Cyberpunk 2077 Review (「bloodpine」)
This game is an interesting one to review, given the conversation around it. As someone who played it two years after release, here are my thoughts on what the game is like in its current state, without any hype or rage attached to it. In short: I was pleasantly surprised. Like, a lot.
I picked this game up for cheap with low expectations. I expected something flawed but fun in a mindless way like Far Cry but I couldn't have been any more wrong. Cyberpunk 2077 is a game made with genuine love and care, with impressive attention to detail. The game was much more immersive and RPG-like than I thought it'd be, and the characters and story were top-notch. It reminded me a lot of Deus Ex and Fallout: New Vegas.
I think this game deserves special praise for being a AAA open world with zero padding. That is, you can ignore all of the side content and railroad through the main quest and finish the game in 10 hours if you really want to. The side quests are also extremely good though, and I was drawn to doing them solely because I found the characters and world fascinating. I think Night City deserves praise as an open world that feels hand-crafted and intrinsically interesting; nothing in it felt like mindless copied-and-pasted content to me.
Of course, your mileage may vary. This game is not GTA or The Elder Scrolls, and I think a lot of the disappointment that people have with this game even now comes from this fact. The driving isn't great, the pedestrian AI is basic, and you can't go into every single building. But I think that's fine. The game is a story-focused RPG and Night City is just there as the pretty backdrop in between missions. The real meat of this game is the narrative and characters.
For years I'd been hearing about how CDPR didn't "deliver on their promises" but after playing through the whole thing, I can't really say I feel that way. I had a blast and my only true gripe with the game is that it's unfortunately still riddled with bugs. You won't encounter anything game-breaking, but it is worth mentioning, so keep that in mind. Regardless of that though, I was still pleasantly surprised, and this is probably my favorite game I played this year. Long live Night City.