Johnny is a better character than V, IMHO. (Spoilers)

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Don't get me wrong, I wish Johnny wasn't there at all. The storyline sucks the way it is, mushed together. And I really don't even like him. But as a living person in the game (not so much Johnny the construct) I would rather have been playing Johnny's story.
V's only real motivation is to survive. Yeah, there's a little tiny bit about becoming a legend, which I suppose is why he's running around doing all those fixer jobs (I have no idea why he'd be doing them otherwise, since he should be concentrating on trying to get Johnny out of his head). That's pretty much all V gets to do. There's a little romance, and he can pick up a bottle and have a drink from time to time, but that's about it. V's either doing things because he has to to survive, or because he's getting paid to.
In a lot of ways, I think fixers were a bad idea. There should have been opportunities to steal, hack, rob, sabotage, rescue, blow things up, car jack, reveal the truth, that would benefit V's reputation and his pockets, and show his morale compass. Could've bribed people for information, ruffed them up, found clues, whatever. So he wasn't just a two bit mercenary going from job to job rapid fire.
Yeah, Johnny sucks. But he battles with the corpos because he wants to. He's in a band. He sleeps with who he wants, gets wasted when he wants, punches people who annoy him. V can't even zero a drunk who throws a going away party for himself that kills about a dozen women. Not allowed (why isn't "Mission failed" a thing?) When Johnny finally gets control of V's body, he has more fun in one night (or however long it was) than V has the whole game. By far. Johnny has the coolest gun, too, or at least one different from all the rest.
I just don't think of V having a personality at all. There was certainly no way I could find to give him one, play wise. He seems lightweight with no motivation of his own, like some cardboard cutout supporting character who usually gets offed in the third scene, and certainly not strong enough as designed to be the main protagonist. He kind of deserves to be overwritten.

EDIT **********************************************************************************************************************************************************************
I gotta admit, I was netrunning and found an interesting article that has me thinking about V as a character, and maybe what the designers were doing. I think I may have missed the point, Gonna have to take another look at him. Excerpt from the article:

"Just getting by in Night City counts as a win, and I think Cyberpunk 2077’s characters understand that well. Even when you let someone down or make them angry with the decisions you make, they get it on some level. You had to do what you had to do, and ultimately the biggest sin is letting yourself trust someone else too much.

Everyone is in the process of realising this: that we’re all disempowered and alienated by the total control the corpos exert over Night City. Everyone and everything has been commodified and atomised, and moments of real connection with another person are ephemeral and fleeting.

It’s rare for a videogame to do this – to put you in a role where you’re not really a hero, and for other characters to recognise the fact that you’re probably just another disappointment waiting to happen. There are hints of this in The Witcher, but in the end, Geralt is a relatively traditional knight in shining armour, even if he grumbles and rolls his eyes about it a lot.

Like Case in William Gibson’s Neuromancer, V is “just another hustler, trying to make it through.” I think role-playing games have trained us for years to understand that we’re the solution to every problem, and it falls to Night City’s cast of supporting characters to show us that in Cyberpunk, we really aren’t. In all their brokenness and exhaustion and loneliness, I think they do a truly admirable job of that."

Though I may not have enjoyed it, maybe V was never meant to be more than he is; just another loser trying in vain to be more. Makes him more interesting at least.
 
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I never really saw it in that way. V's thoughts are your thoughts, and that pays off in what ending you choose. So the stuff about cats, the meditation, talking to the monks about the meaning of souls, talking to Alt, etc, it all makes you, the player, think. And that governs where you take V in the story.

That V is lost gives you the latitude to put your own impressions into him or her.
 
I wonder what is best:
Johnny, the rebellious and terrorist rockerboy, who has a super gun and a nice silverhand, who fights for an "ideal" against the "bad" corporations, who says what he thinks, manipulates all those around him (friends included), deceives all the women he is with, parties and drinks all the time. But who ends up soukilled and locked in Mikoshi for 50 years, loses all his friends and wives (or at best they really don't care about him), ends up having V as his only friend (only if V wants it) and leaves Night City sadly and alone (or behind the Black Wall just as alone and even more sadly).

