Reminder that my critic based on the 1.63 version and it's without Phantom Liberty. So...first of all. I pre-ordered this game in 2020. Had an older PC too at that time (GTX 1060 6GB) and it BARELY could run CP2077 1.0. Mostly I've got 30-40 fps, that I didn't like in most of the games (I'm a 60 fps guy). But I wanted to play this game so bad that didn't care about the performance. At the first playthrough I reached the beginning of Act 1 and for some reason stopped playing the game. Overall I liked the game, but later (around 30 hours playtime) got enough from it. Thought that the gigs and NCPD scanners were horrendously dull, didn't like the clothes (back then there was no transmog), the skill system was uninteresting and unfortunately the framerate dropped a lot of time under 30 regardless the settings. Fast forward to 2023, I could buy a new PC finally and thought a lot about that which game should I try on my new rig. After 120 hours playtime I've beated the game and did all the quest/gig/NCPD scanner I could. Have to start right away with the performance. With my new rig (RX 6800 XT, 32GB RAM, Ryzen 5700X) the game ran flawlessly on high/ultra settings, on 1440p, without RT. Speaking of which, the graphics and visuals are A-MA-ZING, even without ray tracing. Most beautiful game I've ever played so far. Not just the textures and effects, but the whole city looks and feel stunning. The city designer(s) get from me a 10/10. The main story was fine, but Witcher 3's was much more excited and interesting. The side quests was much better. I liked the characters though, especially Johnny. I still found most of the gigs and NCPD activities tedious, but this time tried to get into the game real hard as an RPG, so that helped a little. Still though, at the end I could sent to hell those gigs. Not much to say about the soundtrack and radio songs: They are BANGERS af! One of the best OST ever. Overall had a much better experience. The game is not perfect though.
