I believe Takemura only used Dex to find V, and killed him because he was simply useless thereafter, and he was involved in Konpeki Plaza. Takemura was on exile already at this point, and he needed V for his personal revenge on Yorinobu.
how do you know he was in exile already? He seems mad at V when he first finds them. punches them. If he thought all they did was steal relic, why?
If they would of fleshed out the part with Jackie, before Johnny Silverhand is injected, it would been fine. Prior to Johnny we have to liitle time to understand who or what our V is. It's basically a 20 min intro mission (if that), and then cutscene where you have little clue to what goes on, and then You meet dex, deal with Maelstrom and Joytoy, then go on a heist to Inject Johnny. 3 missions with Jackie post introduction. Sandra Dorsette, Dex legwork mission (and yes this is simulating the legwork aspect in Cyberpunk of ops), then the Heist. My point is it isn't the amount of Johnny/Keanu, it's the lack of time before he shows up that is the issue.
I'll say it again: Johnny is a great timed side quest for a lvl 15+ character.
they always imagined the heist as the opening. Or at least since 2018.
The jump off point of the story is,
an up and coming merc trying to get ahead when a job goes horribly wrong, destroying everything, and now your dying and program is taking over your brain.
spending too long on the stuff before that muddies the conflict, and will lose people in the story. its like you generally don't want to introduce the main conflict 1/2 way through the story. You can kinda get away with that in a series, but rarely in a stand alone
Can it be optional then?
Perhaps it's not time but the essence. Most of the stuff you learn about V at the beginning is entirely insignificant.
Honestly, Seeing V in 3rd person makes them more tangible (real) and a person. Seeing everything, especially critical cutscenes only from behind the camera shows you V's POV - but does not reflect V as a person or make you, the viewer/player respond in a dramatic way. The voice acting CAN, to a degree.That's true. It's an entirely different game until Keanu appears. More choices, less bullshit. Even Regina calling me every 5 minutes wasn't as annoying. The first two hours promise a lot, unfortunately, this promise falls flat shortly after. I was feeling that V was going somewhere and was interested in the story (not invested yet though). BUT (there has to be "but" of course) with one exception - the life path missions at the beginning. They are too short, don't really explain the background very well and the persona that V was/wants to be.
Whoever is left, sure. A lot already ditched the game and get back to AC: Valhalla or whatever else is on now. That's what plot cancer does to people
Good or not, I felt that he stole the stage from V and for me, he was very annoying. I wasn't interested in neither his past nor redemption and I just wanted him out. I was more interested in the dark side of Night City and I really enjoyed Evelyn / Judy's questline. Unfortunately for me, it ended quickly.
Mind Game: Envision Clarice and Hannibal meeting for the first time but the camera remains only over the shoulder of one/over the head. What you will get is either just Jodie Fosters acting, and none of Hannibal's - removing much of the dramatic tete a tete OR you see Anthony Hopkins half and just hear Jodie Fosters part. Both versions would remove much of the dramatic pulses of the scene. No movie director would do that. NONE. When Hitchcock used it it for dramatic effect and limited.
So why did the new game director change it. The game is about Johnny - not V. The more you would SEE V's performance along with saying the lines - you would view them like Geralt - you would see facial expressions - body language - a more realized person. But since the endings are , even with some hope, a all roads lead to a pillaged Rome and the story being about Johnny. They chose to switch the games focus.
Why do you think they removed the your goals and who you admire in the beginning, just for a bland - what was your occupation before the game begins. Because in a story about Johnny, V's motivations do not matter as they removed all goals/inspirations you the player might have and make all answers to Dex "to be a legend" essentially. It's why we "play as V" and not <really> role-play as V.
Look at all "story" type quests/events/cut scenes:
4 "romance partners" - but even then one of the four has the huge Johnny Silverhand connection. (Johnny present)
(Exception) - which are ALL about the motivation of the other person - solving their problems
Takemura - which is required, to a degree, to progress story and get you each step of the way. (Johnny present)
(Exception)
All other story quests in ACT 2 and ACT 3 - are - drum roll - about Johnny Silverhand. (see above)
Date with Rogue
His Grave
Voodoo Boys (dual Johnnys story and you finding "help")
Samurai Concert
"Getting the band back together" moments.
or deal with AI/subquests
Vending machine AI/ALT/Sandra/mayor candidate
Please name me ANY quest which is about some motivation V has. Some goal or desire V has come across. Some idea V has. Some choice the player makes after a past quest.
