Cyberpunk 2077 thoughts and musings

[Ediros]

So, Cyberpunk 2077... the game that came out 4 years ago in 2020 and was widely known for many of it's bugs and glitches. Recently, I decided to give the game a spin, since it was on sale and after playing 50 hours of this game, I have decided to share what I liked, what I didn't like, what I noticed, etc. It's not a proper review since I haven't finished the game and barely touched the main quest, focusing on all the sidequets instead, which is why I won't be giving any score for the game.

TLDR: Cyberpunk 2077 is a decent looter shooter game with some rpg elements, but not a GOTY at all.

RPG ELEMENTS

Let's start with RPG tag or how the game claims to be an RPG. I am going to be honest, the game is as much rpg as notFallout 3/4 or Skyrim are. That is, it is a game that you only play once and forget about it's existence. You start the game with one of 3 backgrounds: Nomad, Streetkid and Corpo-Rat. All of these have got their unique dialogue options for different situations, but none of them really matter. In fact, vast majority of the choices you make in the game don't matter or have got barely any effect on the world around you.

You can go all around the Night City, doing sidequests, gigs, etc. However, you will not see any tangible effects of your actions. Sure, there were a few quests, which gave you a nod to your choices or where reminded of your actions, but it never amounted to more than a few dialogue options. Case in point, first act of the game is spent doing a 'heist'. I won't say more than that, but no matter what you do, what background you chose, what dialogue options are made, the result is always the same. Though, to be fair, there were some situations where your actions mattered, but the consequences of said actions were barely noticable, mostly in sidequests.

MAIN STORY

While I haven't played much of the main plot. I did enjoy the writing, it was solid. Definitely one of the strongest suits of Cyberpunk 2077. Some cutscenes were truly moving and well directed, similar in quality to Baldur's Gate 3. I have got no major complaints here, outside of previously mentioned RPG elements. Phantom Liberty (a dlc for the game) deserves special mention, since it's main story kept me on the edge so much, I couldn't stop playing.

SIDEQUESTS AND GIGS

Oh boy, this is probably one of the weakest aspects of the game. Gigs are basically mini quest, which often revolve going around to single area, clearing it out (or sneaking past guards) and then moving on. Most of them only give you a bunch of eddies (currency, stands for eurodollars). They are... dull, boring, tedious for the most part. There were a few good ones, but most of them were forgetable. In fact, I would call them "Fodder Quests", since this is what they are. A bunch of tiny quests that you complete to give you something to do.

Sidequests are different from gigs in the aspect they tend to be a bit longer and better written. One of the better ones was being able to ride a rollercoaster or attending a funeral of a character from the game, whom I WON'T SPOIL. Definitely a step up from the gigs, but there are too few of them, which is a shame.

CHARACTER PROGRESSION

How to say it... it's... overdesigned. The game features 3 different ways for your character to get stronger. First and foremost are character atributes, 5 of them (Body, Reflex, Technical Ability, Intelligence and Cool). Each time you level up, you can increase one of said atributes, capping out at 20. These atributes allow you to pick and choose perks as you play. You can swap your perks out at any point, but atributes can only be reset once per game. Some of the perks can be quite impactful and having high atributes can come up in a dialogue, but it rarely amounts to anything useful.

Next one up, Cyberware and boy did they screw the porch with this one. At levels 10 and up, you can start adding proper implants into you, some of which can be gamechanging. One of the most important ones is operating system. It allows you to choose if you want to be hacker, melee berserker, bullet time samurai or something else. You can also get double jump and few other bits and pieces, like arms that fire rockets or can turn heads into pancakes.

However, there are plenty of slots that just add small bonuses like: 5.0-7.5% Cooldown instantly for all cyberware after neutralizing an enemy. Combined they can be quite impactful, standalone they are rarely substantial. On top of that you can get up to: 24 implants in your entire body, based on your cyberware capacity, which is where things get really stupid.

