Kofe reviews CP2077 [nearly spoiler free]

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So, after around 80 hours I have reached to an ending. Not saying which one to not spoil anything for people "not there yet", but... well, it's an ending. And as I had promised and decided, I will put out a shortish review on what I experienced. I didn't do a 100% run. Not even close.

First things first. The game worked fine on a mid range PC. No slowdowns or stuttering at all. I encountered only minor bugs and graphical glitches none of which disturbed the experience. I have played and enjoyed much buggier games and compared to the worst ones, this was a very smooth ride in that regard.

Graphics and sounds

The games best and biggest asset was without a doubt the city itself. Packed full of visual details and even though the map wasn't very big, the promised verticality was present and that gave the game more space than what it looked on the outset. It was very pleasant to watch and listen to and the Cyberpunk themes and aesthetics and feel were all around even if it wasn't always dark and raining. I was kinda bummed CDPR did decide to go with the 57-year time jump and went for more "closer to home" with the aesthetics, as I would've preferred the sort of more retroish feel of 2020, which would've looked more "weird" and "sciency" even today, and that would've given an extra flair to it. As looking the way it looks, even if very beautiful and detailed, it's all kinda... mundane and ordinary (for the lack of a better word). But nevertheless, the Night City they created is something of a marvel to look at and travel within.

A lot of effort is also clearly put on the cutscene story bits that look amazing. And the voice acting is mostly good.

All in all the graphical and audible quality is top notch. The guns sound like guns, the characters look like real people, and the sounds of the city gave a good ambience to it all. And if you ask me, even less would've sufficed in that department.

Writing, storytelling and missions.

The overall quality of writing ranged from passable to good with only a few odd hiccups here and there. But then... It is very unfortunate that CDPR chose so very scripted and "on railsy" storyline and so heavily defined protagonist with their "open world" setting. The fake urgency of the chip killing V is just as jarring as Skyrim's "worldeater is coming to end everything" or Oblivion’s "hell is coming to end everything", where one really needs to struggle to maintain the "immersion" when the end of the world (and you could say death is a personal end of the workd for V) is on hold while the protagonist runs around and collects all kinds of carbage in his pockets without a worry in the world. Here's a hint: If you want urgency in your game, put a clock in it and/or don't bother with an open world and just tell the story you want to tell in a game that takes the urgency into account. The game really wants to be played for longer periods of time, but the narrative (among other things) doesn't really give it the space it needs. It's the wrong kind of story for this kinds of game.

The narrative pacing was hasty. All the way from the beginning there was a feeling as if the writers had too many ideas and couldn't keep up with their own imagination. Things in the story escalated so quickly and without a decent pretext, that it felt like a lot of stuff was forgotten while pushing ahead to get it all written down one "block" at a time. A lot of the characters were left very superficial and there was little to no time to really get introduced and to care about them, yet the protagonist was written to feel very deeply and that created a sort of disparity and confusion. "Who is this character and why are we friends trustees again?" "Why should I care if that character dies and why am I helping that other one?" No time to think, just follow what was scripted. And Johnny's bits... Keanu's acting was as wooden as ever and the moments that put the player in his shoes were nothing short of frustrating. I found myself thinking, "Oh jesus, not again". Just like with the Ciri bits in Witcher 3. "Please let this be over soon."

The mainstory missions were not very fun either. Some of it has to do with the scripting, some with the gameplay and the rest is because they are so drawn out and boring. Generally the mission design is passable, but since you are doing the same things en masse during the whole game, these overly long batches with heavily scripted story bits are a chore to take part in. And I noticed that I didn't even want to do the main missions precisely because I knew they'd be an ordeal. The storyline itself wasn't very interesting to take part in as a player. Maybe it would've worked better as an e-book, or something.

The much advertised "unique" intros were nothing but 10-15 minute peeks into what could've been a better story than what followed. The game was basically ”Streetkid the game”. It was the most thematically apt version of V when thinking about what followed the intro. Nomad was kinda there, but the Corpo was just jarring in how little of it carried over with V's character and abilities. A much better fit would've been a Cop that got played out due to the NCPD bureaucracy. But then... after the intro sequences you always turn into a streetkid anyway, so none of it really matters.

