Shame spending that long on a video, when you can't even stick to basic facts, but have to parrot lies and other garbage you read by anonymous users on Reddit. Pathetic.
I also thought the lies were pretty egregious such as: Jackie's death was extremely predictable and didn't matter, your character feels like he has no real impact on the story, your choice in life path has literally no impact on the story, E3 spoiled the unavoidable plot twist that you have literally no power over, they give no real explanation about why Arasaka would download Jonny Silverhand onto a floppy disk when he's the one guy who has a deadly vendetta for the company even though that's a pretty major plot point, and that the game doesn't give us a real reason to hate Arasaka other than "business bad". Oh wait, that's all true.
In the August, 2018, game-play demo that featured character creation, you can choose V's childhood hero, one of the three being Johnny. Less than a year later, in June, 2019, they announced Keanu Reeves as playing a major role in the game. Meaning they probably re-wrote the entire story to fit with their new celebrity mascot's character. Entire scenes, dialogue exchanges and characters would have had to been thrown out or heavily altered to fit the new narrative-focus, all in 11 months. And they were more than likely still changing stuff up until release date. The way the mercenary life-style is venerated in Cyberpunk, by virtually everyone you talk to, tells me the game's story would have been a more 'rags-to-riches' style story, with V rising to the top and attaining 'fake' immortality via the relic. As opposed to what it is now; a tragedy where you help a parasite in your skull find closure.
And the point is that it was a huge mistake that they did it because it ruined what could have potentially been an engaging and interesting plot line that could have entirely changed the tide of opinion on a game that ended up sucking.
That was also the time when CDPR started virtue signalling about a certain L group and hire diversity hires. So yeah, within that year, something changed...
Actually, the reason why they make a copy of Johnny is because they couldn’t keep a copy of Alt Cunningham (supreme net runner). Johnny had saved her engram by releasing it from Arasaka Corp. Of course, he tells you all of this while engaged in conversation, as long as you have a somewhat healthy/ agreeable relationship with him. And I think that’s where a lot of people lose context of the story and the exposition. It’s easy to miss based off of choices, it’s also pretty much just told and not shown. So while the explanations are there, we don’t necessarily feel much from it when we find out.
Yeah I can see that being the case. They may have elaborated on that in dialogue but god mother fuckin damn am I going to sit through all of it. Thanks for keeping it civil.
@@ManleyReviews No problem sir, always available to share opinions and ideals. I don’t even know if a bunch of patches and future DLC could save this game? Perhaps, if it’s substantial content that is returned to the game… What was once cut out just to speed up the release.
@@odst123451 Johnny killed her body by accident without realizing the situation, yes. Back in 2013… But if you remember, she told Johnny that she was safe and could not be harmed, but she was still withheld under Arasaka’s system. Johnny freed her when he took the bomb to the tower in 2023, for he disrupted the entire servers’ mainframe with that explosion. Releasing/ freeing her was Johnny’s true motive besides all of the other bullshit that he preached. Alt even asked him not to come for her, for too many lives would’ve been lost for nothing in her eyes.
I'm fully convinced the whole story got altered once Keanu joined just so they can center the game around him and make him the psuedo main protagonist. I get that Silverhand is a major character in the franchise even dating back to the tabletop game but they really didn't need to center the whole game around Cortana Reeves
They should have honestly done something more like how David Bowie was used in Omikron. Like he's there for a song here and there as a treat to the player but also he's end game stuff. You don't know what's going on with Bowie or how he ties in at all until the very end. But like you said they just wanted to cash in on the celebrity and have him take as much screen time as possible in order to bait everyone.
I just realised why the intro is the best part and fleshed out of the story. Because it's the part where V is a character instead of a vehicle for Silverhand, and feels like it was made before the massive retcon. The chip, or perhaps even the whole heist might've been something else. Also why it felt like you skipped hours of content within the intro montage. And the part about Silverhand is good for lore, but doesn't justify digging him out from his grave and putting it in V's head.
@@d3fyne I just saw the old character creation preview. And my god, it is really shows the retcon. Silverhand was only one of 3 figures that was supposed to be your idol, other 2 being Morgan Blackhand and Saburo Arasaka himself.
@@traiforse5777 Know what the kicker is ? In the 40 minute gameplay preview shown back in 2018, while V is in her apartment, the radio clearly says that Silverhand died 1 year prior to the events of the game. He wasn't taken by Arasaka nor was he turned into some cyber ghost. He died of old age.
Tbh after finishing game and then immersing myself in the lore it started to make sense why story is the way it is and has no major impact. Key theme around Pondsmith's world is, The City always wins no matter what and whatever dream or ambitions you might have had also passes on like a wind. Not even Johnny Silverhand's literal nuke changed city or 4th corporate war. I agree they should've given better backstory and reason to hate Arasaka except big corpo bad trope. Also going back to Johnny he wasn't a terrorist by night. That was one mission simply. In general Johnny was also a merc just like V who was hired by Militech to bring down nukes on Arasaka tower with group whom Militech themselves formed and choose. He had personal revenge on Arasaka due to what they did to his ex or gf whatever that Alt chick is.
@@Error-000 i get that cyberpunk is about a dystopian future no one can change anymore, but the game sure makes you struggle to try to change it and even shows that it can actually be done, in the judgment ending (Panam) Arasaka is seriously hit after the heist, there's no way to confirm how much it was because of you and Alt or Yorinobu working from the inside to also take it down but Arasaka is in pretty bad shape anyway. V has 6 months to live after the ending, Alt's reason being that the body is just too damaged and Hellman's reason being that your psyche can only be transferred to a close relative, one contradicting each other since Alt can place V back into the original body even if it was pretty much already converted to fit Johnny's psyche and Johnny was transferred to V's body and can live pretty well if you choose to leave him there. So yeah, you shouldn't be able to change the world but after the game gave me so many reasons why I actually could, I don't like that it takes it back last second just to make the ending depressing, and Edgerunners has the same issue.
Shame he wasn't paying attention to the "awful other 3/4ths" of the game. I'm all for shitting on a game for what's wrong with games, but I've actually played it. He started the other routes that lead to the better endings before ditching them and rightfully getting a shit ending, and then complained about the obvious result of siding with Arasaka against all advisement being a shit ending.
I'm happy to see this finally being recognized. The cyberpunk genre has so much room for amazing storytelling with deep philosophical connotations but instead we get a story about "chooms" trying to make it big... That only makes sense as a street kid. If that's all you care about cool, but for the rest of us who were expecting an RPG, corpo life path, or a nomad life where you actually fix or soup up cars... Or to explore the depths of a cyber dystopia without the rails, it just wasn't there.
Yeah I was kinda hoping for some Blade Runner moments but once I saw it was all people with colorful costumes and action sequences I immediately stopped caring and never bought it. Seemed to me that it was just another GTA clone after that.
Yeah. I was expecting more of "making it big" in the context of V in their own lifepath and possibly experiencing Night City through their journeys, or experiencing the same story from different perspective, not necessarily just the Merc life. I'm quite convinced they had it all ready as a concept, but after making a deal with Keanu, they scraped it all and made sure to narrow every choices so Silverhand can get into your head, and the whole Black Mirror plot can happen. In the current game ending, they literally gave us "You have cancer." and our choices are basically: 1. Kill yourself 2. How will you spend last 6 months (Like a generic cancer movie plot) 3. Donate your body to Silverhand
@@MikoyanGurevichMiG21 Only the first one really scratches the itch, and the nameless mod. Human revolution was pretty blah as soon as you got past the first section.
Agreed. I bought it around 2 months ago. Very disappointing, plus the graphics are still not optimised well at all. Not even when I checked around 2-4 weeks ago.
When I played Red Dead Redemption 2, I was immediately immersed in Arthur Morgan’s world. From the very beginning, I felt like I was stepping into his shoes-understanding him not just as a character but as a deeply human figure. His personality, his past, his moral struggles, and his bond with the Van der Linde gang were masterfully woven into the story. It wasn’t just a game; it was an experience of being Arthur, living his life and making his choices. In contrast, playing as V in Cyberpunk 2077 felt hollow. Instead of stepping into a fully realized character, I felt like I was controlling a lifeless puppet. V’s personality came across as flat and uninspired, lacking the depth needed to forge a connection with the player. The side characters, who could have added richness to the world, often felt like mere placeholders-forgettable and unengaging. Where RDR2 thrived in creating a living, breathing narrative, Cyberpunk 2077 felt like a missed opportunity to bring its protagonist and supporting cast to life.
This was a gem of a find. I've seen lots of eloquent, longer essays on this game- but sometimes its worthwhile to keep it short and to the point. You're a talented editor, and some of the skits/cutaways were superb. Thank you for the video.
No thank you for taking the plunge and watching it! It's encouraging to hear that this came across exactly as you described it. I too, have seen a ton of eloquent longer format video essays but they always bore my squirrel sized attention span. Thanks for sticking around, and we're just getting started on this channel.
The first 8 hours being the best part of the game fits *really* nicely with the similar time limit pre-release-day reviewers had to play. Tinfoil hat time
Huh?! First 8hrs are ok. But you don't investigate politician being brain washed. Nor how a man decides to atone by performing a crucifixion. In the main story. Lots of complaints miss the mark. Ngl Jackie was great and having some more time with him would have made a story better and longer.
But it doesn't take into account how awful these 8 hours actually are gameplay wise. Everything is just a drawn-out, boring mess on rails without any exciting game mechanics or freedoms. And even story-wise you don't connect to anyhing because the game doesn't let YOU develop your character and relations to other characters.
As someone who has played this game for 200+ hours and beaten it two times, I figured why not sit and watch this video (I actually came from another video of yours on Why Games Don't Feel The Same, awesome video by the way!) I also think that this video is amazing, great editing and well placed actually funny jokes throughout, amazing stuff man. Off the bat, I will agree with many of the points you made about the plot. The Panam bit was honestly comical and it does seem like a waste of time when you put it that way. However, I genuinely enjoyed the plot of her section of the game and I didn't mind the little beef that she had with Saul. It allowed you to meet all of the members of the Aldecados camp, see their opinions and takes on the situation and see how they live and operate as a tribe. I felt that at the end of the whole thing when you help them mend their relationship and you become an official Aldecado and get that jacket, it all seems worth it. The point about Arasaka was honestly eye opening because across the whole game, you are absolutely correct in that you really never see them actively antagonize anyone. I did want to point out though that I think it was intentional to leave out the details of the corporation and its origins as that is lore that can be read more into if you read the official sourcebook for the game. I agree that it would have made a great improvement to add more of those details in the game but it wasn't there, unfortunately. Nevertheless, you are absolutely right about the actual citizens of Night City, they seem to be reserved and used to the situation at hand, if not even comfortable. I also wanted to note, I feel that the Kerry Eurodyne and River Ward side missions were absolutely amazing and should definitely be mentioned if you are going to talk about the game. I won't spoil anything here but those quests are definitely worth playing. The Kerry Eurodyne story ties in well with the Johnny Silverhand plot of the game and gives a bit more about their history and new future with each other. The River Ward storyline honestly could have been its own game to be honest, its pretty great. Last thing, I saw you mentioned how the punk aspect of the game was supposed to reflect on how you advance technology and apply it to things in a sort of makeshift way but they function as necessary (paraphrasing). Did you see the Aldecado's vehicles and the interiors / exteriors of them? I feel like that is the epitome of what you are referring to. All of those buttons and dials and the Crystaldome windshields turning into glass, its all high tech stuff but it is clearly visible and juxtaposes the rugged base of the cars and vans that they drive. It's pretty amazing to see first hand. Overall, with all this said, I want to end with saying that your video was amazing, even if there were things here and there that I didn't agree with. You made excellent points that definitely should have been given second looks and I am proud of you for it. I probably would not have noticed if you didn't.