NONE. Every quest in the game, outside of "find info to try and live" is entirely, especially the climax - chapter 3 - about Johnny Silverhand or other peoples needs/wants (romance characters plots/quests) - things they need.
Johnny Silverhand is the protagonist.
V is merely the vehicle to carry the protagonist and someone the protagonist is to act with - as Johnny would need to act/have scenes as the protagonist.
Please note - every quest you do something Johnny doesnt like - he tortures you. Help Judy - johnny frowns and immediate relic malfunction and V in pain. - but no increase in %.
Do the Panam quests - johnny not happy and wants to go and wham - relic malfunctions and you are seriously hurt / in pain. I mean the post main quest aspect ones.
So the game, as designed, tortures' your character in the ONLY QUESTS YOU EVEER DO THAT ARE ON THE MOTIVATION OF V - and not just hired by fixer (which one can always not do those quests sure - but the only non monetary non Johnny silverhand quests.. drumroll.. you are tortured for doing as doesn't fit the protagonists desires.
I know this is a wall of text and no one will read. But to add on to the above person. What if V was given a choice. What if instead of wasting time playing band concerts and trying to hunt down smasher - V has an epiphany - seeing what they did to Evelyn - seeing what they were going to do to Sandra - and the PTSD both go through, much less evelyn. V spends 24/48 hours on an avenging angel rampage to destroy and eliminate the scavengers and their allies for the horrors and cruelty they perform on other human beings. But thats not allowed - as would be player choice, agency, and give V a say in motivations - as the game removed all player choices from the game , like at creations for a "choose your profession you had" before assigning you by force a "you just want to be a legend - end of motivation).
Wall of text? Nah, some seriously good points though...
And that's the problem since he's a shitty protagonist. He doesn't;t have any goals whatsoever except just being himself. There's no original thought but hate corpos, drink and have fun and oh, "I had a horrible past." Well, like most of the world sweetheart. Johnny has no motivations whatsoever, except maybe hanging out with his buddies and maybe, just maybe taking revenge on Adam Smasher but except that he's just around. He had nothing to lose 50 years ago and now he's wondering about his next steps sometimes making them up as they go. Yeah, well sure, the relic and stuff but that's not a plot it's a situation, an inconvenience of sorts.
And yeah, you are right. It's all about Johnny. Was this attempt of a second person perspective? Maybe. Does it make this better? No. Does it make the story better? No. Is it a better RPG? Hell no. Is it a better experience? No.
Oh, first time here?
Me, as a player, would yell TAKE MY MONEY!
I mean we technically can do that and murder everyone with some thought in mind, but it doesn't really add to the actual plot. It's just an option to release some steam. No one has any PTSD except poor Evelyn and one soldier. The rest is fresh and kicking no matter what they saw. However, instead of a retired, dead in the water, annoying rockerboy's story, I was under the assumption that we would get just that - a tale about people living in Night City dealing with their horrors and nightmares every day and the repercussions of those, both mental and physical, spiked with choices and moral questions.
Because otherwise the game would have at least some sense (to take revenge on the one who almost killed you). And the developers tried diligently to prevent this.
the problem is your premise is that they didnt highlight V's story. But the narrative is made to place you into Vs story. They are trying to cast you as V.
Vs expression is supposed to be whatever you see it as. Lets take river romance. Some people describe it as awkward, or anxiety that he was going to hit on them. Feeling like he wouldn't get the hint. Others were into it and enjoyed his flirting. That can only happen if they aren't showing you V's expressions/body language. The player is writing these stories, and they don't even realize it. You see it when they describe how the story went or what should have happened because in their version of the story, V had X response.
Johnny's job is to be a narrator, giving you a cyberpunk perspective and helping with lore. It can't be Johnny's story because you can totally leave everything related to Johnny unresolved.
Is V's story one of friendship with johnny? Is v's story finding family and escaping the destructiveness of the city? Is Vs story a cautionary tale of following the status quo? Is Vs story a rags to riches tale of coming up from nothing? (this is the least developed one IMO) Is V's story facing death and deciding how to live in the face of the end? Was V disgusted with the merc work? or did V love the adrenaline rush.
Its all up to the player to decide, which is a lot harder if the game had to guess V's(the players) desires/perspective.
However this type of story telling or RP doesn't work for everyone I guess. instead of inserting themselves in V's role. Some see nothing, just a gap.
but imo, this was one of the most RP RPGs I ve played, At least the first time before I knew it all.