The Heist mission after which the city "really" opens up is probably the most longwinded "opening dungeon" in a game ever. And thinking about having to do it all over again as the "first thing" every single time I decide to play the game, is offputting to say the least. It is also an early reminder of how the main missions work as stubbornly drawn out experiences with not so stellar narrative drive.

The "dem eevile corporations" thematic is surely "cyberpunk", but I felt it was way too underlined. During some of the conversations I felt like my V is some sort of left wing activist than a mercenary for hire with possibly only selfinterest in mind, or perhaps, you know, some player agency regarding the character. Like if the game was an RPG.

Turns out the best part of the game were the gigs. They worked as little confined stories told in a somewhat Deus Ex like environments. And doing them was actually quite addictive. They didn't drag on or push too much on the narrative side. They were just jobs that any merc would do with nice back ground stories and characters. They were actually fun to engage in, and there certainly were enough of them to keep the player busy for a long time. It's too bad the main story had to be what it had to be and not linked into V's newfound journey as a mercenary for hire. It would've been fun if - like that one single mission that I thought had the right idea with the prerequisite of collecting enough money to buy the required information to get things moving forward again - to have to work towards something and creating a web of friends and enemies while at it. But alas...

Gameplay

Leaving out all the obvious things like pedestrian, traffic, police and enemy AI's, the gameplay has actually something going for it. An intent if nothing else. But of course the "hurry up, you're dying" narrative conflicts with that.

It was fun to get a sort of way out of balance cyberpunk power fantasy by simply killing or incapacitating everything stealthily from afar via netrunning using the environment to my advantage (cameras, breach protocol possibilities, quickhacks...), while being a total weakling if caught up. It felt very satisfying also due to the levels having a somewhat Deus Ex type feeling to their layout. Not quite there, but similiar. And this was especially for the gigs, less so with the more narrative heavy sidestories, and least of all, the main missions that dragged on and on...

It is too bad that that's all there was to the gameplay; and I mean ALL. Either sneak and hack the dummy enemies, or go in guns blazing in which case the game devolved into a simple looter shooter.

And it's especially too bad since the fun that is there, was undermined by the horrid itemizationg and the almost equally awful character systems, which seemed like they did something (like the aiming wandering slowly on the screen at low levels), but which didn't really affect the gameplay in other ways than adding more and more damage (and that was the core of every single stat and skill with their perk trees... do more damage, get more armor).

The shops in the game served no purpose at all as if you went on and bought an expensive piece of equipment, it would be obsolete during the next mission where you'd probably find a better one among some garbage on the ground. And even if you would manage to acquire something that looked excellent compared to what you have, it would be level locked somewhere 10 to 15 levels above yours. And the time when it would open up to be used, it would be commonplace vendortrash or something to put into pieces so you can craft some shit that is equally useless. The leveled and gated loot in this game is a horrible mess that tries desperately to influence the players sense of "bigger is better; I want bigger and better" sensibilities and create some sort of addictive and forward moving gameplay loop. Well, it doesn't. It is just bad. And it is seemingly copypasted hastily from Witcher 3 that had the exact same problem with it's loot.

The consumables also don't seem to offer anything to the gameplay. It's thematically fine and good to have them, to keep the world feeling geuine with lots of different products. But they just are. The nourishment thing they have is not really worth anyones while. The good thing about them is that they don't seem to give you health. So that's something, I guess.

The crafting is also a bit of a mess. It devolves the gameplay into trashcollector simulation where you pick up and farm everything you can so that you can upgrade your skill and put a few largely worthless digits into your equipment or craft new ones you do nothing with, but sell. You don't even have time to get acquainted with your new gear before you find better from some trashpile, and so there's no real need to even upgrade or mod anything. I'm saddened to say this, but Fallout 4 - of all games in the world, but keeping the bar on a similar level - did this much better.