Agreed but what he was saying and what most of us know is there is only bits and pieces of good stuff in this game not enough to patch it all together to even make a used cyberpunk jacket ! Lol
He also suggests WE the player have no reason to go after Arasaka though, which is just a flat out lie. Story wise, they built the tech that's eating our brain alive, in Cyberpunk (as in the universe not the style, the -verse actually came first, I'm not sure why he couldn't figure that one out) Alphatech (it's a newspeak term from the tabletop for technology in development) is so complex and new that unless you built it or knows someone who helped build it (or have an AI from behind the wall, which all seem to be basically magic-tier infinitely smart super-beings), you have no way of understanding, repairing, or in this case removing it if it's doing something. Which the narrative explains why you can't just ask for help nicely (and 1 of the endings, apparently the only one he bothered getting before posting this cringetastic review, even shows why you shouldn't bother working with Arasaka anyway), and leaving it alone means a very unique kind of death. Narratively, you see Arasaka execute an entire space council for being inconvenient during the Corpo intro (which he mentions and just casually blows off), and otherwise Arasaka is regularly said and occasionally shown to be doing some nightmarish things. Kidnapping people off the streets to use as test subjects, violently executing anyone who gets in their way (which we see multiple instances of in various states of progress), murdering people in the streets for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (you do get to see a victim of this in one of the NCPD side missions). They have their own street gang as a holdover from a previous conflict from one of the tabletop games, who still regularly mugs people and runs a protection racket while exclusively using Arasaka manufactured weapons. They're openly Japanese imperialists keeping stolen land on American soil, something we begrudge China for doing to India IRL. Their leadership is also all by the real definitions of the terms, racist xenophobes with a bad case of nepotism. Oh, and their not-actually-dead head is a body jacker who steals his own son's body in one of the endings. Not all of these are reasons the story itself entirely agrees with, but they're all the reason I need to hate them personally.
@@KiraSlith we the player don’t give a shit about a busted SD card in our head how am I supposed to care about that plot point when it doesn’t even impact the gameplay. It’s like “oh nooooo wait who cares can I have a better antagonist yet I just want to check out the word and treat it like futuristic skyrim”
The thing that hurts the most is how much better fleshed out the side content is. The Main Story feels incredibly rushed, has little to no impact on the world, and kinda just ferries you from point A to point B without letting you take in the world.
exactly how can i get better rewards for doing side quests quietly but cant even keep Jackie alive if i go through the effort of going through the entire tower not getting detected once shit game design thats how
slight nitpick but the ending where you Side with Arasaka practically turns the world into cruelty squad where death is no longer a thing. and people (and by people i mean the extremely rich) can now live forever
Wait, how do the endings have little impact on the world. Literally nothing had had more impact on the world than V. You can essentially destroy Arasaka which is the biggest and most powerful corporation in cyberpunk. You can also side with it and guarantee that it will remain the biggest baddest Corp under the same man for basically forever. And this does not even include the phantom liberty dlc.
The issue of the player's initial ascension through the criminal underworld being reduced to a montage cutscene... highly suggests that the story was retconned late in development; that when Keanu got involved, they had to retool the entire story. Because the way the game is set up, it very much looks like it was going to be a GTA IV cyberpunk edition sort of thing, where you start out as some unlucky random person at the bottom, and gradually get more and more involved in higher stakes criminal activity, before it all blows up into something more significant in the final act. Essentially, it smells suspiciously to me like the intro... used to be the entire story, but properly fleshed out, with the mysterious chip job being the finale, or at least the mid-point cliffhanger, but then they had a big celebrity character and had to do extensive rewrites. Let this be a warning to anyone writing books, games, films, whatever; the ones that work the best and satisfy the audience the most? Are the ones that start small, and stay focused, even if they become much bigger over time. An "epic" story isn't a mountain; it's the climb up the mountain, starting at the bottom... and the most epic feeling the audience has? When they're able to look back down the mountain and see the entire journey behind them.
Imma keep it 300. That sounds so much better. Like being a pennyless bum, living in mama wells backroom. Actually meeting Vik and Bug for the first time and growing the relationships with them. Getting involved as you go from basically an unknown to growing and becoming well enough that it makes sense that new. More wealthy fixers seek you out. (As opposed to, "ah, I see you've driven into my section of the city. Allow me to introduce myself, because our criminal organisations are all about inclusiveness and geotracking.) Like shit. Could have made the backstories much more important to the story.
I don't think this is entirely accurate. Look at the success of Cyberpunk. After most of the bugs have been patched, almost everyone is like "weLL I haD a BLasT". Truth is, people just want graphics in their game and perhaps one-two tear-shedding sidequests. Nobody really cares about the story and the reality is that even after this very botched release, with most quality features missing, Cyberpunk still is one of the top-selling titles on Steam. Even if they completely botched the story, as per their margins, the audience is very satisfied.
@@alex1stamford779 "Nobody really cares about the story" Eeh, sure. Because it's not like nearly all the most beloved games of all time are story-heavy or anything. "Even if they completely botched the story, as per their margins, the audience is very satisfied." Would that be why the game is desperately 50% off on sale multiple times every year?
I guess that technically doesn't conflict with pondsmith saying that Johnny was always going to be on the chip, but he himself has said they didn't really change the main story much, if at all.
The media focused on the bugs because it was easier than realizing that they had fallen victim of CDPR marketing and that they had given glowing reviews to a mediocre game. If anything, SOME bugs made the game more fun (not those that broke quests or crashed the game)
Focusing on the glitches is giving this game a pass it doesn't deserve. But even focusing on the plot doesn't address the issue that the gameplay feels like a mediocre GTA knockoff from the PS3 era.
@@JackPorter It's entirely hyppocritical to make a story focused on anti-corporation and force-feed it to you, considering this game might as well be the biggest corporate slop from CDPR with the heavy crunches and low quality control. Meanwhile, GTA 5 knew what it was making, and ended up being more fun.
Pretty spot on. The game has been sitting on my shelf for about a year, collecting dust. When I beat it, it crashed again, during the credits. Couldn’t even get through credits. That pretty much sums up my cyberpunk experience. You’re right. Even if all of the bugs were removed, it wouldn’t fix the story.
that is the point though, you are a person in a world that moves on without you, you arent some groundbreaking godlike protagonist. you will be forgotten and nothing you do matters, is the point of the game. it makes perfect sense, I dont get how everyone here is so lost
Considering that CDPR advertised that Cyberpunk was going to have a story where our actions and choices would affect the story/matter and that their would be non linear quest design, having a main story where what we do is pointless and V is just forgotten makes no sense. Seems more like CDPR scrapped whatever story they had planned to make a new one where Sliverhands is heavily involved when Keanu joined the game.
@@unknownlogicman9399 this is pretty funny to me. Before the revamped update, the story was "boring, repetitive, and *every action does not matter to the ending*". The bugs, the quality of releasing, and the high expectations tanked the game down to oblivion. But then, a while after the update, an anime based on the game released quite later, Edgerunners, not only is positively reviewed, but also saved the game's legacy as a whole. And the story is about David Martinez, a character that existed in the game itself, hailed as "legend" in the world of Cyberpunk, but throughout the story, David reached to the rank and later on died saving the people he loved while struggling to find a reason to live, as if nothing he does even matters. Legends dies at some point anyway. So, we reach to one conclusion: Cyberpunk the game is about the cycle of life, we live to the heights, pursuing all means of goals, even if we're slowly killing ourself, and ended up being nothing but remembered with your name on a drink. Even V is overpowered at some sort, being able to beat Adam Smasher so damn easy, and that's it. Living like hell yet longing for the wishes people left you behind, and anything, we still die after all. Well then. Is this a case of "How Cyberpunk ruined storywriting" or "Cyberpunk's brilliant writing"?
I’m still amazed how I only spent a week and half playing this game, beat it once, then moved on and never went back to it again. This was easily my biggest gaming disappointment ever.
I can't even be bothered to finish the game. I got to the point of no return expecting to at least play the rest of the game without interruptions or stupid cutscenes, but V just had another seizure as soon as I met the Japanese woman. After that I was done. Game doesn't want me to interact with the world. But when I do its shitty fetch missions, I get interrupted with seizures and cutscenes that I don't care about.
@@Tommybotham this might make me look bad but I didn’t finish it either lmao got to like the last mission and just didn’t give af enough just UA-camd the endings on 2x speed and was like “yup they did basically what I thought was going to happen”
You described every game i ever play lol. Skyrim, 1 and done. Fallout 3,NV,4 1 and done. Witcher 1 2 3 ... one and done. Mass Effect 1 2 3 one and done (actually no i played mass effect 2 a second time through just to see if i could get everyone killed accept Morinth in the final mission. spoiler alert, YOU CAN! and then she kills you LMAO) hmm oh Zelda games? 1 and done. every Souls/bloodborne/knockoff ... one and done. OH GTA 3? VC? SA? 4? 5? ONE AND DONE! Of all the greatest games of all time ive played 95% of them only one time through. and enjoy that time. and have no desire to go play it again. Same thing with movies. i only watch movies once. Mostly because i have good memory maybe? Just starting to think about a game or a movie and i can basically replay the whole thing in my mind again, so i dont need to watch it again, so i dont. That doesnt make any of them bad. Its a very normal way to consume entertainment. Cyberpunk was good. i loved it.
@@uncletrashero Yeah see I'm not like that. Most of those games you've mentioned that I myself have also played I've done a multitude of playthroughs of because I wanted to enjoy a similar experience to what I experienced the first time playing it once more. And when it came to the more RPG-esque games you mentioned, I played them again because I wanted to try out different builds. That said, with the few great games I have done a single playthrough of, I still definitely looked back fondly on my experience of it, the clearest example of this being RDR2. I thought it was a great game (for the most part), but I tried playing it once again and it just didn't do much for me. I think a lot of it had to do with just how incredibly long it was. That said, I still definitely thought the game had a great story with great characters and fun gameplay and absolutely incredible dedication to realism and detail. When it comes to Cyberpunk though, my reluctance to do another playthrough was due entirely to me just feeling quite underwhelmed by the experience the more I continued to reflect on it. I did enjoy the experience for the most part when I played it the first time, but I think in retrospect a lot of that was just due to me hyping myself up for the game. The more I thought about the game though the more the glaring issues in it became increasingly more apparent and the more I in turn began to dislike it. And this was my own personal take on it, not biased by the views of others. Anyways, if you liked/loved Cyberpunk, then more power to you. I on the other hand feel basically the same way as Manley Reviews does about it though. Maybe not quite as harshly as he does, but pretty damn close. The story really really doesn't hold up well to closer scrutiny IMO.
It’s so bad, I’m on my first play through and within 5 minutes of Keanu showing up I could feel the quality of the game dropping so fast I just gave up and stopped “playing”
I would argue that cyberpunk story revolves around V being unable to accept his lot in life. Arasaka isn’t the antagonist, V is. As all their trouble is self inflicted.The prologue is the result of him trying force his way up night city food chain. The main story is about him accepting his own mortality. Depending on your ending either V comes to term with things or keeps going on spiral of self destructive behavior.
That’s what I got out of it as well. It’d be nice if they at least fleshed out Jackie’s role in the story more and add more meat to the story line the game would’ve a bit better. Obviously, glitches, bugs and all aside.
James, I like your analysis of the story. Myself, I struggled finding an understanding of the story until I read some random comment on Reddit which set off a lightbulb for me. The way I like to view it now is that V arrives in Night City with no friends and over the course of the game he makes a network of friends, and the final mission is all about that friend network: do I risk my friends’ lives by asking for their help, or do I go it alone? And, during the end credits we get video voicemails from people we met throughout the game and find out how our decisions impacted them. At the beginning V is a lot like Johnny, a selfish prick… but in the end, like Johnny, V grows to care about others. After I saw the game in that light, I saw that story idea in every corner and shadow of Night City… Honestly, Cyberpunk is the first game where I actually listened to every line of dialog without fast forwarding. And, by the end, I cared about the characters. No game has made me do that before, and I’ve been playing games since the early 80s.
Your entire journey is driven by the fact that you are dying, I think it's safe to say that the main plot of the game is about survival and not about a battle between you and corporations (namely, Arasaka).. which is what this video so disappointingly missed..
That's a Shit "RPG" Story Hook. The very fact you referred to V as a Him rather then them shows that There Will only Ever Be one V CDPR's V, We were Given V and But not Given the Choice of what kind of V. And Not Just The Sex Of V But Idea of Them As Well, Who are they, what do they want and more importantly why? These are core to a R P G and are not negotiable or at least to this extent. All of this reminds me of Fallout4's Sole Survivor. And Bouncing Baby Boy 74 year old with cancer crap.
