Mechanically, the game is pretty decent in terms of the ruleset. Technically it's alright too - a bit old-fashioned technology-wise compared to CRPGs that have fully 3D engines, and the backgrounds to the maps look pretty good for the most part. I found the writing to be excrutiatingly overdone, as if the writers somehow felt compelled to write everything in some kind of flowery, simile-ridden language. The game takes itself very seriously with very serious lore. Then there's having to camp all the time to recover spells and abilities. This seems to be a growing trend in modern CRPGs, but personally I find it tiresome. It turns gameplay away from tactics and more towards resource management. My other gripe is the prissy, easily-offended bell-ends who are the player character's companions. As the player character, you have to figure out which conversation lines trigger them and which ones stroke their egos, as well as keeping them well away from other companions with whom their personality conflicts. If you don't pay attention to this, they might take a huff and leave the party for good. One of the biggest problems with this system is that the reactions of companions to particular conversation lines rarely make much sense.
It's pretty obvious that the developers are a small indie outfit without a lot of resources, but they've managed to create an excellent CRPG with a decent amount of content for the price. The graphics are serviceable to good (in places) with some weird-looking faces, and on the whole it's easy on the eyes. It is, apparently, a pretty faithful adaption of tabletop D&D 5th edition (not that I know much about that). I'm not a big fan of the D&D-style mechanics such having to rest to recover spell slots etc. but despite this I had a lot of fun with the game, especially attempting to optimise my party's equipment for the final battle. Difficulty is a bit inconsistent, with some encounters that feel like difficulty spikes and others that feel too easy. On the whole, I'd say the game has an inverted difficulty curve, and gets easier towards the end. I look forward to whatever Tactical Adventures does next - hopefully to continue the story.
Elex has the Piranha Bytes trademark inverted difficulty curve: very difficult at the beginning, but becomes rather easy once you find the OP guns that stunlock enemies. Even then, you can still get smashed in melee combat if you relent on self-discipline. The RPG rules are fairly familiar to anybody who has played a Piranha Bytes game, where stats gate use of stronger weapons. If you don't meet the requirements, you simply can't use a weapon. I'm not sure if higher stats increase damage dealt by weapons. The world is large and detailed with four distinct biomes. Exploration is worthwhile, and there are a few secret areas to find. Graphically, Elex was not spectucular when it was first released and even less so now. However, it's colourful and easy on the eyes. Voice acting is serviceable. I don't recall it crashing much, if at all, so technically it's pretty good. Whereas many games have a simplistic choice to be made near the end of the game that determines the ending, dialogue choices throughout a given playthrough of Elex are what determine the ending, by essentially shaping the personality of the main character. I don't why I enjoyed Elex so much, but I suppose it has most of what I personally enjoy in a game. As such, I recommend Elex without reservation.
The story is a simplistic tale about punishing a usurper who has taken over a throne in a coup, and I never much cared about the outcome. Missions are repetitive. Most of the time, the most viable strategy is to pack most of your squad to the gills with a high-DPS short-range weapons. Then, camp behind an obstacle and take out the bad guys as they come into view one by one. It's advisable to outfit one of your squad with multiple LRMs, so that you can counter mechs indirectly targeting you and/or knock high-threat targets, which makes them easy to finish off. Any other strategy is sub-optimal on almost all of the maps. There are a bunch of overpriced DLCs, for those who enjoy being fleeced. Given the production values and general lack of content, it's worth buying in a sale only.
Storytelling, dialogue, music and atmosphere are the major strong points of Cyberpunk 2077. Night City looks beautiful for the most part, especially at night, and for the first 20 hours of so my first playthough I didn't feel like using vehicles at all. I took my time to take in the views, get distracted by gang shooutouts and pick up side quests and activities. I should say a bit more about the dialogue and storytelling. It's superbly written, and I was really quite emotionally invested in the story. There are a lot of great characters, and the dialogue really makes them come alive. I've seen a lot of a criticism online about the endings, but personally I think such criticism is not warranted, and the endings fit the choices you make. Combat is pretty good, but the game is not a straightforward shooter; if, at low level, you wander into a high-level area of the city, you can expect to get crushed. Combat wasn't very challenging except for a couple of difficulty spikes, even on Hard difficulty. I suppose I'll have another playthrough in a year or so on Very Hard. Some systems feel unfinished; for example, NCPD: they magically appear nearby if you harm innocent civilians, but they never give chase. If you break line of sight with them, they're no threat at all. Another example: traffic does not know how to path around abandoned vehicles. I experienced a lot of minor bugs, the worst of which forced me to save, exit the game, and reload on occasion. I didn't experience a single crash, though. I encountered some amusing animation / physics bugs, such an NPC mime artist sitting on an invisible chair in the middle of a road, with another NPC using him as a chair. All in all, despite the bugs, Cyberpunk 2077 is a memorable experience, even if it does not quite live up to the stratospheric levels of hype, and I can't wait for some kind of expansion that hopefully continue's V's story.
