Edit: a year later and it's still going strong. Stand by what I said, the only difference now, is it's a lot easier to play.


I ran 4 simultaneous saves, one corpo, one street, one nomad and a second nomad with no "mistakes".

I primarily played nomad, and made all of my "mistakes" on that particular save.

So let's get the bug portion of this out of the way. People like to slam the game about bugs etc. I'm not going to, instead of I'm going to let you pick my brain and I will edit and post up the workarounds I used to pretty much streamline my second and third play through(s).

This will be a partial post as I just finished my last achievement and I'm beat.

Cons:

Dodge....I, just yeah. Dodge. Poke around on the threads if you don't know why I bring it up. I'm confident at some point CDPR will patch in a work around or change to this. It's annoying. However, truly in playing the game, I can see why it's on the keys and how it works within the gameplay itself.

Ladders. Are. Death. You'll eventually figure out the trick, but I died quite a bit in the beginning to them. Play for a few hours, you'll see why.

Item loot under bodies. A looter shooter, this game, is not. They need to optimize the way the loot drops in the game, and/or add auto loot/area loot to compensate on how loot heavy and dependent the game is.

Crafting. Going in it's possible you can be (if you don't read carefully) self-duped (convincing yourself) that everything will drop schematics. HOPEFULLY in some future patch they do. It looks as if they started to do that.

Crafting level. So, this is very important. Do not fully upgrade an iconic item (if your'e going the crafting route) unless you are indeed 20/20. That's 20 attributes, and full perks in the branches. Not being maxxed out will severely penalize your numbers and when upgrading that item after craft, limit the upgrade numbers.

Iconic Items: For those that do not know, DO NOT DELETE ICONIC ITEMS. Iconics can come in any flavor; common, uncommon, rare, epic or legendary. Also what isn't really touched on clearly is how they can be upgraded. Once you get an iconic item, if you go into your crafting menu, the next upgrade will be in your crafting menu. So you get a blue? You can craft an epic. However that next level requires the previous level item to work. SO loot blue iconic sword, upgrade to purple iconic sword and one of the components is the original blue iconic sword drop.

Bugs overall: There are UI graphical glitches which for the most part are a simple load up a save and you're back on track. However, save frequently and often. There were a couple of times I had to load a previous save a long way back because for whatever reason, my controls were locked out entirely. I've noticed it usually happens on a UI transition with some story element.

Quest overlap: To save yourself a headache, stop whatever youre doing when a phone call, or quest notification happens and listen to it. Open your phone message, etc etc. After that, proceed to what you were doing.

Side quests: Some side quests will not continue until others are done. This is easy to not get the feel for but it is simple. If a side quest will not progress (it says wait) just do other side quests. The side quests are intertwined, and have requirements for some. Example; I literally had 2 side quests left and nothing else, and had to continually move to different locations to trigger the phone call for one. The other would not start correctly until it was done. However, there was no indication of this. When in doubt, you can always skip time in your inventory. I suggest 48 hours, then wait for a contact.

Open world stuff: The yellow icons open world that are not tied to any specific quests you have in journal, are actually tied to them as well. They will start new side quest chains, and will continue others in some cases. If you are just trying to finish the story go for it. You don't need them. The blue NCPD icons are really hard to see. When looking for them make sure you look ON TOP of the freeway overlays.

Those are actually the only cons I have.




Pros:

Story: I'm glad I did not rush to the end. I did every story mission, side quest, got 100 on rep, 100 on the Tak story and 100 on the Johnny story. When you open your screen up its staring right at you. The 3 icons at the top. I am not 100% sure, but I think its a combination of the game missions, conversations, and looting the readable items. I read everything, and did everything and the story is absolutely amazing. Keanu Reeves was definitely an awesome choice. Gavin Drea as male voice V and Cherami Leigh as female voice V, both were absolutely amazing. While bugs were prevalent, I never once felt (aside from frustration on looting :p ) out of immersion. I truly got drawn in by the sheer scope and epic "value" of the world. I was touched by all the different endings and want to know more about the different factions and people within the world and universe within Cyberpunk 2077. I will, despite cons, be playing it again. (10/10)

Graphics: The world is beautiful. There's nothing more to say. The details are just ridiculous. The characters look amazing, the vehicles, and so much more. There is just no way to convey how awesome the game is visually. (10/10)

Game play: This is definitely a unique take on cyberpunk. As a long LONG time fan of cyberpunk (still have the snes game even) , and well versed in it's lore, this game had the same effect on me, that lord of the rings did when it was released in theaters. Books, use your imagination, you fuel what you think something will look like and feel, this game blew my imagination away. I actually FELT like I was inside the cyberpunk universe. Melee hits felt vicious, gun fire felt visceral, interactions felt meaningful, hacking felt consequential. Crafting was significant (once I figured it out) and money felt scarce. Destroying something was permanent, relationships are fragile, and on hard mode, crap hurt. (5/10 - this is because of the listed cons on top)

Mission: The only pro I will put down is how easy missions are to find, complete, and move on
The overall mission structure is straight forward. (3/10 - because of cons, almost entirely because of UI transition and loot issues)

Overall? What do I think?

59.99 is what I spent. The game is unfinished and has many many QA issues that should have been identified and tackled. However, I think this is unrealistic given the entirety of 2020, the way development most likely had to happen, and the sheer amount of rhetoric and BS floated under the release of this game from outside sources. Mostly youtubers, twitter posts, and twitch streamers.

I paid to play a game and for some reason all I am getting before I even hit play is a bunch of people telling me that a trans character is in the game. Cool. Who cares. It's a game, a darn good story. That character is one of 100s. Shut up and play or don't. Who cares what color a character is, who cares what accent they have, who cares if they like a man a woman or a picture of Keanu Reeves with a silver arm. Just play, or don't.

I could not find one unbiased, and straight up review of the game. I don't watch or read reviews for insight or even an opinion, I do so as a base of comparison if I decide to write my own, and here we are.

Shame on all the reviewers who did not even play the game, shame on all the reviewers for focusing on anything other than the game itself or the game play. You guys lied. A lot.

Overall -

6/10 - this is only because of technical issues. I firmly believe (this is my opinion) that CDPR will patch the issues.

Is it worth it to buy? Yes. I'll be playing it again. Just keep it mind, there are bugs as of this posting, will require patience on your part, but it's worth the story.

Should you get a refund if you did not like it? Up to you. I'd take a look at how they did Witcher 3. Paying the 60 now or later is still paying the 60.