Worst thing to me was the "branching storyline and your decisions ripple through it" lie. But yeah everything else you mentioned was right up there. Felt like every lifepath was streetkid after intro with dialogue illusion to justify it, ugh
Street kid is an archetype in the tabletop rpg. It’s got bigger connotations than the literal words. It’s an iconic background when making characters for the ttrpg. There’s a lot more nuance and reverence to the canon that wouldn’t be readily apparent if you aren’t familiar and think of “cyberpunk” as a more loose dystopian concept rather than the literal setting the game is based in.
@@ryandugan9176 I get what you're saying, but it I don't think you understand what the dude is saying. tldr: It doesn't matter what lifepath you choose at the beginning of the game, the game as a whole seems like it's shoehorning you down the Streetkid path.
@@TornaitSuperBird exactly what I was saying, thanks! If you play as corpo suddenly all your contacts are gone or treating you like you're dead. Nomad suddenly has connections in the city and knows a lot about how things work in just 6 months? Wth? And all 3 paths end up with same car and apartment even though corpo grew up in charter hill and street kid grew up in heywood?
I played this game and really wanted to enjoy it, but after a few hours of playing, I just couldn't do it anymore and so I set the game down and never played it again.
Something funny is if you look back at Fallout 3. One of the major issues people had was the ending that railroaded you in with many possible outcomes that didn't need you to just die for the sake of story. Cyberpunk's team though, " That's a great idea, let's do it in spades!" For an open world game I never felt so compelled to stay on track to the point it was nauseating.
to make an rpg that ends with main character's death is one thing and relic being responsible is not a bad choice but cyberpunk is not an rpg it's an action looter shooter with everengineered mechanics you as a player, as V the legend of night city who gets to meet all other legends... have no influence ofer anything
I'm surprised there was no comment on the part in the Arasaka ending when you got through an hour long torture scene where Johnny is chewing you out and insulting you for making what, at this point in the story, is a very reasonable decision. He goes as far as to say Jackie would be pissed at you even though he had no investment in Arasaka whatsoever.
@@kinga.t.242 Maybe not but in this world that’s a known risk for committing a crime, Jackie wouldn’t immediately decide to kill them all just because they turned on him.
You mean V siding with the corp that makes the lives of his friends and family into walking future collateral damages, living in constant fear of drawing their ire by towing the line of legality just to make a living while Arasaka bleeds them to fund their war with Militech? Yeah, no reason to hate them at all
I've always been saying that bugs were minor problems compared to the rest of the game. And now that CDPR has patched some glitches (despite taking them 2 years to do so), people are bootlicking the shit out of CD Projekt, ignoring the scam and all of the unfulfilled promises just because of the anime.
Man, I wanted to love this game. I tried. Steam says I got 260 hours in it. Sometimes I enjoy just taking a drive through Night City, but I always felt like an outsider in the city. A tourist. I wasn't allowed to make a difference. There's a line in the TTRPG handbook that explains a lot of the mentality. "Style over substance." Cyberpunk as an IP has this weird obsession with nihilism. They treat nihilism and edgy detachment as enlightenment. Things go wrong even when they should go right because they start from the position that things are terrible ("wrong city, wrong people") and work backwards to make events further that message. It was never about the content of the story, it was about the story being a vehicle for the aesthetic and the tone.
I think that fits the theme of the world of cyberpunk. We are just some rando merc who got lucky and is trying to claw his way out of hole we put ourselves into. Life just goes on, we are not the savior, the dragonborn or Commander Shephard we are just some kid who is trying to survive after a botched heist even on the ending were v survives life just moves on.
Correction, it just means we aren't destined to be heroic like Shepard or the Dragonborn. But that also means we aren't destined to be helpless, either. V could still be a hero, they just aren't fated to be so or set up as the hero from the start. That's what I mean by the arbitrary nihilism. Nothing is actually stopping V from making meaningful change except the haunting specter of Mike Pondsmith and the "style over substance" philosophy.
Its supposed to highlight rampant, mindless consumerism. Its not nihilistic and "style over substance" for no reason. It shows how vapid Western culture is and what it could become with an economic model that incentivises consumerism. There are overly sexualised ads for that reason, weird obsessions with pop stars etc. It is the epitome of idealising celebs and consumerist fashion while ignoring all the suffering around you. Its just a glam funky hit piece on capitalism.
I hate how many insane fanboys this game has. It was okay to play for the first time but people calling this a masterpiece that they cant stop playing makes me start to hate this game.
Over a year later, I played this game. I tend to be a "I couldn't care less" kinda guy with the stories in games and movies, so I went through it like "Yeah, yeah whatever, look at this city tho!" The meat and potatoes of the game really are in some of the side quests. A whole ass conspiracy about mind controlling people, rogue taxi AI's, the fucking abduction of kids and stuffing them into a cow farm (this one still makes me feel a little sick), the jesus plot. A bunch of the side quests feel good, the main story to me was more like, yeah okay.
Even the random quests you get by just going around is more fun than the main story. On my second playthrough I found mysel doing all possible side quests before the next main story mission and man, I was kinda bummed out when I was done with side quests
They should've just went "Bethesda" route and made the main "plot" rudimental and largely irrelevant, so the game could focus on the side content instead
The most frustrating sidemission for me was saving the cyberpsychosis victims. You go through the trouble to keep them alive with the initial promise to get a cure out of it and in the end it was all POINTLESS.
its because "cyberpsychosis is a curable disease" was a last minute decision by cd projekt red. In the original tabletop game, Cyberpsychosis was meant to keep players from installing too many cybernetics, unfortunately the plot reason for this is "disabled people cease to be human"
@@Ultrasemen That's... exactly the freaking point? Cyberpsychosis is made up to cover for systematic failures - Vet with PTSD, Militech agent put on performance drugs by the corp, etc.
@@selina7318 right, but in most cases there were no issues, it was mostly stuff like revenge or even self defence. Like an auto shop owner in Glen who had corpos try to take away his business with fake debt or something like that. In original lore, cyberpsychosis in much more interesting - it's the reaction to the fact how imperfect normal humans are. For example, you install implant that boosts your reaction, now everyone is annoyingly slow. With every implant, you lose a bit of your "humanity".
Man it’s insane the amount of work that you put in this video. I imagine this type of quality only from multi-million subscribers channel. You’re great
Coming back to this once more. Still consider it to be one of the best reviews Cyberpunk has gotten to date and one of my favorites in general. An amazing presentation all-in-all, genuinely love you dude and wish you the very best!
Go look at CyberStuffXR, JDTechGear, or Hello Future Me’s videos on Cyberpunk, way more accurate and in-depth with the narrative breakdowns, pointing out both strengths and weaknesses readily
I regret this purchase so much. I regret even knowing and being involved with the conversation at all but in my opinion … I do not like this game. Choice does not matter, you do not get to choose the path of your character, you do not get to develop your own unique character in this world. This game is a linear game pretending to be an open world RPG. People defend it because they love Keanu Reeves IMO. I like Keanu Reeves but it doesn’t mean I will hype a game that sucks. Character creations in first person, you must be joking. Character development in a linear storyline that has no choices or character development? They need to just be honest and call it a AAA action game. If they had been honest about what it was, if the fans had been honest about what it was, I would have never gotten the game, had an opinion, or even been involved in the conversation.
Relate heavily to this. It’s slop, but slop I’ve invested too much into to not play. Despite everything I despise about it basically being summed up in this video.
Great arguments, editing, cinematics, and references throughout. All this and more add up to a total weekend score of 47/50, giving "The Bugs in Cyberpunk Never Mattered" a total MonteScore of 93/100. This places high on the list and simply is a great review, ranking with other similar videos like "Oprah is trying to sell $160 log carrying bags" from the same creator and the AoT Abridged which Manley subtly references in this piece. For more of my thoughts on "The Bugs in Cyperpunk Never Mattered", be sure to check out my post on GameTrader where I go into more detail about why this review might be paving the way for LED neck fashion.
The way I always imagined the game went is once you insert the chip with Johnny's engram, his memories and motives slowly leak into V. So at first you're really only against Arasaka because V has their chip and is threatened by death. But after slowly transforming into Johnny, Arasaka becomes the true enemy because that's what Johnny truly believes. Johnny's motives are definitely lacking though.
@The Summer Company That is what happens. It's said in the game that you're slowly becoming more like Johnny. You as V don't hate Arasaka because Arasaka isn't the antagonist, but because of Johnny you might to start to hate them. At the end of the day it's the players choice on what to do, but they give a good reason as to why V would go against Arasaka.
@@chainsaw8507 I never really got the impression that I was becoming more like Johnny. In fact, other than the cut scenes where Johnny takes over, it never feels like Johnny is integral to my interactions with other characters and other than some sideline commentary which I can choose to ignore or go against. The game can't just say that I'm becoming more like Johnny. It has to actually show that and it doesn't. It's the old saying of "show don't tell," that applies to any good story.
@@darkmojojojo The game does show it. Johnny talking to you is just a visual representation of his thoughts fighting yours. It's your choice to embrace those thoughts or not, but him talking to you is the games way of showing you the effect he has.
@@chainsaw8507 No, that's Johnny's engram talking because he's literally inside your head. It's no different than someone outside of your own head influencing your actions. If there was something that happened where V said or did something that only Johnny would have done and then another character commented on it and V realized that was out of character of them, that would be showing. That doesn't happen. V is always in control other than the few times they let Johnny take the wheel on purpose.
@@darkmojojojo Nah, it actually is that. They literally say in game that Johnny talking to you is just how V's brain is interpreting it. Having someone talk to you at all times when making choices will and effect on anyone's judgment. The reason V doesn't do anything out of character is because you decide what V does. You decide what's out of character for your V.
what people dont realize about cyberpunk is that even though all the bugs are fixed now and there new dlc and everything, buying the game is still a company making money on a product they released unfinished, this happened with skyrim and even the witcher 3, and the problem is only ever going to continue to escalate so long as these games keep making money
I've actually watched it before funny enough! I think I actually took inspiration from your thumbnail as well when I was shopping around for thumbs. don't downplay it bro your contents great!
God, the Jackie spoiler in the marketing was just straight up garbage dude. I was over here thinking, “Nah, that’s probably just one outcome, or very late in the game.” But nope. When the game dropped, I legitimately reloaded save files for about an hour trying to figure what I did “wrong” to get him killed.
The game was supposed to be about you and Jackie taking iver the city, one way or another. They collapsed that idea once Keanu came into the picture. That little montage in the begining...that was our game, the game we were supposed to get. But they were like "Hey, see this? Fck you, you're not getting that. Here's Cortana Wick to bland your way throughout this empty city that we made."
I really loved the characters and I understand the futility of it all, because I believe it's a good mirror to real life... That said, I agree that logically falls apart from a gameplay perspective. Still love the game overall and wished for more time with Jackie, Judy, PanAm, etc. Wished ending could have been bigger for night city itself
@@ghastlyghandi4301 no it wont the story in CP is easily one of the best stories iv seen in any game i ever played the guy who made the video misinderstood the whole story and the point of it
@@ghastlyghandi4301 i played more than 500 video games and even more name a story driven game and i probably played it if i really have low standards can you give examples why the story is bad
After finally getting to play the game to the end, i was desperate to find someone who knows like me that the writing is absolute horseshit and CDPR fucked us over.
@@ManleyReviews not to mention that half of the story is missing, the story missions were about 15 hours long, thats the lengh of just 1 Witcher 3 dlc, compared to Witchers 3 50hrs of story in the base game, thats without side quests. CDPR claimed that the story was only slightly shorter than witcher 3. You go from the prologue and get teleported to late mid game, the whole first half of the game is missing and gets relegated to a 6 months montage. Edit : just noticed that you cover that in the video, but thats one of the game gripes, they clearly cut the story and gave us a far shoter one than they originally intented but they ran out of time.
@@ManleyReviews You missed the part where many of the story points and lore are not from CDPR but from MIke Pondsmith the creator of the Tabletop that the game is based off of, he made Johnny a Rocker/terrorist and he named his tabletop Cyberpunk 2020 and created the worlds story/characters ect which is why CDPR named a cyberpunk themed game Cyberpunk 2077, its supposed to be a sequel to the story mike pondsmith created for his 2020 table top.
Also it's funny how the character creator was so propped up as well as the clothing system, but the whole game is in fpp. At least make the cutscenes tpp so you can see your character.
I know I'm 7 months late to this, but this video is fantastically made. The editing, cohesiveness, and jokes all flow really well together. I also love that you're not afraid to joke without a filter.
