I'm not generally the one to write in forums. In this particular case I've found valid points all over many threads and single posts. Anyway it's one of those rare moments I care to give my personal and subjective opinion on the game after a complete playthrough.
Everyone of us has his/her own set of priorities and preferences. It's what makes each of us an individual. Someone will bear with the occasional glitch/bug, someone else won't for example (bar game-breaking/unplayability situations of course). Someone will find the combat AI of NPCs unnerving, someone else will give it hardly a thought.
Personally I for the most part enjoyed CB2077. I upgraded my pc recently (I just kept my 1080TI) and the game ran fine enough for me. Technically I didn't encounter game-breaking bugs or fps problems. A lot of environmental bugs and glitches for sure but, being a pc game veteran, I wasn't too much impressed or shocked. That's not to say that's excusable or justified as it's often the case in the games industry. I understand and share the anger of people for the technical state of the game. Maybe I was just lucky but even all gigs and encounters flowed regularly. Anyway there's no denying that the game wasn't technically polished and ready for launch.
Being an old RPGamer (CB2020 among the others), a reader of cyberpunk classics and classical/humanistic-educated I was more interested in the lore/environmental/immersion/story aspects.
Artistically the game is astonishing: kudos to the artists of CDPR. Even now generally I prefer to ride in the streets of NC because of the vistas, the sense of living (fake as it may be) and the coherence with the lore and spirit of the Cyberpunk universe and its canon "mood". This sense of immersion is further reinforced by an astonishing soundtrack and choice of musics that precisely fit the theme of the game.
I found gigs (aka quests) were also interesting and well adapted to the environment and the narrative of the corrupted and decadent Cyberpunk future. Granted, some were more structured and involving, others more linear but almost all had an interesting hint or particular.
I loved the characters. Jackie, Panam, Judie, Vick and Misty or even the minor ones like Mama Wells, Mitch, Saul or Pepe are well outlined and integrated in V's growing storytelling. The romance with Judy was one of the best moments I lived in videogames.
I tried some builds then started over with a "serious" playthrough and for me (subjectively) the game, rough and unpolished as it was, at this point was well worth a 8 or 9 /10.
Then I progressed with the main story.
It's clear to me that the game was cut and then patched not only technically but also/primarily at the narrative/story level. The skip of Jackie's and V's experiences together is obvious enough and it's already been talked about. Life Paths have a little prelude that's not bad per se but then die in indifference as everything is reduced to some line of "special" text that doesn't change anything. No quest chains, enemies/hired killers, particular characters. I chose the Corpo Life Path and I expected that during the game Abernathy's minions would have shown up to finally dispose of a potential danger, witness and enemy and then I would have settled matters with her. Nothing happened. Gigs, the more structured and important one above all, are self-enclosed and don't change anything in the game world, even at the most basic and/or aesthetic level just for background's sake.
The real letdown, however, happens with the Main Story. I'm not interested in speculations. It's just my opinion and observation from a narrative and literary standpoint. During my playthrough I couldn't shake the feeling the game was developing more and more as Johnny Silverhand's game, not V's, our avatar.
What should essentially have been a deus-ex machina or, at most, a counter-voice (or, if you prefer, play the role of the chorus in the ancient Greek Theatre) useful to set the stage of the story became the main actor and purpose of the story. V, our character, became just an excuse for another's story and crusade. But, this way, in the end it wasn't our game anymore (our - the players) but someone else's. We created an avatar to play and live our story but in the end it didn't matter. Storytelling has its canons and for well known reasons.
But it's an even worse break for a RPG that, for its own nature, is based exclusively on the player's immersion and identification with his/her alter ego. A RPG can be railroaded (even Pen-and-Paper RPGs are and I was a PnP GM quite a long ago) but cannot and must not cut the player's ties to the character lest you alienate and lose him/her at your game.
The endings, all of them, confirmed these feelings. It's not so much the lack of a "happy end" (which at this point should have been present anyway as partial rebalancing and compensation to the players for the substantial narrative shortcomings) but the fact that all of them, in a form or another, become the story of Silverhand's liberation with V's fate pictured as a rushed and superficial afterthought. Hence a further feeling of rushed writing to close a story with multiple unlikely and incoherent endings to an essentially railroaded story all along the game.
No surprise most players are left frustrated and unsatisfied.
I highly doubt this was the writers' intention from the beginning. I have the impression that Cyberpunk was supposed to be a Witcher3 on steroids (with the anti-heroic V in Geralt's shoes) but at some point somehow became another thing and Silverhand became the reason in se for the game.
I bought Cyberpunk 2077 to play V's story in the world of the Cyberpunk RPG with the welcome but not requested guest star of Johnny Silvehand and found myself watching the interactive story of Johnny Silverhand with the much less welcome guest star of we, the players.
