Cyberpunk 2077 - Review

Cyberpunk 2077 has been reviewed at Kordanor's Gaming Lair:

Cyberpunk 2077 - Review / Conclusion

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Conclusion:

So what's the overall conclusion for Cyberpunk 2077? How much fun you will have with the game is strongly depending on how you play it. If you focus on the main quests and the more fleshed out sidequests, and know how to differentiate between them in the Quest Overview, then you will be less bored by the assembly line work. If you value story higher than mechanics, then you will have no problems with just ignoring the plethora of bad mechanics in the game. If you strictly follow the quests and aren't really the type of player who goes his or her own way exploring the world, then it might not come to your attention that most of the work into designing the world was put into creating beautiful facades beyond which there isn't really much to find.
My final rating for the game now is still a full thumbs up, but one which barely made it.

Thanks Kordanor!

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Thank you! Any feedback appreciated!
As you can see I already added in the Timestamps right away this time @Couchpotato.

Great… yet another YouTube douchebag to listen to.

Nicely done, thanks for the review and your thoughts on the game.

Good review… I haven't touched the game and will try it in a year or two with whatever the final cut is - and fingers crossed that it's a much improved game at that point.

But then I do that with a lot of games these days - not just Cyberpunk. If you can wait, you're almost always better off.

Originally Posted by SSIGuy
Good review… I haven't touched the game and will try it in a year or two with whatever the final cut is - and fingers crossed that it's a much improved game at that point.

But then I do that with a lot of games these days - not just Cyberpunk. If you can wait, you're almost always better off.

That was probably the right thing to do. Just wished I had that kind of patience.

I don't regret playing it at release despite the issues. It'll be a long time before I replay it.. at least a couple years, but it should be interesting to see how much it's changed by then if CDPR does as much as they should.

The most enjoyable part for me, save for a handful of main/side quests, was actually the gigs/Cyberpsychos. I feel like if I'd done what you suggest and concentrated on the main stuff, I would have felt the game was very hollow, given that rarely did I feel like I was making any meaningful choices in those quests. But I enjoyed running around and doing a bunch of mini-stories.

I don't regret playing it at release despite the issues

Me neither…but if I could decide what to do now, I would wait anyways, and if it's just to get it cheaper then 60€.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
The most enjoyable part for me, save for a handful of main/side quests, was actually the gigs/Cyberpsychos. I feel like if I'd done what you suggest and concentrated on the main stuff, I would have felt the game was very hollow, given that rarely did I feel like I was making any meaningful choices in those quests. But I enjoyed running around and doing a bunch of mini-stories.

The decisions might be a bit more subtle and not that direct, but your decisions definitely have some impact. There are a couple of very fleshed out endings and in addition you also - like in older Fallout Titles you have kind of a resume at the end. In Cyberpunk this happens via voice calls you receive from various people. And depending on what you did, what they say is different as well.

Originally Posted by Kordanor

Spoiler

But especially the Cyberpsycho Ending was super disasspointing. For dozens of hours you were running around in the city, doing these jobs trying to keep everyone alive, and then in the end, you go back, hand it in…"thanks"…and that's the end.

Absolutely agree. That might have been the most diasppointing quest in the game for me. Especially since they weren't marked on the map so you had to check all the ? to find them. It was way too much effort for a very unsatisfying ending.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
The decisions might be a bit more subtle and not that direct, but your decisions definitely have some impact. There are a couple of very fleshed out endings and in addition you also - like in older Fallout Titles you have kind of a resume at the end. In Cyberpunk this happens via voice calls you receive from various people. And depending on what you did, what they say is different as well.

The endings are all accessible from the very end, regardless of what's happened up to that point. A copout that's disppointing, but it's also far from the first game that's done this.

The Fallout style slideshow isn't enough for me. The first three Fallout games also had major differences that were evident in game, not just at the end.

I agree with you guys about the lack of payoff for the . Unfortunately, that's symptomatic of the general lack of narrative care and follow through we saw throughout the game, fitting neatly alongside things like how underused (and oversold) the backgrounds are. But I did like doing them.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
The endings are all accessible from the very end, regardless of what's happened up to that point.

Thats only partially true. if you go traight to the ending you have only two options available (one of them being suicide). For another two endings you will need to have completed some sidequests. And for another, third, hidden ending you need to have completed a sidequest in a specific way.

Also as mentioned you still have the ending calls, and ofc you influence the story differently. I mean sure, there are games with more choice & consequence, but not plenty, epecially not in AAA area. Not every game can be like Age of Decadence (which is probably why it was in development for 10+ years)

I really enjoyed this game. Played it through twice. The balance, which I thought was good at first, became rather off in the high levels. I also wished they had fleshed out a lot of the content and added more depth. That being said had a blast playing this game and in my top all time favorites. I loved the main story as well as most of the side stories with companions and how it all wove together. Also enjoyed many smaller quests and just going cruising around exploring. For now done with it and hope they flesh it out, add more content, and fix things up so I can do another play through or two later.

Originally Posted by wolfgrimdark
Also enjoyed many smaller quests and just going cruising around exploring.

Yep, I could see my V riding with the Aldecaldos for additional 200 hours or more just doing some quests, experiencing some stories, shooting up things without a huge background plot and Night City only looming on the horizon.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
Yep, I could see my V riding with the Aldecaldos for additional 200 hours or more just doing some quests, experiencing some stories, shooting up things without a huge background plot and Night City only looming on the horizon.

More content in the Badlands would be great, but they would need to significantly improve the mechanics and balance for me to sink that kind of time into it.

Tbh, the plot was the only thing that kept me going towards the end.

I think the game is amazing even in it's current state, I have very limited gaming time so I still have quite some time left until I am done maybe my opinion will change a bit but the first 70 hours just WOW, definitely one of my all time favorites, I cannot understand why this has been received so poorly, I mean the Witcher 3 got such a awesome reviews, but CP2077 is better in every possible way, sure the gameplay could be much better, but it is still so much better than TW3 and story is better, graphics is better, exploration is better, loot is better, character development is better…….

Now if they improve the balance with a few patches, add some missing things with some big DLC…. …

@GothicGothicness That's very much a matter of opinion. The gameplay was the weakest part of the Witcher games, all of them, and I did enjoy the combat and such in Cyperpunk quite a bit more than I did in the Witcher 3. But story and character development? Clear advantage to W3, in my opinion. And the story and the characters are the primary reasons I play RPGs, so for me W3 is a signifcantly better game overall.

Great work here @Kordanor , how are you finding presenting your vids in English? Do you get more notice or less?

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
@GothicGothicness That's very much a matter of opinion. The gameplay was the weakest part of the Witcher games, all of them, and I did enjoy the combat and such in Cyperpunk quite a bit more than I did in the Witcher 3. But story and character development? Clear advantage to W3, in my opinion. And the story and the characters are the primary reasons I play RPGs, so for me W3 is a signifcantly better game overall.

I can understand that, some characters in TW3 are great and it is based on a book as well, I guess a matter of taste…. I really like some parts of the story on TW3 but much of it also become just another even worse guy who rapes and kills everyone without much reasons. I think Cyberpunk is extremely original and has a lot of lore fitting in with the story though. The other parts are not much to argue about though….. which makes TW3 rating VS CP2077 hard to understand…

Hey Kordanor,

Nice video, nice review

Regarding Night City exploration, you advise against it? I mean, there's nothing worth outside the main beaten path? No fun or valuable stashes/loot/treasures, no dramatic scenes to be found, nothing different hidden atop/inside that building or behind that hidden corner/alley ? Is city exploration really not worth the time the player will spend doing it?