Goddamn... I enjoyed this game so much more than I thought I was going too.
Don't get me wrong it still has quite a few problems but, this is honestly the first game I've played all year where I was actually sad it was over. I could've played another 20-30 hours of this easily... I really wanna go back and replay it as a different gender and life path.
Let's start with the positives of which they are ALOT.
This game is beautiful. Night City is amazingly designed, nearly every corner you turn is so full of life between the stunningly designed districts to the variety of people you can encounter. There definitely are some bland areas but for the most part I absolutely loved just traversing the city and all along the outskirts in the badlands and shit. The entire map feels lived in and as if it would be somewhere that would actually exist and is just an absolute joy to play in.
The characters, man I fell in love with everyone here. The characters are all so amazingly written with very few exceptions. I adored gameplay sections that were basically nothing but talking because it's executed so well, with you being able to steer the conversation in different directions with different prompts. You just get so sucked into the lives of everyone here, everything being in first person definitely helps with that because this is the first game in awhile were I have genuinely felt like it was me in the main characters shoes. I constantly found myself talking to the characters in the game myself as my characters talked to them. Also everyone has their own personality that shines beautifully and you seriously come to care for a lot of them, especially your character's love interests. I was a female character so my two choices were Judy and River and I think I may of genuinely fallen in love with them both a little bit. They're so full of life and charm and character that you can't help but like them. My only problem with them was that I wish there were even more characters I could get to know better and become in a relationship with, and that when you get into a relationship you can actually do stuff. Because all you can really do is repeat the same couple of conversations with kinda suck. But mannnn when you get to do missions with them? those are the best. Judy and Rivers "relationship" missions were some of my favourite in the game. You get to see both of the characters in their natural habitat, just being themselves and it's so wholesomeeee.
Of course if we're talking characters we have to address the breathtaking elephant in the room, Johnny Silverhand, AKA Keanu Reeves. To be honest I didn't really like him at first, all he does for the first few hours is stand around and complain. However, he grew on me so much. As the game goes on he starts opening up and becoming nicer to you and you get to explore his past and help him reconcile with everyone he wronged and oh my god him and rouge are so adorable. I did my best to make sure me and Johnny stayed best friends throughout the entire game, I love him.
Speaking of missions. fuck me, the missions in this game are so goddamn funnnnn. Sure you get a few that are just, go here, shoot people and get thing. But most of them really engulf you into the world and let you do some crazy shit. So many missions help build out the world heavily and keep you even more invested. One of, if not my favourite missions in the game is one where you have to help a detective track down his missing nephew, and during it you come across this really fucked up kidnapper and you have to trace through his memories to find out where he keeps his victims and it gets real dark and fucked up real quick and I loved it so much.
The story itself? well you've got the main story and then all of the side character stories. I do honestly think I enjoyed the side characters stories more than the main story. But man it's got some real highlights, I still really enjoyed it. Again though, I just really wish it was longer!
Alright gameplay wise? It's really fun. The gunplay is simple and yet smart with the incorporation of RPG elements, and if that doesn't suit you then you can use a range of different hacking attacks or melee weapons. You can even upgrade your body to have weapons embedded in it which is fucking awesome. I never got bored of the gameplay in this game.
The vehicles kinda handle like ass though, but they are all designed well and look really cool so it's worth it.
Now we gotta get into some negatives.
The customisation, what exactly happened here? You can customise V extensively, some of the most controllable characters customisation I've seen in my life, but you do spend basically the whole game in first person, which does make it seem a bit null and void but it didn't bother me too much because it just made me feel more in the actual shoes of my character.
Vehicle customisation however, is non-existent... why? You actually see the vehicles constantly and yet you have no say over how they look, it's weird.
Obviously the other elephant in the room is the glitches, and yes this game is still a buggy mess and I did have a couple of crashes through my playthrough... but none of it ever actually bothered me. In fact it just made the game more fun. There was a moment where I got into a car crash and my game crashed at the same time. It was very funny. Also there were never any glitches that stopped me from progressing so that's good.
Also, there are a decent amount of moments as mentioned where your choices can dictate how a situation goes and especially in the later game a few of those choices do have some big consequences. But for the rest of the game a lot of your choices don't really seem to matter all too much. it's a little thing that doesn't damper anything but just something that's a bit noticeable.
Overall, I'm willing to say I love this game. My only issues stem from the fact that despite how much it feels like you can do, between races and underground boxing rings and having sex with people (btw every sex scene in this game is so awkward lol) all of it is so little. There is so much of so little. You can do all of these amazing things and participate in all of these cool activities and amazing stories, but they all feel so short and not all there. I'm glad there's a quantity over quality situation here but between that and various glaring omissions such as vehicle customisation and repeatable activities, as in things you can do more than once and not just for a mission (I:e races) it's very clear this game needed quite a bit more time before it came out.
However, this game is genuinely a great time. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I am actually looking forward to replaying it with a different character and different lifepath.
Great game.
Edit: I have since platinumed the game and uh, yeah I still love it. Need more.