The game hands you tons of money, but nothing worthwhile to spend it on. The buyable cars don't seem to serve any purpose, the cyberware is an uninteresting additional perksystem for the most part, the shops are pointless. There is no decent moneysink in the world that would urge the player to save and spend for.

The charactersystems feel onesided when it is all more or less about either killing or sneaking, and not really all that impactful with the +5% more damage here +10% more armor there. It's not interesting. It just encourages a "sort of" minmaxing because if you do not make sure you deal enough damage and have enough armor with what ever approach to the game you take, you are in trouble. I did over 50k critical hit damage with my stealth netrunner with a revolver (and REF 4). Woo, big numbers.

The dialog is also copied from Witcher 3 with little thought put into it otherwise. The highly marketed "new dialog system" where you can look at stuff and get more options is simply a dud among the worst of them. Nothing was learned from W3. It is still the case that the written lines don't always coincide with the spoken ones. And choosing a line leading to full convo where you have little to no input until you can choose another convo starter line feels that the control is taken away from the player to push for what the developer specifically wants to be said.

I can't for the life of me tell what the people who designed all of this were thinking.

There's no social skills, there's no interaction skills apart from hacking accesspoints. Everything is tuned to create a combatant that deals ridiculous amounts of damage to enemies with ridiculous amounts of health. It feels like playing a single player MMO. Not an RPG. And it has nothing in common with Cyberpunk 2020. Whcih is a bleeding shame.

So overall...

I started a Corpo with 3 BODY, 3 REF, 5 INT, 6 MECH and 6 COOL. I ended up with at level 28 and 3 BODY, 4 REF, 10 COOL, 16 TECH and 16 INT. Or something like that.

The game is severely flawed in many aspects. There's little to no roleplaying there. The story is meh and way too heavyhanded. The city lacks certain technicalities and features that would make it feel better (AI, interactivity, reactivity). The itemization is horrible. The charactersystems are weak. The cyberware are just disguised perks.

BUT. Inspite all that I've said, inspite the harsh words. I found that the there is a very cool game peeking from under the shit and piss and I had a relative amount of fun with it. I wouldn't have played it for 80+ hours if I thought it was all worthless. The fun came from doing the gigs and (some of the) sidemissions which actually gave a feeling being a merc in Night City and doing work to earn your keep. It was fun in a "well, that gigs close by, I'll just check that and then call it quits for today... oh, hey there's another one just there, I'll just check that one too...." And in that regard the game is actually pretty good.

It's just too bad that the gameplay is all about killing or sneaking and watching conversations happen. It's as if Ubisoft finally made a game worth playing. At the state the game is in, it is no RPG. It wants to be, but it isn't. It's a story driven action adventure in an open world.
Or if it is insisted that it is (RPG), it's not doing a good job at being one. Not a good job at all.

I wanted to check out if there's any sort of reactivity and C&C to any of this through different lifepath and decisions here and there (where there were decisions to be made), but knowing that I must suffer through the intro and heist again and the rest of the gameplay curve as something else than sneaky netrunner... I think I'll wait until the patches come and perhaps some non-story DLC to improve the game.

I might've missed something obvious to trash or laud about, but all the essentials are here.

Perhaps I make another wall of text in some thread at some point on how I'd personally improve the game, because lord knows it needs a lot of work to be the sort of game it was advertised and lauded to be.

As it is (and this is actually a lot from me because I do consider a 10 to be nothing short of a timeless masterpiece), the game could be rated something like:

5,5-6/10

The game is incomplete. It tries very hard and the developement hell it went through might've had something to do with the bad aspects, but it is what it is. It lacks (or does badly) features and systems a good RPG has, it lacks (or does badly) features and systems a good open world game has, it lacks certain technical things even a basic game has (e.g. AI), it's mainstory is in conflict with the intended gameplay experience. It pushes too hard on "cinematic storytelling" and visuals at the expense of everything else, and it shows. Very sorely.

It's not unsalvageable, but it needs a lot of more work.
 
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Agree.
And yes, the gigs are the fun element in this game. They make me feel like being part of the world.

But even with them I have a hard time to continue my second play-through.
It is more of a 'jump in for a gig or two, and jump out'.
This attitude makes me feel like in a MMO where you go in, do your dailly quests and exit the game.

