Opinion on cyberpunk 2077?

[Glitch]

I recently picked up Cyberpunk 2077 and completed the main story. I personally thought it was pretty good and am now trying to 100% the game. What are your thoughts on this game? :omg:k:

[Melooon]

So you can totally disregard my opinion because Iv literally only played the first few sections so far.. but I kinda stoped playing because the game as a whole left me feeling icky? Im not exactly sure how to describe it.. but it feels like a game made for reddit users and Musk fans? (Im sure there are many wonderful reddit users! and maybe one wonderful Musk fan?) but.. I dunno it just gave me a bad vibe that did not make me want to return to it.

Im disappointed by that because I really wanted to enjoy it! I love large open RPGs and Im always a fan of Bladerunner-esq worlds so it seemed right up my ally.. maybe I'll return to it again and have a better experience.

The three starting choices are city kid, country kid and corporate manager. I picked city kid first but didn't like the bar where the game started, so then I picked country kid and quite enjoyed seeing the city from the outside; they also team you up with this big dude who was pretty cool but seems to be into crime.. actualy everyone in the game seems to be intro crime, except the police but they just seem like jerks

[Memory]

I played it on PS4 Pro when it first came out and actually didn't experience any bugs or framerate issues. I just found the game to be incredibly boring. I wasn't one of those overhyped CDPR fans who thought the game was going to deliver the world and be absolutely immersive and perfect. I had modest expectations, but the game was still disappointing. Its RPG elements are too basic to be a selling feature, and as a shooter it was stiff and unsatisfying. So it was really selling itself on the world and characters, and those were just dull to me. It's also one of those open world games where, as soon as you open the map for the first time, you're bombarded with quest markers all over the place. It's very Ubisoft-esque and I've never liked their style of open world games.

It reminds me a lot of Rage 2, which I have very similar complaints about. But between the two, I found Rage 2 to be more exciting. It wasn't much of an RPG, the shooting felt weak and the open world was littered with markers for uninteresting side objectives to pad out the gameplay. But its world and characters were generally better realized and more varied. I still revisit it every once in a while to give it another chance, but have never felt compelled to do the same for Cyberpunk.

I forced myself to play Cyberpunk for a few hours to give it a chance before I lost all interest in progressing and gave up. Luckily, because of the bugs and framerate issues others were experiencing at launch, Sony was offering refunds to anyone who requested one at the time so I got my money back.

I should mention that I also didn't enjoy the Witcher games. I tried all three but barely made it past the intro before likewise getting bored and quitting. So it's likely that CD Projekt Red's style of games just aren't for me.

@Melon, I can understand what you mean about the icky feeling. The game is definitely one of those cyberpunk dystopias where everything is scummy and there are no morally good characters. I don't really care for that kind of experience either. It's hard to stay immersed in a world that is 100% negative. I find that's the problem with most cyberpunk stories, so I generally prefer the low-budget, retrofuture aesthetic and general optimism of raypunk.

[Cobra!]

I absolutely loved it! I did play it a year after launch so many bugs and glitches were probably fixed, but I don't have many complaints about it. Of course there were still glitches, which were amusing, but nothing game breaking.

I loved the upgrading system, the stealth, and best of all, it added quicksaving! Granted, it was slower than it used to be in older games, but I'm thankful they added it at all!

It's the first game in a long long time that I played through more than once. I did all the intros, and endings, including the secret one!

Apparently, they're making a sequel, which I'm hyped for!

[Zusk]

I absolutely fell in love with it. For me, it was Tim Rodgers of Action Button Reviews's massive review - in combination with getting a Steam Deck - that encouraged me to finally try it out.

When I first played it on my W7 machine I could only play it at like.. 18fps at a resolution that would make Quake 2 blush.

• Don't go into it expecting New Vegas. New Vegas is this cornerstone of RPG design - a one in a million sort of thing. Nothing will be able to compete with the memory you have of that game if you are a big RPG fan (I know how NV has sort of changed the entire western RPG genre retrospectively as people look back and see just how amazing that game was relative to the games that game after it.)
• Don't go into it with the idea that you are making a character in this setting, you are playing V - its a lot closer to the Witcher then it is Ultima 4.
• Don't go into it expecting GTA 6. The open world is genuinely super empty.

Besides those three notes? I adored my time in Night City. The story was just gripping for me!

[tarraxahum]

Funny I haven't noticed this thread right away after joining the forum. I could talk for ages about Cyberpunk 2077.

I'll admit that going into the game you have to have no qualms with the grotesque parts of the cyberpunk genre itself (such as total dystopia, ridiculous amount or corporate influence of everything, subsequent oversexualization of every product there is 'cause "sex sells" and yes, copius amounts of crime in which you'll be personally partaking in while playing - this one is not as much a part of the genre as it is a part of the Cyberpunk TTRPG system on which 2077 is based on. You burn bright, you do stupid shit, you go out in a blase of glory and you never have any hope for a happy ending, 'cause the world is that screwed.), and it's DEFINITELY not advised to go in expecting a new GTA, or a New Vegas, or a Mirror's Edge for that matter 'cause that's also a complaint I've seen people have.

