenge ourselves. We have a year to beat it

[00:02:48] And then if you don't we spin the wheel of pain and the reason i'm bringing that up is because today

[00:02:52] We are talking about a game that I picked for my sisyphean game for 2024

[00:02:58] Uh, which I finished, uh as of oh what probably april

[00:03:04] 14th 13th something like that. Yeah, I think I finished it maybe last weekend or the weekend before but

[00:03:12] uh witcher three, um

[00:03:14] and my challenge was because I basically find

[00:03:18] that I struggle to

[00:03:21] Fully engage with open world games. And so, uh, I kind of picked

[00:03:26] I I cherry picked what I kind of viewed as

[00:03:30] potentially the best open world game

[00:03:33] And uh, you know, you might as well you might as well start strong right? Right and uh

[00:03:40] And so yeah, I have played through witcher three. I've played through I didn't 100 percent it but I did

[00:03:45] I logged over 100 hours

[00:03:50] On this playthrough to be fair

[00:03:52] I think you played more of it than I have and I like this like I love this game

[00:03:57] And I think you did more of the side stuff than I ever could have which is crazy

[00:04:00] So if you didn't 100 percent it you came really close, honestly

[00:04:04] well, I look at the chivos and

[00:04:07] And I definitely didn't chivo 100 percent but a lot of the chivos are like

[00:04:12] You know knock 10 people off of a high point using, you know art or I can't remember which

[00:04:18] Which of the of the signs is is the you know, the blast sign

[00:04:22] Um, all I know is just where they are in the wheel

[00:04:25] um

[00:04:26] so uh

[00:04:27] You know, so I didn't really do many of those

[00:04:30] I did I did finish one because I was really close. That was a little bit like that which was

[00:04:36] um

[00:04:37] in the third dlc

[00:04:39] I completed one portion of it. That's kind of optional. So we'll get to that

[00:04:43] We're not going to do spoilers until we basically say hey, we're doing spoilers. So don't worry

[00:04:49] Uh, I mean we may we may talk a little bit about some of the early game and I guess that would be

[00:04:56] Spoiler ish but we're definitely not going to get to

[00:05:00] Um, you know ending of main story or the dlcs until we tell you hey spoilers coming

[00:05:06] I do want to talk about the dlcs and the narrative there because it is quite a bit of a different story

[00:05:11] Than the base game, but yeah, you're right. We'll spill to the later in the episode

[00:05:15] But we do got to talk about it. This is a game that is it's not new

[00:05:18] I mean it originally came out in I think it was

[00:05:22] 2015 I want to say so almost 10 years 10 years ago. I know it got a recent rerelease. Well

[00:05:29] Recent rerelease of the nintendo switch in 2019. So it's still five years ago

[00:05:34] Well, and then a recent

[00:05:38] Re-release in that they did

[00:05:41] the the uber hd

[00:05:43] You know and and then brought in also a lot of the of the

[00:05:48] Funny enough. They brought in a lot of the creature comforts and fixes that the modding community had done

[00:05:53] Right and made it made it actually canon

[00:05:57] Canonical to the game so and actually I would like let's talk about that for just a second

[00:06:01] Then because this is the game where like I was a huge fan of cd project red from witcher 2, right?

[00:06:07] I loved witcher 2 and I love what they did with that game, but I especially liked how

[00:06:12] After it came out after it was released. I loved how they handled the pricing model

[00:06:16] It was always going on discount. It was is based on the poster child for uh, gog

[00:06:21] Which is their storefront that they own

[00:06:23] And but also the post game dlcs which were all free and updates that were adding new content to it

[00:06:28] But even when they were all said and done with the game

[00:06:32] One of the guys who worked on the game one of the programmers on his own time made his own mod

[00:06:38] To modify witcher 2 with with additional features and stuff

[00:06:41] So like they they've always been a company or at least you know the games I love

[00:06:45] Well, they don't release it and forget about it

[00:06:47] There's a lot of post updates made to these games and witcher 3 is no exception

[00:06:51] They made a lot of free content drops for this game a lot of tweaks a lot of fixes

[00:06:56] And it's been great. That's why I think

[00:06:58] People are so upset with cyberpunk when that released in the state that it did because everybody's kind of expecting the same attention that witcher 3 got

[00:07:05] And it never quite got there but witcher 3 was a game that they definitely loved it was their poster child for multiple years

[00:07:11] And I mean, they've certainly made their money on this game huge for sure

[00:07:15] Yeah, so if you've if you've been stuck under a rock

[00:07:20] for the last

[00:07:21] You know, uh 15 plus years

[00:07:25] Uh, the witcher is basically the premise is is these are

[00:07:30] um

[00:07:31] Well, they're they're born human

[00:07:35] Um, they're they're basically, um collected as children

[00:07:39] They are trained as basically a a monster hunter

[00:07:44] uh, they're given a

[00:07:46] chemical compound

[00:07:48] That mutates them so basically in the in the concept of the of the story in the canon

[00:07:55] Many people don't think of them as human anymore

[00:07:58] um, and uh, and basically they're just they're just designed to

[00:08:03] To be monster hunters. Um

[00:08:05] And then they roam around and it's it's uh, it is a very

[00:08:09] Pay for profit kind of situation. It's not this you're not a hero out there in the world. Just doing your good because

[00:08:17] Well, I do good, right? Well, it's it's interesting

[00:08:20] So the world that they they've built for these games and this well not just the games of the books as well

[00:08:24] But it was mostly humans as well

[00:08:27] It was mostly an elvish society and then humans kind of invaded the land and took over as humans do

[00:08:32] And at some point in the in the backstory of the lore of the land

[00:08:36] There was a there's a melding of dimensions and monsters appeared and with the coming of all the monsters

[00:08:41] Humans invented the technology or the process to make witchers and at the time

[00:08:45] In early history there was so many of them it was fine

[00:08:47] But as the ages dwindled they lost the technology and they started having fewer and few of them left alive

[00:08:54] So at the point in the story in which are three

[00:08:56] There's really only a handful in the various schools

[00:08:59] And I think what you have three or four in gerald school and you get to meet all of them eventually

[00:09:04] but it's gerald and and uh vezmir is

[00:09:07] His father figure I guess in this or his teacher that are basically the main characters and it just

[00:09:12] It's neat that there's so few of them that naturally turns to while they're in demand and we need them to kill monsters

[00:09:17] So witchers got to eat so I guess they pay them as much as they hate them, which is an interesting take but

[00:09:23] Yeah, that's

[00:09:25] Okay, so

[00:09:26] That has a segue to me

[00:09:28] And it's good because we're not talking spoilers at all here. Um, but but throughout the game

[00:09:36] You know you run into so many people that are like

[00:09:40] You know get out of here or else i'm gonna kick your ass

[00:09:43] Or you know you shut your mouth or you know, whatever and every time that happens i'm like

[00:09:50] Do you not realize?

[00:09:54] I'm a i'm a fucking witcher

[00:09:57] It's like would you spit in the eye of superman and tell him he's a cunt like I mean

[00:10:01] That's that's what it is right? Like why would you why would you do that as somebody who could tear this place apart?

[00:10:06] Right, it's it's it shows you the character of gerald that

[00:10:09] He could murder these people that maybe are you know offensive, but he doesn't for the most part

[00:10:14] Depending on you sometimes sometimes sometimes limbs fall off. But yeah

[00:10:19] As they do

[00:10:20] Sometimes but I mean the opening scene to the game

[00:10:23] Right. There's like a bar basically a barber all with some absolute absolute terrible members of the human society

[00:10:30] Yeah, and he basically takes him out only to have the innkeeper basically say get the hell out of here

[00:10:35] What the hell are you doing? Right? Right. Like even when he tries to help

[00:10:40] He gets

[00:10:41] Insulted and put down and threatened and like he's basically a pariah no matter what he does

[00:10:46] There's only a handful of characters that you can consider his friends in the story. It's it's it's an interesting dark take

[00:10:53] Which I loved I I pretty much loved every single friendship that was brought into the game

[00:10:59] You know, whether it was a friendship that had been

[00:11:02] either in the previous games or had come from the books which

[00:11:07] Ties into a dlc. Um, I don't think that's a spoiler to say that

[00:11:12] um

[00:11:13] But it's I I absolutely love

[00:11:17] It's it's funny because I was playing it. I played witcher one

[00:11:22] Oh, I don't know. I probably have 20 25 hours in witcher one

[00:11:27] And I mean that's very much a core style rpg more so than than say

[00:11:33] witcher three and I did play witcher two but witcher two to me became

[00:11:38] So much of that action rpg that I was like I kind of bounced off of witcher two

[00:11:43] Um, it definitely had a different feel to it than one and definitely three

[00:11:48] but like um

[00:11:49] go ahead one was like a

[00:11:51] It had like a point and click combat which is interesting

[00:11:54] It was based on it was based on a very heavily modified version of the uh,

[00:11:57] The never went to night's engine from what I recall and then witcher two was

[00:12:01] Closer to what we have with three but probably not as nearly as open world

[00:12:05] I would even call it open world

[00:12:06] Yeah, but I fell off like I love to and i've beaten it

[00:12:09] I think twice but every time I go back to replay it because I do like to play it

[00:12:13] I always get put off by the same section

[00:12:16] It's uh, you're you're basically imprisoned and you have to do a stealth sequence to get out

[00:12:20] And that sequence every time I go back to witcher two

[00:12:23] I I always fall off and I and I basically give up i've never had that with witcher three and every time I go through it

[00:12:29] so that's

[00:12:30] In the episode because we press b did this before chard and I joined but there was the episode on like

[00:12:37] Uh the games we love to replay, but then there's that one part

[00:12:41] Yeah, and that's that review in witcher two is yeah

[00:12:46] Yeah

[00:12:47] Yeah, and and i'm with you stealth is

[00:12:50] Like there are people that love it I do not I do not like stealth in games

[00:12:56] Um, yeah, which is one of the reasons I like at least the deus ex like human revolution game where it's basically at the beginning

[00:13:03] It's like do you want to stealth or do you want to run and gun?

[00:13:06] I like to run and gun. Thank you. Yeah, shoot, please

[00:13:10] Yeah, yeah, give me murder. It's easier. Yeah, I know i'm with you

[00:13:14] Yeah shoehorn stealth in the game is not one of my favorite things for sure

[00:13:17] And I don't think there's any stealth in witcher three

[00:13:21] You could maybe although I guess you could if you wanted to there's certain things with some of the monster hunts

[00:13:26] You could be stealthy. You certainly don't have to though

[00:13:29] Yeah, I think

[00:13:31] I mean, I think the amount of stealth that I did was I got myself

[00:13:35] Into at least a position where I could start out with one of my signs

[00:13:40] And get the first hit right? Right. Um, yeah

[00:13:44] And so and and but really quick to go back to what I was saying is

[00:13:48] Witcher three

[00:13:50] There's a lot of of moving pieces

[00:13:53] Of of these relationships that you have that kind of come in for a period and then move on and then come back later

[00:14:01] And I absolutely love

[00:14:03] You know a lot of times I was like well now who's this asshole?