This made me think about what the story could've been. Each life path could have led down a different story route that all had V eventually either come in contact with the chip or be involved in something that leads to V going to mikoshi. Like a nomad in the bad lands dealing with nomad clans, wraiths, raffenshiv, corporations, etc. A corpo rat dealing with competitors, espionage, corporate secrets, etc. And a street kid dealing with rival gangs, street conflict, drug deals, etc. Each route would have you develop with different characters the game could've had a large cast of characters to get to know. and it would never be the same game no matter how many times you play because all 3 routes have 3 different possible endings.
i believe it was to be one large tale that got split up as a street kid V meets jackie and then becomes a corpo dog in corpo prologue V get's kicked out and runs from the city to join nomads after that bakkers sell out to corpos and V comes back to night city in one last smuggling job meeting jackie after a long time all of those things were to be a part of something greater that line from teaser? "we have a city to burn"? never happens game promised was something completely else from what we got
No man, I disagree. This made-up version of what could've been was literally the production studio's job. The fact that it was so bad that a normal gamer like you or me could literally type a better idea into the UA-cam comment section means the developer's multimillion project gets zero benefit of the doubt that they could've made something good out of this project. Clearly anyone with a head on their shoulders would've gone with something closer to what you've described. And this company had $ MILLIONS to get some basic stuff correct. For whatever reason it was, it's clear this game was NEVER going to be good in these developers' hands. Don't do their job for them, they were paid more than enough to create trash.
@@timstalam But you know that your version isn't better? For example guy above is dreaming about making three games and releasing it as one, or making again mistake that was chapter two of witcher 2, but on much bigger scale. "Normal gamers" rarely have any good idea for games as you can easily see checking typical mods and their mistakes.
The worst part is them expecting me to hate Corpos. But l always ask, why? What have they done to me? Why should l hate them? No answers. And keanu reves sucks. I was tired of him 1 hour in.
They tried to do the Joker thing from Arkham Knight. They failed. Besides, CP2077 was supposed to be an RPG. They emphasized that each and every day during the development...UNTIL Keanu came in, I guess. After he came in they turned the game into a GTA wannabe mess.
The prologue, so the time before the chip-stealing mission would've been the perfect time to make you like the characters (including V) but also showing how much work and effort you have to put in to even matter in night city. You would have to do a lot of jobs in order to even survive, buy a new apartment, a new car and at some point you would have enough the street cred for the "gangster guy" to call you and then the whole story would start.
See, the thing is this game is based off a Table Top RPG by Mike Pondsmith called Cyberpunk. It came out back in the 80's and a lot of the stuff you have issues with story wise is actually explained by the TTRPG. Johnny was a character in the TTRPG, Rocker Boy was literally a class you could play. Arasaka, Morgan Blackhand, Adam Smasher, the Valantinos, even Ozob Bozo were all things you could read up on by getting into the lore of that game. It even had an updated rule set called Cyberpunk Red that got released just before 2077 to coincide with the game. It has some of the best splat books and lore guides in the business too. There's a book that is like a tour guide to Night City that has stuff like gang turf and even stuff like florists and that kinda thing.
i love all of his other videos but hes complaining about lore even tho this isn't the first installment in this series. He should have checked out the table top version or read about the lore before complaining about it.
@@bandbm5599 The game should be judged by what is contained in the game. The game messed that up. Though having played both the ttrpgs he is missing a lot
@@chocolatebutter192 yea I agree, he acknowledged the ttrpgs and didn't even bother to at least read a bit about it then blamed it on the game which is a sequel
@@chocolatebutter192 but another thing he didn't even have the story right tho, it's almost like he didn't even understand the lore and I don't think he played any of the side quests. He didn't even have the antagonist right.
Look that’s great, but the game needs to do enough to paint the broad strokes for the people engaging with it well enough You can’t just say “oh this info all exists in an entirely different medium so if anyone hasn’t gone out of there way to find those details OUTSIDE of this piece of media that’s THEIR fault” You can’t just hand wave a story for not explaining basic elements of their world or characters to the audience because that information exists somewhere else
This actually gave me more desire to play the game than my roommate telling me to ignore the bugs while also telling me about himself using bugs for fun. "If I haven't seen it, it hasn't happened"
Worst thing is they even knew there was an issue with the lack of motivation on V's part, because they gave us hundreds of dialogue options that practically said "I'm going to die, I don't give a shit about Arasaka, I don't give a shit about Silverhand, who the fuck are you, where the fuck am I, leave me alone". Every time the game characters asked me "will you miss Night City" I'm like why? what is Night City? How the fuck am I supposed to answer this question? Who are you even to be asking me this? Before the ending you get this huge WTF moment where you discuss the future of Silverhand with Alt. Throughout the whole segment I just kept choosing the options that berate Silverhand and mock him for having to pack his bags and leave my brain. And then at the end Alt says "well you can't really remove Silverhand from your head and return to your body". And then Alt disappears and Johnny is like "look... you actually can"... WHAT? How is any of this adequate? Game just tells you one thing and pulls a switcheroo on you without even bothering to explain. The game has no intention of giving you any substantial meaningful information or backstory into the way things are in Night City, or the Badlands, or Arasaka, оr the Afterlife. I still don't know what the fuck Blackwall is and what happens beyond it. The game just tells you "just roll with it" cause the writers probably didn't have any fuckin clue if there is anything more to it either... Cyberpunk 2077 is just a glitchy messy powerpoint presentation of a bunch of video game elements that some out of touch corporate douchebags in suits told the developers would guarantee profit. Couldn't have been more ironic, considering the game's anti-corporative setting.
Arasaka isn't the "big bad" of the game. The game makes very clear why they're an evil corporation, but all they ever are to the player character is an obstacle to their survival. Yeah, Johnny Silverhand has his vendetta against Arasaka, but V never goes in for that. In Part 1, V wants to be famous, and the best way to do that is to steal Relic 2.0 from Yorinobu. In Part 2, V wants to survive, and the only way to do that is to figure out how to remove it, which of course means getting involved with Arasaka, one way or another. You are right that it's never made clear why Johnny's engram is on Relic 2.0 though. He was put on there to lure out Alt Cunningham, which is touched on but never explicitly said by anyone. As for why he was kept as an engram in the first place, Arasaka was using him as a test subject for Soulkiller, and kept everyone through it and Relic "on file" in case they needed them for some reason.
I'm sure the writers aren't literally rеtаrded and the story made sense as plotted. It's just told extremely poorly. Players with knowledge of the lore thoroughly analyzing every line could understand what the story was *trying* to convey, but it's kind of still the game's fault to fail to convey it to the audience.
Well they are the big bad. Just there's no compelling storyline that justifies it. But the entire dialogue from Keanu Reeves is constantly "Stop the corporation". I mean, the end of the game deals with them specifically. If they aren't, then no one is, and well... a story without an antagonist is truly a snafu
the Jakie death flag was the most painful thing I ever had to sit through. I just wanted him to shut up and nut put a bullseye on his back. Good on you man for calling that out. Not sure why people are getting bent about this video.
This was REALLY well edited dude. I’ve been a subscriber for a long time, but this has gotta be one of your best, well put together videos. It had me laughing pretty much through the whole thing. The among us jokes and when you fucking yelled in the boom mic made me cry from laughter
Love the review and it’s energy. A few things I have to point out BUT keep in mind I haven’t yet played the game. Silverhand is not a character made up by the game he was around 50 years before the game started and was a renown soldier who became a rocker kid. The reason he was left alive was mainly a trophy for the Arasaka CEO at the time as a sort of final “F U” to Silverhands. Also Arasaka are definitely an evil company all though again I have no idea how well the game explained all of this
I just started playing and found my way to this video because after finishing stealing the chip I found myself bored with the game. The main story doesn’t give me time to breathe. There are a bunch of cool side quests I’ve been given but I can’t find the time to do it because the main quest keeps pushing me forward. I mean I don’t have to go straight through but that would kind of break immersion since everything the main characters give me seems urgent. And back to the point I’ve never getting to breathe. There’s no chance to explore night city or be a cyberpunk. I’m not even sure if the city is supposed to be explored.
Well, well, well, here we are. So first of all, great video. I think you did an excellent job in the editing and you explained your points well. I do, as expected from our conversations, have some disagreements. I think this may be an issue with how the game presents things but people like Johnny Silverhand and the Arasaka family are fleshed out in the handbooks for the Cyberpunk TTRPG in a way that may not clearly be explained in the game. If you spend enough time reading things from the world you may pick this stuff up but it's not as easy to stay engaged in the lore if you're having a hard time playing the game in general, either due to bugs or whatever. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. Johnny, for instance, does talk about his history of having to fight a war in Central America that leads to him hating corporations (since they controlled the governments by that point). The gang that kidnaps Alt Cunningham was hired by Arasaka so that she could be used to create the Soulkiller and she ends up dead as a result of that kidnapping (there's a whole sequence about this in the game which relies a lot on show don't tell). That leads to Johnny having a personal vendetta against not just the corporation, but Saburo Arasaka specifically . Also, Arasaka did send someone to find you after you steal Johnny's engram: Takemura. They also sent some unnamed assassins. While Arasaka as a company was open about working on Relic, they weren't open about having Johnny Silverhand's engram so they tried to keep the operation discrete. If you read up on the lore related to Saburo Arasaka, you can explain why he made a copy of Johnny's brain: he wants to own everything, including his enemies. Having ownership of Johnny's "soul" is a prize. You may have missed it in one of the endings where Saburo re-enters the living world by having his engram put in his son's body (this was the whole point of the Arasaka ending: Saburo always knew he would take his son's body and it's likely that his son expected it, which is why he ran away). Hanako being aware of the truth makes sense in the context of the family: they all play the long game. Unfortunately, I think the writers tried to do a lot of show don't tell which can be very hit or miss if you don't show clearly enough. I think in some ways they could have done a better job but I also think they hoped to hint at things enough that a player would want to look up stuff on their own. Hard to say but I think, in terms of motivations and backstory, a lot of that stuff is explained. As far as the main character motivations, that's kind of where it falls apart. I do like how a lot of the side stories spend time building the characters and some of them do have some great arcs, but V's motivations have always been a bit thin. Some of that may be because of the need to have a vessel that players can fill but it could have been done better. Also, just last thing: the aesthetic of the characters and civilians is pulled straight out of the TTRPG manuals, most of which came out in the 80s. This may be why you find a conflict between the cyber and punk of Cyberpunk. It's not just a genre, the TTRPG from 1988 is literally just called that, though I suspect you'd probably know that by now. This is one of those cases where those that are familiar with the series are rewarded greatly by the adaptation but those that aren't are left needing to search through fanwiki articles or watching tons of UA-cam videos. Same thing happened with Watchmen, same thing happened with Witcher. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to handle it when it's not something that is already ingrained in the culture like Batman or Spiderman.
Hey Aldo thanks for checking it out. Funny thing is, I had a feeling you were going to bring up these exact points in a rebuttal, all of which I actually agree with. I did some digging on the original lore of the game, reading summaries and backstories of the primary characters, and took a look at some of the original literature. MOST plot point grievances are solved with digging in the lore, but as a generic video game consumer I just can't be bothered to really do the game's homework for me in that sense. I didn't analyze each line of dialogue as I found myself getting glossy eyed on most of the interactions halfway through the game. This may make the vid feel a little "strawman-y." That's more for entertainment purposes. Funny enough I was the same way with darksouls. I didn't really care about the lore in the game until after the fact when I could watch and hear it presented to me in a more cinematic and intriguing way. But while I was playing I couldn't really be bothered much with the world building, which, combined with the fact that game is so lassie faire with it's story, perfectly suited me in not forcing it down my throat. Cyber punk feels like it wants to drown you in story (rightfully so) but also oddly enough doesn't give you enough of it. The side content was the coolest part, and I actually recorded 10 minutes of me talking about it, but on second thoughts, it just never felt fleshed out enough. It seemed like the side content just wasn't taken nearly to the extreme I was hoping it would, as I wanted to treat cp like skyrim where I just forgot about the plot. I know they went pretty literal from the manuals and literature. I just don't like the aesthetic of the literature and plot lmao. In a perfect world I would have loved to see CDPR just take the genre and do something original with it instead of try to stay lock-step with the original material, which just feels flat compared to their previous works.
