Cyberpunk 2077 Review

Cyberpunk 2077 is not the bad game that I was lead to believe at the time of launch nor was it the "good" game with a redemption arc like I was also lead to believe. I consider the game to be about as "6 out of 10" as it gets. I don't consider that to be bad, it's actually kind of a complement coming from me but at the same time, the best way of describing Cyberpunk that it's an incredibly confused game in every respect. I'll start with the story and then start going into detail as to why the gameplay, while better than Witcher 3's still isn't amazing.

The story and writing is solid enough and gets better and more engaging when Johnny Silverhand is introduced, V and Johnny's dynamic with each other is my favorite aspect of the story. Keanu Reeves' performance gives the latter character a lot of likeablity and charisma to him which makes sense considering his portrayal in the story. The story overall, is your typical Cyberpunk fare but I do like how your perspective is constantly in first person and you only ever see your character's face in reflections making the story feel more intimate and connected if the game were to use cutscenes and seeing the character's model constantly. The other characters are decently written enough but one big issue I have with the story that can be detracting is how much major story beats are covered in side missions, while I get Cyberpunk being a game and an open world one at that, I find this design choice questionable especially for a game where the story and writing is it's major selling point. It's possible for the player to miss on major parts regarding the fate of characters and parts in the story that would be important in a show or movie is just skippable, and I doubt everyone playing is going to touch some of these quests. The epilogue was also a bit too long for my tastes but that is fine considering not many RPGs or games let you have a fully playable epilogue to show your choices. Does the story live up to the hype? I say mostly it does. Other issues include Yorinobu and Adam Smasher feeling underdeveloped as villains but you could argue the villain is V's illness.

Now the gameplay, while the core systems are fine and functional, there are major issues with it. The best way of describing this game is that it feels like Frankenstein's monster. It's basically part Telltale game, part Borderlands, part CoD and Half Life 2, part GTA and Saints Row, part Deus Ex, and is and feels like a WRPG maybe 30% of the time. While the game's marketing made it seem like a GTA style game where your choices "mattered" that is all smoke and mirrors. I don't think the game is bad for this, I mainly think the game is jack of all trades but master of none. The early hours of the game makes you think you are playing a Telltale game meets CoD but then about the start of Act 2, the open world becomes avaliable and it can feel jarring compared to the earlier parts of the game. The Ghost Town mission where you pay Rogue upfront can particularly jarring since you have to start exploring the open world game even though it's easy to think that it was a linear game before that. The stealth is decent enough, but doesn't feel as good as the Edios Montreal Deus Ex games since the latter has better level design and bottlenecks you less while having better hacking systems and more non lethal options, shooting admittedly feels better than Borderlands, but the looter shooter elements can get in the way of what is pretty good feeling combat because low level guns can take forever to kill enemies especially when they are higher levelled than you. Having the vehicles of GTA and Saints Row can feel out of place with CoD and Half Life 2 nature of the mission design considering in GTA and Saints Row you have to worry about vehicle damage and escourting NPCs and car chases, which a lot of the stuff is scripted in this game due to the game design clashing with the scripted nature of CoD and HL2. This is geniunely what I mean with Cyberpunk's frankenstein's monster design. Some of it can be good like the stealth and shooting but have elements from other games that clashes with each other.

Overall, Cyberpunk is not bad or good, it's just somewhere inbetween, I do kind of reccomend this game to people who didn't like games like Witcher 3 since the combat in CP2077 is better and the frankenstein's monster style of design means the game can be more engaging than, "talking, awkward movement controls exploration gameplay and bad combat". Don't expect a masterpiece and you'll like it to varying degrees.