[00:14:06] And there's a history that I didn't know right, but you learn it as part of the game. So it's great but um

[00:14:12] Yeah, that does that put you off though because so you played witcher two and you played witcher one, but you didn't finish them

[00:14:17] Um, I don't i'm assuming you didn't read the books at all

[00:14:21] I read the first well

[00:14:24] I don't think it was I read the the one that was the series of short stories

[00:14:29] Okay

[00:14:29] So my thing was I didn't read the novels or the short stories before I played the games

[00:14:33] I've recently got into the to the books audio books, but

[00:14:37] So for me, I didn't know these characters really

[00:14:40] Witcher three there's certain points where they kind of throw a character at you and i'm like, I know the name

[00:14:44] I don't know any of the relationship witcher two is convenient because in that game you have sorry for the spoilers

[00:14:49] But you have amnesia, which is a convenient trope for a video game. So you don't have to know anything

[00:14:54] Witcher three you don't have amnesia

[00:14:57] But because you did in the second for the game before it they kind of go with the trope of oh

[00:15:01] If you don't remember this character, it's okay because you had amnesia and you're kind of getting your memories back

[00:15:06] You don't feel bad that you don't have that deep history

[00:15:08] Like you don't have to play witcher one and two and read the books and watch a show

[00:15:12] No to get this game this game even though it has a three in the title

[00:15:16] Really stands on its own really well

[00:15:18] like you you could just play witcher three and nothing else and totally be fine, and I think that's a great thing

[00:15:24] uh

[00:15:25] Which does segue a little bit into I understand that they are doing a remake of one

[00:15:31] Of witcher one

[00:15:33] And if that's if that's the case i'm all in

[00:15:38] I'll have to dedicate, you know another hundred hours to another game

[00:15:43] Yeah, I I know that I heard that too and then I heard that they're they are working on a fourth game that will not

[00:15:49] Have gerald it'll be something new

[00:15:52] and

[00:15:53] Okay

[00:15:54] I hope it's good

[00:15:55] I'll cross my fingers. That's good

[00:15:57] I mean my experience was witcher three and the dlc's especially that last dlc blood and wine

[00:16:03] I'm kind of good if they can end it there and not do anything else with gerald

[00:16:06] I don't I don't necessarily need to have more gerald in a story. I'm not saying no to more witcher

[00:16:12] But I just hope they don't mass effect andromeda

[00:16:15] And do a game just for the sake of a game and it ruins the the

[00:16:19] The taste of the franchise, I guess right?

[00:16:21] So I don't know

[00:16:23] I bet I hope it's good

[00:16:25] Um now I read the short it actually it's great. I read I read the book of short stories

[00:16:30] Which is which is fun because the television series has some of those little short story bits in it, which i've I I appreciate it

[00:16:38] but um

[00:16:40] I I want to kind of uh

[00:16:42] um

[00:16:45] We haven't gotten there yet since russ. I have I wasn't going to get there until we said spoilers

[00:16:50] um

[00:16:52] But uh

[00:16:54] Uh, I absolutely can totally see how henry cavill was a fan of the video games

[00:17:02] like

[00:17:03] Honestly, the the the witcher the gerald that he plays

[00:17:08] Yeah is gerald from the video games

[00:17:11] Yeah, the thing with witcher three is the the voice actor of gerald, uh doug cockle who's done a couple things

[00:17:17] But I think he's he's going to be known forever as gerald in this role. He's so iconic in it

[00:17:23] He's up there with kevin conroy as batman to me like he's he's what he's he's the voice of his character

[00:17:28] And when that tv show came out, I think they told cavill

[00:17:32] It's it's based on the books not the video games don't get a voice from the games

[00:17:36] But of course, he's he's a nerd like everybody knows henry cavill is a huge

[00:17:40] Table top and video game nerd and what does he do?

[00:17:43] He whips out his best doug cockle impression and he he does fine

[00:17:46] But I was not expecting him to lean so heavily into the witcher three version of this character. It's it's funny

[00:17:53] But that said

[00:17:55] The the characters that that you see both in the video game

[00:18:00] And that you see in the television shows

[00:18:03] Are it's it's it doesn't feel jarring

[00:18:07] To be like well that person was so entirely different in the video game or that person was so entirely different in the television show

[00:18:13] I really feel like

[00:18:16] You can watch both and you can see a lot of parody in the characters

[00:18:21] Right, um, which is great. I think I think uh, I mean I love the television show

[00:18:27] Um, it'll be interesting to see what the helmsworth is it what our scar scar which is it a scar scar or

[00:18:34] A hemsworth brother not the famous one the other one. Um, I feel liam. I think liam hemsworth. He's fine

[00:18:40] I have nothing against liam hemsworth. He's fine

[00:18:43] I mean, I didn't think cavill would be a good good good gerald

[00:18:46] But I mean I was proved wrong

[00:18:47] It's just a shame that they couldn't go with him for the rest of the show, but I mean it's a whole other thing but

[00:18:53] Yeah, the characters are pretty good from the game to the books to the to the show

[00:18:59] Like dandelion is is a fantastic character. No matter what the medium. I love him in the show and I love him in this

[00:19:06] Zoltan is the dwarf character

[00:19:10] But he's a bit off in the tv show it feels a little bit different than the game he feels more like

[00:19:15] Not as insane in the game as he is in the tv show

[00:19:19] Okay. Yeah in the game. I love zoltan in the game

[00:19:22] um, yeah, he's he is the one person I did a

[00:19:27] gwent quest for

[00:19:32] Yeah, gwent I love gwent I know you don't but I love that minigame

[00:19:37] You know, I would probably enjoy it if I had given it a chance

[00:19:42] But i'm staring down the barrel of 100 plus hour video game and i'm like, you know

[00:19:50] Ain't nobody got time for that

[00:19:52] Well, especially like I mean

[00:19:54] Like you said there's so many character stories and they're all really well done. Like this is this is a game

[00:19:59] And I think I said this in another episode

[00:20:02] This is a game where the side quests are totally worth doing

[00:20:05] I don't feel like i'm wasting my time with any of the side stuff

[00:20:08] I mean at least the stuff that has a narrative to it is all great every quest and I always wanted to do it

[00:20:12] so it felt like

[00:20:14] I know when I first played the game I got heavy into gwent

[00:20:17] And I had to stop myself because I was spending more hours playing gwent than the actual game itself

[00:20:21] And I was worried I was going to burn out on the game and I almost did

[00:20:24] But I had to like put away the gwent addiction and go do the plot

[00:20:29] I'm happy. I was happy when they released the standalone version of gwent

[00:20:33] I have some issues with that, but I like that they spun it off into its own game

[00:20:36] But uh, you don't need to play gwent in this to enjoy it. The plot is definitely front and center

[00:20:41] No, although they sucked me in like twice

[00:20:45] on accident into forced gwent games

[00:20:51] Well, it's it's funny because like every quest every dialogue with almost every mpc

[00:20:56] You have like a couple like introduce yourself threaten them talk to them get a quest

[00:20:59] There's always that one line fancy a game of gwent got time for cards

[00:21:04] It's just it's just wild how much you play you can play gwent in this game everybody has a deck it feels like

[00:21:10] I was gonna say when we were talking about how everybody like, you know

[00:21:14] Bashes on you as a witcher and says you're not but they're happy to play gwent with you

[00:21:20] Can I talk about gwent if and get out of the way then?

[00:21:23] So when for those who don't know gwent is the in-universe card game that everybody plays

[00:21:28] I don't know why there needs to be an in-game magic the gathering but there is

[00:21:33] Witcher 2 had like a dice thing that everybody ignored but in this game

[00:21:36] It's called gwent and it's like magic the gathering

[00:21:38] But there's no mana if everybody's feeling worth that kind of card game

[00:21:41] You have a handful of cards in a deck and you have three rows on your side three rows on the opponent's side

[00:21:46] Ones for like, you know your range units and siege equipment and source for as you have another one for like

[00:21:51] You know your melee characters, whatever

[00:21:53] But the mechanic that that grips me in this game is that you have a limited number of cards in your hand

[00:21:59] And when you run out of cards the round ends and then it's best I think out of two two out of three. I think it is

[00:22:05] But the idea that you have a limited resource, which is your hand and you can keep playing cards

[00:22:10] From your hand or you can know that you're going to lose a round and battle it early

[00:22:14] But keep that card advantage for the following round

[00:22:16] That part was really compelling the other half of it was

[00:22:19] You can place all these units on the different rows

[00:22:21] But there is special weather cards that will when played will nullify a row

[00:22:26] And there's also cards that nullify weather so there's that it was not a it wasn't a complicated minigame

[00:22:32] But there's just enough crunch to it that it just just sucked me in especially when I realized later on that

[00:22:37] There's different faction decks, you know for anybody again people who've played magic you have the different colors

[00:22:42] They all play differently and this you have I think it's nilfgaard is the spies. So all the spies do different things

[00:22:49] Uh, I can't remember who the the north the armies of the north are called

[00:22:52] But that's the first faction you get they're all about siege equipment and all that stuff

[00:22:56] There's a monster deck and the monsters do weird wild things like spawning each other and playing weather and stuff

[00:23:01] There's enough crunch to it and enough cards in it. I can see why they they said hey

[00:23:07] We can make this its own separate game and they did

[00:23:09] But just there's just enough there that it really hooked me like this is on the level of

[00:23:13] Of triple triad in final fight seven. It's on that level of addictiveness to me

[00:23:17] It's it's pretty wild. I love it. I love how it was integrated. I can totally see why you didn't enjoy it though

[00:23:23] especially when you're like

[00:23:25] Going through a quest line and you have to play gwent or kind of encourages you to or gives you a thing of where

[00:23:31] You know if you do this part of this this game of gwent, you'll get a card or an item that you could possibly use

[00:23:37] But being forced to do it now and not come back later is off-putting

[00:23:42] I don't like being railroaded to play gwent. I want to play gwent in my terms, I guess

[00:23:46] But I thought that was a great mini game

[00:23:50] I mean I

[00:23:52] I was I was going to stand up and grab a handful of my magic the gathering cards. I have played

[00:23:59] And spent way too much money on magic magic the gathering for

[00:24:03] lots of time um

[00:24:06] and so

[00:24:07] Honestly part of it. I think for me is that i've i've i've given up

[00:24:11] Kind of the magic the gathering for at least the time being who knows if i'll make it back to it, but um

[00:24:18] you know like if you're familiar with magic the gathering I

[00:24:22] purchased

[00:24:23] four taiga's

[00:24:26] Actual unlimited

[00:24:28] Taiga's I have four of them

[00:24:33] So if you're familiar with magic the other you know that those cards are worth way too much money

