I write this review after my first playthrough and after solving almost all side-missions. I really love this game - mostly because of the incredible atmosphere, the great storywriting and the characters in the game. The developers paid a lot of attention to the details and sucessfully adapted the old Cyberpunk 2020 setting, which I played a lot as a pen and paper-RPG. The story is a bit dark for my taste, but that is suitable to the setting. Bugs: There are still a lot of bugs in the game, but until now, I found no game-breakers (patchlevel 1.12). However, one should save early and often and be prepared for occasional bugs such as "levitating" people or objects. Mechanics: The game system is a bit bland. I played a non-lethal stealthy netrunner and would have liked to have more quickhacks available. I really dislike driving, since cars react way too strongly to keyboard steering. This is perhaps easier with a controller. A mechanism which keeps your car on the road (such as in Witcher 3 while ridung) would have helped a lot. Performance: I played the game on a RTX 3070 with Full HD and raytracing+DLSS activated and found it completely acceptable. However, as a player I am not focused on having high framerates, so this is just my subjective impression. I tested the game on a old 1060 and it was still playable, but looked of course much worse. Story and atmosphere: Again, concerning story, atmosphere and acting this game is one of the best I ever played. I assume that players expecting a first person-shooter will be disappointed, since the focus of the game is not solely on fighting. I never played GTA but guess that it is not like GTA, since the main focus of the game are story and missions. However, if you like lovable and strange characters, a strong story and a setting with a lot of unique details, this game may be made for you.
I nearly missed this great game because of the negative revievs. While I share some of the criticisms I really enjoyed the game up to now. I believe that many of the negative reviewers have expected another type of game. This is a classic CRPG in the tradition of Baldur's Gate. The game does not stop you if you want to enter a dungeon which is too difficult for your party - you should just leave after noticing that it is too hard. I died a lot of times during a boss battle, went away, made two experience levels and returned. I beat the boss on normal difficulty on the second attempt. The game expects that you learn the Pathfinder system and make yourself familiar with the abilities of you chars. For new players this may be boring or too confusing. I played a lot of DnD in the past, so I had little difficulty to get into the game, but again, this may be boring for other players. The story is fun up to now, introducing several interesting and likeable characters and of course your quest to become a king (or a baron in the first step). I expect some story twists in the future, but believe that the story is not as complex and fascinating as in Pillars of Eternity. The implementation of the alignment system is great - your main char can choose dialogue options which represent a certain alignment (e.g. lawful good). Your alignment then shifts a little bit to the alignment of the chosen option. So, good characters may choose evil actions sometimes, but may end up being evil after many little steps. The mail reason why I give five stars for this game is that it feels that the game designers really cared for little details and a great atmosphere. This may be an unpolished gem, however, it is a real game for players who like classic CRPGs.