Or

V who initially wants to become a legend (but collides "brutally" with reality), can end up having close friends (who cares about him), maybe even a "stable" relationship with someone, and maybe leave Night City with a "familly".

So yes Johnny has more personality than V, that's for sure. But is it "better", honestly, I don't think so :)

Edit :
And if Johnny was the "playable character", he would have his own ideas straight out of everything, "corporations are bad", "monks are dumb", "friends are made to be betrayed", "the truth only comes out of my mouth" and "Night City only deserves to be nuked" (so no freedom for the player to think anything).
"Helping Panam ? No reason..."
"Helping Judy ? Why..."
"Helping River ? No, it's a cops..."
"Goro ? obviously not, he only deserve to die...!"
"Kerry ? Why not, but only because I need to know how he end..."
 
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I never really saw it in that way. V's thoughts are your thoughts, and that pays off in what ending you choose. So the stuff about cats, the meditation, talking to the monks about the meaning of souls, talking to Alt, etc, it all makes you, the player, think. And that governs where you take V in the story.

That V is lost gives you the latitude to put your own impressions into him or her.
Yeah, but where do you take V in the story? You get choices at the end, but other than that you mostly just go along with the path laid out in front of him. Mostly I kept thinking "why am I doing yet another fixer quest again?" If V's thoughts are my thoughts, then why can't I act on them? I get that you can pretend V is doing what he is doing for whatever reason you make up (he's a good guy, he's a bad guy, he just likes shooting people), but there's little or no way to reflect that in the way you actually play the game. Til the end.
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I wonder what is best:
Johnny, the rebellious and terrorist rockerboy, who has a super gun and a nice silverhand, who fights for an "ideal" against the "bad" corporations, who says what he thinks, manipulates all those around him (friends included), deceives all the women he is with, parties and drinks all the time. But who ends up soukilled and locked in Mikoshi for 50 years, loses all his friends and wives (or at best they really don't care about him), ends up having V as his only friend (only if V wants it) and leaves Night City sadly and alone (or behind the Black Wall just as alone and even more sadly).

Or

V who initially wants to become a legend (but collides "brutally" with reality), can end up having close friends (who cares about him), maybe even a "stable" relationship with someone, and maybe leave Night City with a "familly".

So yes Johnny has more personality than V, that's for sure. But is it "better", honestly, I don't think so :)

Edit :
And if Johnny was the "playable character", he would have his own ideas straight out of everything, "corporations are bad", "monks are dumb", "friends are made to be betrayed", "the truth only comes out of my mouth" and "Night City only deserves to be nuked" (so no freedom for the player to think anything).
"Helping Panam ? No reason..."
"Helping Judy ? Why..."
"Helping River ? No, it's a cops..."
"Goro ? obviously not, he only deserve to die...!"
"Kerry ? Why not, but only because I need to know how he end..."
Mostly I'm saying that a character IS better with personality. Plenty of unlikeable heavies in stories are the better character. But I'm also saying that other than the end of the game, V mostly doesn't get to do a lot of things because he wants to, but because he has to. I'd rather play a character that is doing what he wants to. Of course, the real problem on top of all this is the lack of choices. So if Johnny was the main character in THIS Cyberpunk, I'd probably be complaining that I can only play him the asshat way that he is.
 
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In fact GIGs are not "a good example", because they are totally optional and "there" only for stuff or money (if you think V don't need money or stuff or don't need to do other things than find a cure, you can avoid them whitout any problem).

This is the way you choose to do or not do certain quests, answer certain characters (and not really "in quest choices" as it usually is).

Let imagine,
  • My V is a Corpo guy who hate Johnny (and the whole world), who want to find a cure "quickly" and become a NC Legend, who don't care about romances or friendships and who will kill everybody on his way with no pity. So you can choose to, do all the quests in a "violent" way (like with shootgun/grenades), don't do any GIG (or just for have enough money to buy the cyberwares/clothes/weapons needed), tell "no" to Judy, tell "no" to River, tell "no" to Panam (or you doing it only "for money"), help Claire but only for win the race (for money), let Goro die, kill Oda and kill everybody on the way, say "f..k off" and take pills when Johnny "want to talk",...
  • Now, my V is a Nomad girl who have the heart on the hand, who don't want kill anyone and maybe who don't want end alone (like Johnny). So you also can, you don't kill anyone (or even doing all quests/GIGs without been detected), kill only if there is "really" no other solution, save everyone that you can (Goro, Oda,...), help "freely" all the characters encountered, convaince Claire to not kill Samson, help Johnny if possible and try to change his mind,...
It will be two totally different playthroughs for sure. So in my opinion, the "lack" of V's personality leaves room for the players to decide how their V should "act".
 