[00:24:38] so

[00:24:40] um

[00:24:41] Now let's talk about um, let's talk about some of the other kind of

[00:24:46] Mechanical pieces in the game. So there's gwent

[00:24:49] You know as a card game

[00:24:52] Obviously there's there's combat

[00:24:55] um

[00:24:56] But but even combat has you know, you have these mutations that you can apply

[00:25:01] Um, right and you earn and so this is the other thing is it's not a it's not an rpg where you're like

[00:25:08] Pick your class, you know, are you a wizard? Are you a warrior? Are you a no you basically, you know

[00:25:14] Kind of your own which are gerald you built

[00:25:16] Yeah, you build gerald as you level up in kind of your play style and my play style was

[00:25:22] almost entirely

[00:25:24] uh quick attacks

[00:25:26] I I used a little bit of heavy attacks but almost entirely quick attacks

[00:25:30] um, and then

[00:25:33] On top of that there's a magic system where I mentioned this earlier. It's it's signs

[00:25:38] There's a sign that hits them with a concussive blast. There's a sign that makes them, you know, uh, uh

[00:25:47] Lose their you know ability to think for a minute. There's a sign that sets them on fire

[00:25:51] There's a you know, etc

[00:25:53] And so for me I was about quick attacks

[00:25:56] I was about the the the the sign that does the blast, you know the the concussive blast and the fire

[00:26:03] Which is igne igne. Yeah

[00:26:06] I I toward the end. I actually started using the one that created traps toward the end

[00:26:10] In the last dlc, I think it was yardon. I think yeah

[00:26:14] You kind of have to use yardon for certain encounters because that's the one that will um stun ghosts, right?

[00:26:20] Ghosts can be really tricky when they're teleporting around but yarding will actually stop them in place for you

[00:26:25] And I like that. I like that you're it's you're not picking a class. You're a witcher different flavors of witcher

[00:26:31] But witchers do are known for you know, they're they use swords. They use two swords

[00:26:35] They have an iron sword for humans a steel a silver one for monsters. That's the steel and steel and uh, and silver

[00:26:42] Not iron silver. Sorry steel and silver, right? And then you have

[00:26:46] Limited spells. You're not you're not a sorceress. You're not a wizard those exist in the universe

[00:26:50] But you're not those but you have some magical ability

[00:26:52] That's a handful of signs and it's also about all about alchemy the mixing of potions and using potions to poison your blades

[00:26:59] Or buff yourself with with uh major buffs actually. Yeah, and then there's also things like, you know

[00:27:05] Other weapons like crossbows and stuff

[00:27:08] All of them have their use

[00:27:10] You may specialize in quick attacks

[00:27:13] And spells but you're still going to be using grenades and heavy attacks

[00:27:17] you kind of you're kind of not I don't want to say force but

[00:27:20] It's beneficial if you use the whole package of skills available to you in every combat encounter and like I think the um, the first major

[00:27:28] Most you you fight in witcher three

[00:27:31] Is a griffon I believe in order to take that griffon down

[00:27:35] You kind of use you use the crossbow. You definitely use potions above yourself

[00:27:38] You may use spells and then you're using your attacks. You kind of use the entire package

[00:27:42] And if you don't the game becomes

[00:27:45] Incredibly difficult unless you use what you're given and that I thought that was very unique in this game

[00:27:50] You use the tools you're given. Otherwise, you're going to have a harder experience

[00:27:54] Now I know that some people would would hear that and be like, okay the complexity is

[00:28:01] Well to to quote to quote, uh, monty python the peril is too perilous the complexity is too complex

[00:28:09] right no, um, honestly

[00:28:11] It's very organic in how you kind of work your way into those

[00:28:17] You know, it's not like I mean, yeah your griffon right? Yeah, that's your first major battle

[00:28:22] But you end up fighting wolves and dogs in the process of getting to said griffon

[00:28:28] Yeah, and you know you learn

[00:28:31] Plus part of that quest and i'm not giving spoilers because it's your first

[00:28:36] quest

[00:28:38] You have to basically create some some potions to make it so that you can

[00:28:43] Do more damage to a griffon, right? So it teaches you that alchemy

[00:28:47] um

[00:28:48] Yeah, so uh, and then on top of that and this is something that you didn't you didn't end up doing

[00:28:54] um

[00:28:56] And and I think that this may have been added

[00:28:58] As part of the dlc, but I ended up doing the first portion of it in the main game

[00:29:05] but the the um

[00:29:08] Uh school class, um sets so

[00:29:12] You your armor, you know and your weapons. There's a set so it you know, there's a torso there's legs

[00:29:18] There's gauntlets there's boots

[00:29:21] Uh, and then there's a silver and and a steel sword

[00:29:25] that are all in the set and then

[00:29:27] um and and some of them like the one that I specialized in was the was the feline school

[00:29:33] And so mine was actually designed for

[00:29:35] Fast attacks and it was light armor. It wasn't a heavy armor, right? So

[00:29:40] But that was actually pretty fun, too. So there's also a

[00:29:44] uh a building um

[00:29:47] uh

[00:29:48] Element to this game where you basically or crafting where you craft well you have crafted for you

[00:29:55] weapons and armor and you know all of that stuff so

[00:29:58] Yeah, this is this is a game where we're no matter where you go

[00:30:01] No matter whose house you enter whatever hole or cave you go into if there's a box you loot it

[00:30:06] You just loot it. You just put reckless abandon your

[00:30:08] Your zelt your link from zelda and you're robbing people blind. They don't care. It's okay

[00:30:12] You steal from everybody

[00:30:14] And uh one of the

[00:30:16] I'm not big on mods when you first play through a game

[00:30:18] But i'm gonna tell you right now when you play witcher 2 or witcher 3 you're gonna install a mod that gives you like

[00:30:23] 9 000 space in your inventory because

[00:30:26] That kleptomania is strong

[00:30:29] And I feel like you don't steal everything really I feel like you steal everything

[00:30:32] Because there's so many

[00:30:34] Different weapons you find different armor pieces and I never want to like sit and compare that on the spot

[00:30:39] I want to do that when i'm out of a mission or something

[00:30:42] so I always like collecting everything and I also like having all the books and the notes and the keys just

[00:30:47] Just cause right? So I always I always hoarded everything my inventory was a mess

[00:30:51] But it didn't feel bad to sort it. I just the only thing I didn't like is that I ran out of space

[00:30:57] Yeah, I thought that was interesting

[00:30:59] And and I think maybe

[00:31:01] Maybe they changed how that works since you played it because maybe I wasn't limited by space. I was limited by weight

[00:31:10] Yes, weight is what I meant weight is okay. Okay. Yeah

[00:31:14] What's funny is most of the items especially like quest items and and all of that have a weight of zero

[00:31:21] so I ended up having like

[00:31:23] just

[00:31:24] gobs of stuff in my inventory, so

[00:31:27] Um

[00:31:28] The one thing yes, so sinstra says she likes the crafting better than I did. This is true

[00:31:34] I liked the crafting system until

[00:31:37] Until I got to the point where I was having to

[00:31:40] Get my my set my scoop my class set

[00:31:45] into that master craft or the highest level tiers

[00:31:48] because um

[00:31:50] You know you're you're taking these things that you've either looted or earned through the game

[00:31:55] And you're breaking them down into one component

[00:31:58] and then you have to break them into another component and break them into another component and then assemble them into another component and

[00:32:06] that

[00:32:07] That's the kind of thing that sinstra tracks

[00:32:10] Much better than I do

[00:32:12] Yeah, you know so

[00:32:14] Uh, so she helped a lot with that and I did eventually get the grand master

[00:32:20] Tier. Yeah, and I don't think I end up doing that grand master tier mostly because I

[00:32:25] Already put in so much time in the game as it was and knew how much I had to go

[00:32:29] And uh, I mean to find all those blueprints you kind of have to really explore every map and there's lots to explore

[00:32:36] And it's and it's not like there's story much story tied to it

[00:32:38] There's a little bit but they're just hidden around the map and cool little like, you know caves or dungeons mini dungeons towers

[00:32:44] They're hidden all over the place and it's interesting. It was it's fun

[00:32:47] But to get a complete set probably would have taken me much longer to finish the game. So I didn't bother

[00:32:53] Not to say it but you don't have to do it. I beat the game without it

[00:32:56] Um, I I had a tier below grand master I think because you can get those blueprints

[00:33:01] I think very easily

[00:33:03] So but I did I did like exploring. I just didn't couldn't explore everything

[00:33:06] I think when I got to the final zone of the main game, uh, skellige

[00:33:10] I think it was

[00:33:11] There was when I just saw the map and how big it was

[00:33:14] And that I was already at like the 120 hour mark. I'm like, I can't I can't do it

[00:33:18] I love I love skellige zone. I love the characters that was there, but

[00:33:22] I couldn't explore an entire zone and spend other 50 hours. Uh, not all the time I had at the time

[00:33:28] so, uh, since russ points out so I

[00:33:31] When I played through this

[00:33:33] Uh every main quest every side quest

[00:33:37] every contract

[00:33:39] I basically did

[00:33:41] Without spoilers like I didn't I didn't go look online. I just went through the game

[00:33:46] except

[00:33:48] When I was chasing that that feline set and and so yeah since russ since russ basically played my navigator

[00:33:56] Um, and and so yeah in that one. I I cheated a little bit and she'd be like go talk to this person in this town

[00:34:02] Okay, cool. You know

[00:34:04] So, um, I did I did like that. Um

[00:34:07] When we mentioned about combat and how like the game teaches you to use, you know

[00:34:11] This potion to fight the griffin you have to use bait and use the crossbow in a certain way

[00:34:15] I also like how every single monster in the game has a bestiary page

[00:34:19] And I know lots of games have that but and witcher three they serve a purpose besides just flavor text and lore

[00:34:25] It also tells you the weakness of the creature as you learn it, right?