@@ManleyReviews I'm hoping that future DLC can rectify some of the story missteps but it almost seems like the game CDPR released is meant to be an introduction to a platform, similar to GTA or Red Dead. It could very well be that they mean to flesh out the world and introduce new characters to it over time, probably on multiplayer. I suppose we'll have to see, though. From what I can tell the development of the game was fairly chaotic, especially with Keanu deciding to have a bigger part in the story. We'll see how they move forward, I guess.
@@TranslucentMeaning I'm hoping so as well, although I think a game this ambitious needs GTA5 money and time to perfect otherwise it falls flat. Given their dev history with this game, I think it would need years to make this game really start tapping into it's settings potential. Almost every turn in the game I kept fighting off thoughts of "oh this could have been so much cooler if they had several extra years and less time pressure." Would have loved to do things like actually physically explore the net as a net runner, meet other engrams, or possible switch out SD cards and people like in a Majora's Mask way etc. So many routes that could have been taken imo. I hope the DLC gives some cool AF side story content that hooks me, but I'm not holding my breath.
@@ManleyReviews if you were really a "generic video game consumer" that "couldn't be bothered to do the homework" then all these plot points you are saying ruined the game for you wouldn't actually matter. "Generic video game consumers" play for the gameplay itself not every minor detail that makes up the entire story, which you seem to be primarily focused on.
@@ManleyReviews Let me start by saying that I love the quality of your video. I agree with Translucent Meaning, in that this first game seems to be a platform introduction. However, I guess I'm one of the 'few' who actually enjoyed the plot. Partly because I grew up playing the TTRPG games, but also because I've participated in developing software, writing fiction, and grew up watching these genres come to life. One thing I think a lot of people miss about where the genre of cyberpunk differs from dystopian science fiction is that they are character driven stories revolving around the individual and the setting. There are rarely any 'large scale' world saving themes in cyberpunk as opposed to traditional dystopian science fiction. The Matrix isn't really cyberpunk. Its a dystopian science fiction story that 'looks' cyberpunkish. An 'evil' corporation would never survive and would be subjective. Johnny Silverhand perception that Arasaka is 'evil' is his own opinion. In the context of the plot, the chip was 'experimental' and isn't supposed to even exist because Arasaka is trying to keep the fact that they have the Soul-killer software quiet. Going after V would be an admission that something valuable was taken and in the scope of a real cyberpunk setting, V is beneath their attention in the beginning and Yorinobu wouldn't want it known that something was stolen from him. Arasaka is based on traditional Japanese corporations with influence from the zaibatsu style of of integrated business conglomerates. Look at all the industries that the biggest Japanese companies have their fingers into in today's markets. Mitsubushi does cars, electronics, appliances. That's why Arasaka doesn't have any defined industry because it deals in all of them. From a storytelling aspect, gamers I think are a little too reliant on the game providing you with reliable narration, and in the general since a lot of the 3rd person narration you get in the game is reliable, but V and Johnny Silverhand are unreliable narrators. They never see the whole picture, know everything with truthful clarity. Their perceptions are biased and colored by their limited knowledge and experiences. When writing fiction or plotting for other media you have to make a decision on which type of narrator you are going to use. A more personal but unreliable narrator will build sympathy and rapport faster than a 3rd person reliable narrator. And because this is a story of V and how he deals with his traumas the unreliable narrator is the better choice, but it also means that what you learn and are told through his lens is going to be biased and unreliable. By default any narration or information that comes from a character is classified as unreliable by default. But against, while I disagree with a lot of what you talk about, I greatly appreciate the time, effort, and quality of your video. Have a great day.
This video made me realise how many issues I had with the story that I just sort of let go as I was playing because I really wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. But after playing two endings neither felt particularly satisfying or impactful and I started to dwell on all the stuff that didn't work. I really wish the game had just let you define who your character was, the whole sequence at the start where you and Jackie become successful mercs is what the whole game should've been about. Instead you skip that and get railroaded into this contrived race to save your identity from being replaced by a dude whose backstory I never fully connected with. Johnny Silverhand would have been better off as another reoccurring npc, somebody of significance to the story for sure, but not the crux of the entire plot.
The montage sequence was definitely the "Oh fuck that's a bad sign" moment for me. You can patch bugs but you can't patch the plot. I think that the sandbox killed a lot of potential this game had. If they had it more heavily based on instancing, ie little hub areas with either vehicle or transportation cutscenes between them they could have focused their scope. With smaller Deus Ex areas they could provide more detail, character, dialogue, story effects while simultaneously limiting their QA needs, performance impact, engineering problems.
I think it is because the game STARTED as a Cyberpunk game as close as possible to the tabletop as they could... And then they got overvalued in the market and turned the title into a clusterfuck.
the montage feels like it was just put together at the last minute because all those scenes feel liek they should be a playable part to actually start liking jackie
It's honestly so tragic cause there are so many moments where you see something come together and realize there's something there but not quite. Like you get these little glimpses of what could have been and then some NPC starts talking to a light post about some completely unrelated topic or you get sent to your 30 millionth crime bust cause helping cops is mad punk dude
I just finished your twilight princess video, and you made a lot of really good and thought-provoking points in that one but it seems like he played one Playthru and didn’t really absorb any of the story on this one. If you didn’t like the game, I totally get it. I think that’s the most initial knee-jerk reactions when people play cyber punk and there’s plenty of reasons to. I think the game plays actually would drag the experience down in a lot of ways, which is kind of funny, but the fact that you’re lambasting the story for having bad writing, when you literally didn’t understand the story is probably the funniest thing about it to me. I encourage you to give it another stab because there’s a whole layer that you completely missed because your hate Boner was too strong. With all the problems at this game had on lunch this makes it a very easy target. Totally fair that a lot of UA-camrs would take the chance to shit on it but the longer I watched you review the more I realized you literally didn’t understand anything that happened in the game. I think you’re most valid complaint is that unlike the Witcher where you can see the effects of milf guard on the world the effects that era soccer has on night city isn’t as obvious unless you’ve read up on the source material beforehand and I actually goes for a lot of what goes on in the city because the game sort of assumes that the player was already familiar with the story of silver hand and Morgan black hand. The Takeaway you had from the story of this game is pretty much the same one I had during my initial play through because I didn’t really pay attention to any of the dialogue or look very closely at any of the sub text from the dialogue… I don’t know this analysis doesn’t seem as good as your newest one but I guess that kind of goes without saying when are you considered newer versus older work? Regardless, it was a good watchmen and I hope to see you do more. I really really hope that you take a second look at some point maybe when the DLC drops
I enjoyed this video, and I agree with a lot of it, having almost finished the plot. And I LIKE the game. I really like the side missions and gigs, and driving around Night City, and the fixers, and honestly they could have just created a gang war between the neighborhoods and had my character need to choose to be an Animal, or Tiger Claw, etc. and that would have been simple enough. I feel like V is just being dragged through the game, he has no agency, and decisions don't matter. Plus, he often gets "taken over" by Johnny, so in those scenes, you sort of have to play as Johnny but only move the plot the way the game wants. {plus, Johnny in your body trying to kiss Rogue, weird.) Even the side missions have flaws. Like Panam who keeps wanting to bypass Saul and go her own way. My character was a Nomad and several times I selected things like "you should listen to Saul" and every time, she just did what she wanted anyway with no consequence, and so I realized, siding with Saul or Panam here was not a choice. Kerry... well... Kerry is supposed to be 80 years old, and he acts like a petulant teenager, and even if you tell him to stop, this isn't a good idea, don't blow up a young band's equipment because you don't want them to sing "your song" you are instructed by the game to just go along with it, so you do, just to finish. There was a quest with Judy, that you make a decision and you do a whole questline, and then in her next quest you ask about all you did and you get one throwaway line that everything went back to the way it was and nothing you did mattered. And what happened to the Peralez story line? It just fizzled into nothing, and it was kind of interesting... I did like a lot of the characters, I liked Mindy, Jackie, River, Judy, Nancy, even Rogue, and the voice acting was good, and the city design and the cars were pretty sweet... it just seemed to lose the thread in the way the Witcher 3 did not. Sorry for the long response, but I needed to get this off my chest!
Simply to save money and not have to develop animations or anything that comes with third person efforts. But in the process, you get a Main Character with no facial expressions, or body language... cause you're missing 90% of your body. Witcher worked exceedingly well in this area, but for some reason CDPR gave up on that for this one.
Could be reviewers who harp on the glitches are controlled opposition. Maybe CDPR put the glitches in on purpose. Broken games and patches are the norm now and we all now companies are evil. How's that for a cyberpunk theme?
Got the game for real cheap, decided to actually play it since most of the bugs were worked out, and yeah, the story has been pretty terrible. If I had the option, I never would've even taken the job from Dex Deshawn, the whole deal seemed way too suspicious. In order to play lore-accurate V, you can't level up intelligence, cuz damn is he stupid af.
I still can't get over the fact they made it seem like you create an own character before launch but V is such a prewritten character, you have 0 influence on his behavior. This killed it for me. I mean you create his appearance, you choose his background and he has this simple name "V". There was every right to assume you play your OWN character but that is just completely not the case at all.
I agree with mostly everything. The thing I don't think would work as well is their whole "Is this you or Johnny" thing they got going in the story. The choices you make throughout, whether they are actually your own choices, or you are being influenced by Johnny to do X, Y and Z. Which I think is an interesting thing to talk/point out. Ofc, it could have been done better, like with everything else in the game. But all in all, it seems a bit hand fisted in, like some comments, seems they had to rewrite it all because of Keanu, and I can see that being the case. I also think that the whole "your journey to merc" should have been something you actually play yourself like you said. It is what I am most interested in, instead of Arasaka suicide mission for Johnny. Though all in all, I didn't go into it with that many expectations, and I personally had a good time, is it a good game that I would recommend? Fuck no, but did it work for me personally and have some of my favourite moments in gaming ever? Yes. So dunno what I think about it. I sometimes get the urge to go back and play it, because I personally like the gameplay quite a bit, especially with mods.
Thank you for your review. When I first bought the game I suffered through numerous bugs, but I was sure that I could get around it for the gameplay and story. Except I still wasn't having fun. Getting to play as a Stealth Netrunner was interesting, but I had to make it worthwhile as combat kept dragging on with no changes from Haywood to Pacifica. I spent more time laboring in transit from location to location then I did strategizing or in combat combined. And then the story was the worst. Up until the big heist I could find the story moderately enjoyable, yet completely predictable. For what was promised as a "Choices Matter" game nothing I did was changing my actions, and was later proven correct when searching online. From the background you choose, the combat roles you take, to the non-existent life altering choices mid game, nothing offered me a chance to branch out and make my story. And all of this was hampered by the fact that the game where my "Choices Matter" I'm not the protagonist, I'm not even a real deuteragonist, I'm the vessel to orchestrate Johnny Silverhand's story. If you like the character of Johnny Silverhand then I'm sure you can like the game, but if you were me and hated him then the entire game is a slog where you're hauling around a judgmental jerk who's slowly killing you, and demands you suffer for his benefit in every ending.
i love cyberpunk but you're right. part of being an adult is accepting that some things you like/love are not as good and at times very flawed. i myself shared some of your thought while playing the game.
It's fucking insane how people talk about how this game has "the best story in all of gaming!!!" when the game's themes are shallow, the characters feel like they're designed to be "cool" (but actually end up really cliche or stereotypical), and just in general, it feels like a *fucking joke*. Like instead of being a real serious dystopian world, it's some flashy techno-wank about being "le cool merc!!!" People are saying it's some kind of "masterpiece of storytelling" when it can barely come up with a theme deeper then, "hrmm, the corporations are bad, but we're not actually going to do anything about it!" Cyberpunk seems "mature" the way an 11 year old drinking apple juice out of a whiskey glass is. People are meatriding this game so hard when there's like *million* other games with better storytelling, deeper themes, and over all have something to say beyond some cheesy action movie line. When you look at real RPG storytelling in something like, Fallout New Vegas or Disco Elysium or something, where there are actual *ideas* being presented and your character actually gets to affect the world and learn and change, it makes the "cool merc shit" in CP2077 seem like edgy nonsense. Hell, every other piece of "cyberpunk" media in the genre did it, from the Matrix to Ghost in the Shell to Deus Ex. CP2077 can barely even be called cyberpunk.
