So I got to the end and boy I am truly sad to see these garbage endings.
But first things first. My playthrough was as a woman and I emphasized with Johnny every chance I got. That left me with 60% approval, because obviously Johnny can only be "bromanced" otherwise he just thinks you are a suck up. So that left the first sour note in my mouth.
So I allowed Johnny to go in and was shocked by how bad the revelation was delivered, that V has only 6 months to live. This should be the peak moment, but it was a bleak scene in a bleak cyberspace. So I allowed Johnny to take V and then came perhaps the most menaningless ending in a computer RPG I ever encountered and I am playing these since Ultima 6.
I am forced to have a conversation with some random kid I totally not care one bit about his guitar teachings. Wait what? Then Johnny just sits on the bus and leaves Night City.
Credits roll und ALL my friends write to me, that I don't answer my phone. The f* what? You tell me that Johnny - who was there along the ride always - witnessed the story of Judy and my romance with her and he wouldn't even have the decency to just call her and tell her what transpired? To at least give V the props before her friends and lover who just went through hell these past few weeks? Now Judy will think V is alive but just ghosted her and everyone else.
He wouldn't even tell Kerry, just burn all bridges and let V be remembered as some false friend who just ghosted everyone. WHAT? We talked about becoming a legend all the time, but when V dies a heroic death to let him live out HER live. He just decides, that is somethingnot even Vs lover has not the right to know.
Yeah, thanks a lot Johnny. You just are one stupid a*hole talking about morales and decency while having absolutely none of that. I died a hero and nobody ever knew, because the guy that was all about being a legend decides that it is more convenient for him if V doesn't become one.
Second try I go with Panem. I like Panem, but I always hated her ""family" the avocados. Wanted to talk her out of remaining with them, but couldn't because this is no RPG at all. I thought the decision while holding the pills is just who will help me to reach Mikoshi. I felt the avocados are expendable and enough to make a good distraction.
There was NO HINT AT ALL that this is also the decision how I want to spend the rest of my days. It shouldn't be. Just beacause I go in with Johnny, doesn't mean I want to become a legend. And going in with Panem sure as hell doesn't mean I want to become trailer trash and part of a family with the emotional maturity of a bunch of 7 years old. The constant bickering of these fools was unbearable, but the game just shoves this family as something other than a nightmare down my throat: I hated them, every last one of them. I would rather be stuck in Cyberhell for eternity, than to spend one day at their trailer park trash camp.
And after coming back at V I finally get a scene with Judy. Great. Or that I thought because I couldn't even tell her the truth, after all she is been through. Lame romance, lame scene, lame talk, din't touch me at all.
I am a runner who fucking loves the city. I. LOVE. NIGHT. CITY.
I love style. I hate people in their underwear holding a beer while wearing flip flops. Thats why I bought a game called CYBERPUNK.
I don't know why the story tries so hard for us to prefer living with emotional childs on trash heaps in the badlands, then to enjoy snytheic clothes, stlye over substance and chrome and latex in the city?
I date a Night City cop and think he is really cool. Then this cool cop decides to move to the trailer park and become trailer trash. WTF?
Then I date a cool netrunner who produces porn braindances. Cool. Yeah, then she just wants to leave everything and live like a farmgirl. WTF?
Then I help my girl Panem and try to talk her into leaving her kindergarten family and join me in Night City, but no can do.
I played this game to live out my shadowrun fantasy of chrome and synthetic leather. I wanted to live in high style, having visible cyberware and wearing only the coolest clothes. Instead I get bullied into this campfire atmosphere of people living in absoluty dirt and behaving like abused children, always good for a cry.
This CYBERPUNK feeling was very strong hearing the absolute cool combat music while slicing through corporate punks with my Katana. But none of the endings have any of this 'cool to the core' vibe the game itsself has, when you are not in these goddamn badlands.
This game has absolute zero replayability at this point. This nihilistic storytelling is BS and I say that as someone who leads a shadowrun pen & paper campaign now for 21 years in succession with characters who have become goods through more than 10.000h playtime. Nobody wants to get another serving of nothingness. If that is all you have to share, then just don't.
It seemed to me you loved your own setting very much at first and hated it by the time you hammered together these excuses for endings.
This is in no way an RPG, as Assassins Creed has more important decisions. It feels like half of the content is missing. The "romances" are just a joke. They have absolutely zero impact after one short scene.
And to end this rant: I expected this game to be for adults, as was marketed, but it is very harmless and conventional and tries absolutely nothing new. I can not even get naked because ... yeah why?