[00:34:28] There's a reason you you go around town and looting everybody's chest for notes and books because when you read it

[00:34:34] It tells you how to defeat the monsters and it automatically updates the entry

[00:34:37] So like uh, there's these little uh goblin guys

[00:34:41] I think they're called neckers

[00:34:42] It tells you right out once you find the note that neckers are very vulnerable to fire and exploding grenades

[00:34:48] So you know, you're going to be fighting a lot of them in the swamps

[00:34:51] Bringing exploding grenades and they're very easy to kill if you don't have it. You can still beat them, but it's it's harder

[00:34:57] But it's just another example of how the game

[00:35:00] Wants you to play the part of the monster hunter and part of monster hunting as a witcher

[00:35:04] Is research and preparing right? The idea of repairing your potions and your weapons before you go and I love that with the story

[00:35:11] so

[00:35:13] Yeah

[00:35:14] Yeah, so speaking of the story and i'm not going to go into spoilers here. I just want to talk about

[00:35:20] um

[00:35:23] every side quest

[00:35:25] maybe maybe I can't say every single one but

[00:35:29] The side quests that that I played

[00:35:32] My memory is that they all had an interesting story

[00:35:37] Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't you know, oh

[00:35:41] My you know, go collect 10 murloc eyes and bring them back right it was

[00:35:47] It was some compelling story, right? So

[00:35:50] Yeah, even the ones that at first glance you're thinking

[00:35:53] Oh, I just have to go kill I have to go free a village of something and you think oh, that's just standard

[00:35:58] You know rpg fare. No when you actually get there

[00:36:02] There's a narrative twist or some kind of turn to the plot that makes it interesting

[00:36:07] There's there's one and I won't tell you where but there's one where there's like a ghost haunting a

[00:36:12] dead village

[00:36:13] And the twist on why that ghost is there and how you take it take it out

[00:36:17] Was incredibly interesting and it was early on like there's a lot of

[00:36:21] Every monster hunt is more than just a monster hunt. There's a story and a twist to it. That was really compelling

[00:36:28] Yeah, I can't tell you how many times I ended up

[00:36:33] Sitting there at a dialogue page

[00:36:37] With you know, and it's funny because the normal dialogue is kind of this just regular white text

[00:36:43] But when it's when it's a story progression

[00:36:45] Dialogue option. It's it's yellow if I remember right?

[00:36:49] and

[00:36:50] I can't tell you how many times there'd be a couple yellows and i'd be like

[00:36:55] What what direction do I take do I do I do I play?

[00:37:00] The witcher who's been paid and i'm just gonna finish this thing off

[00:37:05] Or do I take the story that basically showed that oh this creature is actually not so bad

[00:37:11] Yeah, and i've got to go back and do this other thing right? You know

[00:37:15] So especially for a game where even if you pick what you think is the moral right choice

[00:37:21] The game will come back and show you why you're wrong

[00:37:26] So like as like

[00:37:28] We're 40 minutes in do you want to start talking about spoilers? Yeah, let's let's uh, let's give a spoiler warning

[00:37:34] So i'm going to draw out this little spoiler warning a little bit in case people want to drop off

[00:37:40] And maybe they haven't caught up. So

[00:37:43] Hey people

[00:37:45] Their spoilers are coming

[00:37:47] So I gotta I want to start off with just that first major quest with the I think it's the griffin

[00:37:53] It's you you eat you meet the guy from nilfgaard. I think that is basically

[00:37:58] So in the north lands basically have invaded by the armies of nilfgaard nilfgaard

[00:38:01] So they're the invaders and they're kind of managing and running running the north and they're pressing the people and they're considered the bad guys

[00:38:07] But you you go to this one keep and you meet the the head nilfgaardian who's running things

[00:38:12] And when you talk to him

[00:38:14] He seems compassionate right? There's a there's a scene where a farmer come is brought in and and the the nilfgaard

[00:38:20] Is like you haven't given us the food we need you haven't given us the grain tax

[00:38:23] And the farmer is basically saying look we can't because xyz, you know the famin starve if we give it to you

[00:38:29] Yeah, so the nilfgaard is like fair with them. It's like, all right, here's what you're gonna do

[00:38:33] And he seems like a fair and just

[00:38:36] Occupier I guess if such a thing exists

[00:38:39] So then you go and do this quest and take down this griffin

[00:38:41] And then you come back

[00:38:44] And basically he's like a pleading utter prick easily. He's one of the worst guys in the game

[00:38:49] He's such an asshole and he ends up having that farmer because the farmer

[00:38:53] Basically spoilers, I guess

[00:38:55] Uh, it was basically purposely not giving grain to the nilfgaards because it's it's why should he give it to the occupiers?

[00:39:01] So what they do they torture and beat them and you can hear it in the background when when it happens

[00:39:04] Yep, and he basically

[00:39:06] The nilfgaardian throws a sack of money at you and basically says get the hell out of here

[00:39:11] And that's what you were trying to do the right thing here

[00:39:13] You're thinking that this guy is a good character and that he's not so bad

[00:39:15] But no, he's an asshole

[00:39:17] And they're just the game is full of that where you don't know who's good and who's bad

[00:39:21] I don't think you ever do it. Just everybody's a shade of gray

[00:39:25] It's it's really interesting one of your friends who I actually really love the character

[00:39:32] I don't know that. I like the guy, but I love the character

[00:39:36] The what's his name that owns the bathhouse?

[00:39:40] Oh, um

[00:39:42] You know who i'm speaking of this, but he's a former spy, right? Uh, yeah deekstra deekstra. Yeah

[00:39:48] And and half the time you're like deekstra is a decent guy and then at the end you're like whoa hold on now

[00:39:55] And you basically have to terminate your friendship with him. Yeah, because he's you know

[00:40:01] um

[00:40:02] yeah that I I love the the moral conundrums

[00:40:07] Because it is definitely not

[00:40:10] Hey, this is it's it's not kottor

[00:40:13] You know nights of the old republic where like this is going to raise your your you know your value

[00:40:18] Or this is going to lower your value. No, it's like

[00:40:21] Well, this is this is the gray on this side and this is the gray on this side

[00:40:27] But they still overlap a little bit, right? So

[00:40:30] Yeah, like it's a it's a world where like I said the top of the episode, you know

[00:40:34] Humans are ultimately in the past for the invaders

[00:40:37] They came to this continent this continent had elves and dwarves and suddenly humans arrived in the story in the story since and

[00:40:44] With that came a pressing of the elves and the dwarves. They're second-class citizens. There's a lot of racism in the game

[00:40:49] It's it's a whole lot a lot and it's the point where and and and zen aside

[00:40:55] Yes

[00:40:56] Inside yeah, they're definitely murdering of people right like slashing burning a forest to kind of it's brutal. It's brutal in as dark

[00:41:03] But what's interesting about the dwarves and the elves if they've come together and there's a group of them called the scuaitel

[00:41:09] They're basically terrorists or freedom fighters

[00:41:12] I mean you can take you can pick your label for it

[00:41:14] But I think they're probably called terrorists by a lot of the game

[00:41:17] And like but your friends with soltan and you're friends with a few other people who are scuaitel

[00:41:21] But you're also friends which with a guy named roach who's basically

[00:41:25] Basically was um in the second game a main character with um the king before he was well else

[00:41:31] The horse not the horse, but the guy with the turban the blue turban

[00:41:35] Is his name roach his name is roach vernon roach. Okay. Oh, yeah

[00:41:40] He named his horse roach because of this character because I thought it was funny to name his horse after this asshole

[00:41:45] But he's he's low-key friends with him

[00:41:47] But meanwhile, he's anti scuaitel because scuaitel killed all his friends

[00:41:51] So gerald's kind of like in the middle of everything going on right? All he is is like he's a witcher

[00:41:56] He has friends with all the various factions

[00:41:58] he kind of just leads his own path for the entire the entire narrative but

[00:42:03] There's another faction in the game kind of and that's just the idea of you have the new society

[00:42:08] But you also have a lot of old

[00:42:10] Magic in the world right whether it's the three crones or there's a spirit of the tree a lot of really ancient

[00:42:17] Spirits creatures something I don't know how you want to explain it

[00:42:21] And he kind of knows and understands them as well that we are the invaders that their people are the invaders to their

[00:42:26] Land and you have to respect the old magic as well as the new stuff

[00:42:29] It's it's really interesting all the different parts of it

[00:42:32] Yeah, um

[00:42:34] Yeah, so okay so since we're talking some spoilers now, um, basically

[00:42:41] the main

[00:42:42] storyline of the main game so pre dlc

[00:42:46] is

[00:42:48] You basically are chasing down siri and if you're familiar with the the the television show

[00:42:55] um

[00:42:56] You know siri basically

[00:42:59] You end up getting siri as your ward through the through the ride of surprise

[00:43:05] Um, and and if you haven't if you if you want to if you want to learn that go watch the television series

[00:43:11] They do it incredibly well

[00:43:14] But basically you're essentially her father figure

[00:43:17] And so the opening scene so this isn't a spoiler because it's opening scene

[00:43:22] You're you're at the at the witcher keep. Um

[00:43:26] I'm blanking on the name

[00:43:27] That's here. Um, well, no the of the keep. Um, oh, uh

[00:43:33] Uh, cared on more and I think it is something like that. Yeah care more care more care morgan or care more and whatever

[00:43:39] um

[00:43:39] And siri is is is outside

[00:43:42] practicing her steps, right and um

[00:43:46] And and she's actually doing when she's not supposed to so that's the whole thing and then

[00:43:50] This is it turns out. This is a dream

[00:43:53] Or a memory of manufactured memory slash dream and the wild hunt shows up which is of course is the

[00:43:59] Witcher 3 the wild hunt

[00:44:02] And the wild hunt at the beginning of the game. You're like

[00:44:06] This is are these are these like skeletal figures or these like you don't really understand

[00:44:12] um

[00:44:13] and and then you basically

[00:44:15] You know fast forward a little bit and you and you find out that um, you know siri is missing

[00:44:22] And you're you're you're uh, if I remember right it's it's yenifer that sends you the letter that says meet me here

[00:44:28] I believe so. Yeah, because she knows because she knows that siri's in danger and that I mean siri being who she is

[00:44:35] Who is the best person to hunt her down is gerald right? Because she would know he and you know the only one he cares for

[00:44:41] Yeah

[00:44:42] So anyway, you're chasing siri and I mean this is this is the main quest from front to back

[00:44:48] Is you are always a step behind siri?