I will concede that the gameplay is pretty good because of the updates and whatnot, but the point of the video stands, it's not exactly a "groundbreaking story!!" like people are saying.
While I’ll say that Disco Elysium is the better written story. It appears you didn’t play the game in full. Or you have no idea what the cyberpunk genre is about. The “edgy” part of all the characters is a theme of cyberpunk. It’s a defense mechanism. The more profound moments in this games story is when they drop the act and just act like human beings. I am surprised that someone who claims to be informed about the cyberpunk genre has no knowledge of its tropes and themes. Style over substance. That is one of the most common themes in cyberpunk stories. It’s a facade that everything is fine and we are in control because we are badasses and cultural rebels but the truth is we fit into the neat little boxes that the powers that be have shoved us in. The punk part of cyberpunk seems to be misunderstood. Punks are obnoxious and surface level assholes, but they are human and only show that when they stop trying so hard.
@@Acrylescent Okay, first all, its hardly "the genre" as a whole. I've seen *plenty* of cyberpunk beyond the game and I can say that the whole "defense mechanism" thing, no offense, sounds kind of like a copout. If it's a defense mechanism put up by the characters in-game, then it should warrant more then just a mention. It shouldn't just be a thing that is "addressed but then forgotten". Which is kind of my gripe with CP2077. It presents compelling themes but kind of cuts them short. I'll admit, even something as simple as the "quiet life vs. blaze of glory" question felt like it could be a really neat theme. I've *played the game*, which yeah, admittedly not the full thing because well, tbh I lost interest. If it "gets good" near the end, that's still the whole "everything else" that I need to sit through. And yeah, there are definitely moments that are human, or feel like the characters really get a chance to shine. Shame most of those characters die or otherwise are gone before getting a chance to really show it. (Jackie being a big one. He's your friend in Night City, someone you can rely on when almost no one else can. But like, he dies pretty early in.) There are definitely other characters that similarly feel really human at times, and I will **give credit where credit is due**. But the game doesn't really seem to drop the act out of a conscious decision to show that the "badassery" is part of the superficiality of the world. It comments on the "human underneath" with its characters, but then spits you right back in like it didn't just happen. Everyone seems *aware* that the whole flashy, sexy, edgy, bad-ass aesthetics of Night City are "just advertising", but no one seems to really explore that idea deeper. Cyberpunk as a genre has always felt so much "darker" comparatively. the colors are less saturated, most stuff is gray or black, and interactions tend to either be long and pensive or "not at all". Granted you could argue that's a bit narrow or "actually closer to tech noir", but it still fits. It feels like the game couldn't commit to the deeper themes, it *presents* things, maybe name-drops some interesting ideas or considers them for a little bit, but kind of just leaves it hanging. Characters that outwardly act badass and edgy but are deep down sensitive and human can definitely be done well, and in this regard CP2077 actually does an alright job. But you run the risk of making them seem more "angsty" than compelling. If you have characters acting like irresponsible teenagers suddenly drop it and say "okay real talk time", it *can* work, but sometimes it doesn't, because, no offense, it comes off as whining. Granted, maybe there's a quest I haven't gotten to yet that really explores it deeper, maybe there's a character who's willing to *really* take on the whole social norms of the world, but it feels to me more that the game just couldn't quite commit, having to placate both the people in it for cool fight scenes and explosions and the people in it for the RPG freedom-of-choice and storytelling. Which is fine, the game definitely does both things, and I think it does an "alright" job at all the things it does, but when you try to do everything and please everyone, you can't really go the distance for any of those one things. And yeah, punks certainly are obnoxious and surface level, but that's even the thing punks criticize about punks. The punk community at one time and even still somewhat today, had it's fair share of would-be ideologues and visionaries that really *did* see a cause worth fighting for. Which kind of underscores something about CP2077. The storytelling is, *fine* if you ask me. It's not as strong as the gameplay, which is pretty solid, but its still not "the worst". Looking back at my original comment, it's harsher than I probably should have worded it. But I maintain that I'm only this harsh BECAUSE people seem to lack the ability to criticize the game because they like it. "I like this game, therefore 10/10 masterpiece with no flaws". Maybe I'm overcorrecting for that attitude, but if your game has a "meh-to-good" story, then at least accept that. The game can still be solid and enjoyable and even one of your faves.
@@thewideduck5708 but it’s not addressed and then forgotten, during the game the defenses are slowly eroded until there is clarity. But if you choose not to let V put those defenses down then yeah you just seem like every other asshole in NC. I never said punks didn’t believe in what they were fighting for just that it had a very distinct flavor. This is far from a 10/10 game lol but there are staples of the genre that are very ingrained in the game. Just like people blind love it, so many people blind hate it and can’t help but tear it down even if it’s contradictory. I’m not sure the fight fire with fire method works when you have defy the genre in order to make your point. But I’m not trying to convince you, but only that you are objectively incorrect about the themes and the characters in the game.
stuff like this restores my faith in humanity. stories in games are better when they're serious and tightly knit, but recently the game stories are cringe and feel like made for children who want to become legend (or superstar in forza), its cringe. Have people forgotten about the good story games? really entertaining video with nice points bro, subbed !
Spent 6 hours in this game. Whole experience felt like I’m forced into doing tasks rather than actually playing, and after Jackie died everything got worse. I haven’t had a worthwhile experience in an open world fps game since FarCry 4.
Have finished the game now, since it was in sale and I heard the Bugs were fixed. It's still super buggy(PS5), but alright nothing gamebreaking you can play it. But I realized very early how bad everything else is, especially because I often read that "you should play it now, its so good." I played Elden Ring before that and I'm not high on these kinda games, but after Cyberpunk I understand now how good of an open World game that is. Every corner gives you something, even if it doesn't look like it. Cyberpunks world on the surface looks interesting but gives you nothing, no point to search for anything.
It's damn funny since one of CDPR devs said that world is so rich and full of details that you won't need more content inside cities especially enterable buildings ""you will never be in situation like you are like i need to get in there, because city is so big, it's overwhelmingly huge"" yeah huge full of nothing and invisible walls, 98% buildings can't be entered, you can't go to brothel or random apartments or skyscrapers (just Arasaka for missions)
@@Dregomz02 yeah, exactly pretty early I started only using the Map markers to get to the mission and the fast travel, cause there was nothing to see on the way.
My only critique of this vid essay, is that V's actions being meaning less is counter-productive to the Cyberpunk aesthetic. Individual actions being fruitless, is cyberpunk through and through. Otherwise, you completely nailed the entirety of the main stories issues. To give CDPR credit, I've never been so invested in a side story, as I was with V's police force neighbor being depressed about the death of his roommate, and V investigating to try and help the neighbor, only to find the neighbor committing suicide, and then finding out the roommate was a turtle all along. That one side quest that is completely miss-able, yet truly encompasses the themes of Cyberpunk far more than the main story. 10/10 vid from 2 years ago lol
Cyberpunk with a capital C is a series of scifi roleplaying games, like Dungeons and Dragons, and is what the whole scifi subgenre is named after. Cyberpunk 2077 is part of that IP, that's why it's ""named after a genre"". Kinda disappointed you didn't mention this and just called it a "vibe" during the intro But knowing this only makes me even more frustrated in the videogame adaptation; the subgenre called itself after the pen & paper games for a reason Cyberpsychosis was originally meant to represent that putting too much cyberware in your body meant you'd lose your free will to the corporations owning your parts and basically become a radio-controlled human, but that was considered too anti-corp by the publishers so the author just turned it into a mental breakdown instead Johnny Silverpants is a cameo from the originals that was dragged for way too long (the whole actual game), they never tell you why anything about him matters because he's mostly old fan bait. And he is a ghost in the story because he cannonically died before the videogame was conceived, so the plot had to be contrived as fuck to enable this meaningless cameo Good review, I agree completely with everything
It would’ve been nice if to make the punk stuff work there was actually a visual class difference you seen when walking down the street and npcs actually heckle each other for being two high or low on the totem poll. Cause then the “punk” people are actually fighting against a status quo while also looking retro to reference when cyber punk was written.
Well, that's what you get when you pay no attention to the world and the plot. Arosaka isn't the antagonist. Taking down the big bad company isn't the end goal at all. The whole game tells you that you are a small cog in this entire grinding machine of Night City and you are surprised you didn't change the world in the end? Why would you, that's the idea of cyberpunk, you are not a protagonist in this world, you are just a protagonist of your own survival story? Overall I see your own expectations projected. You just didn't get it cause you expected to save the princess and live happily ever after or whatever. You just got used to being a hero taking down the evil empire and killing a dragon. That isn't the story they tell. For that matter, the only thing you can do about this world is to make it worse.
Not to mention how your choices in the game that are supposed to matter end up not mattering even more because the ending you go with will ignore them. In every single ending I have gotten, Johnny and V get into a huge argument and fight even though I always get along pretty good with him and we're bros by the end, and then V always go "I'm sorry I know I promised to let you have my body but I just can't do it." even though never at any point did I ever pick a dialogue option that said I would let him have my body, or even got that without my input from a cutscene or anything.
Hi, Cyberpunk Red & 2015 enjoyer here. Just wanted to point out that Silverhand was used as a unstable face for a Morgan Blackhand Ai since Morg was way more of a threat and actually fought smasher Borg-on-Borg. Silverhand may be less predictable than Morgan but he's nowhere near as smart or strategic so would be less of a threat if he went rouge but it the Morgan Blackhand Ai would be a massive boon that allowed them to create Borgs en-masse. I mean the comic where you see Silverhand die and the time Morg went missing pretty much confirms this.
honestly I searched "cyberpunk sucks" because I felt like I was losing my mind seeing everyone praise cdpr for fixing some of the bugs after years of the game being out...I needed to know that other people were aware how bad the story and gameplay is besides me LOL
This ^^^ I played CB 2077 again after a year (1.61) and while a lot of the bugs are gone, I started noticing just how rushed, incredibly short and boring the plot is. Like when I last played CB I couldn't even focus on the plot, because the game crashed or bugged out constantly, but now that a lot of the bugs ar fixed, I got to notice just how rushed and clearly cut the content is. The game is shorter than a Witcher 3 DLC and CDPR said the game will be only "slightly" shorter than Witcher 3. These f*cking devs lied, scammed and wormed their way out of this bullsh*t, mainly because of the anime these fatherless, basement dwelling sheep now revere. The game is still broken, cut, pathetic mess that I'm glad I pirated and never actually bought lmao.
You’re not alone I get tired of people praising it I seen one guy call out the greatest comeback for a game in gaming history I was like what where is the come back
Here are some problems I have with the plot, some inconsistencies. 1] V doesn't know who Adam Smasher is. It kind of makes sense if you start life as a nomad, but it doesn't if you start as a street kid or corpo. A street kid or corpo would definitely know who Adam Smasher is. What makes this worse is that you go through a brain-dance segment that shows you Adam Smasher, so even if it makes sense that you wouldn't know who he is in context of picking the nomad origin, you'd know who he is after the brain-dance, and that he works with Yorinobu. 2] V doesn't know what MaxTac is. Again, that makes sense if you start out as a nomad, but why does Jackie have to explain to a street kid or corpo what MaxTac is? What makes this worse is that V knows what a cyberpsycho is, regardless of which origin you pick. How do you know what a cyberpsycho is, but not one of the largest organizations whose soul purpose is to hunt them down? 3] Takemura saves you by hooking you up to Delamain. Why couldn't this have been done for Jackie? Sure, Jackie was bleeding out, but V took a bullet to the head and was injured further in the car crash. A little consistency is all I'm asking for. 4] As you pointed out, why does the chip need to be kept in cold storage, but can only work in a human body? The human body is a lot hotter than literal sub-freezing temperatures. It makes no sense. 5] SPOILERS: In one of the endings, you find out that Saburo Arasaka implants himself in his son, Yorinobu. Why? Would a synthetic/robot body not be more suitable? 5] How is the chip killing V? No, seriously, how? How does the body belong to Johnny in the end? It's changing V's neural pathways, which would just make V think they are Johnny Silverhand. It doesn't erase V's memories, just their personality. If the chip worked the way the game described, it would have to be rewriting V's organ functions and how the brain communicates to said organs via the spine, and even if that happened, it wouldn't make any sense because the chip literally just implants a personality by restructuring the neural functions that make up a person mentally, not physically. 6] Why would Takemura inform Yorinobu that he's found V if he knew, not suspected, KNEW, that Yorinobu was the one would killed Saboru? Why would Takemura needlessly put himself and V in danger by informing Yorinobu that V is alive, especially when you consider the fact that Takemura needs V to prove to Haniko that Yorinobu killed their father? 7] Were there no camera's in Yorinobu's suite that could easily prove he killed Saboru? Why did Haniko and Takemura go along with the charade if they knew Yorinobu ended his father's life? 8] Why did they kill T-Bug in such a stupid way? She died opening a door for our heroes. She should know how Arasaka operates. Why not tell the boys to smash the window and then temporarily disconnect to avoid Arasaka ICE protocols? This is less a plothole and more a critique, because I liked T-Bug as much as I liked Jackie. 9] Haniko tells V that Arasaka can find and capture them at any time they'd like. So why don't they? I mean, I know it's because the plot says so, but that's stupid. The game's plot hinges entirely on Arasaka, the most powerful company in the world, not finding V simply because they don't want to. 10] Why did Alt Cunningham go back beyond the Black Wall? She's not the real Alt anymore, she's an A.I. program that managed to escape the Black Wall, something rogue A.I.'s have been trying to do ever since Rache Bartmoss caused the event that destroyed the net in the first place. Alt, literally, has all the power in this situation. Why go back into your prison now that you're free?