In order to increase your capacity you need to: Level up, get perks from technical ability or RNG. That's right. One of the most important ways you can power up your character can be dropped by any random enemy and if you happen to not pick it up, you will PERMAMENTLY lose it (up to 54, which is HUGE). Supposedly it was fixed, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. You cap out around 360, so without those shards you are stuck at 300, that's a really bad design. Those things should be rare gig/quest rewards, not random drop by enemies.

Last but not least are skills: headhunter, Netrunner, Shinobi, Solo, Engineer. Think of them like skills from Skyrim, which improve your character. However, you will not be able to max them out anytime soon. My longest lasting character had level 58 and a skill of solo at 30 at that point, even though, I focused on it for the most part. Really not a fan of 3 separate paths to get your character stronger.

SCALING AND LOOT

This is one of the main problems of the game, which really took away most of the fun I had with the game. The game scales pretty much EVERYTHING to you. It's almost as bad as notFallout 4 in that regard. You get stronger, but so do enemies and some encounters can be really frustrating, since you can't comeback stronger and deal with them that way. Worse still is the loot. For example:

-In my first playthrough, I did all the sidequests and ignored a boxing quest, coming back to it at level 40+. When I won, I got a unique tier 5 sniper rifle.
-On my second playthrough, I did the quest sooner and the tier 5 became tier 3, which I then had to upgrade.

Do you see the problem? The game punishes the player for finding unique weapons early on in the game. In fact, no matter what you do, all enemies will be using the same type of weapons as you do. Level 1 to 10? Tier 1 weapons. 11 to 20? Tier 2 weapons, etc. It doesn't matter where you look, what you do, everything scales to you. Even rewards for gigs and some quests! I really don't like it to say the least.

Final thoughts:

So, to sum up, is Cyberpunk 2077 a bad game? No, but it suffers from Skyrim Syndrome and really, if you were to trim all the fat, get rid of half the gigs and expand upon the rest, it would be much better. As it is, I wouldn't give it more than 8/10 at best. I had fun at times, but if there are two words that describe everything besides main story in Cyberpunk 2077, they would be: "Forgettable" and "Inconsequencial".

Also, some bugs still remain, like not being able to fast travel ever again.

 

[Hawkwing74]

I hate scale up enemies!

 

[Norzan]

This is one of the main problems of the game, which really took away most of the fun I had with the game. The game scales pretty much EVERYTHING to you. It's almost as bad as notFallout 4 in that regard. You get stronger, but so do enemies and some encounters can be really frustrating, since you can't comeback stronger and deal with them that way. Worse still is the loot. For example:

The funny part is the latest pokemon game chose to not have level scaling and instead have fixed levels for areas, but apparently a lot of the normies didn't liked that (to this day we still have people claiming you are forced on a path at the start of New Vegas, which is false, but the lack of level scaling does give an illusion of the lack of choice and thus bad according to those people). So i'm not surprised Cyberpunk 2077 has level scaling, it seems this game tries to appeal to normies in some areas, to its detriment.

 

[tekhedd]

You can swap your perks out at any point, but atributes can only be reset once per game.

Oh man. Nothing says "our game has no replay value" like letting you freely swap out perks. Limiting respec to "once" would be pretty restrictive...in an MMO endgame situation.

Or maybe it's just supposed to be your gear. Meh.

 

[Ediros]

To add to what I wrote previously. Cyberpunk 2077 went for a cinematic experience at the expense of everything else. And it shows. At this point, I would drop it's score to 7/10 and boot up New Vegas with mods again.