It seems to have a lot to do with people either connecting to their V or not which subsequently makes the story not make sense in one way or another since, supposedly, you're dealing with a void rather than a character that drives the plot forward.
Both my V's made sense to me so I managed to connect to them (Cherami Leigh
and Gavin Drea doing outstanding jobs) and reason what they were doing or acting the way they were (there were a few dialogues that pulled me out, I could have misinterpreted the sitch on my end though).For me personally it's a mixture of Fallout (pre 4) and The Witcher series. In Fallout you have to reason to yourself why your character does the things they do, similar to Cyberpunk for me, and likewise whatever you decide for Geralt although a tad more restrictive since we're not dealing with either a puppy loving pacifist nor a stone-cold killer, we're dealing with Geralt.
I felt that Act 1 was a bit more broad in what expectations it provided, the future was ahead of my V.
At the start of Act 2, Night City showed it's ugly side (this reflects in the side quests) and the world was slowly closing in on our V.
Act 3, giving up or letting the past go/acceptance (now this works for me since I always seen V as dead since they took the bullet to the brain, everything else was a bonus and the six months at the end is a lot better than what they had at the start of Act 2).
Also Keanu is the perfect actor to play Johnny - fight me
.
one thing from what ive understood about the lore of cyberpunk is nobody is ever "truly" dead if you remember the interviews from mike pondsmith they hinted as much with johnny silverhand in those campaigns and voila you have soulkiller and this whole situation V got caught up in one other thing to take into account is that there is still a 6 month gap OR johnny might have actually grown a pair and decided to search for V from cyberspace the story is left open ended with many questions that have yet to be answered honestly no matter how you slice it there is more questions then answers when finishing the game. I would honestly like to know how V handles his situation 6 months or how johnny handles living in his body the arasaka ending just seems the same way either V leaves via cyberspace or leaves to live out 6 months. As they have stated before its not about saving the world its about individuals and their lives and how things turn out for them. And as I have stated before cyberpunk is a bleak dark world if you wanted a little happier ending or resolution your really in the wrong setting for it wrong person or people AND definitely the wrong city.
The problem with Johnny as a narrator is that he is an unreliable narrator. He is biased and his memory is incomplete/modified.
Honestly, the way you describe the RP elements of this game makes the Half Life games sound like great RPGs. V's/Freeman's desires, opinions and expressions are entirely up to the player, right?
Right, which is why Johnny gets to leave Night City in V's body, and Rogue can be Queen of the Afterlife with a son somewhere. But V can't leave Night City without PlotCancer. It's the wrong city for that.
I'm just going to mention Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, Bubblegum Crisis, Battle Angel Alita. The genre Cyberpunk does not mean "bleak". And the Cyberpunk 2020 world allows Rogue and Johnny to have "happy" endings.
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I think that's what makes him a good character, he has flaws, heck it's so much fun to disagree with his load of shit.
I honestly think you have a point here, no other game (especially no other FPS) has put me in the shoes of the character as much as Half-Life, I was Gordon Freeman.
I find this as a compliment towards Cyberpunk as it comes close for me.
Back in the day, Far Cry 3 was praised for being entirely in first person. Because it adds to the immersion and connects the player. How the turntables I guess.
Personally, I am fine with either 1st or 3rd person. But in this case 1st person connected me to V like rarely any game can.
I could not shut up that parasite (Johnny) quickly enough. Every time he pops in I was like "Oh shut up! you're a damn broken record! Yeah yeah, corps bad. Bigger problems here!"
Anyway, have we all given up yet that the game gets an actual proper resolution for V?
Personally, I am fine with either 1st or 3rd person. But in this case 1st person connected me to V like rarely any game can.
I could not shut up that parasite (Johnny) quickly enough. Every time he pops in I was like "Oh shut up! you're a damn broken record! Yeah yeah, corps bad. Bigger problems here!"
Anyway, have we all given up yet that the game gets an actual proper resolution for V?
Not until it's been proven otherwise.
There's so much foreshadowing throughout the game and so many open threads that I think it would be monumentally stupid to just let V go like this.
CDPR ain't exactly making smart decisions these days though.
And other than "We won't change the story" there is still nothing on the topic of payed expansions. I wonder if they'll go the Anthem route.
Better not. Because he'll tell you right as you're about to die to sign a contract with a corp. Just so you can serve them after death too.