Fantasy General II is well designed with satisfying unit progression/upgrade tree and varied missions that keep the game interesteing. The missions encourage you to try new things and new challenges are introduced at a good pace. The story is solid, not great literature, but I do appreciate how well it is reflected in the missions and unit types - the Barbarian campaign did a great job in making me feel like the leader of a warband and more than once I felt pretty badass as an enemy frontline crumbled from the shock of my units charging from the trees
I waited for CDPR to patch out the worst of the bugs and went in with an open mind, hoping for a meaty, big-budget experience. Boy did I get one: this game is not perfect, but you gotta respect the level of ambition they were aiming for here. Night city is an incredible place and the joy of the game is almost entirely in just drinking up the spectacle. Positives: - Night city is by far the most immersive game world I have ever seen by a hefty margin. It feels like the real world dialled up to 11 and is absolutely beautiful even on a middling PC. I personally might not be able to render every hair follicle but the art direction and atmosphere is top notch. - The story is great, with a cast of interesting characters. I really felt affection for Jackie, Misty etc. and many of the side characters had a lot of hidden depths. No, there is not a whole lot of roleplaying but Cyberpunk is like watching a really good Netflix series with a "choose your own adventure" twist. - Seriously, half the fun is just exploring Night City - that place is incredible -I think most builds are pretty fun on normal difficulty. I did a bit of melee/shooting/stealth/hacking/driving and the game just said "ok" and I had fun with all of it. Its not super deep but its also not a genre-focussed game. Negatives: - There are still a few bugs, like tee poses (in the intro cutscene!), occasionally getting my weapon stuck in combat (need to swap it out in the inventory screen to change it) etc. but nothing that really killed the experience for me. The game is very big and >99% bug free. - Clones in crowds (often wearing really wacky clothes to make them stick out more) - The game suffers a bit from the male gaze: e.g. when you pull a naked girl out of the bath the dead guy on top of her is wearing boxers? I like boobs as much as the next guy but its supposed to be 2077 not 1997! Just enjoy the game for what it is - I finished the game and had a blast.
I had a lot of fun learning all the mechanics of the game. The setting is excellent both thematically and as a way of making sure your experience evolves from scraping by with a fallout-style militia to a WW2 Ostfront total war. There is a lot to do, from pushing up resource numbers, to managing your characters, to tweaking your logistics network, to sending in your armoured reserve to punch its way through enemy lines. I have two criticisms of the game however. Firstly, and most importantly, the AI is extremely passive and it is honestly harder battling the UI than it is the enemy. They just sit there watching themselves get surrounded, never putting on pressure or falling back from an obviously lost position. I am not looking for a game that will put me in serious danger of losing, but I do want to feel like the enemy commander hasn't disappeared for a cigarette break! The second (minor) criticism is the setting might be a post-apocalyptic future but the military tech is just reskinned from the WW2 era - where is the fun stuff? Drone swarms? Electronic warfare? Horrifying grey goo? Potentially rogue military AI? Nope, we get heavy tanks vs AT guns... Having said that, if you like complex strategy games that don't get too anal about the details you will definitely get 10-20 hours worth here. If the AI improved you would get far more...