[00:44:52] Until about halfway into the game

[00:44:55] And then you catch up with siri well it turns out that's not just finding siri and yay everybody's cool. We're golden

[00:45:01] No, this is like

[00:45:04] the wild hunt

[00:45:05] Needs siri and they anywhere that she goes the wild hunt shows up and the wild hunter a bunch of

[00:45:13] badasses

[00:45:14] um

[00:45:15] Like they fly around on a flying ship. So

[00:45:18] um

[00:45:20] Yeah, well to explain what they are right like is is that when we said that you know humans invaded this world

[00:45:27] It was originally a world of of elves and dwarves, but there's in game. There's a there's a in the lore

[00:45:32] There's a there's an event called the conjunction of spheres happens where all the various dimensions of a multiverse kind of converge and

[00:45:39] Creatures from one universe end up in the other and that's one of those is convergence is how humans came to this land

[00:45:45] It's also the monsters came

[00:45:47] There's also I think one of the factions the the wild hunt is from another dimension where it just elves rule and that's the wild

[00:45:52] Hunt elves there. It's a whole dimension of

[00:45:55] I don't I guess they're all evil elves. I guess you could say

[00:45:58] They're definitely driven their leader is definitely evil in the star trek universe. They all have facial hair

[00:46:05] They have the beards. Yeah, that's right. We're sashes for no reason

[00:46:09] exactly

[00:46:10] Um, yeah, so they're from another dimension basically and then they're trying to track down siri because of what her bloodline. Yep

[00:46:17] so then you find out that there's this there's this wizard that's been helping siri and

[00:46:22] You kind of find out that maybe his his his reasons aren't all you know

[00:46:29] Aren't all good aren't all right, you know

[00:46:32] So once again, there's that conundrum

[00:46:34] Uh, that was a fun little uh, you know finding out what happened to that

[00:46:39] Wizard and then you know

[00:46:41] Yeah, and that's the whole question that

[00:46:44] Yeah

[00:46:45] Yeah, I don't I don't know if we want to spoil all that but it's it's yeah a lot of surprises with the narrative

[00:46:50] And it goes places. I guess that's my take on which of three's the base game story is it really goes places

[00:46:55] It's not just your your girl the monster hunter chasing your your daughter

[00:46:59] It's more than that because your daughter has got this magical power and there's basically

[00:47:05] Interdimensional space elves hunting her down

[00:47:07] It goes places it's a multiverse story

[00:47:11] Which is very much much more epic and grand in scope than you would expect if you've only seen the tv show

[00:47:16] I guess I would say

[00:47:18] Yeah, there is a point in the game. There's a point in the main game where it says to you

[00:47:23] Uh, are you sure you want to go to this place because you will not be able to travel elsewhere

[00:47:29] After you go here and part of the reason why spoilers, of course part of the reason why is because you start doing some

[00:47:37] sphere jumping

[00:47:38] Maybe in the interdimensional thing. So it's not like you can go back to you know your world until you've you know, eventually

[00:47:47] Eventually, you make it back and you get to travel again

[00:47:49] It's not it's not like it locks you out at the end of the game

[00:47:53] You can go finish every side quest and every every you know everything that you want but

[00:47:59] um

[00:48:00] But yeah, there's so there is a point where it tells you hey, are you sure and you should probably save your

[00:48:07] Um, it locks you out of being able to travel elsewhere for at least a period of time

[00:48:12] um

[00:48:13] And then sinstrous the reason that I kind of said I didn't want to talk about that as a spoiler until later

[00:48:19] Uh is sinstrous says siri could be fun to explore and I guess I I took it as

[00:48:25] A continuation

[00:48:26] There's a point where you think siri has died

[00:48:30] Right, and so, um, basically the spoiler is

[00:48:34] She didn't

[00:48:36] So there's there's multiple endings to the game, I guess right so siri being who she is

[00:48:42] So in the in the witcher three they've lost the ability to make new witchers

[00:48:46] But so she's not a witcher, but she has incredible magical powers in her own right

[00:48:51] I mean she's playable in parts of the game and she's badass

[00:48:54] Yeah, oh she's badass

[00:48:56] Yeah

[00:48:56] One of the endings is that she could become a witcher kind of

[00:48:59] Another one is because of her magical lineage. She could become a sorceress and join the sorceress schools

[00:49:04] But the best ending canonical ending is that she gets to be her own person her own lead her own destiny

[00:49:10] She's the girl of space and time and she can go

[00:49:14] Anywhere like there's a for those who've played cyberpunk. There's hints that she that she's uh, visited cyberpunk 2077

[00:49:21] As an easter egg and that really yeah, that could be a really awesome

[00:49:26] Thing if witcher four is your siri and you get to cross dimensions in various various scenes and locales

[00:49:32] That could be really badass. I don't know how they would do it, but I could see I could see it

[00:49:37] So there's she's definitely an interesting character. I loved it. I love the portions where you get to play as her

[00:49:41] She has a teleport mechanic, which is really awesome

[00:49:43] And she's she's got badass or combat like gerald. Obviously she doesn't have the tech tree and all that stuff

[00:49:49] Because it's only a small thing, but I I would love to play a full game with just siri. That would be really awesome

[00:49:54] Yeah

[00:49:55] so basically, um kind of to finish up the main game, um

[00:50:00] I mean you eventually save siri

[00:50:03] Uh, and and part of my uh, okay. I do not normally tear up over video games

[00:50:10] Um, like very rarely I can I can probably remember

[00:50:14] two or three instances

[00:50:17] um

[00:50:17] One of them being some of the side quest stories in chrono trigger man. They they they nail it right?

[00:50:24] Yeah, the the fucking frog story. Jesus

[00:50:28] Um

[00:50:30] but uh

[00:50:31] but

[00:50:32] the end of of the main game witcher

[00:50:36] I

[00:50:37] Seriously was cutting onions at the end of that at the end of that game. It is it is that level of an ending?

[00:50:45] um

[00:50:46] Yeah, and then yeah, let's get to let's get to some dlc because we're coming up here on the map before that

[00:50:51] So the neat thing about the story with gerald is is that?

[00:50:55] There's no happy endings for gerald in the base game

[00:50:57] It doesn't it never feels like he gets a total happy ending, right?

[00:51:00] He's just a witcher for the rest of his life and he kind of accepts that there's romanceable options, right?

[00:51:04] There's two there's he's a guy kind of a love triangle going on between tris and yennifer. I think canonically. It's yennifer

[00:51:10] Uh, even though she treats him so horribly

[00:51:13] Well, there's remember remember he and yennifer were together because of a curse, right? Right their curse by jen

[00:51:20] Which also if you've seen the tv show you get that back history, which is awesome

[00:51:23] Or if you read the short stories, yeah

[00:51:25] But in this game there's a side quest where you break that curse and that part was very emotional very touching

[00:51:30] Yeah, and I love that but like yeah

[00:51:33] I was like, I don't I don't know that I want that. I don't want this love triangle to end

[00:51:38] But what's great real love then they're gonna stay together

[00:51:41] I don't need to curse the state of the game. That's what they play it out as is

[00:51:45] Let's see what happens now that we aren't, you know forced to do it

[00:51:49] But like you you think that by the end of witcher 3 you're thinking okay him and yennifer

[00:51:53] They're gonna be a thing series or adoptive daughter. It's a happy ending

[00:51:56] But no, they don't they don't let you have that gerald and yennifer are kind of on a break, right? Yennefer syria's

[00:52:03] Gone, right? Like you said you think she's dead like they they don't give gerald a break

[00:52:07] And at the end of witcher 3 I love the ending. I thought it was great and touching

[00:52:11] It was so epic. You basically stop a universal ending like universal apocalypse from happening

[00:52:18] It's an epic end to a story, but there's no happy ending and that's pretty rare for video games and movies

[00:52:23] There's usually a happy ending for the main characters not in this game. It just ends

[00:52:28] It's good

[00:52:29] But it's not it's not like the happy ending after all

[00:52:32] Right. I mean it's a it is a satisfying ending

[00:52:36] Yes. Yeah. Yeah, don't don't don't think of that as like oh you're gonna be just you know

[00:52:42] Oh at the end no, it's not satisfying and yeah, it's not cliffhanger. It's not cliffhanger

[00:52:47] It's not a bad or poorly written ending. It's a well written ending. It's a fantastic ending

[00:52:50] It's just not happily ever after I guess is my point

[00:52:53] So yeah, so that's that's the ending of the first base game. So

[00:52:57] Then there's two dlc packages

[00:53:01] The first one is is hearts of stone

[00:53:04] and

[00:53:07] At the beginning of that there's a there's an event. There's a battle at the beginning of it

[00:53:12] That almost drove me off almost drove me off

[00:53:17] Work your way past it work your way past it. Um

[00:53:21] And i'm not going to say that hearts of stone was some of the best storytelling

[00:53:26] But at the end of it, it was one of those like

[00:53:30] I don't know. We were sinstrists and I we were

[00:53:34] We were laughing. It was great, you know, so so the whole premise is

[00:53:40] Is you end up accidentally killing this prince?

[00:53:45] You're it's an accident because

[00:53:47] I'm not going to say why because if you want to play it i'll let that play out for you

[00:53:52] But you accidentally kill this prince, right and then you have this battle on a beach

[00:53:57] Where they've taken away your equipment and they put this

[00:54:01] stupid-ass sorcerer against you that can

[00:54:04] Fucking teleport around this goddamn beach and just throw fucking fireballs at you

[00:54:10] And so when I finally beat that I was so yeah, I moved on but

[00:54:16] That's just the beginning flavor text like the whole premise there is because you killed this prince

[00:54:22] You're on the hook and you have to go, you know help this

[00:54:26] Anyway, do you find this guy?

[00:54:29] Who?

[00:54:31] um

[00:54:33] Well, you find out that he's immortal

[00:54:36] He gets stabbed and he just kind of keeps living well it turns out that there's this

[00:54:42] What's the what's the character's name? That's the that's the uh, uh, the wishgiver

[00:54:48] Yeah, oh damn. Yeah, so there's this wish giver, but he's always this guy that gives wishes that

[00:54:55] They follow your request but they have his twist right and so um

[00:55:01] It's very much the nefarious it's a loki style character, right? Um, well you end up having to

[00:55:10] Solve these

[00:55:13] Three requests

[00:55:15] for

[00:55:16] The character that can't die

[00:55:18] And they sound yeah, they sound like they can die is everic right? So the thing is his wish was basically he wanted to live forever

[00:55:27] So oh dim gave him or my immortality by giving him a heart of stone

[00:55:31] So he lived forever, but he lost the ability to feel to love to hate right and that's the thing

[00:55:37] So you're doing quest that for him now

[00:55:40] Yeah, and they sound like they're impossible quests. Like one of them is

[00:55:45] Uh go show his brother the best night of his life. Well his brother's dead

[00:55:50] Yeah, and then the other one is is like bring me the house of this family

[00:55:58] Well, how do you bring a house to a person right?

[00:56:00] Um, and so they seem like these impossible quests, but this is where the fun comes in

[00:56:07] The night of his brother's life

[00:56:09] And I really don't want to spoil this dlc

[00:56:12] Because this dlc

[00:56:15] It's it's about the quest by quest experiences

[00:56:20] And that that makes it the joy. I didn't feel like the whole story was this amazingly cool

[00:56:25] You know like like the main story and then like the second dlc, but it was very much like

[00:56:31] Okay

[00:56:32] This quest this quest was clever as hell because of x right? Right and so

[00:56:38] um

[00:56:40] And I don't think this was the one

[00:56:43] Was this the one that had the?

[00:56:46] The

[00:56:47] No, I think it's the second dlc that had the quest where

[00:56:50] Uh, you you end up taking a chemical that makes it so you can talk to your horse roach

[00:56:56] No, I think that's the next one. Yeah. Yeah, this one was this one has been the first dlc was a lot more focused

[00:57:01] on this one side story

[00:57:03] um with with everick and odim and

[00:57:07] Yeah, I won't spoil the ending but I I really like how it's another example of

[00:57:11] You have a character everick which at first glance feels cold

[00:57:14] Suicide like like like like crazy like he wants to murder every like he just he feels like he doesn't give a crap who he

[00:57:19] Kills like completely merciless

[00:57:22] Creature and you're doing things for him to help them and you question why?

