Its been a while since I did a game review and I waited on this cause i was hoping for updates to come out to flesh things out a bit.
Cyberpunk 2077 was definitely one of the most hyped games of all time. Which has set a extremely high bar and low margin of error for CD Project Red.
Based and taking extremely heavily from the pen and paper RPG Cyberpunk 2020 from R. Talsorian Games and written/created by Mike Pondsmith who I hold very highly as one of the top writers of Cyberpunk Science Fiction right up there with Neil Stephenson and William Gibson.
CDPR took Id say 80-90% of what Mike Pondsmith wrote and just changed the date. doing there own story lines and taking the fictional setting of Night City California and creating a Indredibly well created living breathing city that you could drive through the same area and not see the same thing twice.
But after that they missed the mark in so many ways. Blame the pandemic but so much of this was written before it happened that it just blows my mind that they cut out the heart of there own story line out.
I will warn you now there is going to be spoilers from here on out....
The big part of there marketing was that its a RPG where you can create "Your V" and yet when you look at the character creator and what was seen in the teasers to what you got to work with you really have very generic choices to the point where the NPCs of the city look more alive and vibrant than what your character will ever be. And this is beaten into you throgh the whole game if it wasnt for the modding community out there giving some vibrance to what you can do with "Your V" you really wouldnt want to use the picture mode to take snaps of your v till you can cover V up with various generic fashon and try to make the most of it.
Which i admit I had a lot of fun with despite having limatations and then really had a blast with the mods.
The story is really set in the setting the main story line was striped bare and so linear there isnt really much RPG element to it.
They used "Plot armor" so much in the core story line there really isnt much you can do and yet there id blatant signs they had intended to have a more. From betraying your fixer to ways you could do things the strip down hits you like a hammer so many points it would have been perfect to give you options and yet you pretty much are pulled through it like your playing on rails.
The main story line has a basic theme that is prevalent what I call Eastern block Cyberpunk which i have seen in many cyberpunk stories and games that originate in that region of Europe. "your screwed no matter what you do so just do it." kinda writing that I find terribly lazy.
The main story line has 3 main paths that your forced to do and choices made for you that are so predictable and boring I had to seriously question who had blackmail on who to let this story line be used.
Being forced to follow the path of dealing with the egosentric talking tumor of Johnny Silverhand and his weathervane sense of justice and saving the world that he pulls 180s on so much the things he was fighting against becomes "oh its cool cause this person is doing it" drove it to me that this writer really either had no editor or was pushed this way by production cause the inconssitancy was madning.
In the end "your V" is revealed to be "CDRP's V" cause any social choices you made were scorched away in most of the endings.
The secondary missions feel like they had an entirely different writer. You have choices that actually effect where things go from that point. This writing almost makes up for the pathetic main story. Helping Pamam, Judy, River and Kerry Eurodyne these stories really shine. These choices will open up possiblities in the endings you have access to but fall short in giving a really diverse series of endings.
Other side missions like Sinnerman Has great feelings of redemption and the core of the cyberpunk Genera powers that take advantage of the redemption.
The fixers for the most part and there very generic Fetch or kill missions Some are thought provoking but most feel like filler.
I did play through different life paths and other than one or two missions that are focused around that life path and then a few dialogue choices has little to NO affect on the main story and anything else in the game.
They took heavily on the original games characters and groups that Mike Pondsmith did all the work for them in the creation of the world and what lead to this point that a lot of that energy should have gone to game development and well writing a good solid story.
I am a big Keanu Reeves fan and his role as Johnny Silverhand the punk rock savior of the world.. even feels flat when he should feel angry it feels hollow when hes angst its dull as if the role was phoned in. Either his voice was heavily sound edited or it was a bad immatator cause it really didnt feel or sound right For a passionate for what he was doing while alive or as the AI construct.
So many of the other voice actors did an amazing job that it raises a lot of questions of the game development and how many corners were cut.
