Ok. Yes, I also find it a bit annoying when open-world games present you with this lovely, big world, but then impose some sort of faux-urgency to the main quest, that doesn't allow the player time to explore it. And there are many ways in which the exploration can be woven into the main quest - e.g. tell the player to collect a large amount of money 'somehow', or simply tell the player to come back later, once they are more experienced.

Although, I can forgive that if the game otherwise has a good writing, characters, a good variety of places to go and explore. I'm not looking for spoilers about W3, but it seems obvious from the title and the hints being dropped in W2 that the main quest is going to revolve around chasing the Wild Hunt, solving that mystery and curing Geralt's amnesia.

That happens in some JRPGs as well. There's a meteor that's about to crash into earth, so let's just do some side quests, and maybe even go play some fun minigames! The meteor will wait. (There's a specific game I'm referencing here; for anyone who doesn't quite know what game I'm thinking of, I will mention that the previous game in this rather famous JRPG series becomes extremely non-linear at a certain point in the game, whereas this game does not.)

I think I like the approach taken in earlier Dragon Quest games, and in the original Final Fantasy, where the world has already been under siege by evil for years before the game starts. Final Fantasy 1's fiends were all present 200 years before the start of the game, and Dragon Quest 3's protagonist's father set out on a quest to kill Baramos (and presumably failed) right around the time of the protagonist's birth. In other words, the situation is already bad at the start of the game, but it doesn't get any worse as the game progresses.

Sounds a bit like Chrono Trigger?

I don't remember there being urgency in Chrono Trigger's endgame. Yes, there will be an apocalypse, but not for 999 years after the start of the game (and the only other era you can explore that's after the start is a few centuries after said apocalypse).

Don't expect too much. The King of the Wild Hunt has like 3 lines of dialog in W3. There is a reason why most people like the DLCs stories Heart of Stone and Blood & Wine more than the main game. And most of Geralt'S time with the Wild Hunt is more or less being told in W2.
That being said, the smaller story parts are very good, but the overarching storyline is just meh.

It's been a long time since I played it, so I don't remember exactly how much urgency there was in the plot. You must mean Final Fantasy VII then?

Hang on ... didn't Geralt kill the King of the Wild hunt in the epilogue at the end of the first game? Or am I confused? Maybe there is a new King of the Hunt in W3?

Ah yes, the Unholy Oubliette too. Was looking that up to see whether I missed something, because it really felt like something important should be there and there was nothing.
You have a reason to go to the Lava Trolls though, and seemed enough at the time.
As for mage and hacking and slashing, I read the recommendations saying that you need a fighter for the second half, but still did what I usually do, my Smite / Fortitude mage, Wielder, with 1 strength, 3 endurance and not a single skill point used on any fighting skills over the course of the entire game doing quite fine. The fact that mana regenerates slower than health even if you go all out as a mage hinders though.

That was just his wraith form. He still has a physical form.

I'm currently playing Apsulov - End of Gods and it's pretty clear that the game was supposed to be a lot bigger. It tells you to find 9 seals, but when you found and place the first, six are already there.

Still, what's there is well done, and polished.

Yes. There's literally a meteor about to crash into the planet (you can even see it in the sky while flying around) and it will crash into the planet in a specific amount of time that's actually mentioned at one point, yet you can still continue to do sidequests as much as you want.

Zelda: Majora's Mask, on the other hand, has its moon *actually* crash into Termina at the dawn of the 4th day, triggering a game over (which not even dying will do); fortunately, there is a way to reset time, though it also resets much of the world.

Same thing with Ocarina of Time and Minish Cap. Except the former is very well documented as missing content.

Lava Trolls would've been great to use elsewhere though, especially in the more repetitive dungeons / areas like the crypt and in Nostradamus' cave.
I thought you needed a combat skill too, and have never gotten far without a tagged combat skill. Farthest I've reached is the crypt (I do this before Nostradamus) with Electric+Fire+Divine Protective. How did you complete the whole game?? Wouldn't a pure caster suffer during the section in England where you barely get any mana? My understanding is that'll always need the Maelstrom Bow (that electric dmg enhancing bow) for a pure magic build and won't require ranged weapon investment?

what is missing is a forum change

Much of the 120h I had logged at the end were spent waiting for mana to regenerate I guess, always careful, draw enemies separately, make good use of companions, of course good gear... No ranged weapon at all.