You said it man. Granted I understand some of the explanations are for player exposition but I fully agreed just show the player what’s happening without using plot harming exposition lol. I agree with the rest of the points as well. Just seems like loose writing. Thanks for the giant comment
3) Jackie's body took way too much internal damage and was pretty much haemoragging, Delamain himself states that the damage he took is too severe the only reason V even survived getting shot was because the nanites in the chip began to heal their brain as stated by Viktor in the very next scene. 4) The chip outside of the body is only sustainable at colder temperatures, it's also not like V actually inserts the chip into their body, they insert it in their external chipslot, which is probably thermo regulated and considering it is EXTERNAL, meaning it is protected from the body's extreme internal heat, thus it allows the chip to function normally. To be honest, this is a pretty small nitpick. 5) First off, based off of what Alt and Hellman tell us with regards to the chip, the chip by virtue of its design was meant to be inserted in a human body. Alt tells V in the end that the relic (aka the biochip) has heavily reconfigured their DNA to match Johnny's construct. Hellman tells us that the Relic's efficiency and functionality is heavily dependent on genetic compatibility, with V being the extreme outlier. All of this clearly tells us that the chip was meant to be inserted in a human body. Also being in a synthetic or robotic body would mean being deprived of basic human intimacy and pleasures, such as tasting, smelling, touching etc. It also brings in the possibility of Cyberpsychosis (a condition that is caused by excessive cybernetic implants where victims due to their bodily changes under go severe mental turmoil as they lose grip of their humanity, there is much much more to Cyberpsychosis and a variety of different causes but that's the original ttrpg explanation for it) 5) That's literally the point though, the game at multiple points asks the players to define what makes a person a person. Sure in an absolute physiological sense, V technically isn't dying but in a figurative sense they absolutely are. This is much more existentially terrifying and interesting then V just dying from cyber aids. The only reason V is still dying after Johnny is separated from our neural network is because like I mentioned before, the chip heavily reconfigured the body's DNA and hence the body sees V's construct as an intruder, pretty much meaning V's own immune system is what might end up killing them. 6) Takemura had suspicions of Yorinobu but kept them aside and still believed that you were responsible for Saburo's death. It's only after Yorinobu sends those Arasaka assassins after us that Takemura manages to put 2 and 2 together. 7) T-Bug disables the camera's in the penthouse by hacking into the subnet, that's how V and Jackie were even able to break into his penthouse without getting caught in the first place. My bigger question is why Konpeki Plaza security weren't alerted to this clear act of a breach. There's a plausible theory on the internet that Yorinobu was the one who set up the heist in secret so he could frame both of you for Saburo's death, it would explain how V and Jackie were even able to get as far as they even did in the heist, especially considering the fact that Konpeki Plaza is literally Arasaka property. Hanako was raised to never oppose her family and maintain stability, she was angered because of the fact that Yorinobu killed Saburo but didn't want to oppose him because he is still family, it is a pretty weird explanation tbh but it is in line with her character. Takemura doesn't go along with Yori's charade I don't get where you are getting this from, Takemura was suspicious of Yori and its only up until Yori sends those Arasaka assassins after him that his suspicions are confirmed. 9) Arasaka has lost track of V because of the fact that their Kiroshi optics were hooked up with an anti surveillance system that allows them to be a blur in scanners and cameras. It's also worth mentioning that they are implementing random encounters of Arasaka going after you, albeit in a very rough shape. 10) Alt's motivations and goals are very unclear and vague (maybe they are saving it for the expansions or for the sequel), it is shown that she can escape the Blackwall at any moment she pleases (as shown in the Voodoo Boys quest) but chooses not to, why? Idk but this isnt really much of a plothole as it doesn't have much bearing over the actual plot imo.
@@cynicalmemester1694 10) Because Blackwall isn't just a prison, it's also a shelter. Netwatch created Balckwall to separate AIs form safe part of net. Alt can escape Blackwall, but doing it would alarm Netwatch and they would try to do anything to neutralise thread of rouge AI breaching Blackwall, so Alt not overusing her freedom makes her safe and hidden from Netwatch interest.
I love Manley's content. He is wrong about the story of this game (in this video). Cyberpunk 2077 is NOT about becoming a legend. ***Massive lore and story spoilers ahead*** - it doesn't matter how you become a merc because there are many many many people just like you who don't matter. If you chose the legend path V does not develop as a character everyone recognizes it and your love interests (if you gain one) leaves you, as you accept a mission to become the pawn of the scariest secret cabal in the game(the sun ending). Being a legend is not V's motive, V's motive is surviving while coming to terms with their death (depending on your ending). * why should you take down Arasaka? Arasaka and all the corp do destroy live and the environment, the world of cyber punk was once ours but from the 1930's to 2077 it has had an alternate history due to the mega corps. the corpo wars, the nuclear wastelands, the human experimentation. the extreme poverty. the entire location of night city, the near destruction of the USA and Europe. the access corps have to your mind, the cyberware, the state of the economy, cyberpsychosis (its likely a computer virus not a mental illness), the actions of every politician. the reason Nomads even exist, The end of the internet, the sentient AI. The lack of health care, etc. etc. etc... every issue in cyberpunks world is much like the issues in the real world but a thousand fold. - Depending on your ending you don't Take down Arasaka, and your reason to try in the first place is brought on by Johnny's engram in your head as he erases your mind and takes over your body. and the fact that the people who do want to take down Arasaka would like your help because your desperate enough and powerful enough to take on any job that gets you closer to a cure. Every corp and most egregiously Arasaka (who is effectively not just a corporation but the government of Japan and large portions of south east Asia, for reference Militech effectively IS the New United States of America's Department of Defensive.) is trying to literally own the body and spirit of everyone in the world in one way or another. In Arasaka's case that is in the corpo life patch as they try and take over the ESC (European space counsel, tons of lore) and "Mikoshi" a database that houses the engram of thousands of rich and powerful people (because those are the people that can afford it) It gives them tons of secrets and political leverage, imagine if you had JFK's brain sitting in a jar and you could ask him questions, imitate his likeness, see all his memories and bring him back to life. Back in Silverhand's time soul killer was a rumor to turn your brain into data. Silverhand fights in a corpo war becomes jaded moves to night city becomes a merc works for Morgan Blackhand (an actual important person), starts a band (samurai) continues working for Blackhand, his girlfriend ALT Cunningham the most prolific and skilled netrunner since Rache Bartmoss (guy who destroyed the internet). She gets kidnapped to finish Mikoshi/soul killer program. Blackhand is hired by Militech to blow up Saka tower, Johnny is on just one of the teams. Johnny has main character syndrome, he's actually not important or powerful and his backstory feeds us what he wants us to see. He isn't Arasaka's greatest enemy, he's not smashers rival, he's just a guy that happens to be kinda niche famous after his death because of his band and he happened to know personally or meet all the actual important people in the story. But to everyone else he's just a dipshit rockerboy. so when the nuke goes off Saka with their limited use of soul killer take all his data because they don't have the capacity to edit his engram so they try and interrogate him and use his memories as a reference of the attack to try and figure out who was actually behind it. He gets forgotten, Yorinobu who left the company for 20 years because he knew his dad was trying to take over his body one day ends up in the custody of Johnny's engram that now presides in an experimental chip that overwrites its host brain for the engram to take over called the relic. Thinking it will give him leverage not knowing its actual use case he returns to the night city branch of Arasaka where they are weakest yet still has resources so he can bide his time and make deals with people he thinks can help him. The prologue happens... V Yorinobu doesn't really chase V because Jackie is dead which gives him a fall guy and he already has what he wants (control of the corp), you are hard to kill and the attention isn't worth the trouble. In addition Goro pulls strings after he finds V which makes him low priority. V tries to look for a cure and Goro tries to use V to testify to Saburo's murder, Hanako already knows due to Saburo's engram but needs to play dumb because she doesn't want to end her brother but since Goro, V and others know or are starting to piece it together she needs to gather support to gain the trust of the board of directors. So she can get close enough to Yorinobu to use Saburo's relic on him. V also comes across an AI from beyond the Blackwall (more lore shit I'm not explaining) that has taken on the form and has the memories of Alt Cunningham. This AI wants to use V by manipulating Johnny and promising to cure V to break into Arasaka tower to access Mikoshi which will let Alt have control of the engrams which "cures" V but really lets the AI assimilate what are effectively the computational power of thousands of other AI's so she can potentially take over the net beyond the Blackwall or even breach or destroy it all together( Deep lore sequel bait). The path the V takes and the future of the world depends on Vs decisions to ultimately either work for Arasaka or destroy Mikoshi. If takes the devil ending Arasaka will gain power and start a fifth corporate war, if he destroys Mikoshi, rogue AIs will invade the world. (the consequences of are what terrifies every country, corp, and citizen in the know) * quick aside, during the Panam quest line the EMP is not pointless, it temporarily shuts down the ability of the AV to use counter measures and communicate to the rest of Kang Tao. while it was hopefully going to also be a means of grounding the AV it still gave Panam the opening to shoot it out of the sky, if you didn't use the EMP the turret and drones that you defeat later in the very same mission would have been able to automatically shoot it down before the rocket even got close. the EMP also kicks off the Aldecado questline as many of them die in an effort to rescue the occupants of the downed AV believing it to be a civilian craft and Panam having no way to contact them due to being in the radius of the EMP. so many of them get Iced by Kang Tao who believed that the Aldecado's are the ones that shot them down even though it was just V with the help of Panam. which gives the player a sense of moral responsibility to help her and the Aldecado's in the rest of the quest line since we inadvertently caused their weakness in the first place. - This is just a small glance at what's actually going on in the story. The details missed if you don't read the shards or ask the right questions in the story and look for the answers in the game. If you don't pay attention to why your playing and you don't actively listen to the dialogue and play the jobs gigs and side quest. which is why this is Manley's worst video and the one that will age like milk, like so many others he didn't give this game the time of day and in the process missed the forest for the trees. @pbp7293 was kinda right but way too rude with no proper argument and @scambolireviews made me sad because he's my favorite. @ManleyReviews I hope you read this 2 years later comment. Post phantom liberty and Edge Runners and revisit this game its world, lore and story, I would hate for you to miss out on this franchise due to a bad(worst release in videogame history) launch and first impression. Even if you don't make another video on this game that's fine with me if you haven't already, I just hope you can give it another chance with closed wounds, keen eyes and an open mind. Sorry for the grammatical errors and horrible sentence structure. I wrote this on a whim out of frustration from recently playing the game for the first time post patch 2.0 carrying into patch 2.1 released the same week of writing. I know this video was made before the community started breaking down the lore and the game dialogue and choices differed to as they are in the game now. But some people saw the potential then (Skill Up) and some never returned which is why I felt the need to comment.