It's kinda surprising that Melon got the impression of a 'game for Musk fanboys', since people like that guy are THE evil of cyberpunk, they're everything wrong with this world. Heck, you even get a guy stuck in your head who won't shut up about greedy corporations and inflated entrepreneurs needing to burn in hell. And he has a fair point. There actually was a moment I think where some social media intern of CDPR (the company behind C2077) joked about adding the Cybertruck to the game and the fans tore them a new one 'cause that's...quite literally the opposite of everything Cyberpunk stands for I believe one of the devs shut that idea down real quick for this exact reason. In some ways I got the feeling cyberpunk comments on corporate destruction of individuality and everything good in sort of a similar manner to the way the old web movement currently critiques Web3, just...about life. With explosions and horrifying poverty.

(Sort of a sad thing though that despite the ways they went to depict this whole dystopia it...doesn't feel as grotesque and unbelievable nowadays as it probably was in the 90s when the TTRPG was coined. I've been to seaside resorts that look just like Pacifica multiple times in my life. Sans the crime levels. For now.)

Also btw if I sound pretentious talking about 'understanding cyberpunk' then drop that impression, this game and the TTRPG were my first introductions to the genre and I'm working on my own understandings from there onward

That is a really long prelude to say that I, for one, absolutely fell in love with the game. I have no problem with playing a mercenary character - especially considering that the world of the game is so rotten than you can manage to play a noble killer and that won't be an oxymoron. I'm also...quite prone to videogame violence and playing characters who are ridiculously overpowered and realistically scary as hell while being secretly soft for their loved ones? And Cyberpunk let me do that in spades.

I'm not a big expert on shooting games and what they should flow like to be considered good. It fact, the only action RPG game where I used a gun frequently was Mass Effect, and that game has aim assist turned on my default. Any other game - I'm always playing melee builds, and Cbp2077 made it REALLY satisfying what with all the armor and literal cyber fists you can put on your body. I can turn enemies in bloody mush before they take 1 hp off of me. A friend of mine plays a netrunner build and it's also very entertaining to watch her drop people dead by looking at them. So can't really comment on other people's disappointment re: gunplay, but can say I really liked the combat I'm personally engaging in.

As far as roleplay goes... Okay, coming in hot with a controversial take - I didn't like, say, roleplaying in Dragon Age: Origins much. And I didn't get past, like, the first open world hour in New Vegas. I don't know what is it about me and the RPGs that are universally praised for their roleplaying systems. Perhaps not being able to hear my protagonist REALLY sours it for me, and no variety of dialogue choices can remedy that for me. But then again...I really really really loved VtM: Bloodlines, so that's confusing.

Dialogue options (and a tragic lack of interactable places in the world outside cutscenes) aside, I really actually enjoyed the gameplay part of roleplaying. Aka the fact that most of the missions, be they plot ones or side ones, always have multiple approaches to them. I've done three playthroughs of the game so far and I have cleared one of the side gigs three different ways already - one time by stealthing in, one time by having a really low health and therefore literally jumping around the wall of the compound with a sniper rifle, and one time being heavy on armor and just barging straight in moving everyone down. Every time a fixer tells you to get rid of someone you have an option of a pacifist route (showing the target into the trunk of a car and letting the fixer deal with them on their own). One time I didn't like the task I was given so I spent like an hour looking for a way to get to the guy peacefully and just tell him to scram (and I did! that was an option!). I did a certain side job before a certain plot point and suddenly gained a new dialogue option to weight that quest's outcome against the guy I was threatening. An implant that gives me melee combat advantage also takes away my ability to hack things so I have to be double smart and careful about the goddamn surveillance cameras. I've never ever had this much fun actually thinking about the way I approach things and feeling the actual consequences of my choices.

Did any of my choices actually change the world? Or even the city? Hell no, this is Cyberpunk, I quite literally do not matter to anyone but the five people I kinda became friends with. Which is realistic and is frankly a breath of fresh air after so many stories where you're chosen and/or save the world somehow.

I also actually liked the characters. They've felt real and flawed (although I will say, the male friends/romance interests feel much more underdeveloped, but I love women, so I'm doing great), and some of their quests packed a serious emotional punch, especially when playing for the first time and being absolutely unprepared for those. The deaths that happened affected me, the break ups that can happen came as a genuine pain and the final choice was hecking emotional. Once again, will admit - it would be nice if they didn't become static and chained to one spot after their questlines end, but, well. I'm a PC player. There's a mod for that.

Have I mentioned that I can talk about this game for ages? Do you believe me yet?

The main story itself I'd say only suffers from the fact that it's all urgent-urgent plot-wise, but then you somehow have time to do all those side things. That's a curse many RPGs suffer from in different proportions, but still, it's kinda glaring. Hardly ruined anything for me though.

I've been playing literally since day one, so that's two years by now, and as I mentioned in another thread I can spend hours just running around in there still.

I'm also a crazy soul who actually likes the driving system in the game. I suck at driving in any other videogame and I don't have a license IRL, but in Cyperpunk 2077 I'm suddenly considerably good. While everyone else is howling in pain. Oh well. Good for me I guess :cheesy:D

Anyway this is enough of a love letter I think, especially since this is a thread from November. Props to the chooms who actually read all of this