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Don't get me wrong, I wish Johnny wasn't there at all. The storyline sucks the way it is, mushed together. And I really don't even like him. But as a living person in the game (not so much Johnny the construct) I would rather have been playing Johnny's story.
V's only real motivation is to survive. Yeah, there's a little tiny bit about becoming a legend, which I suppose is why he's running around doing all those fixer jobs (I have no idea why he'd be doing them otherwise, since he should be concentrating on trying to get Johnny out of his head). That's pretty much all V gets to do. There's a little romance, and he can pick up a bottle and have a drink from time to time, but that's about it. V's either doing things because he has to to survive, or because he's getting paid to.
In a lot of ways, I think fixers were a bad idea. There should have been opportunities to steal, hack, rob, sabotage, rescue, blow things up, car jack, reveal the truth, that would benefit V's reputation and his pockets, and show his morale compass. Could've bribed people for information, ruffed them up, found clues, whatever. So he wasn't just a two bit mercenary going from job to job rapid fire.
Yeah, Johnny sucks. But he battles with the corpos because he wants to. He's in a band. He sleeps with who he wants, gets wasted when he wants, punches people who annoy him. V can't even zero a drunk who throws a going away party for himself that kills about a dozen women. Not allowed (why isn't "Mission failed" a thing?) When Johnny finally gets control of V's body, he has more fun in one night (or however long it was) than V has the whole game. By far. Johnny has the coolest gun, too, or at least one different from all the rest.
I just don't think of V having a personality at all. There was certainly no way I could find to give him one, play wise. He seems lightweight with no motivation of his own, like some cardboard cutout supporting character who usually gets offed in the third scene, and certainly not strong enough as designed to be the main protagonist. He kind of deserves to be overwritten.

EDIT **********************************************************************************************************************************************************************
I gotta admit, I was netrunning and found an interesting article that has me thinking about V as a character, and maybe what the designers were doing. I think I may have missed the point, Gonna have to take another look at him. Excerpt from the article:

"Just getting by in Night City counts as a win, and I think Cyberpunk 2077’s characters understand that well. Even when you let someone down or make them angry with the decisions you make, they get it on some level. You had to do what you had to do, and ultimately the biggest sin is letting yourself trust someone else too much.

Everyone is in the process of realising this: that we’re all disempowered and alienated by the total control the corpos exert over Night City. Everyone and everything has been commodified and atomised, and moments of real connection with another person are ephemeral and fleeting.

It’s rare for a videogame to do this – to put you in a role where you’re not really a hero, and for other characters to recognise the fact that you’re probably just another disappointment waiting to happen. There are hints of this in The Witcher, but in the end, Geralt is a relatively traditional knight in shining armour, even if he grumbles and rolls his eyes about it a lot.

Like Case in William Gibson’s Neuromancer, V is “just another hustler, trying to make it through.” I think role-playing games have trained us for years to understand that we’re the solution to every problem, and it falls to Night City’s cast of supporting characters to show us that in Cyberpunk, we really aren’t. In all their brokenness and exhaustion and loneliness, I think they do a truly admirable job of that."

Though I may not have enjoyed it, maybe V was never meant to be more than he is; just another loser trying in vain to be more. Makes him more interesting at least.

I wonder what is best:
Johnny, the rebellious and terrorist rockerboy, who has a super gun and a nice silverhand, who fights for an "ideal" against the "bad" corporations, who says what he thinks, manipulates all those around him (friends included), deceives all the women he is with, parties and drinks all the time. But who ends up soukilled and locked in Mikoshi for 50 years, loses all his friends and wives (or at best they really don't care about him), ends up having V as his only friend (only if V wants it) and leaves Night City sadly and alone (or behind the Black Wall just as alone and even more sadly).

