Recent reviews by Whimsy!

I appreciate this game so far. It's really something different. A lot of survival games have you picking up sticks and rocks. You do that here too, but the focus quickly becomes the monsters and exploration; and it doesn't loose this focus. This is complemented by the fact that you can easily build a starter base in 5 minutes, where a lot of survival games want you to just farm for 10-20 minutes just to get started.

Repair costs and durability are also great in this game- I used my starter spear for a fair amount of capturing pals, and then took it into an entire dungeon and still had some use left on it afterwards. I can't tell you how frustrating it is in other games when your items break every 3-5 minutes of actual use and then you have to begrudgingly farm for 5-10 minutes just to get back to the fun you want to be having. It's clear the devs want you get out into the world and actually play the game, and I appreciate that they don't gatekeep this ideology behind high level / end-game equipment.

Also, there is minimal hand holding. The game briefly shows you where the resource manual is, and then sets some optional objects and kicks you on your way. I found myself completing a lot of the objectives incidentally- I was just having fun exploring mechanics and, oh, cool- I completed the last objective. I appreciate that the system is there for people who may need it, and that it's non-obtrusive enough for those that don't.

So far, it has my recommendation, I think this game is worth checking out.

So many core features have been walked back or devolved:

• You can't bag guards anymore, nor move them through windows.
  
• Throwing bags of loot no longer shows you how much money you cashed in. It was super satisfying in PD2 when one bag on DW cashed in for 300k+. All the caution, hard work, planning, prior fails... all paid off when you turned in a full set of samurai armor for over a million dollars. In fact, in PD3, there's no in-game money counter at all.
  
• Speaking of planning, the heist planner is gone. Not only was this thematic but it also gave players / teams a way to tailor the mission to their goal/play-style.
  
• Crime.net is gone and replaced with a pseudo-linear-progression mission-selection carousel. How navigating this is going to work when the game has more maps is beyond me.
  
• I do think that simplifying builds isn't a bad thing, but when paired with the god awful progression system, it's very clear to me why players have found this change to be so abrasive.
  
• I've never been bothered by online-only in any other game, but the execution here is actually awful.

And the list of relatively minor gripes goes on. It's not really a bad game... but it does away with many aspects of what PD2 did best, all while not really innovating or bringing anything interesting to the table. (The only exception I've experienced so far is the spy-cam)

Overall, the identity of the series hangs by a thread with this installment; all with much less character, ambition, and vision.

I do not recommend this game at all, even on sale. I would wait a year or two and check in with the development.

It's pretty underwhelming, and many of it's systems seem very shallow.
People just disappear when leaving their homes. Their routines are nothing interesting or unique.
Animals don't sleep?
Police response time is almost immediate, and they are often at the scene so fast that the 'hiding spots' are rendered compromised anyways.

Seems like the game lets you scale your power later on but nothing that would fix or make the core gameplay loop any less shallow.

Skip or get it on sale.

It's okay.

The problem this game has over something like Vampire Survivors is that your choices don't lead to anything interesting. Every run feels the same, with the upgrades just altering your stats or making you shoot more/fewer bullets.

I think they need to break their own mold a little bit~ the game is in early access, but these are core-gameplay fundamentals, so I'm not exactly holding my breath.

Great until latency / ping / faulty hit-reg dictates the outcome of a fight.

In other BR's, having one instance of bad hit-reg costs you about 10-40 hp. Which still sucks...

But in this game, failing to register your block/parry will cost you the 20-30 hp from the first hit, but also the subsequent stunlock and combo resulting in 60+% of your total health.

And trust me it's not fun watching yourself die to stunlock- when the reason is because of bad reg / netcode.

If your shadows look grainy and the foliage is sharp:
Turn Textures to Epic
Anti Aliasing to Epic
And DLSS OFF.

I have the other graphics set to medium otherwise, and that fixed those issues and game runs 50-60fps constant.
Playable but hopefully they improve optimization further.

Game-play itself is super fun and immersive, impressively so.
Looking forward to the upcoming hours on the game.

I haven't gotten to end-game combat&systems but that isn't the only metric on which to review a game.

As others have said, the voice-acting isn't even fully translated- but that doesn't even matter. The English voice acting is awful. Dialogue animations are awful. Even some of the in-game tool tips aren't translated. Given the RPG aspect of MMORPG, all these things add up to a break in immersion and really devalue the experience.

The combat I've experienced so far is enjoyable, but that alone does not justify $40, which is why I don't recommend the game. It's just not worth $40. I'm skeptical that the game will ever be worth the money, because like I said, the English voice acting that exists is already bad, and I doubt they are going to adjust the dialogue animations- but hopefully they prove me wrong.

TL;DR, not worth- get on sale for maybe 5-10 bucks.

Negative reviews saying devil deals are trash now? Hmm... I guess :
2spooky, eye of the occult, brim bombs, hungry soul, twisted pair, azazel's rage, lemegeton, book of belial, pentagram, mark, money=power, brimstone (still amazing even with nerf), any guppy item, spirit of the night, sac dagger, ceremonial robes, gimpy, abbadon, SCYTHE BB, conract, dark matter, rotten baby, satanic bible, incubus, maw, lusty blood, SUCC master, ybbub buddy, and stan head

are the only useful items now...


Hmm. Yep.
If you know how to properly manage a red + black/soul heart balance the devil deals are still worth it. And what's better? Angel deals are now worth it too, love having options.

Matchmaking right now is full of bots. 5+ bots on teams taking majority so you can't kick them. And if you call one of them out they put on their list and impersonate you and get you kicked.

Valve needs to fix this.

Imagine you go to the store to buy groceries, and the store is the world of Cyberpunk. Well, the world is only as open / deep as the grocery list that CDPR gives you. Outside of that list there is almost no agency, and nobody you meet and nothing you interact with outside of that list has any substance.

So do I consider this game a success in regards to it's 'open-world' system? No.

Gameplay? The combat loops, be it guns, stealth, or hacking (or a mix of any / all), are all extremely simple and repetitive. I will say the enemies are fairly spongy, but I don't think this point is as horrible or exaggerated as other reviews make it out to be. Overall the mechanics aren't bad, but they are certainly nothing new. I feel as if they are bare minimum- and while bare-minimum works, it clashes with the grandeur of the game's environment.

"Character progression" in regard to leveling up and gaining skills is actually something I enjoyed in this game. You gain fair amounts of exp for the actions you take and it seems like all build paths are viable. I just wish that there were different mission outcomes based on the taken routes (stealth, hacking, guns blazing)

The game has plenty of bugs. Animation glitches, floating / stuck models, quests not being complete-able, weapons un-equip themselves, texture clipping, straight-up crashing, etc etc. Fortunately the game-breaking bugs are much less common than the non-game-breaking bugs- but the fact that I can't go 10 minutes without being taken of immersion due to a bug is something worth noting.

But overall, the game still isn't bad, which is why I still recommend the game- but I also feel like the game doesn't live up to it's ambition. Ultimately, if you like on-rails-story experiences you probably will be totally happy with the purchase, but if you were expecting to make your own character and experience your own story you will be left disappointed.