My very schematic review after finishing ALL side quests, endings, and lifepaths.
Techinical: PS5 version, for some reason we don't have a quality mode as Xbox has, so we're stuck with the 60fps mode. City is literally empty in particular when driving, too many pop-in and, most annoying thing, it crashes. EVERY. ONE/TWO. HOURS. Hotfix 1.06 didn't do anything at all. Tons of bugs that force you to reload every half an hour. At this point we demand that next gen patch will give total support to adaptive triggers and won't be just "same old gen game but with RT on", it needs to go close to a comparable PC with texture and no pop-in due to the blazing fast SSD. Even worse, PS4 version is literally unplayable. I don't understand why they gave the finger to console users who are half of their customers, but we will remember about this. Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.
Narrative:
here I wrote about the problems. TL;DR main quest is too short and linear, total lack of significant consequences for choices is a huge problem in an RPG, side quests are not intertwined with the main quest (as promised) and not as good as they were in W3, too much suspension of disbelief when doing side content with the urgency of main quest. Relationship with silverhand is weird (see the linked thread).
Music: I liked music, in particular songs in vexelradio (which not surprisingly were used in all marketing material) but the best is, as usual, the in-house stuff like main menu and all combat themes.
Art design: Night city is beautiful even with all those technical issues and no interactivity at all. The only real thing that keeps me coming back to the game. I hoped for a little more ads around the city, in particular with a different theme than sex but what is there is very cool.
First person: It was the right choice, it works very well, except for driving because in some cars the windshield is too small and there's no back window at all, so you're forced into third person from time to time.
Driving: except for its weird physics that got a little better with patches, it's fine. Not great, not even good TBH, but it does its job.
AI: is so stupid that ruins the game. Literally worse than playstation 2 AI (GTA 3 is much better on this, go check it out), in particular police spawning behind you and not following if you leave. Not only it breaks the immersion every time you interact with (or fight) something or just watch NPCs "living their lives", but also makes different builds just flavour and not real strategies since it breaks by itself with no even need to try. You can either brute force every situation or just trick the AI with simple moves. Stealth is totally un-recommended if you want to enjoy the game, the least you look at the enemies getting dumber, the better.
Gunplay: I must say that the animation team did a great job HERE since weapons are very cool. You can't say the same for ragdoll but it's a minor problem. Jumping, sliding, covering and shooting, it's all fun. Not a challenge and just flavour due to AI, but that alone is fine.
Melee: very basic but that's fine. Blades do a very weird "gooey" sound when hitting enemies (like a pudding if you know what I mean) but the nice combat music covers it.
Netrunning: totally broken and ridiculously easy to destroy the game. You don't even need to enter a building to kill every inhabitant. Use it with a tech sniper rifle and... oh boy, oh boy...
Combat overall: AI ruins it very very hard, but if you close your eyes and go guns blazing it is surprisingly fun since you feel like one of those immortal action heroes. Not a compliment to the game, but you can find good things in it.
Level design: the main quest is so linear in some missions that you can't even talk about design, but all side quests have different access points and make different builds shine. I liked it. Not particularly complex (not possible in a game of this scale) but it works very well.
Braindance: it's cool the first time you do it, the second time it gets boring. It's like an advanced version of the basic "investigation/witcher senses" we saw in too many games (here as well).
Crafting: just nonsensical. You don't need it at all because the game behaves like a looter shooter, so you always get better stuff and you need to upgrade yours to keep up. Which makes crafting a chore and just for the flavor since what you loot is more than enough. On the other hand, it's the only way you have not to dress like a clown since it's impossible to buy clothes you want and of the desired colour. Probably because if they let us buy stuff, crafting would be totally useless? They put tech weapons skills in there for the same reason? Also, you can use it to break the game economy with no effort at all. I don't know how this passed QA.
Vendors: you can't buy what you need, loot is overwhelming and always better, stuff is extremely expensive. They're there just fr you to sell the weapons and trash you find. I think it says it all.
Loot: it's so bad, soooooooo bad. Goddamn looter shooters. Why couldn't they do it like skyrim where weapons and armours have fixed stats? Isn't skyrim an RPG? It'd also give value to the different brands of weapons they put in the game, while now it's all about the highest number no matter what. And those legendary/epic descriptors in a cyberpunk game? God. Annoying, immersion-breaking, and forces you to dress like a clown. It ruins the gaming experience. Just bad. Also, level gating is the worst desing in the world. If you really need that because you can't balance the game properly, just don't make items appear until you meet the requirements.
Progression system:
- cyberware is just great. It works, you can also make synergistic combinations, give you active skills that makes sense. Kudos.
- enemies and missions don't show their level, which is immersive (even if not optimal since it's still a looter shooters, they should've had fixed stats according to their affiliation and grade, like arasaka always better than scavengers and totally remove the looter shooter elements)
- "the more you do the better you get" approach is very good. I like that the more I use a weapon the better I get at it
- Level system is not optimal contrary to cyberware and improving skills but it's fine
- different builds are potentially great but AI makes them just flavour (as I said before) and totally overpower very quickly
Just a side note for racing and boxing quests: racing is ridiculously easy with rubber banding (but NPCs can't win) and boxing just have ridiculously OP NPCs with a stupid AI that you need to trick in order to beat them. Next time better not to put them in the game at all.
The marketing campaign has been almost criminal (and 4 class actions are telling me I'm not that wrong) and literally offensive, with all those youtubers and select audience BS who could watch gameplay if they paid a ticket. Not affecting the game, but definitely my respect for CDPR.
To sum up: the game has a lot of problems and broken promises. Many of those problems are the same W3 had and it fails to solve them when it tries (e.g. different builds are non-effective due to idiot AI). On the other hand, it is more fun to play than W3 but does not excel in the narrative, which is what made their previous game so good. Main quest is too short with no real choice and consequences if not for the last mission. Art design, music, lore, linear story and, if you like it, the fun you get from easily becoming an immortal god in combat, save the game.
PS5 score: 7.5/10, 8 if they fix all bugs and crashes and tweak some stuff. Can't get above 8 unless they completely redo AI and add C&C to main quest (impossible)
PS4 score: not playable at all.
Wouldn't pre-order it again and won't trust CDPR again.