Or

V who initially wants to become a legend (but collides "brutally" with reality), can end up having close friends (who cares about him), maybe even a "stable" relationship with someone, and maybe leave Night City with a "familly".

So yes Johnny has more personality than V, that's for sure. But is it "better", honestly, I don't think so :)

Edit :
And if Johnny was the "playable character", he would have his own ideas straight out of everything, "corporations are bad", "monks are dumb", "friends are made to be betrayed", "the truth only comes out of my mouth" and "Night City only deserves to be nuked" (so no freedom for the player to think anything).
"Helping Panam ? No reason..."
"Helping Judy ? Why..."
"Helping River ? No, it's a cops..."
"Goro ? obviously not, he only deserve to die...!"
"Kerry ? Why not, but only because I need to know how he end..."
Johnny. Is. AWESOME!!!
 
I liked the scenes where I controlled Johnny, because Johnny behaved the way I wanted to behave with V but couldn't.
 
Don't get me wrong, I wish Johnny wasn't there at all. The storyline sucks the way it is, mushed together. And I really don't even like him. But as a living person in the game (not so much Johnny the construct) I would rather have been playing Johnny's story.
V's only real motivation is to survive. Yeah, there's a little tiny bit about becoming a legend, which I suppose is why he's running around doing all those fixer jobs (I have no idea why he'd be doing them otherwise, since he should be concentrating on trying to get Johnny out of his head). That's pretty much all V gets to do. There's a little romance, and he can pick up a bottle and have a drink from time to time, but that's about it. V's either doing things because he has to to survive, or because he's getting paid to.
In a lot of ways, I think fixers were a bad idea. There should have been opportunities to steal, hack, rob, sabotage, rescue, blow things up, car jack, reveal the truth, that would benefit V's reputation and his pockets, and show his morale compass. Could've bribed people for information, ruffed them up, found clues, whatever. So he wasn't just a two bit mercenary going from job to job rapid fire.
Yeah, Johnny sucks. But he battles with the corpos because he wants to. He's in a band. He sleeps with who he wants, gets wasted when he wants, punches people who annoy him. V can't even zero a drunk who throws a going away party for himself that kills about a dozen women. Not allowed (why isn't "Mission failed" a thing?) When Johnny finally gets control of V's body, he has more fun in one night (or however long it was) than V has the whole game. By far. Johnny has the coolest gun, too, or at least one different from all the rest.
I just don't think of V having a personality at all. There was certainly no way I could find to give him one, play wise. He seems lightweight with no motivation of his own, like some cardboard cutout supporting character who usually gets offed in the third scene, and certainly not strong enough as designed to be the main protagonist. He kind of deserves to be overwritten.

EDIT **********************************************************************************************************************************************************************
I gotta admit, I was netrunning and found an interesting article that has me thinking about V as a character, and maybe what the designers were doing. I think I may have missed the point, Gonna have to take another look at him. Excerpt from the article:

"Just getting by in Night City counts as a win, and I think Cyberpunk 2077’s characters understand that well. Even when you let someone down or make them angry with the decisions you make, they get it on some level. You had to do what you had to do, and ultimately the biggest sin is letting yourself trust someone else too much.

Everyone is in the process of realising this: that we’re all disempowered and alienated by the total control the corpos exert over Night City. Everyone and everything has been commodified and atomised, and moments of real connection with another person are ephemeral and fleeting.

It’s rare for a videogame to do this – to put you in a role where you’re not really a hero, and for other characters to recognise the fact that you’re probably just another disappointment waiting to happen. There are hints of this in The Witcher, but in the end, Geralt is a relatively traditional knight in shining armour, even if he grumbles and rolls his eyes about it a lot.

Like Case in William Gibson’s Neuromancer, V is “just another hustler, trying to make it through.” I think role-playing games have trained us for years to understand that we’re the solution to every problem, and it falls to Night City’s cast of supporting characters to show us that in Cyberpunk, we really aren’t. In all their brokenness and exhaustion and loneliness, I think they do a truly admirable job of that."