[00:57:26] But the ending of it loops around and it makes you go back and actually feel sorry for the character

[00:57:32] And you give sympathy for the character the ending to the dlc was one of those really great moments

[00:57:36] And it's very touching moment and there's different couple of different endings as well for that dlc

[00:57:40] but just

[00:57:41] The turn of the making making a character at first impressions

[00:57:45] Completely flipping on its head much like the base game did with a few other characters. I thought was really awesome

[00:57:50] Finding out odim and what he what he actually is including guests

[00:57:54] but like

[00:57:55] The way he was written in his dialogue the twist with his with his wishes being actually being cursed

[00:58:01] Is very on point for for witcher lore

[00:58:03] And I just liked how the base game was this saving the universe type of story

[00:58:08] The universe is going to end all people on the planet are going to die

[00:58:12] And suddenly heart of stone is more no, this is more focused on the fate of one man

[00:58:16] Yeah, and that's it is a much more focused story and I I really dug it like I mean if you're coming from the tv shows

[00:58:22] or the books

[00:58:23] This this story in heart of stone is probably gonna feel more like a witcher story to you

[00:58:27] I think as opposed to the first game

[00:58:30] By the way, I looked up odim because I wanted to truly understand like I wanted to see if there was any confirmation

[00:58:38] That he is who you think he is right and there's never any confirmation but

[00:58:43] But he's who you think he is at the end

[00:58:45] um, yeah, but but I looked and apparently

[00:58:50] Or I watched a youtube video that was basically like

[00:58:53] Odim has been sprinkled into including the main game

[00:58:58] He appears in the background

[00:59:01] A lot. Yeah

[00:59:03] Like he's like the first character you talk to her

[00:59:05] Yeah, like in the in the tavern he's the one he's like the first guy you sit down and talk to and he has a

[00:59:10] Has a conversation with you like it's it's wild that they took that character and then in a dlc

[00:59:16] He is what he is. He's his immortal

[00:59:18] Absolutely object of evil but you meet him in the base game in the first like 10 minutes

[00:59:22] It's wild that they tied it together and like I don't know if he's in the books

[00:59:27] I don't think he's in the show. I don't know if he's just a game only creation

[00:59:30] But he's definitely fits the the feel of the franchise right like this for sure

[00:59:35] The whole franchise and lore is rooted in like, um polish like folklore and and fantasy

[00:59:41] And it's it's it's really well done. It's really well done and he just fits part of that

[00:59:46] Yeah

[00:59:48] And then the second dlc

[00:59:50] um

[00:59:51] Yeah, the second dlc

[00:59:54] Really brings it home and you alluded this to at the beginning alluded to this at the beginning

[00:59:58] Um, you know it's

[01:00:01] The story is you're in an entirely different land now

[01:00:04] You're yeah, you're basically you go to this land where there's a duchy

[01:00:10] Yeah, tucson and there's a there's a duchy

[01:00:13] And the duchy knows you very well all of the knights know you very well

[01:00:18] um, you're actually

[01:00:20] Almost even semi-light in this like it felt so much less

[01:00:25] Like oh it's a witcher he's a he's a piece of shit non-human

[01:00:29] Right to yeah, you get that a little bit. But yeah

[01:00:33] Yeah

[01:00:34] Well because like in the in the base game, it's kind of like

[01:00:37] Mud and grime and dirt and blood and piss everywhere, right?

[01:00:41] It's a land that's been invaded by an outside force

[01:00:44] It's miserable no matter where you go in the base game of witcher

[01:00:47] Right, you're right. You're spat on everywhere and then and then when we say the word night

[01:00:51] It's funny because in the base game if you encounter a knight

[01:00:55] It would feel really out of place because there's just nobody there's nobody who has an honorable code

[01:01:00] I think in the base game, but when you meet a knight from toucant

[01:01:04] You almost burst out laughing and how?

[01:01:07] Seriously, he is of a knight

[01:01:08] He's almost like a paladin level of honesty and moral code

[01:01:12] And when you talk to them and they take you to their land and the whole land is that moral code?

[01:01:17] It's like green emerald hills and wine fields and castles

[01:01:21] It's it's just completely 180 on terms of theming and it's so interesting to see gerald

[01:01:26] Who's this reviled character mutant in the base game is like you said he's like he's more respected in this world. It's so funny

[01:01:35] And you're absolutely right the the visuals in the in the second dlc, which is blood and wine

[01:01:43] The visuals are

[01:01:45] Stunning like absolutely gorgeous. It is some of the most beautiful scenery i've seen in a game

[01:01:53] um

[01:01:54] So anyway, so the story there is you go to this land

[01:01:59] and

[01:02:00] Um these there's so far. There's been

[01:02:03] three or four

[01:02:05] uh killings of

[01:02:07] um of basically kind of like nobles

[01:02:11] Um, and so you've been brought in to try to find what beast is killing these nobles and um

[01:02:19] once again in that world of uh of the witcher where things are not black and white where things are gray

[01:02:27] When you finally encounter the beast when you finally find the beast you're actually stopped

[01:02:32] from from destroying this beast

[01:02:35] By a friend who who's friend from the books, but they bring him into the game and it's great

[01:02:41] One of my favorite characters of all time is is regis

[01:02:45] Right and regis is basically like hold hold on there

[01:02:48] He's he's not this way and you're like, but he's very much being this way. So how are you sure right? And so

[01:02:57] Yeah, you spend

[01:03:00] You know another

[01:03:02] 30ish hours of dlc

[01:03:04] uh, basically

[01:03:07] Finding out who this this this beast is

[01:03:12] and and at the end you're given kind of that conundrum of

[01:03:17] Do I witch or finish him?

[01:03:19] Or do I

[01:03:21] You know think maybe he's not so bad, right?

[01:03:24] Yeah, get paid or do the right thing whatever that is in this world, right?

[01:03:28] It's yeah, it's wow, especially when you we can say it

[01:03:31] I mean the the friend regis is a vampire which opens up a whole lot of other weird stories like and

[01:03:38] Concerns like your friends a vampire

[01:03:41] But he's one of your he's one of your oldest best friends and you trust him to a great degree

[01:03:45] And even though it's a vampire. He's not he's not an evil vampire

[01:03:50] He's kind of trying to like toe the line between what you know what he has to do to survive

[01:03:55] and there's only one point where he

[01:03:58] Is at risk of of harming humans that vampire right and that's very much part of the quest line

[01:04:06] But uh, but yeah, it's um

[01:04:09] I don't know it it

[01:04:12] And I I went into a lot of the side quests where like

[01:04:16] You end up earning you play in a game you play in these games where it's the knight's games

[01:04:22] You're representing a knight who can't represent himself and at the end I had

[01:04:28] I had my family crest on a crossbow

[01:04:31] I had my family crest on wit on on roaches, you know saddle accoutrement whatever

[01:04:37] Like you know, it was the house of gerald of rivia was you know?

[01:04:42] Yeah

[01:04:43] So one of the big things that of that dlc is you basically unlock or you through a quest line

[01:04:48] You basically get your own vineyard which which seems kind of odd that you know

[01:04:52] A witcher would get a vineyard

[01:04:53] But it's nice that you have a little place to call your home and definitely feels like that and the quest around that is really interesting

[01:05:00] It's yeah, it's it's fun

[01:05:03] That's the one

[01:05:05] Achievement I was talking about at the beginning. I actually finished upgrading my home

[01:05:11] My okay, I'll read the vineyard. I think I did that too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so

[01:05:15] So

[01:05:17] Okay, so you end up going through and and since we're talking spoilers

[01:05:22] It you find out that this beast is is a vampire

[01:05:26] So it's it's regis's friend

[01:05:29] Who's also a vampire

[01:05:31] And you find out that he's been compelled

[01:05:35] through uh

[01:05:38] Uh, what's the term? We're blackmail. He's being blackmailed black kill these

[01:05:43] uh to kill these um

[01:05:45] Uh these these nobles and he's making it look like each each noble was killed because of you know

[01:05:52] A sin right greed or you know, whatever

[01:05:57] And you chase it down and you end up

[01:06:00] You end up stopping him before the final

[01:06:04] Person is killed

[01:06:08] Um, so you end up you end up stopping him before the final person is killed and then you find out that the blackmail

[01:06:15] the blackmailer

[01:06:18] Isn't who you thought?

[01:06:20] Yeah

[01:06:21] Um, and then you find out who the final

[01:06:25] Well, okay

[01:06:26] I don't know if this is the case because I continued the story, but there's a point in the story where

[01:06:32] You basically

[01:06:34] have have have finished the the the beast

[01:06:38] storyline

[01:06:40] And it seems like you're given the option to basically be like

[01:06:44] I'm good

[01:06:45] We're good

[01:06:47] I don't know if the game terminates at that point if you take that option

[01:06:51] I didn't take that option. I said hey

[01:06:54] There's still a fifth person that was supposed or sixth or whatever the number of people are there was still another person to be killed

[01:07:00] We should find out who that is right and that was after you basically kind of took out the big bad

[01:07:07] Yeah, I don't I just it's been so long since i've beaten i've played blood one

[01:07:10] I don't recall. I know there's multiple endings to that dlc

[01:07:13] To based on because there's a couple characters that you can save or not save and that that affects the storyline

[01:07:19] We don't remember what happens. I really want to go. I would love to go back and play this game again

[01:07:24] But it's mostly I just want to play blood wine again

[01:07:28] Is what it is to go back and see it

[01:07:30] But I mostly remember the actual like the the end end of blood wine is the one I remember the most nowadays

[01:07:35] But I don't know

[01:07:37] I think there's definitely multiple ways you can handle that encounter though for sure

[01:07:41] All right. Well, you're given a choice and I don't know if the game steers you into it anyway

[01:07:45] But I basically was like no let's figure out who the last victim was supposed to be

[01:07:50] Right and it turns out

[01:07:53] It's

[01:07:55] The duchess

[01:07:57] Like it's the leader of tucson

[01:07:59] and um

[01:08:01] so you basically go and report this and

[01:08:04] That that whole thing plays out

[01:08:07] And then yeah, you you kind of alluded to this as well at the at the end

[01:08:12] um

[01:08:13] You

[01:08:15] You retire

[01:08:17] Yeah, you and and yennifer shows up

[01:08:21] and

[01:08:22] and meets you at your at your vineyard slash homestead and basically is like

[01:08:28] I'm good to hang out. Let's just let's just you know

[01:08:32] and

[01:08:33] and uh, and like

[01:08:36] You have talks with your friend regis like you have these deep dialogues that are like

[01:08:41] Have you ever thought about you know?

