As I did this storyarc, i was hoping for a better outcome, a slice of Paladinhood in a Crappy City in a world that gone to a more truer Hell
It seems every stoyarc has a crappy ending, even the Cloud storyarc could have been better.
Maybe the writers lack the skill? Imagination limited? I do not know, but just a wee spark can happen.
But The Evelyn Parker storyarc could have been so much better than what presented, that something could have been achieved towards fighting that very struggle vs decadent Sewer of Life.
Thoughts?
Same. You gotta keep in mind that this is part of a whole series of letdowns, so it stings extra hard.
The Heist fails.
Jackie dies.
In one outcome Arasaka steals Jackie's corpse.
Dex betrays you.
You get shot in the head.
Takemura robs you of your revenge on Dex.
You have to work with an Arasaka stooge.
Vic tells you, that there's a terrorist in your head.
Johnny tries to kill you.
Misty is sad.
Mama Wells is super sad.
and so on.....
So at this point we are already a dead person walking. And then we can't even save Evelyn.
I don't care if her motives were "selfish" and that she might have planned to take all the money for herself.
Evelyn is a sex worker who dreams of a better life and wants to get out of that shit. And when she finally gets an opportunity, she takes it.
Our V kills and steals for money whenever possible. The whole gig for the Relic was about money, fame and a better life. So our protagonist is no better or worse than her.
I also think that her suicide is in part Judy's and V's fault. And the worst part is that Judy only feels bad briefly and then forgets about it, while V just gives no fucks at all. Zero remorse here.
Someone who suffered that kind of abuse belongs in an ICU, with trauma care, medication and 24/7 surveillance and not on a dirty mattress in Judy's shitty apartment.
My V has money for super cars and the hottest cybernetics, but none to help out someone who could provide valueable info or just out of kindness? That's fucked up.
Also the whole rampage you go on later, feels empty. Especially the mission where we kill the Scavs, not one of them has any lines, they just die without me getting an option to tell them that it's cause of the terrible shit they did. Same for the Voodoo Boys, I can only mention Evelyn in a single side sentence during that quest line.
This is another mission where the game's story telling falls flat on it's face. The game was marketed as an RPG with a multitude of available choices. Yet we cannot even decide when to be kind, or who we want to help out. It also goes against everything that Pondsmith said about Cyberpunk, cause he said that it is about the heroes being able to make a difference in a bad world.
Seems when a studio like CDPR is capable of writing good fantasy stories, it does not automatically mean that they are capable of writing good sci-fi/Cyberpunk stories.
The only way I can see her come back, would be an expansion that starts during The Heist and then offers an alternative main story with additional, new endings.
Going on the run from Arasaka and Yorinobu, with Evelyn and the shard, would have been so good. Like a Cyberpunk version of
The Getaway (1972 film).