Finished the game, last night. 180 hours, all quests and gigs done, few NCPD tasks. What a ride it has been, never played something that emotionally intense, personal. And listening to that song: "Never Fade Away" after you've finished the game..that thing really cuts deep.
I've been excited and tracking this game practically since it's first announcement, when Iwinski and Pondsmith stepped on stage in front of a small audience.
Tldr: Did it live up to all my expectations and all of CDPR's promises? (. Hell, no. And I still consider it one of the best video games I've ever played.
Sort of a short review/summarization ( without turning this into long winded essay)
What Cyberpunk is the Best game at:
- First Person Storytelling: switching to this perspective was 100% the right choice. In a way, this game does something similar to what Mass Effect 1 did cinematic third person dialogue system... the animations, seamless dialogue/action, music, setup of the scenes, etc all work extremely well.
- World and environmental design: Night City absolutely sets a new standard in this genre. They did a phenomenal job of blending variety of different architecture and art styles, and level of detail in environment is second to none
- Worldbuilding: CDPR's strong suite, no surprises here. There are a ton of interesting info you can discover about the world/setting simply through playing the game
- Music, Sound Design, Ambiance
- Characters, Dialogue, Delivery of emotional/personal stories
- Side missions: They surpassed even the best stories from the Witcher ( like the famous Bloody Baron questline). Questlines like The Hunt, Sinnerman, Like a Supreme, Dream on, Pyramid Song, etc.
The Great:
Gunplay: Going in, I expected something in line of "serviceable/meh-tier": Fallout 4, last Deus Ex, Bioshock, etc. But they really did an outstanding job with shooting in this game: guns feel weighty with "snappy" responsive feel, sound really powerful with good mix of bass/reverb, bullets have satisfying, crunchy sound, reload animations are detailed and slick as fuck, sliding, jumping, hovering, slow mo, going from and back to cover: all feels very fluid and responsive. And it has some fantastic, iconic guns ( Carnage shotgun, Grad sniper rifle, Malorian, etc). Gunplay in this game is legit better than many straight up FPS games, and leagues ahead of anything similar in FPS/rpg or in Immersive sims.
Driving: Bikes...absolutely love driving them around in this game. Super responsive, fast, great looking, easy to drive..with some practice, you can do full on U turns at high speed.
Open world side content/gigs: Typically open world games suffer from little variation on this ( Skyrim/Fallout has 4-5 types of "dungeons" recycled with same fetch object/kill x objective, Piranha bytes have endless encounters of same few types of animals, AC re-uses same few types of generic activities, etc). Some come with story/dialogue, but majority are more light-er on narrative. What elevates them is worldbuilding, great level design with multiple approaches to your goal, back story, huge variety of locations and scenarios they take place in ( save a gangster from local motel, rescue an imprisoned cop from mental ward, Far Cry-style of compound missions, sneak into corpo penthouse, etc, etc). More simpler ones ( like Cyberpsycho huntings), did get repetitive, but I absolutely had a blast with majority of fixer gigs.
Main story&Endings...love the broad range of personal themes it covers. Developing relationship with Johnny, seeing him change his attitude toward V, seeing us both change, all three endings are distinct and carry huge emotional punch. Did not have any problem with length, only thing that felt missing/could've been expanded more was Hanako's role/development in it ( I think the game fast forwards too quickly to the final resolution, after parade mission)
Hacking interactive/sandbox mechanics: You can get creative here and create a range of interesting combinations, sometimes wiping out entire enemy base without even being in their line of sight, by manipulating environment and enemy behavior through surveillance system. Balance issues aside, there is a really interesting/interactive system there that gives a good alternative to gameplay, with more slow/tactical approach.