The game play is all over the place. The RPG improvement structure trying a few different builds. Ultmately really didnt change too much for me gave you a few different hacking options, could go terminator brute force your way through or ninja stealth with relative ease no matter what I chose for skills and perks
The AI is interesting it has moments of being brain dead and other points being rather well done the enviroment playing into effect where a enemy could be so focused on you that changes in the area like you killing one of its allies becomes a obstacle for them tripping over a body or fallen debreis. Others jumping over it or using that for cover gave me a moment of feeling there was thinking going on in the AI that gave me moments of what if there was this or that could have changed the outcome.
The Driving in this game is a tragedy for anyone that enjoys driving games every vehicle feels and handles about the same some have higher top speeds than others but if you drive a car they all feel the same you drive a motorcycle they all feel the same regardless if your on the road or off. that your driving on slick tires on a road of banana peels covered in gel.
The Police AI and crime system is so bad I wont go into it.
What really makes this game stand out is the city enviroment from the city center to the badlands this game really has the feeling of a living breathing city. The well to do having the gloss of chrome and neon then fading off in various directions Through each of the game plays I never used the fast travel system cause of this. I wanted to see the city. The people, the bars and shops I visited every one I could. This is going to be a standard for any open world game to live up to. At night it truly comes alive seeing various groups soclaizing around trash fires.. parties going on in the city center or concerts in some of the clubs. it feels like out of the 6 years of game development at least 4 was on the city alone. Granted there could have been more diversity in the advertising which again the modding community fixed that as well.
Many have seen the My V photos I took so far showing how I loved finding those rare jewels of the city. I plan on posting more in the future.
For all the easter eggs and stars that had there moments in the game like Hideo Kojima in a motel bar to seeing homages to movies like the Matrix, Terminator and Blade Runner (seeing the Roy Batty scene on a rooftop really blew my mind)
And of course seeing various characters from the Cyberpunk 2020 game like Rogue, Kerry, Rache Bartmoss and Lizzy Wizzy were great highlights for me.
In short if CDPR can fix a lot of the still lingering issues and maybe unlock some of the story choices that data miners have actually found still in the game just locked off it may become more than the dragging disaster since launch.
IF they would have just focused on the next gen systems and PC there wouldnt be as much bad press for this release catastrophe that was only made worse by the over hype.
I do love the game but... I have to be honest for all the hype it does fall short.. the story is dull the game play is scattered. But .. There are the bits here and there that have some redemption for this game that I hope in the near future they will fix and through DLCs bring out what was sorely missing from it.. Maybe they can still do a Witcher 3 and pull this out of the pit its in and make something of it that they hyped up for years.
Wow its been forever since I posted a journal well not much happened between then and now has there? (please dont throw things at me or fill my replies with what rock was I under this entire time )
To be honest its been a busy roller coaster that I wont bore people to death with. As those that follow me have noticed with things I mention in my posts Its been a lot of ups and downs and having good friends to lean on have kept me strong and on my feet through all of this.
Taking another full trip around the sun. Yeah the day that was marked with me being spawned has come again LOL I promise I will be good today.... Till im caught
I just wanted to thank everyone that has helped me in the last year for helping me stay strong and making me smile when I really couldn't. It's all of you that helped me get to this point and I coudlnt be luckier to have all of you
thank you everyone and Here is to another 365 days of friends new and old
Continuing on with my little game reviews. As my first one wasnt exactly the best game ever .. nor ever will be.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake is amazingly quite the opposite.
I will admit I'm a Final Fantasy fan girl so I may be a little biased on this.
First a little history for me and the Final Fantasy franchise my first taste was Final Fantasy 3 (6 in Japan) played on a dusty SNES that my brothers stopped playing as they had the latest and greatest system to date at the time.
Ive often said that Final Fantasy in general is a masters class in story telling from 8 bit origins simple blocky sprites able to convey such powerful emotions and masterful storytelling.
When 7 was released they left behind the Nintendo systems cause of the limitations of the system to the Playstation if they had the ability that today's systems have back then Im certain it would have looked a lot like todays remake does.
For those that threw a fit that it wasnt exactly like the original.. you want to play the original DL it off steam or get the cart from a reseller no one wants to pay full price for a scene for scene direct copy of a game you all ready played. (yes that is also a jab at rockstar for making people buy GTA V over and over again for the new systems.)
