izigame.me

They did it. A solid and fun RPG today, but I think as time progresses, I think it will be eventually remembered as a beautiful and poignant story and piece of art, like how we view a classic work of literature today, like a Joseph Conrad novel or For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (both authors works are referenced which the writers make clear nods to). I'm so happy I played it and avoided all spoilers. Absorb the story and world as you would a good book or TV series.
The best way to describe the relationship of the main game and the DLC's attributes is using a real world analogy: If the main game (NC) is Hong Kong, then Phantom Liberty (Dogtown) is the Kowloon Walled City. If you think you knew Hong Kong, wait until you learn how insane the Kowloon Walled City was. Apart from the main themes of the Cyberpunk RPG like capitalism gone amok, I liked how the game raises a point how our mortality forces us to question our life choices and the meaning of life. And how time waits for no one.
What really shocked me was how well written and how fun Phantom Liberty DLC was, and how it even surpassed the main story line in story quality, characters and world-building at times.
Regarding lifepaths, personally I think corpo V is the best V since it narratively ties in very well with Arasaka and the price of being a corporate wage slave and the corpo opening scene is my personal favourite of all three, and it even gives the opportunity to show how bloodthirsty the world is and allow V's voice actor to show both strength and vulnerability in a single scene. Corpo V also has some great lines I love. But streetkid and nomad lifepaths also ties in very nicely with achieving your best, and the finding your family in life respectively. Each lifepath also gets 1 unique mission. But ultimately the lifepaths is mostly for flavour and does not affect V's main story in significant ways.
This game affected me quite personally. Some parts I even cried, or even felt that visceral rage at the injustice or powerlessness of some characters, which no other game I played has ever done before. Wonderful voice acting, character design, character animation, fun combat, music, world building. The last time I felt the same way was The Last Of Us released almost a decade ago, and that really got me to seeing video games seriously as a new emerging medium for good stories. And good stories do not necessarily must have happy endings, but good ones meant to provoke thought and feelings, and the writers understood that incredibly well.
I played Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, The Longest Journey, Dreamfall and somehow I feel that they taken the best parts of those games which are flawed in their own ways (some more than others) and put it into Cyberpunk 2077 and the DLC. Really helps that you get to pilot a robot in a point and click adventure style reminiscent of the Longest Journey. I was impressed that the DLC has that Cynosure horror level which also surprised me, a nod to their ability to integrate the psychological horror of Alien Isolation. Perhaps I'll go so far as to say it surpasses the quality and dread you will feel from the "Ocean House Hotel" level within Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Not to mention Judy's cabin mission and underwater level is unforgettable.
The music in this game is fantastic. Even the character creation menu has its own theme song, and that is one of my favourite pieces. There is even a Chopin piece played by Arasaka's sister, a complete break from the usual electronic or rock music played in the BGM and in world music. That should tell you how awesome the music is. You even get to hear some of Silverhand's band Samurai's rock music pieces. There is a whole station playing songs from Nina Kraviz as you drive through Night City. She even appears as a minor ripperdoc character, which is ironic because she is a trained dentist while V makes an offhand remark to Viktor that they feel like being at a dentist's.
This game had characters that talked like human beings, have their own fears and desires which drive their characters which drive the story. Cherami Leigh has delivered one of the best performances in this game as V, and she has acting range, from joy to anger to fear and despair, you'll feel every moment of it. It certainly helps that Keanu Reeves plays Johnny Silverhand and V's wingman, and is with you almost throughout the entire story, and it would be a completely different game without him throwing his opinions, grows as a character and has his plot brings in the same existential questions about the nature of consciousness as Soma did. I expected Idris Elba to become Stringer Bell from the Wire, but what I saw was a restrained performance of a conflicted and world weary government agent, but in a way that is realistic and still ultimately human. Carla Tassara as Judy really performed and gave one of the most heartbreaking and real performances I felt in a video game ever in one of the scenes, felt too close to home at one point that I had to stop and take a breather. Erica Lindbeck as Misty in both the main game and DLC as V's mother figure had her moments as well, especially in the storage room outside the El Coyote Cojo Bar (another extremely real scene) and also at the ending of the DLC on the staircase. Michael Gregory as Johnny Mnemonic's Spider inspired Viktor Vektor delivers some great scenes as V's father figure in the main game and DLC. The scene where Arasaka Sr and Jr are fighting in Japanese is on another level, like you are watching a forbidden family drama unfold in a foreign language. There are many more voice actors that bring in their best in this, so it is best you experience their performances yourself.
They got into some deserved criticism over game breaking bugs or over-promising in their marketing. But at this point, I think it just became irrelevant in hindsight with the eventual fixes and expectations becoming re-balanced after COVID. Also helped that the Cyberpunk anime on Netflix and DLC attracted new players who were previously uninterested in the game, and see the game for what it is: a masterpiece that needed more time for polish, minor features and fixes. They did not compromise on the story and characters and acting and world building, and that everything technical can always be patched in the end.
It is a shame that the REDengine it runs on will no longer be used in the next Cyberpunk and choosing Unreal instead: this game alone proves it can be used for horror, RPGs (Vampire the Masquerade cough cough with safe areas), racing etc.
I don't know how the team in CD Projekt Red pulled this off, but thank you for making a piece of art that will surely be remembered fondly for generations.
This review is borderline rambling because I'm speaking from the heart for the most part. It's better you experience it first hand yourself instead of watching someone else play it over YouTube because there is much more depth and beauty in this game that should be experienced first hand. If you're still skeptical, I can only quote Silverhand in Keanu Reeves's best scene in the game as he delivers his monologue (or manifesto? hehe), followed by his best line in the game: "You still don't see it. But you will one day." Every time I think about the ending of the DLC, see my world I live in and read the papers, sometimes that quote pops up now in my head reminding me how Silverhand is ultimately right in the end.