Beyond the extremely polished exterior, the beautiful sights, the brilliant art, the excellent mechanics — this game stands out for its unusually, unexpectedly good convoluted writing, and it moves you much more than you'd expect. To start this off, I'll say that it looks and plays much better than some ten-twenty man projects ever could, and is the work of one dev. Truly humbling experience. I sat down and played through it in one go, no breaks. I actually pirated it at first. When I was done, I went to buy it and gift a copy to a friend. On its surface, it's (mostly) a mix between a twin stick action game and survival horror in parts. This doesn't begin to describe it properly, but to say more I'd have to spoil it. "Girl goes looking for her sister but ends up on an unwanted misadventure" is also not good enough. "Psychological horror about trauma and the fragility of bonds"? I really can't say. It reminds me the most of Ruiner or The Ascent both in how it plays, and in how opinionated and vibrant it is as a work of art. You can tell this was a work of love by how meticulously placed random bits feel. Visually, it's one of the more interesting and beautiful games I've played in recent months, or maybe years. There's a very nice blend 2d portraits and art mixed into a mostly 3d experience, but even the 3d sections play with the graphical design of it (angel wings when exiting the bathroom!). The story is difficult to describe without giving away much. Polly and her sister Alice have burned down the orphanage they used to live in, but Alice is nowhere to be found. Trying to look for her sister, Polly gets caught up in the most awful mess of all time and ends up thrown into a world mostly consisting of a collage of her past traumas and experiences. By the end of it all, you're doubting whether there was a sister to begin with, or pretty much anything else. Was the repeater even real? Was she in Hell? It doesn't hold its punches, and really makes you suffer for everything you do. The attention to detail is extreme, and lots of tiny things add up over time to present a very strong sense of identity. It's no Pathologic, but it compares well to it. Gameplay-wise, the game is hard. For someone who enjoys a good wrestle with tough foes in beautiful and occasionally twisted environments, I found it great. People (rightly) complain about it being unfair, though (but the developer is working on fixing that). The puzzles can be a bit frustrating, but it wasn't too bad, and game areas are pretty enough to make it worthwile. It performs pretty well. Some areas are unoptimised and end up really spiking GPU usage, mostly when there is a lot of water involved, but other than a few spikes it feels really smooth. Games that look three times worse play twice as bad, so really good job on getting it to work so well. I don't know, it's hard to describe as anything but unforgettable. It's not perfect, it's not for everybody, but I'll be thinking about it for longer than I expected to when starting it up for the first time.
I played this game a *lot* over the past several years, and only recently purchased a legit copy now that I have a more stable source of income. CP77 is one of those one-in-a-million gems that does nothing perfect, and yet is altogether an amazing experience. A lot of the reviews out there will mention its very painful launch. There's no denying the game was released prematurely and would've benefitted from even more time in the oven, but the years have been kind to it. The major 2.0 patch that coincided with the release of its solo DLC rethinks the entire balance of the game and makes for something truly excellent to play. If you tried it before 2.0, have another look at it. The writing is pretty good in the main game (though I've enjoyed many side missions more than the core content), and the DLC outperforms it by a long shot. It looks great, handles great, and performs fine (not without its issues). As far as big game titles go, this one's one of the better, braver ones out there, both very replayable, and with a story that doesn't talk down to you. There's quite a lot to say about it, and I'm sure quite a lot more will be said, so I have little new to add.