It feels like this game is a closed beta for the multiplayer.
At least for the multiplayer put in some options to skip the unskippable parts of the game.
 
Thanks for the review, very interesting.

A few questions for you:
1) can please provide your score for similar game to have a comparison of your scale (e.g. Valhalla, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Red Dead 2 etc...)
2) this is not a pure RPG ok, but would you define Witcher 3 an RPG then?
 
Thanks for the review, very interesting.

A few questions for you:
1) can please provide your score for similar game to have a comparison of your scale (e.g. Valhalla, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Red Dead 2 etc...)
2) this is not a pure RPG ok, but would you define Witcher 3 an RPG then?

Witcher 3 would’ve been somewhere around 4-5.
Fallout 4 perhaps somewhere around the same ballpark.

There is a bit of bias there, since even Though Witcher 3 is a very similiar experience to Cyberpunk 2077 (they suffer from a lot the same faults and share some of the good things and use a same kind of overall design), I found it quite a but worse due to its setting while I really like the Cyberpunk setting (in general). I’m a scifi guy, not so much fantasy unless the gameplay is really interesting (which it wasn’t in W3).

And no, I don’t consider Witcher 3 an RPG.
 

lelxrv

Forum veteran
It's pretty bizarre to see how some people favor gigs as the best thing about the game in one thread and in another other people say gigs are more primitive versions of Witcher 3 contracts that feel really cheap.
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How do you rate Deus Ex games in comparison? I saw CP77 compared to Human Revolution a few times.
 
My initial score was also a 5/10 but I've had to lower it to a 3-4/10 because there's no way in any form of heaven or hell that I'd give this game two hours of my time if it wasn't for the cyberpunk theme and aesthetic and that says a lot about a quality of a game.
 
I think one thing you pointed out that a lot of people are missing is that this game is actually very similar to Witcher 3. Witcher 3 was just more polished, takes place in a fantasy world that perhaps have more draw for more people, and had better written characters (that are also more likable). The RPG and dialogue of either game are very comparable in terms of depth (or lack thereof).
The Witcher 3 just happens to be the perfect storm of great presentation, interesting game world, well written likeable characters that made its sum far greater than its parts and its reception by the public exceeded what its individual gaming elements would normally warrant.
CP2077 is the opposite of that, it's lacking in polish, and its' parts whatever reason just doesn't quite fit, although many of its parts are individually very comparable to the Witcher 3, just doesn't add up to nearly as satisfying an overall experience for the gamer.
 
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It's pretty bizarre to see how some people favor gigs as the best thing about the game in one thread and in another other people say gigs are more primitive versions of Witcher 3 contracts that feel really cheap.

I suppose it has to do with them not being so heavyhanded with their narrative elements (not pushing too much on the drana side like the more story heavy missions tend to, sometimes even to the level of being laughable and unconnectable to the player) or length, and that doing them actually kinda feels appropriate for the character.
Then there’s the other side of it that they don’t really hit you in the head with a thick narrative arc and generally feel like simple busywork chores with only minor context.

How do you rate Deus Ex games in comparison? I saw CP77 compared to Human Revolution a few times.
How do you rate Deus Ex games in comparison? I saw CP77 compared to Human Revolution a few times.

I can’t really give them a comparable number, because in the end they are pretty different. Deus Ex games aim for pretty specific experiences and are confined by that ideal. Cyberpunk... well, I’m not really sure what kind of experience it aims for because the story feels like it is for a confined Deus Ex like game and the world is for an open Far Cry like game, and there is a conflict there while trying to do both (and not doing either very well) which confuses the experience. It’s not even like Skyrim where the very intention is ”The story’s there if you want, but who cares, do what you want.”

But I have had more fun with DX games because there is a clear direction to what they aim for.

My initial score was also a 5/10 but I've had to lower it to a 3-4/10 because there's no way in any form of heaven or hell that I'd give this game two hours of my time if it wasn't for the cyberpunk theme and aesthetic and that says a lot about a quality of a game.