Though I may not have enjoyed it, maybe V was never meant to be more than he is; just another loser trying in vain to be more. Makes him more interesting at least.
I think your edit touches on my feeling. I'm not interested in video games as fantasy wish fulfilment. It's too easy. E.g. In Morrowind I'm going to be some sort of god-like hero because prophecy says moon will rise in the east or whatever. Yikes. It's predictable and narratively inert.
 
During the playthrough, Johny changes, and V changes as well. They slowly learn something from each other. Among other things, it's clearly a tale about going out of your own bubble to see another living being, much different from you at first glance, with their own motivations, fears and hopes. A tale about understanding and empathy.
Apart from shooting gonks and doing dirty work for fixers ;)
Both V and Johny are interesting characters, each in their own way.
 
V's personality is supposed to be whatever you're roleplaying, V is a blank slate to project onto. The pre-recorded dialogue can offset that though, completely derail it in some instances, but the game can't externalise everything which makes Johnny appear the more fully fleshed-out character.
 
"V" isn't a character. It's a yes/no/grab collar machine that every voiced protagonist has been since Mass Effect. It's a blank slate that you can insert yourself into. Giving a blank slate it's own character defeats the purpose.
 

Guest 3847602

Guest
V's personality is supposed to be whatever you're roleplaying, V is a blank slate to project onto. The pre-recorded dialogue can offset that though, completely derail it in some instances, but the game can't externalise everything which makes Johnny appear the more fully fleshed-out character.
V is not really a blank-slate. If they are they'd come across as lobotomized as protagonist of any Elder Scrolls game. But other than that, yeah, they wanted us to have some freedom with defining who our V is. And you can't have that if your character is defined as Johnny.
 
Don't get me wrong, I wish Johnny wasn't there at all. The storyline sucks the way it is, mushed together. And I really don't even like him. But as a living person in the game (not so much Johnny the construct) I would rather have been playing Johnny's story.
V's only real motivation is to survive. Yeah, there's a little tiny bit about becoming a legend, which I suppose is why he's running around doing all those fixer jobs (I have no idea why he'd be doing them otherwise, since he should be concentrating on trying to get Johnny out of his head). That's pretty much all V gets to do. There's a little romance, and he can pick up a bottle and have a drink from time to time, but that's about it. V's either doing things because he has to to survive, or because he's getting paid to.
In a lot of ways, I think fixers were a bad idea. There should have been opportunities to steal, hack, rob, sabotage, rescue, blow things up, car jack, reveal the truth, that would benefit V's reputation and his pockets, and show his morale compass. Could've bribed people for information, ruffed them up, found clues, whatever. So he wasn't just a two bit mercenary going from job to job rapid fire.
Yeah, Johnny sucks. But he battles with the corpos because he wants to. He's in a band. He sleeps with who he wants, gets wasted when he wants, punches people who annoy him. V can't even zero a drunk who throws a going away party for himself that kills about a dozen women. Not allowed (why isn't "Mission failed" a thing?) When Johnny finally gets control of V's body, he has more fun in one night (or however long it was) than V has the whole game. By far. Johnny has the coolest gun, too, or at least one different from all the rest.
I just don't think of V having a personality at all. There was certainly no way I could find to give him one, play wise. He seems lightweight with no motivation of his own, like some cardboard cutout supporting character who usually gets offed in the third scene, and certainly not strong enough as designed to be the main protagonist. He kind of deserves to be overwritten.

EDIT **********************************************************************************************************************************************************************
I gotta admit, I was netrunning and found an interesting article that has me thinking about V as a character, and maybe what the designers were doing. I think I may have missed the point, Gonna have to take another look at him. Excerpt from the article:

"Just getting by in Night City counts as a win, and I think Cyberpunk 2077’s characters understand that well. Even when you let someone down or make them angry with the decisions you make, they get it on some level. You had to do what you had to do, and ultimately the biggest sin is letting yourself trust someone else too much.

Everyone is in the process of realising this: that we’re all disempowered and alienated by the total control the corpos exert over Night City. Everyone and everything has been commodified and atomised, and moments of real connection with another person are ephemeral and fleeting.

