This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
I enjoyed the game, but it's not at all what was advertised. We were told it was going to be a deep RPG with immersion as good as RDR2, well that obviously didn't happen.
It's buggy and glitchy, yes, and it doesn't run well for most people unless you have a NASA computer, but those things can be fixed and actually don't factor into my review of the game in the slightest.
My biggest issue with the game is that it's entirely superficial, the world is big and looks beautiful but where are the things to do besides shooting people? I was expecting mini games, something like Gwent, or brain dances, hell, Wakako has a pachinko parlor, why can't we use it? Cutting hair, getting piercings, tattoos? None of it.
Then there is the AI, and I can't believe a game released in 2020 with an AI system like this. The police outright spawn behind you, there is no chase system, no wanted system, no corrupt rich and powerful to send the police as their own personal hitmen, all things that were promised. Run away from the police after gaining a star? It's like they've never seen you before. But if you stand too close to them? They shoot you.
There really isn't much things to do except things involving combat, and while combat is fun, it's not really all that fun to do it over and over again. I wanted to enjoy the city, not just the combat. Hacking is okay, but a little boring. Same with stealth.
Personal story also has very little impact on the game, I remember they were planning to add in a whole "traumatic life experiences", "childhood hero" etc, but all of that got scrapped. It makes your beginning of nomad, corpo or street kid feel hollow except for the occasional dialogue option that honestly doesn't change much. And what was with the montage at the beginning? Why couldn't we experience those times with Jackie? Would've made him and events of the story surrounding him much more compelling since, ya know, we'd actually have time to get to know him. You could've showed us, not told us.
Something I can say about the game though is that the characters are very well written. Honestly it's the cast that really drive this game, their growth and depth are really well done and CDPR did a great job of making me hate, then love, then love-hate, then love again a certain character.
But I'm a little pissed extra special attention was given to Judy and Panam, while Kerry and River took the backseat by being entirely easy to miss by being tied to side quests, unlike our ladies. Give a little love to our homies, CDPR.
Which also brings me to the point of why the heck did they censor all the dongs in the game? It was there in the tech demo. Full frontal nudity is okay for women, but not for men? Give me a break, this is a bleak as heck world, a scrapper wouldn't have the courtesy to leave a man's underwear on if they only viewed them as meat and valuable tech.
I also want to bring up the endings, I won't spoil anything but I can say I don't particularly like any of them, and again, they favor the girl romances in certain endings. I really, really hate open ended endings that tease things "oo, maybe a dlc? maybe not? maybe a 2nd title?". It's lazy, annoying, and doesn't really give me a sense of closure. And anyone saying "happy endings, in a cyberpunk setting?" yes, happy endings. Things that reward the player. I'm sick of games lately adding numerous endings but they're all just different variations of bad ends. It ruins the journey in my opinion.… Expand
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