Visuals: Definitely one of the best looking open world games on PC
The Good:
Rpg mechanics: This has positives and negatives. On one hand, even side missions can have multiple outcomes. Character backgrounds are used in variety of situations: characterization, worldbuilding, providing additional info, persuading characters or granting easier access to something. They are also implemented far better ( in dialogue system) than in any rpg. You also have a very good variety of playstyles ( unarmed, heavy two handed weapons, bladed weapons, cyberware weapons, stealth, hacking that's used for stealth/combat/environment manipulation, handguns, rifles, shotguns). Your character build also affects how you approach missions: rip apart doors, use cyberlegs to reach secret entry on top, hack to misdirect, sneak your way in, open doors with Tech stat, or just go in guns blazing. Stat/Skill/Perk system is well organized, and synergetic, with rewarding mastery perks. Level up Skills by use feels more intuitive/immersive. Plenty of missions can be completed as pacifist. Quickhacks can also be upgraded and gain additional abilities. Stats are also used in dialogue for intimidation/persuasion, and sometimes skills to more easily solve quests( or offer additional outcome). And there is cybeware/mods as additional layer of character customization.
The bad: Good number of perks and cyberware are simply underwhelming passives. Lifepath intros are too brief and a waste of opportunity. Streetcred is also rarely utilized in dialogue interaction. Overall, Cyberpunk is more of rpg "Jack of Trades" with broad range of rpg systems/options that makes it a better rpg than any Bioware/Bethesda/Piranha Bytes title..but it's not really outright outstanding at any of them.
The "meh":
Melee system: Fist fighting is really "Bethesda"/awful tier ( no real impact, poor animations/hit sync, hitboxes and sounds). Nanowire doesn't really feel good, hammers are ok, katanas feel pretty good, the best are mantis blades( due to sound design/impact). Even as it is, it's pretty basic and OP, and something probably better used as extra option next to gunplay.
Driving: Cars. Some of them feel good, but controls for others are way too oversensitive ( like you're driving on ice). Even racing cars will do almost full 360 when lightly steering them. They need to fix this asap.
The Bad:
AI systems: In combat, they perform reasonably well ( minus the ocassional "freeze": They flank, cover, use cover fire, use situational barks). They can also spot bodies and react to opened doors. However their search patterns are pretty poor, npc AI is barely reactive, pathfinding is very janky ( noticeably freezing in place, for split second, when turning), and Police AI/system is probably the worst in modern open world game ( even decades long games like original Mafia are much better). With lack of variety of dynamic encounters in the world ( except for some police/gang shoot out), this really makes emergent gameplay in Cyberpunk non-existant to poor. This needs a complete overhaul on CDPR's part.
Implementation of content in the world/use of locations: Not sure if this is a strict con, but CDPR's approach on this is starting to feel outdated. Instead of relying on world map icons, they could've used existing places to engage player with content ( buy cars from car shops, visit bars to get info and acquire new quests, more interactive vendors for buying clothing, more accessible nightclubs, etc). I really wanted to have a reason to come back to iconic bars like Afterlife, chill out/get a drink after a mission, see some new encounter, talk to bartenders on what's going on it the area, etc. There are a ton of cool, handcrafted locations you only visit once, for few minutes, during a single mission. If they want to be top dog in open world genre, CDPR needs to drastically improve how player interacts with the world outside of missions. ( without the need to go full realism/overboard like RDR2).
Itemization/Crafting: On the positive side, they've toned down negatives from the Witcher ( you can now use iconic weapons until the end of the game and you usually find gear in your close level range). But it's still fundamentally a poor SP/MMO-lite hybrid that feels completely out of place in this universe, with far too many items that have little interesting variation in number and range of properties. What you end up is with constant cycling through and using whatever gives you higher armor/DPS. This would be hundred times better if they used non leveled gear, with customization/tier offset for weapons, and weight/defensive values vs. stealth/speed offset for clothing and armor.
Balance issues: What you'd expect for rpgs, especially of this size: you get extremely OP later on. It still happens much later than in most similar games, and you can be die pretty easily, but some parts, like hacking/crafting/et become super easy to exploit and break the game.