From the very beginning the nostalgia was over whelming the opening sequence mimicing the original the flying through Midgar and the arrival at the train station sets the tone for the rest of the game. The mix of cyberpunk and steampunk resounding in the theme of corporate controlled bleak multi tiered city where the population falls either to the slums below or the wage slaves on the plates living in seemingly a modern paradise.
I will admit the main story is solid but there are parts where everyone but the main characters just knew what was going to happen even before Shinra played their first card and this is regardless if you played the original or not. The over all story though is very deep and compelling. Well developed characters that you either loved or hated at the start and then changed opinions as things progressed and learned more about them.
And so many have complained about character changes... yeah you know who you are and what the issue was.
Settings are breathtakingly rendered although so many times I found myself getting lost as the map system is ok but not perfect especially if your trying to find a hard to find location.
I confess I have stopped in areas and just took in the scenery there is so much detail at points you just want to stop and take in the beauty. Also for me the curiosity of how or what is going on as you observe the city from various advantage points.
You will be doing a lot of back tracking between areas which is partially brought on by a compulsion to look every where after you pick up your first orb of materia on the ground in a random corner.
Also the fact that there will be points of no return that once you cross that point you cant go back. Your team will remind you if you missed something on the way and give you an opportunty to go back and get what you missed.
The Game play gives you options between Classic, Easy and normal with hard mode unlocked after your first play through. I played in normal mode most of the way through and found yes easy is way too easy but for many things get very busy in the fights and having some level of strategy against the boss's The fights at times were fustrating cause you have a lot of area to cover in some of the fights and the camera doesnt allow you to see what is coming at you so a lot of moving and turning to see where each mob is and in some of the later on boss fights where there are a lot of mobs you will have problems but find it over looked after you learn to adapt to the situation.
I confess I miss the summonings of the original where you could call upon various beasts to do a powerful attack and soften things up despite the fact that each summons was like a minute animation to up to 5 minutes and dragged on a fight for hours.
The new system you dont get to summon them unless its under certain circumstances and at that only one you can bring in to fight at your side for a time before they leave after a massive ending attack that depending on the summons can really pitch the fight into your favor to the point the challange can be lacking.
The music and audio is amazing and as all good soundtracks are set to evoke powerful emotions and nostalgia for those of us that played the original. Voice acting is mostly excelently well done with a few exceptions,
The ambient sounds and dialog of the NPCs and background noise does get repetitive and so many of those you talk to only have 3-4 responses at most so that does get annoying at times.
The ending comes way too soon and this is only at most the first disc of the original 4 disc game in total and streched out expanding areas you just brushed over in the original that does add a lot to the feel of the setting. Although some will get squeamish as there is a cross dressing scene and a few LGBQ characters that I thought were wonderfully done but others could have issues. For me it was something that added more to the game and more reality to the setting cause it just fit so well.
I definitely look forward to the next issue when its released cause this level of story telling leaves you wanting more. As all good stories Regardless if its a movie, tv series, book or game the ending leaves you with a feeling of loss leaving that world not to return. Although in this case you have to wait to go back when the next issue is released.
For those that havent played the original I highly suggest playing it although if you dont want potential spoilers then you will have to wait.
anyone on the fence on playing the remake I highly suggest playing it regardless if you played the original or not it is definitely worth your time and money.
And can I skip a couple stops?
Another Year has passed and yep its my Birthday. I will say the last 365 days have been nothing short of a roller coaster with a very long downward drop. But there is so much to go and going on despite it all.
I want to thank everyone for wishing me a Happy Birthday and thank you everyone that has supported me in the good times and bad. Ive said this many times before its the community of friends and everyone else here that makes me feel big
Really dont think I could ask for anything for myself with so much going on in the world I have a cousin in New York a RN that has come down with Convid-19 while helping others and being away from her Husband and children. And now with the recent tragedy here just miles from where I live in Minnesota. I think the only thing I can wish for is that a vaccine to be developed or better yet a cure for Convid-19 and that calmer heads and warmer hearts come together. Also that those that wish to make things worse by taking advantage of the situation to be caught and dealt with in the court of law
I hope its not asking for too much.
I hope everyone has a better day and many more to come :hug: