I didn't really follow the hype cycle for Cyberpunk when it was coming out. I did watch the funny glitch compilations though. Now that it's been 3 years since launch I can definitely say that I've seen just about every glitch in my playthrough albeit at (I assume) a less frequent rate. It didn't exactly ruin the experience for me though since pretty much everything else about the game was great.
I will say based on what I've heard, the way stats worked at launch sounds absolutely rancid with it all being tied to gear. It's been changed to be tied to level up choices. I cannot imagine enjoying it nearly as much in the original state. It's not quite the depth of customization compared to some other open world RPGs like say Vampire the Masquerade but as is it's enough to feel like the build I created was my build and not something generic.
The gameplay is pretty fun overall. The gunplay feels nice and most of the skills felt useful. I do find the way healing items work to be a bit questionable since it feels borderline impossible to run out. Most of the challenge (on hard mode at least) was just making sure you back off and heal when you're getting overwhelmed. I kinda see where some people are coming from on the cars feeling "bad" to drive. For me it's in this weird inbetween where it feels very sim racer but without a lot of depth like gear switching. I'd still take this over it being super smooth and arcade-y since it makes driving around town way more interesting to me compared to say GTA.
As for the role playing elements, I think this is something where it feels a little lacking. I feel like this is one of the draw backs to having a voiced protag since there's going to inherently be more railroading on choices. In most scenarios your choices are going to be whether or not you want to ask more questions to expand world building or just things to make you consider the theming of the game. The choices that matter are very specific major questlines and your ending choices. Besides that, you're essentially just playing the Project Red's Cyberpunk character, V, instead of your fun OC.
Anyways, liking Cyberpunk as much as I did was a nice surprise. I can honestly see myself returning to it when the DLC/Expansion drops in a couple of months.
Oh, and thank you CDPR for making (almost) all the walking and talking cinematics skippable. Every studio now has no excuse not to do this if they want their games to actually be fun to replay.
I will say based on what I've heard, the way stats worked at launch sounds absolutely rancid with it all being tied to gear. It's been changed to be tied to level up choices. I cannot imagine enjoying it nearly as much in the original state. It's not quite the depth of customization compared to some other open world RPGs like say Vampire the Masquerade but as is it's enough to feel like the build I created was my build and not something generic.
The gameplay is pretty fun overall. The gunplay feels nice and most of the skills felt useful. I do find the way healing items work to be a bit questionable since it feels borderline impossible to run out. Most of the challenge (on hard mode at least) was just making sure you back off and heal when you're getting overwhelmed. I kinda see where some people are coming from on the cars feeling "bad" to drive. For me it's in this weird inbetween where it feels very sim racer but without a lot of depth like gear switching. I'd still take this over it being super smooth and arcade-y since it makes driving around town way more interesting to me compared to say GTA.
As for the role playing elements, I think this is something where it feels a little lacking. I feel like this is one of the draw backs to having a voiced protag since there's going to inherently be more railroading on choices. In most scenarios your choices are going to be whether or not you want to ask more questions to expand world building or just things to make you consider the theming of the game. The choices that matter are very specific major questlines and your ending choices. Besides that, you're essentially just playing the Project Red's Cyberpunk character, V, instead of your fun OC.
Anyways, liking Cyberpunk as much as I did was a nice surprise. I can honestly see myself returning to it when the DLC/Expansion drops in a couple of months.
Oh, and thank you CDPR for making (almost) all the walking and talking cinematics skippable. Every studio now has no excuse not to do this if they want their games to actually be fun to replay.