- Lots of spoilers, be careful
- Lots of spoilers, be careful
- Lots of spoilers, be careful
- Lots of spoilers, be careful
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This post is going to be my personal recap after about a week of thoroughly blasting through this game from top to bottom
First of all, you should know that I was the game's biggest hater, I had tried the day one version, it was horrible, the graphics were disgusting, input lag, horrible car handling, blurry TAA, I hated it to the highest degree and I kept telling myself the game just wasn't for me. Despite that I forced myself a second time, a third time, each time I ended up uninstalling after 30 minutes
This time I forced myself, I had sworn not to uninstall the game before giving it a real chance, and wow, it was the best decision of my "career" as a solo game enthusiast
I get in-game, I'm at the mission where I steal a car, I meet Jackie, I immediately think "ok this guy has the aura of a main character", only to realize he dies a little while later.. That's when I understood this game was going to be brutal lol
I didn't really have time to get attached to him but seeing his mother's grief made me a little sad, and above all it sets the tone for Night City and how much it's a merciless city that places no value on human life. A random NPC in the street dying, we don't care, but a character with such a high quality skin, lines etc losing their life, it's super unsettling
I don't remember exactly whether it happens before or after Jackie but there's also the case of Evelyn, it's quite similar, well-written character, good aura, good lines, she has a real identity, and she ends up committing suicide in the bathtub, causing Judy tremendous grief
After all that I'm obviously fully into the game, I remember a mission with several bosses in a room and a certain "Maiko" who was behaving really badly, I didn't hesitate for a single second to smoke her, I picked up her Katana and that's where I started loving the gameplay (to this day I still hate the regular gunplay with ar/smg/gun, I prefer katanas)
There's also the romance with Panam, it's super embarrassing to say but I've never felt so much emotion for a bunch of pixels, even in games that push the most towards emotion like RDR2 or the TLOU, I've never gotten so attached to a character. She's so well written, I love her personality, her lines, and you can probably guess that I ended up getting the "The Star" ending
Now I'm going to talk about Phantom Liberty, especially So Mi's story which is probably THE most emotionally affecting character I've ever seen in my life in a video game. In my opinion all the deaths in Cyberpunk are either whatever, or a little sad but fine. Songbird's (where you voluntarily decide to put her out of her misery) is probably the most horrible, first of all you do it with your own hands, second it was probably the best choice for her
I don't know if I'm overdoing it but Phantom Liberty, with Dogtown, all that sad atmosphere genuinely got to me IRL, I'm feeling a rough mood now, it's so realistic, a true reflection of our realities if you push the image far enough
Otherwise I loved the ending, it blew my mind, the scene with Johnny and Alt, all of that was very surreal but at the same time very well handled, I don't know if it's the same scene for all endings, as mentioned above I did "The Star", the happiest ending, you can see a future with Panam, her contacts can find a cure for V, life is good
And yeah, that's it, I probably missed a ton of details that I'm not remembering right now but I spoke the overall idea I have about the game
I don't have much else to say other than it was short and intense, I spent so much hours on the game and that in a very short period (about a week), the post-game depression is going to be wildddddd lol