[01:08:44] How how you want to go, you know, do you do you want to be a witcher for the rest of your life?

[01:08:50] Do you want to and you're like no, I think I want to you know, try this whole and yeah at the end

[01:08:56] you're like

[01:08:57] I'm yeah, i'm good to be a vineyard owner with yennifer here at my side

[01:09:03] You captain bichard it

[01:09:05] Let's do about star trek

[01:09:07] Yeah, you basically retire in a vineyard like how wild that you have a character who has suffered so much through

[01:09:12] You know that base game and then the previous games

[01:09:15] Who's almost like accepted his life that he's going to die killing a monster at some point

[01:09:19] Like most of the people in his school are dead because of dying from a monster or being backstabbed by by humans

[01:09:27] So here we have a character in the blc where it lets you live and kind of have a happy ending right yennifer's around

[01:09:34] She's not the type of person who's going to love you or not. Although she brings up, you know, uh

[01:09:38] She brings up a unicorn stuffed unicorn fetishes. She has again, which is like a recurring thing through the this the franchise

[01:09:44] So that that's basically your clue that you know what? This is probably the best you're gonna get

[01:09:49] But it but it ends happy it ends like sublimely ends happy ends

[01:09:53] It ends at the point where I didn't have any questions

[01:09:55] But the fate of any of the characters I kind of knew where regis was going

[01:09:59] I knew about dandelion syria's doing her thing even even tris who's the love interest from the second game for me

[01:10:05] I was happy with all the characters and where they were going some of the stories didn't end but I knew where they were

[01:10:10] What they were going in that in that picture. I didn't have questions and it's rare for me that a game ends where

[01:10:17] All the loose ends are tied up and that's why i'm so surprised when this ended

[01:10:21] And I heard that you know years later that they were thinking about a fourth one

[01:10:25] I don't like I want one. I think i'm good because I don't think you can mess with an ending like that

[01:10:30] Because anything else you do is going to open up more plot threads and I don't want that

[01:10:36] If they pull a gerald out of retirement, i'm gonna yeah

[01:10:40] Yeah, they can't they can't go that direction. They can't go that direction

[01:10:44] As as as sinstra said, you know syria exploring syria would be a lot of fun

[01:10:50] A prequel might be okay, but I think a prequel would be

[01:10:56] Eh

[01:10:57] Yeah, I think for me because of the the story of witcher the witcher universe

[01:11:03] Go back to when the witchers were common

[01:11:05] And when they had they all had separate schools, right?

[01:11:08] Geralt we didn't really say gerald was part of the school of the wolf

[01:11:11] And they all have you know qualities of the wolf, right?

[01:11:12] And then there's one for the cat and the snake and all that go back to when there's schools, right?

[01:11:17] And give me hogwarts. I want to pick my own. I want to make my own witcher

[01:11:21] I want to pick my school and I want story based on that

[01:11:24] And make it a brand new character

[01:11:26] I would love to see that kind of like what mass effect did mass effect

[01:11:29] Let you be shepherd and you kind of got to pick your background a bit and you kind of led your own way

[01:11:33] With the story give me something like that or skyrim, I guess

[01:11:36] I'd rather they do that than anything else, but I don't

[01:11:40] Even then I don't like I don't think I want it because I like how they wrote the story of gerald so well

[01:11:45] And I kind of liked how narratively they brought in friends from decades ago that were not in the game

[01:11:51] But the way they explained it in universe. It made sense like regis and blood and wine

[01:11:56] You know, I I didn't know who regis was I didn't read the books at the time

[01:11:59] He was not in in the portion of the second game at the time I played he wasn't in witcher three

[01:12:04] But it didn't feel unnatural that they brought into the story. They explained enough of them that it felt

[01:12:09] Okay, he's my best buddy. He's also a vampire. It felt like it made sense

[01:12:13] So I I don't know. I don't I like how they wrote

[01:12:16] I really like the writing in this game the writing in this game is is so well done and it's so rare for a game

[01:12:23] Yep, yep

[01:12:24] Um, and if you do play and I highly suggest we highly suggest that you play this game

[01:12:31] um

[01:12:32] And you do play the third dlc

[01:12:35] Hunt down the quest. It's a side quest where you

[01:12:39] Make it so that roach and you have a have a dialogue

[01:12:42] It honestly was some of the best dialogue in the game

[01:12:47] And it poked fun at itself

[01:12:50] You know it it showed that that while these are very serious games they can have

[01:12:56] You know some fun at their own expense

[01:12:59] Yeah, there was there was a there was a scene

[01:13:03] Where gerald and his friends get wasted in the base game?

[01:13:06] And uh have some have some dress up fun. I'll say and it was actually pretty hilarious

[01:13:11] Like there's a lot there's a lot of funny funny bits in this game that were just

[01:13:15] Fantastic. It's it's all the more reason why with the tv show

[01:13:20] I'm kind of sad that they're not going the direction that they originally planning with cavil

[01:13:24] Because I feel like he would have brought in some of that that funny bits had even given enough space with the show

[01:13:30] I don't know. It's it's which of three is one of a kind man. Like it's such a great game

[01:13:35] Yep, and by the way when we say when we say dandelion

[01:13:38] I can't remember his character's name in the show. They changed it for the show

[01:13:42] Yeah, it's like a translation thing. It's the bar. Yeah

[01:13:46] Yeah, he's so he's

[01:13:48] Pretty much similar in the game as he's in the show, although he sings a lot better in this show

[01:13:53] Yeah, it's and we didn't even like we didn't even say things like

[01:13:56] The graphics in this game 10 years later are still some of the best graphics

[01:14:00] You'll see in a video game it helps they did an hd pass a few years ago

[01:14:03] But still it holds its own to cyberpunk. It holds its own to ballers gate three or anything else

[01:14:08] That's coming out in the last five years

[01:14:10] The music is is epic. I used the music during d&d campaign

[01:14:14] I did over the years and I still like to listen to plays playlists of it. It's so good

[01:14:19] Yep

[01:14:20] Yeah, I will say

[01:14:23] Uh much like many current open world games. It's got its bugs

[01:14:31] Um, yeah

[01:14:32] There were some there were some really unfortunate times that the game would just outright crash and die on me

[01:14:38] Oh really even today still. Yeah, okay. Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah

[01:14:43] So and yeah, yeah, jess yes gear. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Yeah

[01:14:48] Yeah, when it first came out I I remember the reviews were all glowing

[01:14:53] But there's definitely people had pics with bugs in the beginning and issues with the controls the controls of gerald

[01:14:59] Moving around navigating and fighting was not the greatest

[01:15:03] Not too long after release they released patches and updates that gave you more options on how you want to control gerald

[01:15:08] And it made it a lot more smoother

[01:15:10] But I still remember early bugs of um, it's funny. One of the bugs was you have a horse roach

[01:15:15] Who if you played cyberpunk, you know, you can summon your car whenever wherever you are

[01:15:20] That comes from from witcher 3 where you could summon roach wherever you wanted and where he used to pop up

[01:15:25] Sometimes was not the greatest. Uh, sometimes he'd pop it and summon on top of a house. That was fun

[01:15:31] It was such a meme for a while that when they released a standalone version of gwent

[01:15:35] There was a card with roach on top of a house

[01:15:37] Like it's a wild poke poking kind of itself. Um, it was definitely had its bugs

[01:15:42] But when you have like an open world game at the time

[01:15:45] I would compare it to skyrim and and those kind of games I felt it was less buggy than skyrim

[01:15:51] But it still had probably probably

[01:15:54] um, there's less there's less, uh

[01:15:57] You know stretch physics in this than there is in skyrim for sure. Yes, so

[01:16:03] Yeah, that's the thing. It's it's

[01:16:06] Yeah, it's definitely an rpg with some issues, but I mean when you have that many lines of dialogue

[01:16:11] That many areas to explore that many items you're gonna you're gonna have bugs. Yeah, but

[01:16:17] The world is expansive and and jake and I talked about this

[01:16:22] While I was playing it. Yes, I did fast travel

[01:16:26] a fair amount but there were times that I would just

[01:16:30] I would just ride roach

[01:16:32] From point a to point b

[01:16:34] You know thousands of steps and just enjoy it

[01:16:38] And it has a mechanic where?

[01:16:40] You can just hold down the shift key and you don't have to steer

[01:16:45] Yeah

[01:16:46] And it works until it does at a time

[01:16:50] And when it doesn't you're like, oh thanks roach. Yeah

[01:16:54] Well, it's like he snaps the roads right which is which is honestly I wish cyberpunk had that

[01:16:59] But I didn't fast travel can't cross a bridge to save his own life

[01:17:03] Oh, yeah, though. I mean the hitboxes aren't great there. I didn't fast travel until the last zone of skelaga

[01:17:09] That's when i'm like, all right guys

[01:17:11] I gotta finish this game and I started fast traveling on skelaga because there's a I think there's areas

[01:17:15] We need a boat if i'm not wrong

[01:17:17] But I didn't bother I didn't bother fast traveling in the beginnings. I liked I liked riding roach

[01:17:22] I felt the ambience was great the the day night cycle the sunrises are beautiful even in the shittiest looking zones

[01:17:28] The sunlight sunlight was amazing

[01:17:31] It's just an awesome

[01:17:33] Pretty pretty looking game like I just i'm working through final by seven remake which came out around the same time

[01:17:38] Like I feel witcher three looks better and I like final by seven remakes graphics. Don't get me wrong

[01:17:44] But witcher three just looks so good and it holds up today. Like it's wild how good that game looks

[01:17:49] I I do remember also

[01:17:52] There's the sex theme in this in the first dlc

[01:17:57] That's just well

[01:18:03] Go make yourself a cup of coffee and come back when it's done

[01:18:08] Yeah, some of the animations don't line up. It's just clumsy. It's just clumsy

[01:18:14] Like I was like are these two 14 year olds trying to figure out how this works?

[01:18:20] Yeah, it's funny because this is one of those games this is a game

[01:18:24] If you're familiar with skyrim and nexus mods, you know that there's modders and then there's there's modders that go all in

[01:18:31] witcher three has some of those mods and it was a lot of those scenes is definitely not a kid's game

[01:18:36] even if you set aside the

[01:18:39] Insane amount of blood and gore. There's also a lot of like sex and nudity

[01:18:42] Like I actually curious how people play us on twitch

[01:18:45] but there's one storyline in the main story that I would not want a child to

[01:18:51] To walk in on at all at all

[01:18:55] That that scene sticks with me so

[01:18:59] Yeah

[01:19:02] It has to do with a character an npc called horse and jr. So

[01:19:07] I'm not going to spoil it more than that. But yeah, yeah, it's pretty it's already brutal game

[01:19:12] But what like I know I think we did top five episodes a couple years ago and this is on my top five

[01:19:17] It's still in my top five. This is one of those games where

[01:19:21] It's funny to say like, you know

[01:19:24] 50 years from now

[01:19:25] They're going to look at games of the games of a generation right because we look at films of a generation

[01:19:30] What is the defining movie of the generation?