Don't get me wrong it still has quite a few problems but, this is honestly the first game I've played all year where I was actually sad it was over. I could've played another 20-30 hours of this easily... I really wanna go back and replay it as a different gender and life path.
Let's start with the positives of which they are ALOT.
This game is beautiful. Night City is amazingly designed, nearly every corner you turn is so full of life between the stunningly designed districts to the variety of people you can encounter. There definitely are some bland areas but for the most part I absolutely loved just traversing the city and all along the outskirts in the badlands and shit. The entire map feels lived in and as if it would be somewhere that would actually exist and is just an absolute joy to play in.
The characters, man I fell in love with everyone here. The characters are all so amazingly written with very few exceptions. I adored gameplay sections that were basically nothing but talking because it's executed so well, with you being able to steer the conversation in different directions with different prompts. You just get so sucked into the lives of everyone here, everything being in first person definitely helps with that because this is the first game in awhile were I have genuinely felt like it was me in the main characters shoes. I constantly found myself talking to the characters in the game myself as my characters talked to them. Also everyone has their own personality that shines beautifully and you seriously come to care for a lot of them, especially your character's love interests. I was a female character so my two choices were Judy and River and I think I may of genuinely fallen in love with them both a little bit. They're so full of life and charm and character that you can't help but like them. My only problem with them was that I wish there were even more characters I could get to know better and become in a relationship with, and that when you get into a relationship you can actually do stuff. Because all you can really do is repeat the same couple of conversations with kinda suck. But mannnn when you get to do missions with them? those are the best. Judy and Rivers "relationship" missions were some of my favourite in the game. You get to see both of the characters in their natural habitat, just being themselves and it's so wholesomeeee.
Of course if we're talking characters we have to address the breathtaking elephant in the room, Johnny Silverhand, AKA Keanu Reeves. To be honest I didn't really like him at first, all he does for the first few hours is stand around and complain. However, he grew on me so much. As the game goes on he starts opening up and becoming nicer to you and you get to explore his past and help him reconcile with everyone he wronged and oh my god him and rouge are so adorable. I did my best to make sure me and Johnny stayed best friends throughout the entire game, I love him.
Speaking of missions. fuck me, the missions in this game are so goddamn funnnnn. Sure you get a few that are just, go here, shoot people and get thing. But most of them really engulf you into the world and let you do some crazy shit. So many missions help build out the world heavily and keep you even more invested. One of, if not my favourite missions in the game is one where you have to help a detective track down his missing nephew, and during it you come across this really fucked up kidnapper and you have to trace through his memories to find out where he keeps his victims and it gets real dark and fucked up real quick and I loved it so much.
The story itself? well you've got the main story and then all of the side character stories. I do honestly think I enjoyed the side characters stories more than the main story. But man it's got some real highlights, I still really enjoyed it. Again though, I just really wish it was longer!
Alright gameplay wise? It's really fun. The gunplay is simple and yet smart with the incorporation of RPG elements, and if that doesn't suit you then you can use a range of different hacking attacks or melee weapons. You can even upgrade your body to have weapons embedded in it which is fucking awesome. I never got bored of the gameplay in this game.
The vehicles kinda handle like ass though, but they are all designed well and look really cool so it's worth it.
Now we gotta get into some negatives.
The customisation, what exactly happened here? You can customise V extensively, some of the most controllable characters customisation I've seen in my life, but you do spend basically the whole game in first person, which does make it seem a bit null and void but it didn't bother me too much because it just made me feel more in the actual shoes of my character.
Vehicle customisation however, is non-existent... why? You actually see the vehicles constantly and yet you have no say over how they look, it's weird.
Obviously the other elephant in the room is the glitches, and yes this game is still a buggy mess and I did have a couple of crashes through my playthrough... but none of it ever actually bothered me. In fact it just made the game more fun. There was a moment where I got into a car crash and my game crashed at the same time. It was very funny. Also there were never any glitches that stopped me from progressing so that's good.
Also, there are a decent amount of moments as mentioned where your choices can dictate how a situation goes and especially in the later game a few of those choices do have some big consequences. But for the rest of the game a lot of your choices don't really seem to matter all too much. it's a little thing that doesn't damper anything but just something that's a bit noticeable.
Overall, I'm willing to say I love this game. My only issues stem from the fact that despite how much it feels like you can do, between races and underground boxing rings and having sex with people (btw every sex scene in this game is so awkward lol) all of it is so little. There is so much of so little. You can do all of these amazing things and participate in all of these cool activities and amazing stories, but they all feel so short and not all there. I'm glad there's a quantity over quality situation here but between that and various glaring omissions such as vehicle customisation and repeatable activities, as in things you can do more than once and not just for a mission (I:e races) it's very clear this game needed quite a bit more time before it came out.
However, this game is genuinely a great time. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I am actually looking forward to replaying it with a different character and different lifepath.
Great game.
Edit: I have since platinumed the game and uh, yeah I still love it. Need more.