It’s rare for a videogame to do this – to put you in a role where you’re not really a hero, and for other characters to recognise the fact that you’re probably just another disappointment waiting to happen. There are hints of this in The Witcher, but in the end, Geralt is a relatively traditional knight in shining armour, even if he grumbles and rolls his eyes about it a lot.

Like Case in William Gibson’s Neuromancer, V is “just another hustler, trying to make it through.” I think role-playing games have trained us for years to understand that we’re the solution to every problem, and it falls to Night City’s cast of supporting characters to show us that in Cyberpunk, we really aren’t. In all their brokenness and exhaustion and loneliness, I think they do a truly admirable job of that."

Though I may not have enjoyed it, maybe V was never meant to be more than he is; just another loser trying in vain to be more. Makes him more interesting at least.


as many have said, V and his/her experience is designed to be represented by how you play the game. Its also designed that v doesnt often narrate completely their perspective. You can somewhat control what V says to other people, but you rarely can say V's thoughts. This allows V a bit more room to be closer to how you play it.

The game tries to exclude you from few choices, and mostly a big part about V as a character is based on what V doesnt do. To truly get a good story from V, you have to decide who V is as a character, then respond to events/dialogs as close to possible as that charchter would do. Do the things that character might do, for the reasons that character might do it. That could mean ignoring fixers, or it could mean doing every fixer quest.

It won't be perfect, sometimes the choices aren't how your char would handle things, but there's usually something at least passable given the circumstances. The game is surprisingly adaptable to many roles.
 
V is not really a blank-slate. If they are they'd come across as lobotomized as protagonist of any Elder Scrolls game. But other than that, yeah, they wanted us to have some freedom with defining who our V is. And you can't have that if your character is defined as Johnny.

The difference that V is voiced and ES games character is not. That alone brings it's own character to the character in the way they deliver the lines. Tone of voice and way you say things is a huge part of communication. Intent is often delivered through tone.
 

Guest 3847602

Guest
The difference that V is voiced and ES games character is not. That alone brings it's own character to the character in the way they deliver the lines. Tone of voice and way you say things is a huge part of communication. Intent is often delivered through tone.
Not really, there definitely are games with non-voiced protagonist who doesn't feel extremely bland. In Elder Scrolls series, it's just the combination of Bethesda's intention to leave most of things about the main character up to player's imagination and their traditional ineptitude at writing interesting dialogue.
 
V is not really a blank-slate. If they are they'd come across as lobotomized as protagonist of any Elder Scrolls game. But other than that, yeah, they wanted us to have some freedom with defining who our V is. And you can't have that if your character is defined as Johnny.
My bad, blank slate is probably too loaded a term to use - but yes I meant that the game allows the player a lot of elbow room to come up with backstory details, character proficiencies instead of being an established, pre-definied protag.
 
Not really, there definitely are games with non-voiced protagonist who doesn't feel extremely bland. In Elder Scrolls series, it's just the combination of Bethesda's intention to leave most of things about the main character up to player's imagination and their traditional ineptitude at writing interesting dialogue.

I never claimed there wasn't. All I said was, that an acted character will always feel more like a person than just reading text. Because, you know, a person is acting and being directed to portray a certain tone rather than you imagining it.

There is always multiple ways to say the exact same thing that can completely change the meaning. That's my point. With a silent prorag, you decide and interpret the meaning instead.
 
Well ofcourse he was better, the entire story was about silverhand and what happened to him. We barely know V because the game really isn't about him.
 
Well ofcourse he was better, the entire story was about silverhand and what happened to him. We barely know V because the game really isn't about him.
In the main quest, maybe but it's mainly because V and Johnny are maybe the same person... In the same way as in Fight Club with Edward Norton (Narrator) and Tyler Durden. Edward (Narrator) could be V and Tyler could be Johnny, sound quite similar isn't it..? :)
But in the whole game, in general it's not about johnny, nor V, but more about River, Kerry, The Aldecaldos, Panam, Judy, Jefferson/Elizabeth, Delamain, Sandra,... (and Johnny have nothing to do with and only few dialogue lines here and there. Nothing important).
 
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