Can't seem to shake off the terrible taste in my mouth that "three to tango" left me.
I found this "quest" immensely disappointing for several reasons. Primarily because it doesn't seem that Geralt deserves for the two women he loves to write him off and walk away as though they simply don't care. Neither of them seem broken up about this. What's Yennifer's line, "Geralt of Rivia simply doesn't matter to either of us any more."
Well, that's nice, Yennifer.
It's exceedingly difficult to tell what's "in character" and not based on playing these games. Especially when it comes to Yennifer. Who could guess what her likely actions were in this scenario based only on what we see ingame? No one.
It was already difficult to understand what Yennifer's appeal was, other than she's hot. Okay, she's smoking hot. Got it. But she didn't come looking for Geralt and when he asked why her answer was essentially "Eh, you're a grown up. I knew you could take care of yourself."
Sure, he can. But that doesn't mean he wanted to spend the entire first and second game alone. It doesn't mean he doesn't miss her. It doesn't mean that when he recovers his memories and realizes "Hell, she never even tried to find me" that it didn't burn like hell.
With Triss? My Geralt and her had a good relationship going at the end of the second game. The word I've read explaining the sharp disconnect between the second game and the third game as regards the relationship between Geralt and Triss is that Triss decided after game 2 that she'd taken advantage of his amnesia to the point where it poisoned the relationship, in her mind. She left him, told him to go back to square one and maybe they'd see each other again some day and maybe they'd be friends or maybe they'd be more but she was leaving and hitting the reset button on the relationship.
Now that's a bit contrived if you ask me, but okay, take it for what it is.
Now in Game 3 Geralt gets back together with Triss. And why wouldn't he? He still cares for her. HE didn't leave her after game 2, that was all her. He understands she feels guilty for taking advantage of his amnesia but he knows he had agency in deciding to pursue a relationship with her in game 2. She didn't "take advantage" nearly as much as her guilty concience insists.
So, they get together in Game 3. My Geralt is STILL carrying around the Rose of Rememberance, a magical item that PROVED he loved her in Game 2. And which she just left behind in a dresser at her home in Novigrad and didn't try to recover.
What does Yennifer and Geralt have by this point? Very little. We met her for the first time ever ingame at the start and she was cold, to say the least. And by the time we're making decisions about a relationship with Triss we've still not had any contact with Yennifer. Memories restored or not it sure seems like there's not much relationship there, at least on Yennifer's part. SHE DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO FIND HIM.
Then the Djinn story and it seemed incredibly cold to tell Yennifer at that point "Wow, it really was all the Djinn! At least on my part. I know you just confessed your feelings, but hey, turns out I don't give a $$%^ about you after all!"
If he EVER cared about her I couldn't see him doing that.
So, a lot of people (I quite easily imagine) ended up cuffed to that bed at the Kingfisher.
And why? Because at no point did we have the opportunity to talk to either Yennifer or Triss about our relationship(s), no chance to talk to either of them about whether they feel they're in an exclusive relationship with Geralt. Do they mind if he's hitting the whorehouses? Do they even react at all to the fact he slept with Kiera Metz? They never come to him pissed off about him sleeping with anyone, at any point.
So why would he feel like he was "cheating" on either of them? They didn't say they expected exclusivity. A confession of love isn't an automatic assumption of exclusivity either. Especially given that neither of them object to him sleeping around with all sorts of women, from whores to other sorceresses like Kiera.
If either of them had taken their plenty of opportunities from the Kaer Morhen portion of the 3rd game through the departure from Novigrad later to come to Geralt and talk to him about their relationship and what they expected and let him know "Hey, if we're going to be serious I need you to be exclusive with me. I know you still have lingering feelings and a relationship with Yennifer/Triss but that can't continue if you and I are going to go forward. Let me know what you decide and please decide soon."
If either had done that then Geralt wouldn't feel like he'd been blindsided. Blindsided by a cruel prank that took advantage of his trust of both of them (you do NOT shackle someone then leave them tied up, it's a "funny" joke but it's also something you just do NOT do) and blindsided by the fact that both of them walked out of that room having utterly ended their relationships and feelings for Geralt.
And why? Because he loved the other woman too? At some point in the past? And now, after months of amnesia and being left alone by Yennifer and all these struggles... they're going to just say "To hell with you Geralt, you didn't read my mind and know I expected you to never sleep with anyone else other than all of the whores of the world and all of the other sorceresses and other people EXCEPT Triss/Yennifer!"
My Geralt is standing on the ship with Yennifer having just told him "We've both decided that Geralt of Rivia simply isn't someone either of us care about any more." And Triss told him she didn't care anymore either.
He's standing there, looking at Ciri, looking at Yennifer and Triss, thinking of all of this he's been through strictly to help these people he cares about. All the effort he made helping Triss and her idiotic escaping mage plans. All the bull he put up with from Yennifer in order to help whatever plans she had.
And they tied him up, left him there, and both tell him the next day they simply don't care at all about him anymore.
That's not justice for a "cheater". That's cruelty. Sharp, harsh, cruelty to a person who didn't deserve it.
Seriously, we're standing there on the ship and I'm supposed to go do something something involving the Wild Hunt and Ciri and... I just can't care. He's standing there with his heart ripped out. By these two women who he trusted more than anyone other than maybe Ciri. Either of them could have spoken to him, but they never did. Hell, I LOOKED for opportunties to talk to them and figure out where this was going, starting at the Kaer Morhen portion of the game, when Triss and Yennifer are at the same place there with Geralt for the first time. And never did the game give me the opportunity to even try to figure out what was Geralt's chosen path going forward.
Both women refused to talk about it, then they cruelly broke up with him, in the most heartless way I can imagine.
So, unless the writers were TRYING to write both Yennifer and Triss as heartless cruel people that makes this entire scenario an example of bad writing.
And the worst part is how this throws a shadow over everything that happens now. I'm having a hard time understanding how my Geralt can even be civil to these two women. How he's not angry, very very angry, and washing his hands of both of them after telling them both exactly what he thinks about them now.
I just can't seem to care about the next step in the main storyline even. Just standing there on the ship, supposed to go look for a "sunstone". Like he even gives a damn anymore.
And people keep saying "it's like real life, if you cheat on a woman" or such. In real life I can chose to talk to the people around me about any subject I want, no matter what the choices on the conversation menu say. Whereas every time I tried to or wanted to talk to Yennifer and Triss about the situation, from the start of the Kaer Morhen portion of the game through the "Final Preperations" quest, the writers of the game denied me that ability, they made the specific choice to NOT allow Geralt to talk to either of the women and to resolve the conflict in a mature responsible way. Instead, the women resolved it in the most immature, cruel, high-school sort of way imaginable. :/
And yes, that's frustrating because it's now staining everything that happens after. I can't watch Geralt talking with either of these women politely and like they're all friends as they go forward in the last act's quests. It's completely immersion breaking because no one, no one, would react like that to both of the women he loves and who he trusted more than anyone other than maybe Ciri, turning on him like that and completely writing him out of their lives without so much as a discussion.
sort of an unofficial mini-game to see how many times you could get him laid 