I'm supposed to *play* this game? With my *EMOTIONS??!??* Sir, I only have so many! This game is far too demanding of them!
I've been with this game since launch. While I'm yearnful for the pre 2.0 days, I love this game.
At the time of posting this review, I'm on my third full playthrough with 450+ hours logged. I pre-ordered. I played at launch. I laughed, I cried, I hurled. As a long time fan of Bethesda, I'm very ok with jank. I use rolling saves, I treat tweaking a game as being a game all on its own. Cyberpunk 2077 has enthralled me. Yes it launched too early, yes the marketing was deceptive and yes CDPR deserves at least a couple of deep glares for some of their marketing choices. No it never should have been released for older consoles. Blah blah blah that's all technology talk, and we're here to talk about what Cyberpunk really is, and that's art. The game is built on a very solid gameplay system. However, in game it's not always well explained, so I do recommend reading the accompanying literature and sourcebooks if you're curious, but I didn't do so myself, I just learned the system by playing the game. As a story, as a 'role playing game' where you're feeling like you're being giving proper conversational choices with consequence, Cyberpunk takes a very big leap forward. I've read too many reviews by people who only did the 'Main' quests to beat the game, and then called the story flat. This game truly rewards exploration, not only of dialogue options that unlock whole other missions, but in map exploration in that you will not see all the questions, missions and content if you're only following the ongoing To Do list the game has given you. You should walk around, talk to people, go after interesting sights. Doing so will lead you into many wonderous things, like running into a monk who'll help you mediate or massive completely options quest chains you might never know existed unless you make specific choices. It's that layering of RP I truly respect about Cyberpunk 2077. Each playthrough has allowed me to have a very unique experience. The ending are quite varied. It's a rare, rare game that's left me breathless, and in tears while the credits roll. I loved this.
This game was billed as an RPG, it is not. It was billed as a full game, it is not. This is a mobile port they spent some time making run on modern PCs, but it is nothing more than this. For the asking price of this game, do yourself a favour and buy literally anything else on the site and play that instead. This is not an example of polish nor quality from CDPR. The Bad: The animations are poor, characters flip in and out of the screen like they are being drawn on a flip board. You can tell they are models, but they are essentially static. Terrible tutorial. You will not get far if you do not know how to play Gwent already and have experience with CCG in general. The tutorial assumes you understand the mechanics and does not explain combat very well at all. Bad storytelling: You are given dialogue choices, often with a 'Kind' 'Pragmatic' 'Cruel' lean for each. You are told there will be an impact. No matter what you choose, the result will be the same. Right at the start of the game you're given the option to be merciful for some civilians and no matter what you choose, the outcome is always the same dialogue and a negative result. Not an RPG: The game is billed as one, but it is not an RPG. It's a CCG/Strategy/Narrative hybrid. It is a cobble-together of gameplay elements that work well when fleshed out, but CDPR did not flesh them out here, as it's at heart a basically a mobile game. You don't build a character. You do not have stats, you only have your deck. It's a mobile game: I have said this many times, but nothing examples this more for me than when I encountered my very first treasure chest in game, opened it, and was rewarded not with an in-game item, but a card for the stand alone Gwent game. Not even the same game! Thronebreaker is actually an advertisement for another game entirely from the same developer. That's a strike against any company doing this. The Good: Voice acting is fine, story is interesting, game is a stable piece of software.
When I fired this up, I was a bit worried by the graphic style, as it was hoping for more of an 'Unreal' feel than an old Doom engine feel, and this game was clearly made to look like Heretic/Hexen. Well... the game put those worries to rest in a heartbeat. This game controls like Unreal. If you know that engine and live and breath it like I do, Amid Evil feels amazing. Anytime I die, I know it was my fault, not the game being cheap. If I get lost, it's not bad level design, it's because I missed an obvious clue. The action is great. The game is terrific. The music is on point. The only point of criticism I'll need to leave is that the font choice for the HUD is awful, and scales badly. It's very difficult to read the in game fonts no matter the setting. If you make it small enough that it's easier to read, by then it's all over on the side of the screen too far away to quickly reference. It'd be nicer if we could position the HUD in the middle of the screen, and change the font to something more legible. Small complaints aside, this game is one you'll want to have in your collection. You can't beat it for the price.
This was more about the excitement of revisiting the Infinity Engine of old than about making a modern, memorable experience. PoE does a grand job of recreating the engine, feel and look of the classics, but it falls flat on its face for story and pacing. The sense of urgency is not there. The tiny level cap at 12 (expandable only to 14 with the White March) means that you'll likely be at max level when you're only 3/5 of the way through the game's main quests. This results in the game changing from an RPG to merely an adventure game with tactical real time combat. I played it when new, only to be crippled by Savegame deleting bugs. I came back to in in 2019 and played it fully. I still had bugs, albeit new bugs. Disappearing NPCs, Stuttering floating text etc. It's good, but it's not amazing. I have no desire to buy the expansions nor the sequel based on my experiences here. The 'story' had no sense of urgency, and no emotional connection to the main character. You're dropped in as the chosen one, yet again, but nothing you do nor say has any impact on the events of the world in any real way, just end game flavour text.
This game was sold to me based on high user reviews and a solid critic score. However, it's not very good. If you have never played strong TBS tactical combat games, the cute graphics and aesthetic might appeal, but the core gameplay isn't very well done. The interface was not heavily adjusted for the PC port from the original mobile version, so it is very obvious when you're moving units it was designed for a touch screen interface. You have redundant need for clicking that strongly reduces the desire for 'just one more turn' mentality. In essence, you get tired playing based on the interface. The story is just fine, as is the humour, but the battle set ups are almost completely dictated for you. Time after time you'll find you need to use arbitrary strategies to progress, as opposed to figuring out your own unique methods for solving a battle. This game is not terrible. It's not even bad.... it's just not very good, and slightly below average for the TBS genre. Pick up something else.
This game is a game about hype. It was overhyped, under developed and silly. You cannot get that far without using specific builds for characters. Eventually if you do not follow a strict plan, you will end up in boss fights you cannot win no matter your level of twitch. It's very unfun to be in a situation that requires you to restart the entire game, especially as almost all the characters that get introductions then get a very arbitrary 'tutorial' mission. It was not a good game on the Xbox, and by design it cannot be a better game on PC. Play any of the other million games this is trying to be if you want something with teeth. An attempt at being Star Ocean but ending as a weak barely-rpg. The models are also pretty, but poorly animated. Please note, I have not beat this game as it was not possible for my Elco to defeat the boss later on. Take that as you may.