On further thought I might want to lower my score too.

I intended to take a rerun with another lifepath, but as I instead reloaded from before the final mission and started doing the side missions I missed, I’m glad I didn’t and came to a conclusion that there is no point in a new character because the game has no replay value. I’d be doing the same missions and chores simply by shooting instead of hacking and sneaking. And as there is nothing interesting going on in the game gameplaywise and while the writing’s generally good, it’s not ”that” good and the missions themselves aren’t very captivating or interesting, I think there’s no incentive to go back. The game is pretty much done once you’ve done it once, unless you somehow really happen to love the storytelling amidst the uneventful repetition, boring out of balance systems and the uninspired gameplay loop the minute to minute gameplay has to offer.
 
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I intended to take a rerun with another lifepath, but as I instead reloaded from before the final mission and started doing the side missions I missed, I came to a conclusion that there is no point in a new character because the game has no replay value. I’d be doing the same missions and chores simply by shooting instead of hacking and sneaking. And as there is nothing interesting going on in the game gameplaywise and while the writing’s generally good, it’s not ”that” good and the missions themselves aren’t very captivating or interesting, I think there’s no incentive to go back. The game is pretty much done once you’ve done it once, unless you somehow really happen to love the storytelling amidst the uneventful repetition, boring out of balance systems and the uninspired gameplay loop the minute to minute gameplay has to offer.

Yes and it's really unfortunate because the setting is somethin truly worthy of being experienced. I would certainly change things to darken the atmosphere a bit, make it feel more dystopian outside of the violence and ad's and bring it closer to that dark future it's supposed to be so that the player can be much more immersed in it but in as much as it is constructed, Night City is in my opinion amazing and I personally cannot think of a better game city that I've experienced.

Ultimately for me, the most depressing thing to come from all this will be if the Night City CDPR created is never brought to life and all it's great potential is left untapped in our imaginations. That would be extremely sad from an artistic and gamers perspective.
 
I think one thing you pointed out that a lot of people are missing is that this game is actually very similar to Witcher 3.

Yeah. Too much so. It doesn’t seem like a good fit designwise.

Although it has to be said, that I don’t regard Witcher 3 too highly.


Yes and it's really unfortunate because the setting is somethin truly worthy of being experienced. I would certainly change things to darken the atmosphere a bit, make it feel more dystopian outside of the violence and ad's and bring it closer to that dark future it's supposed to be so that the player can be much more immersed in it but in as much as it is constructed, Night City is in my opinion amazing and I personally cannot think of a better game city that I've experienced.

Ultimately for me, the most depressing thing to come from all this will be if the Night City CDPR created is never brought to life and all it's great potential is left untapped in our imaginations. That would be extremely sad from an artistic and gamers perspective.

Same kind of thoughts here.

However, I don’t hold the darkening of the setting as high in importance as a complete systemic overhaul.

From my perspective it’s really sad that the game went for ”I want to be the biggest blockbuster ever” route instead of a more humble top down view (and possibly TB combat/stealth events). It could’ve had it all... intense tactical combat, highly shiny visuals, animations and physics with lesser effort (due to lack of closeup visuals), high grade interactive cutscenes for important dialogs, all sorts of dark themes and wider interactivity and character systems and their use closer to 2020 due to the inherent abstraction of the perspective. And many, many more things.

But that was always a pipedream and is pointless speculation now. I can’t help the thought, though.
 
From my perspective it’s really sad that the game went for ”I want to be the biggest blockbuster ever” route instead of a more humble top down view (and possibly TB combat/stealth events). It could’ve had it all... intense tactical combat, highly shiny visuals, animations and physics with lesser effort (due to lack of closeup visuals), high grade interactive cutscenes for important dialogs, all sorts of dark themes and wider interactivity and character systems and their use closer to 2020 due to the inherent abstraction of the perspective. And many, many more things.

But that was always a pipedream and is pointless speculation now. I can’t help the thought, though.
Just thinking about something like a modernized AAA OG Fallout set in Pondsmith's cyberpunk universe...
download (13).gif


Goodbye cruel world.

:giveup:
 
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