[01:19:32] We can't really do it with games because games only started like, you know 70 years in the 70s

[01:19:37] So we're still in that generation

[01:19:38] But I feel like future generations are gonna look back at games from now

[01:19:42] And they're probably gonna pick tetris and they're probably pick a mario

[01:19:46] But I think witcher three is definitely one of those games of a generation just for

[01:19:50] The graphics that I hope will still hold up in 50 years

[01:19:53] But also just the story alone the story is so good in this game

[01:19:56] And I think it it warrants being considered a game of a generation

[01:19:59] It's one of them. It's one of the best games ever made. I don't care who you're talking to

[01:20:02] It's it's up there

[01:20:04] I I will tell you plain and simple. Yeah, it took me over 100 hours. I played a lot of side quests

[01:20:11] I played a lot of the the bounties

[01:20:15] And it took me, you know over 100 hours to do the original or the main main story and then the two dlcs

[01:20:22] But I I don't feel like a single

[01:20:26] One of those hours was wasted. I don't feel like it was

[01:20:30] so

[01:20:32] Um, and there are definitely games that i'm like, why did I go play that right? And this is not one of them

[01:20:38] So like why did I spend 60 hours doing this right? Like I spent finally I said remake

[01:20:42] I spent two hours going in circles in a trainy yard and I questioned my existence of why I even played games

[01:20:47] The witcher three every side quest even the smallest of side quests

[01:20:52] Either I hit it tugged at the heartstrings or it made me laugh right which is rare, right?

[01:20:58] It's it's pretty good. It's

[01:21:00] It's enough that it got me to read the start read the books

[01:21:04] Which is rare for a game to do that. It's enough that when the tv show is announced

[01:21:09] I was so excited because of how much I love the video game. So it's just wild

[01:21:14] It's it's it's I everybody needs to play this game. Like I really wish more people would play

[01:21:18] I mean, I know lots have played it. It's definitely one of the most

[01:21:22] Widely played games, especially with the way cd project kept, you know putting on sale

[01:21:27] Get away for free that hg update was free if you bought a previous version of the game

[01:21:31] It got re-released on the switch which you know take your issues with the port or not. It still was on the switch

[01:21:37] Right wild. So it's it's just uh, it's everybody needs to play this game

[01:21:42] Yep

[01:21:43] Yep, it is. Uh, it is it is a magnum opus of a game

[01:21:47] Yeah

[01:21:48] so

[01:21:49] Um, yeah, i'm trying to think if there's anything else I want to bring up about it

[01:21:54] I will say

[01:21:56] If you're still on the fence and you like henry cavill's witcher

[01:22:00] You get more of them in witcher three. It's just a different person that does it

[01:22:05] Because henry cavill very very much played that character

[01:22:09] so

[01:22:10] Yeah

[01:22:12] um

[01:22:13] Yeah, um

[01:22:15] Yeah epic game epically good

[01:22:17] So I do not feel bad for playing it. I'm glad I made it my sisyphean game this year

[01:22:24] Yeah, I wish I had that game

[01:22:28] I'll be honest with you. It's it's

[01:22:31] I keep I keep saying every couple years there's certain games. I like to go back and play every few years

[01:22:35] Deus ex is one of them

[01:22:37] Um, but deus ex is like 20 hours tops, uh, which are three

[01:22:40] I would love to go back and finish but it's a hundred mass effect trilogy

[01:22:44] I love mass effect trilogy, but it's it's like two three hundred hours to get through the whole trilogy

[01:22:49] And it just I can't do it

[01:22:50] But I have memories of witcher three

[01:22:53] And they're all positive just and it's not just the ending. It's not just the beginning

[01:22:57] There's dozens of of story plot points throughout that entire game and the dlcs that I still remember today

[01:23:03] And I love those twists and turns it's just the story of the baron, which is one of the earlier plot outlines

[01:23:10] Yep, is heartbreaking and there's different ways you can do it man. But man that that's another character

[01:23:15] You can't stand but by the end of it you feel so bad to that whole family and it's just it's just so well done

[01:23:21] I don't know. Yeah, it's it's a fan. Yeah, there's

[01:23:23] There's a place in my heart for the baron even though he's an asshole

[01:23:27] Yeah, right

[01:23:29] I mean no no character not even not even gerald no character in the game

[01:23:36] Is this black and white?

[01:23:38] Oh, they're just a good character or they're just well, I know there are plenty of just evil characters horse and jr

[01:23:45] um

[01:23:47] Yeah, so yeah

[01:23:50] Um, all right cool

[01:23:52] Well, that's uh that that's all I got you got anything else

[01:23:55] That's an hour and a half of gushing which is I think the plan with this game

[01:23:59] I am really glad to do this episode finally. I'm glad you played it

[01:24:02] I think wolf started this one

[01:24:04] I don't know if he finished it or not

[01:24:05] Um, and then I know charred was debating playing it at some point. I hope he does right because I hope so too

[01:24:11] Yeah, I I hope I hope everybody can find a hundred hundredish hours to to make their way through this

[01:24:18] Well and really

[01:24:20] If you if you cut in half the amount of side quests and the amount of bounties I did

[01:24:26] You'd probably still enjoy it just as much

[01:24:29] But I don't know

[01:24:30] I also enjoyed the fact that I was always like five to ten levels above the quests

[01:24:35] I was getting because I had done so many side quests, you know

[01:24:39] But it's it's you could even mainline it and yeah

[01:24:43] You you add level stuff so easily and that's fine like I don't I don't play this game for the combat

[01:24:47] Although I did like it. I played it for the story and the story holds up

[01:24:51] And I think there's difficulty sliders if you don't really want to get involved with the hard combat. It's there's options

[01:24:57] Yep. Yeah

[01:24:58] All right. Awesome

[01:25:00] well, um

[01:25:01] anything you want to

[01:25:03] I mean aside from this do you any anything you're doing that you want to talk about or

[01:25:08] Yeah, hold on. So

[01:25:10] I did sign up. Oops hit the mic. I did sign up for a game of the month thing because i'm a mark

[01:25:16] So I got games in there. I'm gonna probably do video unboxing it

[01:25:21] Because I got that analog pocket, which is a handheld device an fpga device and I wanted that what a grandma bought me games

[01:25:28] How awful would they be so I paid 30 dollars for this box of random gameboy games and I

[01:25:34] Spoilers, they're probably trash and that's okay

[01:25:37] So I want I want to get it on video yeah, we have we have donkey kong at home donkey kong at home

[01:25:44] It's pretty pretty much what it is

[01:25:45] I'm probably gonna get like shark's tail or some some fit game or sponge bob square pants something

[01:25:50] I don't know. Maybe maybe there's a good spongebob game

[01:25:53] I don't know

[01:25:53] But it's only handheld games and i'm looking I am actually looking forward to see what I get

[01:25:58] I know I know it's not gonna be 30 in value of games

[01:26:01] Not with the way retro games are priced these days, right? So I think it'll be funny

[01:26:05] So i'm gonna do a video on that over the next week. I think so you have not opened it

[01:26:09] No, I haven't opened. Oh, yeah, so I don't know what's in there

[01:26:13] I don't know if it's in box. I don't know if there's if it's gameboy gameboy color gameboy advanced

[01:26:17] It's one of those systems something I can play in the pocket. So it should be nice

[01:26:21] or not

[01:26:22] We're not yeah

[01:26:24] Well, um for me, I haven't been streaming again. Um, a lot of it is life is just

[01:26:31] Life is just getting in the way

[01:26:34] Like we've we've actually been trying to figure out a way to like bank some episodes because we're struggling sometimes on fridays to have enough

[01:26:41] uh time to we we love doing the podcast, but

[01:26:46] sadly, um

[01:26:47] It seems like april may always kind of gets a little a little a little rough. So

[01:26:53] Yeah, um, but I do want to get back to streaming

[01:26:56] When I can but i'm not going to promise a date at all

[01:27:00] Um, and i've been doing some uh, some dj stuff with my buddy on saturdays. Um

[01:27:05] uh

[01:27:07] Yeah, it's been fun. What's his channel? Uh soul archaic sol

[01:27:12] a r c h i a c

[01:27:16] Something like that. Um

[01:27:19] But yeah on saturdays, um, we start generally around

[01:27:24] 330 mountain time

[01:27:27] um we

[01:27:29] We we we kind of trade off sets and it's it's fun. And then at the end

[01:27:35] Of the set we have our own wheel of pain

[01:27:38] Uh where where we spin it and the wheel of pain decides what we play

[01:27:42] uh last week

[01:27:44] He added a category of songs the dj hates

[01:27:49] And it kept rolling up that option

[01:27:53] I think he turned the waiting up on that option. I you know

[01:27:57] But uh, I played I played things like tub thumping

[01:28:03] Yeah, I mean there's there's people like that, right?

[01:28:06] maybe

[01:28:07] sometimes I

[01:28:09] Yeah, I used to whenever that used to come on the radio

[01:28:11] I used to cringe I used to do 12 hour shifts back in the day and it would be the same

[01:28:15] 50 goddamn songs in the radio because of course

[01:28:17] That's the way they did it and tub thumping could come up on the hour every hour and I used to just hate my life

[01:28:23] It's just so awful. I'm so sick of that song

[01:28:26] Yep, so

[01:28:28] But it's fun. We do we do anything from industrial to

[01:28:32] Electronic occasionally we pull out butt rock

[01:28:36] Yeah, it's we call it smatter day because we basically play

[01:28:40] Uh what we decide, um, but I am building some set lists for this saturday tomorrow

[01:28:46] If you're listening live or probably a couple days ago if you're listening to the podcast on audio

[01:28:53] So so that's me

[01:28:55] Awesome, well folks, we appreciate you all being here. Um go over to presbytacancel.com

[01:29:02] And find our socials. We have discord. We love to chat and discord

[01:29:06] Uh like subscribe if you've made it to this point in the in the podcast. We appreciate you even more

[01:29:13] Yes, shout out to november because as you called me out last week

[01:29:18] You watched the end of the episode. Thank you. I do appreciate it. I'm glad at least one person besides me

[01:29:23] That's the end of the episode. That's great

[01:29:26] No, seriously, it's really great. I appreciate the folks who followed us on twitch

[01:29:29] Twitch as well, uh, we do broadcast on both youtube and twitch and we've gotten a few more followers on twitch. That's awesome

[01:29:36] Yes

[01:29:37] Awesome. Well this uh, this has been another wonderful presby to cancel. Um now you can go back to your

[01:29:45] Your your sad life of not having us around

[01:29:48] Toss a coin to your witcher

[01:29:53] First