And I don't like it.
Everyone of us has his/her own set of priorities and preferences. It's what makes each of us an individual. Someone will bear with the occasional glitch/bug, someone else won't for example (bar game-breaking/unplayability situations of course). Someone will find the combat AI of NPCs unnerving, someone else will give it hardly a thought.
Personally I for the most part enjoyed CB2077. I upgraded my pc recently (I just kept my 1080TI) and the game ran fine enough for me. Technically I didn't encounter game-breaking bugs or fps problems. A lot of environmental bugs and glitches for sure but, being a pc game veteran, I wasn't too much impressed or shocked. That's not to say that's excusable or justified as it's often the case in the games industry. I understand and share the anger of people for the technical state of the game. Maybe I was just lucky but even all gigs and encounters flowed regularly. Anyway there's no denying that the game wasn't technically polished and ready for launch.
Being an old RPGamer (CB2020 among the others), a reader of cyberpunk classics and classical/humanistic-educated I was more interested in the lore/environmental/immersion/story aspects.
Artistically the game is astonishing: kudos to the artists of CDPR. Even now generally I prefer to ride in the streets of NC because of the vistas, the sense of living (fake as it may be) and the coherence with the lore and spirit of the Cyberpunk universe and its canon "mood". This sense of immersion is further reinforced by an astonishing soundtrack and choice of musics that precisely fit the theme of the game.
I found gigs (aka quests) were also interesting and well adapted to the environment and the narrative of the corrupted and decadent Cyberpunk future. Granted, some were more structured and involving, others more linear but almost all had an interesting hint or particular.
I loved the characters. Jackie, Panam, Judie, Vick and Misty or even the minor ones like Mama Wells, Mitch, Saul or Pepe are well outlined and integrated in V's growing storytelling. The romance with Judy was one of the best moments I lived in videogames.
I tried some builds then started over with a "serious" playthrough and for me (subjectively) the game, rough and unpolished as it was, at this point was well worth a 8 or 9 /10.
Then I progressed with the main story.
It's clear to me that the game was cut and then patched not only technically but also/primarily at the narrative/story level. The skip of Jackie's and V's experiences together is obvious enough and it's already been talked about. Life Paths have a little prelude that's not bad per se but then die in indifference as everything is reduced to some line of "special" text that doesn't change anything. No quest chains, enemies/hired killers, particular characters. I chose the Corpo Life Path and I expected that during the game Abernathy's minions would have shown up to finally dispose of a potential danger, witness and enemy and then I would have settled matters with her. Nothing happened. Gigs, the more structured and important one above all, are self-enclosed and don't change anything in the game world, even at the most basic and/or aesthetic level just for background's sake.
The real letdown, however, happens with the Main Story. I'm not interested in speculations. It's just my opinion and observation from a narrative and literary standpoint. During my playthrough I couldn't shake the feeling the game was developing more and more as Johnny Silverhand's game, not V's, our avatar.
What should essentially have been a deus-ex machina or, at most, a counter-voice (or, if you prefer, play the role of the chorus in the ancient Greek Theatre) useful to set the stage of the story became the main actor and purpose of the story. V, our character, became just an excuse for another's story and crusade. But, this way, in the end it wasn't our game anymore (our - the players) but someone else's. We created an avatar to play and live our story but in the end it didn't matter. Storytelling has its canons and for well known reasons.
But it's an even worse break for a RPG that, for its own nature, is based exclusively on the player's immersion and identification with his/her alter ego. A RPG can be railroaded (even Pen-and-Paper RPGs are and I was a PnP GM quite a long ago) but cannot and must not cut the player's ties to the character lest you alienate and lose him/her at your game.
The endings, all of them, confirmed these feelings. It's not so much the lack of a "happy end" (which at this point should have been present anyway as partial rebalancing and compensation to the players for the substantial narrative shortcomings) but the fact that all of them, in a form or another, become the story of Silverhand's liberation with V's fate pictured as a rushed and superficial afterthought. Hence a further feeling of rushed writing to close a story with multiple unlikely and incoherent endings to an essentially railroaded story all along the game.
No surprise most players are left frustrated and unsatisfied.
I highly doubt this was the writers' intention from the beginning. I have the impression that Cyberpunk was supposed to be a Witcher3 on steroids (with the anti-heroic V in Geralt's shoes) but at some point somehow became another thing and Silverhand became the reason in se for the game.
I bought Cyberpunk 2077 to play V's story in the world of the Cyberpunk RPG with the welcome but not requested guest star of Johnny Silvehand and found myself watching the interactive story of Johnny Silverhand with the much less welcome guest star of we, the players.
And I don't like it.
