Version 2.0 and the big DLC, Phantom Liberty, are out and for a lot of people Cyberpunk is back, baby. Unlike a lot of people I actually had a good experience with Cyberpunk at release. I didn’t have a PS5 and I didn’t have a good computer, but I bought the version on Stadia, which came with a free Chromecast and a free controller, and honestly, it played really well*. It didn’t look quite as good as the PS5/XBSX screenshots, but it looked and played well. I did run into some bugs, but not a lot. I put in a lot of time, but then puttered out as new games arrived and then just never went back.
With 2.0 enough stuff is different that I went ahead and bought it on sale for PS5 and I’ve been playing nothing but since. Will I ever finish FFXVI? Will I get into act 2 of Baldur’s Gate 3? Will Alex Chen ever have closure on the tragedy that took place at the end of the first chapter of Life is Strange 3? WHO KNOWS?! V NEEDS TO ZERO GONKS WITH HER CHOOMS, FUCKOS! VISIT THE RIPPERDOC CHROME UP TO RUN THAT EDGE AND ALSO THE NET AND FLATLINE SOME … SOME GONKS!
I honestly hated the anime. Dogshit animation. Most obvious story ever. Terrible backgrounds. Giancarlo Esposito phone it in in the worst way possible. AH RAH SAH KAH! I gave it a 4 out of 10 initially, since it at least had a good soundtrack and two standout songs, but then it went and won a bunch of awards over much, much better shows and I had to revisit it to give it a 2. So I was a little wary about jumping back in, but goddam the changes to stats and perks and how rep and skills are, are just so great.
On my first run I played as a high int deckhead (it’s too bad the game has no real netrunning, but not many cyberpunk games have, and the netrunning in Shadowrun was not great) and emptied out entire floors of bad guys without even walking into the building. It was a lot of fun, but this time I decided to go another way. Initially I went for Reflexes and Cool to be a stealthy ninja, but I have no patience for stealth, so I respecced my stats (which you are allowed to do once a run through, though you can cash out perks at any time) to be Reflexes and Tech and now I’m a metalhead samurai who goes in loud and solves every problem with a katana and a handful of grenades. Add in the sandy and I can kill six people before the first even realizes his head is missing. Double jumping and air dashing (yes, they’ve added air dashing) is such a fun way to find out of the way spots in the world, and reflecting bullets back at people with a katana never gets boring.
Out are perks that do things like ‘+.5% to control quickhack durations’ and in are big perks that do real changes (like bullet reflection, katana finishers, rages for body focuses characters, focus for rifle focused characters, quickhack queues so you can load a bad guy up with timed attacks and then go on to other things) and then secondary perks rated to the big ones that are just focused on making you look cool when you get the big perks. A new stat, mitigation, makes it more likely you will take less damage when certain conditions are met, and those conditions then encourage you to just do cool, stylish moves, like dashing into battle, or jumping on people from a distance, or use thrown weapons, or punch people so hard their heads fall off.
I’ve yet to get to the DLC, but everyone I know who has played it has said that what you do in the quests there are so different that it really changes things up in a good way. So I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve yet to catch up to where I was in my first playthrough, which had seen me through the Takemura line (such a dreamboat, why can’t I romance that silver fox?) and Judy and Panam, but I’m getting there. I’m also focusing on being nicer to Johnny this time, since I know the best endings are tied to getting his relationship to 70%.
Anyway, it’s great, so people should give it another try if they got burnt out the first time around.
*As a bonus, when Stadia died they gave me my money back, then unlocked Bluetooth on their controllers so I can use it when I plug my Steam Deck into the TV.