-In Phantom Liberty DLC you fight a boss, said boss can only be defeated by shooting glowing parts of it, until it reaches critical health, at which point, it doesn't matter where you shoot. So, if you are a netrunner (a hacker basically), your quickhacks are useless here, you must use guns. Compared to X42 Giant Robo Scorpion, which had multiple approaches, this one is just straight out worse.
-Dialogue options, it's almost as bad as notFallout 4 dialogue wheel! I don't know what my character will say and there is no nuance to the dialogue itself. Case in point, you get a quest to follow 'a cheating wife'. Well, when you arrive at the spot, if you don't use the choices to listen to her, that's it, finito, quest done. You can't go back, use skill checks, etc.
-Skill Checks are basically useless. All they amount to is some extra dialogue. I miss skill points from New Vegas. The game already has got 0 replayability as it is, this just makes it worse.
-For a supposedly massive and alive world, it definitely does not feel alive. It doesn't matter how many gangs I smash, how many sidequests I do, the city is basically static. I have not seen a single sidequest affect the world around me. Though, some npcs were impacted by my decisions, but compared to New Vegas? Yeah... no.
-Read a wiki about the ending, there is a grand total of 6 of them and that's about it. Most sidequests you do there, don't do shit for the ending. In fact, they aren't even mentioned. And New Vegas in 18 months, managed to incorporate many side endings into it's endings slide! 10 years of difference and still falls short in many departments.
-Currency is basically worthless, unless you are buying every type of cyberware available, which is pointless in most cases. Once you commit to a build, there is basically 0 reason to switch it up completely. Also, the sooner you buy implants, the more money you save. Why? Because, you can dismantle every type of clothing and weapon, yielding you components. Said components, can be then used to upgrade your weapons and armour. So, a tier 2 gorilla arms will become tier 5++, if you put effort into it. Also components are far more valuable than cash anyway.

This game... I have got no idea what went wrong here. Witcher 3 wasn't an rpg either, but at least most of the sidequests were fun and most of your choices had some kind of impact on the people around you. Here? I feel like I am just a camera, watching V go down the cinematic rails.

Old, but still relevant:

 

[nighty]

i guess the easiest way to measure if you can like CP2077 is "did you like the witcher 3?"
If the answer is no, or only partly, then you'll find it hard to like Cyberpunk evem just a bit, since their basic design philosophies are somewhat similar.
As in both feature a simply beautiful and really well crafted, but empty world, factions which exist mainly for flavor or purpose, but can't really be sided with, a lot of "basic" side content and to distract you from it some truly excellent side quest lines with multiple stages (e.g. red baron for W3 and the ones regarding Jefferson Peralez in CP2077). And at times both feel rather like movies than games with all the cutscenes - although many of them feel so well done that i didnt mind in both cases.

Saying what you do doesn't affect the endings is at the same time totally correct and also total bullcrap, since the endings are, as with W3, mostly influenced by how you treated your sidekick throughout the game. In W3 the main impact was how you approached Ciri in key situations, in CP2077 its the same with Johnny.
So apart from one you could always obtain, the rest is locked behind this personal reputation stack.

Everything else is only shown in the influence sphere it happens in, so in W3 the Red Baron questline didnt influence the gameworld much, and in CP2077 side quests such as Jefferson Peralez's mission chain or Judy's mission chain only influence the cosmos they're happening in - but you DO get to know how your actions affected the NPCs who were part of the quest chains. To only put a mild spoiler, you can either encounter Meredith Stout again in a hotel room, or out on the shore with heavy feet.
It's just that the world as a whole doesn't really reflect it - other games like NV have done a better job here.
But there are some great moments here to be witnessed for sure.
I've lost my shit when i realized that a decision i tried to get wrong on purpose in Phantom Liberty with Lina Malina turned out to be absolutely fucking hilarious in the end and to be the best possible decision.
Also i didnt know what havoc i would wreck on a certain high ranking Night City official by telling him an awful truth about himself. this even haunts you in the outro of the game and is one i would never do this way again.

I loved CP and the DLC even more. I believe the moment of CDPRs fuck-up was greed and the unbelieveably stupid decision to bring it to old gen consoles -this alone probably cost them 2 years of delay and may very well nearly have killed the project.
But even with all my positive feelings about the game, i cant help but wonder which impossibly perfect gem this could have been, if they put more work into it.
the factions alone are one HUGE thing on the list here - i mean is there anybody who played the Meeting with Royce of the Maelstromers and didnt want to know much more about these weirdos?

 

[Ediros]

i guess the easiest way to measure if you can like CP2077 is "did you like the witcher 3?"
If the answer is no, or only partly, then you'll find it hard to like Cyberpunk evem just a bit, since their basic design philosophies are somewhat similar.
As in both feature a simply beautiful and really well crafted, but empty world, factions which exist mainly for flavor or purpose, but can't really be sided with, a lot of "basic" side content and to distract you from it some truly excellent side quest lines with multiple stages (e.g. red baron for W3 and the ones regarding Jefferson Peralez in CP2077). And at times both feel rather like movies than games with all the cutscenes - although many of them feel so well done that i didnt mind in both cases.

Saying what you do doesn't affect the endings is at the same time totally correct and also total bullcrap, since the endings are, as with W3, mostly influenced by how you treated your sidekick throughout the game. In W3 the main impact was how you approached Ciri in key situations, in CP2077 its the same with Johnny.
So apart from one you could always obtain, the rest is locked behind this personal reputation stack.

Everything else is only shown in the influence sphere it happens in, so in W3 the Red Baron questline didnt influence the gameworld much, and in CP2077 side quests such as Jefferson Peralez's mission chain or Judy's mission chain only influence the cosmos they're happening in - but you DO get to know how your actions affected the NPCs who were part of the quest chains. To only put a mild spoiler, you can either encounter Meredith Stout again in a hotel room, or out on the shore with heavy feet.
It's just that the world as a whole doesn't really reflect it - other games like NV have done a better job here.
But there are some great moments here to be witnessed for sure.
I've lost my shit when i realized that a decision i tried to get wrong on purpose in Phantom Liberty with Lina Malina turned out to be absolutely fucking hilarious in the end and to be the best possible decision.
Also i didnt know what havoc i would wreck on a certain high ranking Night City official by telling him an awful truth about himself. this even haunts you in the outro of the game and is one i would never do this way again.

I loved CP and the DLC even more. I believe the moment of CDPRs fuck-up was greed and the unbelieveably stupid decision to bring it to old gen consoles -this alone probably cost them 2 years of delay and may very well nearly have killed the project.
But even with all my positive feelings about the game, i cant help but wonder which impossibly perfect gem this could have been, if they put more work into it.
the factions alone are one HUGE thing on the list here - i mean is there anybody who played the Meeting with Royce of the Maelstromers and didnt want to know much more about these weirdos?

I disagree, I actually liked witcher 3 way more than Cyberpunk 2077. Sure, I actually saw little to no consequences from both games for the side quests, but most of witcher 3 side quests are better than CP 2077 ones.

Both games go too hard on cinematic moments and take away player freedom. At least in witcher Geralt is an established character and we can understand why he searches for Ciri and cares about her.

V is a not a blank state either and to me they are a worse version of Geralt. Not to mention the writing in Cyberpunk 2077 is just worse for the most part. One of the most prominent aspects of it is Phantom Liberty ending.

Spoiler: Phantom Liberty ending spoiler

basically, you get cured from johnny, lose all your implants, cant use them ever and slowly fade away like nobody. Whoever wrote this crap needs a boot to the face. At that point, you should be the most dangerous merc in Night City, with tons of cash. Why cant V become fixer, why is everyone turned against you? It’s a mess.

At least when you finish the game and you feel a sense of completion. Hell, gathering all allies during midgame of the game is great, same with many of the sidequests like the tower on the lake or Blood and Wine DLC

 

[R.Graves]

Even after everything Cyberpunk 2077 is still missing features that were originally advertised and is still closer to a gta clone blended with a looter shooter than it is an rpg.

The biggest problem I had with it is the same problem that so many open world rpgs have. There's no stepping off point for the main quest. As written, there is no reason anyone who is actually role-playing and not just trying to see content would ever step off the MQ because there's no point where it isn't as urgent as it could possibly be. So basically if you are role-playing as someone who's life is on a timer (which you're forced to) all of the side content becomes very hard to justify doing from a character perspective.

 

[ironmask]

I have played Cyberpunk 2077. It's okay. Beautiful open world that's shallow and lacks interactivity. The game lacks side quest and it has too much repetitive side content like the gigs. The level scaling in this game is absolute trash and it is the biggest problem with this game. It's as bad as oblivion. It ruins any sort of player progression. There's nothing more annoying then grinding for many hours to be a high level to only feel like nothing about my character has change at all. Overall I give this game a 6 out of 10. Just another mediocre open world slop game.