Many of the Witcher 3 substories seem to be reincarnations of the various stories told in the original books - I mean, Witcher is not a "game story" but an adaptation of novels, and these novels have also been adapted into movies and IIRC a TV series some decades ago;

Oof. Which ones? After the ten thousandth person recommended the game to me, I recently played through it and never found a plot that I didn't find pretty flat. Plus, I couldn't tell if the terrible dialog and gratuitous cringe-worthy softcore CGI porn sequences were supposed to be a self-aware in-joke.

There are lots of great side quests in The Witcher 3. The wolfman one, the one with the ghost and the oven, the one that takes part in a tower in an island in a lake, the one where you finish tracking down some witches...

Not to mention, part of the appeal of the game is not knowing if those quests are going to end well or not. Some quests don't have good endings, while others depend on your choices, making you responsible for what happens.

And regarding "softcore porn", it's only simple bed scenes, like in any movie. It's totally normal, and given that there is a huge romance plot with 3 different endings, not counting the expansions, it would be silly to tell such a story without mention to sex. In any case, it tells a lot that people are so scandalized by sex, but not by the continous gore, violence, inequality and misery that The Witcher 3 portrays continously.

I’m not scandalized by the sex. I just find myself eye rolling at the hamfisted treatment of the topic. A couple of lame pickup lines and every woman you encounter practically impales herself on you.

Not to mention the tedium of the cut scenes where sex is depicted. But you’re right that I have a double standard in one regard: I’ll put up with lengthier cut scenes with magic explosions and plot advancements than I will put up with cut scenes that are herky CG sex.

>I’m not scandalized by the sex. I just find myself eye rolling at the hamfisted treatment of the topic. A couple of lame pickup lines and every woman you encounter practically impales herself on you.

Ah, I'd suggest you check the digit on your game install again. It appears you've played The Witcher (the 1st game of the trilogy). That was indeed a bit ridiculous. On the other hand, it's not like being strong, handsome, famous and famously infertile is a bad strategy for getting laid. That said, most of the sexuality/romance should probably be kept out of scene unless it contributes to the plot in some way, which is what Witcher 3 does. Whenever you can have sex with someone it is because this either advances the main romance plot or because it reveals an interesting facet of a person.

My goodness, you mean the Witcher 1 was worse? I only managed 45 minutes before stopping the first one.

If you played through the entire game and didn't find any of the stories compelling, all I can really do is shrug and say apparently it wasn't the game for you. I'm curious what games you've felt were "non-flat" and well written?

If you do want examples of great stories from Witcher 3, they are (IMO):

* Main story from the Hearts of Stone expansion

* Bloody Baron sub-plot

* Main story from the Blood & Wine expansion

* Triss Merigold sub-plot regarding mages in Novigrad

* Haunted tower quest from Kiera Metz

* The first 75% or so of the base game's main story is good, but it's complex and hard to get invested in if you aren't familiar the characters and backstory

Hm, do you like any fantasy at all? It sounds like it might not be your genre. Hard sci-fi more your thing? In that case The Talos Principle is pretty good, if fairly gameplay heavy.

Loved The Talos Principle, but also enjoyed Skyrim. Skyrim’s quests and side quests felt a bit thing-collecty at times, but I feel like you could get into it as a nationalistic boy scout viking barbarian, or an angry lizard thief, or an elven mage and play three different games.

With the Witcher 3, I felt trapped in a character whose demeanor I found insufferable no matter what options I chose.

I wanted to like the game, and recognize the technical achievement, but it left me pretty blasé about quite a lot.