I stumbled across this video and I was writing pretty much what you wrote in my head and I was like someone had to already wrote that to him let me check the comments. Happy that I found one and I hope he sees your comment too
I’m glad someone said this. When the game came out I really didn’t have that many bugs. What got me was the terrible police, the lack of RPG. I thought I was getting skyrim2077 and got the most average single player FPS
So here are my thoughts. I waited for it to get fully patched, I played after 2.0, then undated to 2.1 with the expansion. I played for 45 hours. It started ok, in act 2 with Silverhand, things did get boring. The writing was also always confusing. Anyhow, I was about to start the DLC, but got hit with the glitch that tells you your game can't be loaded because your save file was created with the DLC, , but the DLC is now detected as being installed incorrectly. Now, every save file is corrupt, now the game is uninstalled and I will never touch it again. The End.
I was so hyped for this game. Waited and waited and even defend everything CD Project Red would do until release. I played through the Prolog for 8 hours and then quitted. The game is so shitty that I just can't make it through the entire story.
The plot and dialog was my main gripe about the game other than not having NG+. The game was Tame Edgy, Edgy by Committee. All the dialog and vibes CDPR tried to make cool was LAME.
Shame spending that long on a video, when you can't even stick to basic facts, but have to parrot lies and other garbage you read by anonymous users on Reddit.
Pathetic.
Cry about it.
Play better games Evi
Bo Hoo
what lies? what facts should he stick to?
i would love to see your argument against his.
I also thought the lies were pretty egregious such as: Jackie's death was extremely predictable and didn't matter, your character feels like he has no real impact on the story, your choice in life path has literally no impact on the story, E3 spoiled the unavoidable plot twist that you have literally no power over, they give no real explanation about why Arasaka would download Jonny Silverhand onto a floppy disk when he's the one guy who has a deadly vendetta for the company even though that's a pretty major plot point, and that the game doesn't give us a real reason to hate Arasaka other than "business bad". Oh wait, that's all true.
In the August, 2018, game-play demo that featured character creation, you can choose V's childhood hero, one of the three being Johnny. Less than a year later, in June, 2019, they announced Keanu Reeves as playing a major role in the game. Meaning they probably re-wrote the entire story to fit with their new celebrity mascot's character.
Entire scenes, dialogue exchanges and characters would have had to been thrown out or heavily altered to fit the new narrative-focus, all in 11 months. And they were more than likely still changing stuff up until release date.
The way the mercenary life-style is venerated in Cyberpunk, by virtually everyone you talk to, tells me the game's story would have been a more 'rags-to-riches' style story, with V rising to the top and attaining 'fake' immortality via the relic. As opposed to what it is now; a tragedy where you help a parasite in your skull find closure.
It wasn't gameplay. Just a reminder that this was found out a month later.
And the point is that it was a huge mistake that they did it because it ruined what could have potentially been an engaging and interesting plot line that could have entirely changed the tide of opinion on a game that ended up sucking.
That was also the time when CDPR started virtue signalling about a certain L group and hire diversity hires.
So yeah, within that year, something changed...
at gameplay reveal they talked about option to grab corpo guard's gun
the option doesn't exist in the game
So basically they took what you theorize as the original story concept and turned that into Edgerunners after a couple tweaks? 🤔
Actually, the reason why they make a copy of Johnny is because they couldn’t keep a copy of Alt Cunningham (supreme net runner). Johnny had saved her engram by releasing it from Arasaka Corp. Of course, he tells you all of this while engaged in conversation, as long as you have a somewhat healthy/ agreeable relationship with him. And I think that’s where a lot of people lose context of the story and the exposition. It’s easy to miss based off of choices, it’s also pretty much just told and not shown. So while the explanations are there, we don’t necessarily feel much from it when we find out.
Yeah I can see that being the case. They may have elaborated on that in dialogue but god mother fuckin damn am I going to sit through all of it. Thanks for keeping it civil.
@@ManleyReviews No problem sir, always available to share opinions and ideals. I don’t even know if a bunch of patches and future DLC could save this game? Perhaps, if it’s substantial content that is returned to the game… What was once cut out just to speed up the release.
I don’t think he actually saved her. She broke out on her own, Johnny actually killed her or killed her body.
@@odst123451 Johnny killed her body by accident without realizing the situation, yes. Back in 2013… But if you remember, she told Johnny that she was safe and could not be harmed, but she was still withheld under Arasaka’s system. Johnny freed her when he took the bomb to the tower in 2023, for he disrupted the entire servers’ mainframe with that explosion. Releasing/ freeing her was Johnny’s true motive besides all of the other bullshit that he preached.
Alt even asked him not to come for her, for too many lives would’ve been lost for nothing in her eyes.
@@MetallicaKing48 Okay, It’s hard to separate the 2020 and 2077 story.
I'm fully convinced the whole story got altered once Keanu joined just so they can center the game around him and make him the psuedo main protagonist. I get that Silverhand is a major character in the franchise even dating back to the tabletop game but they really didn't need to center the whole game around Cortana Reeves
They should have honestly done something more like how David Bowie was used in Omikron. Like he's there for a song here and there as a treat to the player but also he's end game stuff. You don't know what's going on with Bowie or how he ties in at all until the very end. But like you said they just wanted to cash in on the celebrity and have him take as much screen time as possible in order to bait everyone.
I just realised why the intro is the best part and fleshed out of the story. Because it's the part where V is a character instead of a vehicle for Silverhand, and feels like it was made before the massive retcon. The chip, or perhaps even the whole heist might've been something else. Also why it felt like you skipped hours of content within the intro montage.
And the part about Silverhand is good for lore, but doesn't justify digging him out from his grave and putting it in V's head.
It did get altered. It's a fact at this point. Silverhand was basically just a reference up until 2018.
@@d3fyne I just saw the old character creation preview. And my god, it is really shows the retcon. Silverhand was only one of 3 figures that was supposed to be your idol, other 2 being Morgan Blackhand and Saburo Arasaka himself.
@@traiforse5777 Know what the kicker is ? In the 40 minute gameplay preview shown back in 2018, while V is in her apartment, the radio clearly says that Silverhand died 1 year prior to the events of the game. He wasn't taken by Arasaka nor was he turned into some cyber ghost. He died of old age.
Tbh after finishing game and then immersing myself in the lore it started to make sense why story is the way it is and has no major impact. Key theme around Pondsmith's world is, The City always wins no matter what and whatever dream or ambitions you might have had also passes on like a wind. Not even Johnny Silverhand's literal nuke changed city or 4th corporate war.
I agree they should've given better backstory and reason to hate Arasaka except big corpo bad trope.
Also going back to Johnny he wasn't a terrorist by night. That was one mission simply. In general Johnny was also a merc just like V who was hired by Militech to bring down nukes on Arasaka tower with group whom Militech themselves formed and choose. He had personal revenge on Arasaka due to what they did to his ex or gf whatever that Alt chick is.
Finally someone who gets the point of cyber punk lore.
I really liked that there was no hope personally!
yup, you hit the nail on the head. somehow the actual youtuber didnt. shame :/
@@Error-000 i get that cyberpunk is about a dystopian future no one can change anymore, but the game sure makes you struggle to try to change it and even shows that it can actually be done, in the judgment ending (Panam) Arasaka is seriously hit after the heist, there's no way to confirm how much it was because of you and Alt or Yorinobu working from the inside to also take it down but Arasaka is in pretty bad shape anyway. V has 6 months to live after the ending, Alt's reason being that the body is just too damaged and Hellman's reason being that your psyche can only be transferred to a close relative, one contradicting each other since Alt can place V back into the original body even if it was pretty much already converted to fit Johnny's psyche and Johnny was transferred to V's body and can live pretty well if you choose to leave him there. So yeah, you shouldn't be able to change the world but after the game gave me so many reasons why I actually could, I don't like that it takes it back last second just to make the ending depressing, and Edgerunners has the same issue.
@@flatline-timerI really like your positivity!
Love this uncensored humor its so 2000s and nostalgic
that's what we do here haha.
Shame he wasn't paying attention to the "awful other 3/4ths" of the game. I'm all for shitting on a game for what's wrong with games, but I've actually played it. He started the other routes that lead to the better endings before ditching them and rightfully getting a shit ending, and then complained about the obvious result of siding with Arasaka against all advisement being a shit ending.
@@KiraSlith had a feeling that's all he did.
@@ManleyReviews best channel hands down !
@@KiraSlith I watched literally every ending of the game on YT and it doesn’t make up for the 40 hours leading up to them
I'm happy to see this finally being recognized. The cyberpunk genre has so much room for amazing storytelling with deep philosophical connotations but instead we get a story about "chooms" trying to make it big... That only makes sense as a street kid. If that's all you care about cool, but for the rest of us who were expecting an RPG, corpo life path, or a nomad life where you actually fix or soup up cars... Or to explore the depths of a cyber dystopia without the rails, it just wasn't there.
B I N G O dude.
Yeah I was kinda hoping for some Blade Runner moments but once I saw it was all people with colorful costumes and action sequences I immediately stopped caring and never bought it. Seemed to me that it was just another GTA clone after that.
Yeah. I was expecting more of "making it big" in the context of V in their own lifepath and possibly experiencing Night City through their journeys, or experiencing the same story from different perspective, not necessarily just the Merc life.
I'm quite convinced they had it all ready as a concept, but after making a deal with Keanu, they scraped it all and made sure to narrow every choices so Silverhand can get into your head, and the whole Black Mirror plot can happen.
In the current game ending, they literally gave us "You have cancer." and our choices are basically:
1. Kill yourself
2. How will you spend last 6 months (Like a generic cancer movie plot)
3. Donate your body to Silverhand
Just play the Deus Ex series, especially the original and Human Revolution. They really fit that bill.
@@MikoyanGurevichMiG21 Only the first one really scratches the itch, and the nameless mod. Human revolution was pretty blah as soon as you got past the first section.
Best video i’ve watched on how cyberpunks problems go beyond poor performance and bugs. This deserves over 1M views, incredible video.
Thanks so much.
Agreed. I bought it around 2 months ago. Very disappointing, plus the graphics are still not optimised well at all. Not even when I checked around 2-4 weeks ago.
@@ManleyReviews the unfinished pacifica really grinds my gears
Agreed!
@delamain611 they finished it in phantom liberty dlc. Now that make sense why it wasn't finished
When I played Red Dead Redemption 2, I was immediately immersed in Arthur Morgan’s world. From the very beginning, I felt like I was stepping into his shoes-understanding him not just as a character but as a deeply human figure. His personality, his past, his moral struggles, and his bond with the Van der Linde gang were masterfully woven into the story. It wasn’t just a game; it was an experience of being Arthur, living his life and making his choices.
In contrast, playing as V in Cyberpunk 2077 felt hollow. Instead of stepping into a fully realized character, I felt like I was controlling a lifeless puppet. V’s personality came across as flat and uninspired, lacking the depth needed to forge a connection with the player. The side characters, who could have added richness to the world, often felt like mere placeholders-forgettable and unengaging. Where RDR2 thrived in creating a living, breathing narrative, Cyberpunk 2077 felt like a missed opportunity to bring its protagonist and supporting cast to life.
This was a gem of a find. I've seen lots of eloquent, longer essays on this game- but sometimes its worthwhile to keep it short and to the point. You're a talented editor, and some of the skits/cutaways were superb. Thank you for the video.
No thank you for taking the plunge and watching it!
It's encouraging to hear that this came across exactly as you described it. I too, have seen a ton of eloquent longer format video essays but they always bore my squirrel sized attention span. Thanks for sticking around, and we're just getting started on this channel.
@KulturKritiK like me and the audience.
The first 8 hours being the best part of the game fits *really* nicely with the similar time limit pre-release-day reviewers had to play. Tinfoil hat time
Huh?! First 8hrs are ok. But you don't investigate politician being brain washed. Nor how a man decides to atone by performing a crucifixion. In the main story. Lots of complaints miss the mark. Ngl Jackie was great and having some more time with him would have made a story better and longer.
But it doesn't take into account how awful these 8 hours actually are gameplay wise. Everything is just a drawn-out, boring mess on rails without any exciting game mechanics or freedoms. And even story-wise you don't connect to anyhing because the game doesn't let YOU develop your character and relations to other characters.
First 30 mins you mean
First 8 hours?
As someone who has played this game for 200+ hours and beaten it two times, I figured why not sit and watch this video (I actually came from another video of yours on Why Games Don't Feel The Same, awesome video by the way!) I also think that this video is amazing, great editing and well placed actually funny jokes throughout, amazing stuff man.
Off the bat, I will agree with many of the points you made about the plot. The Panam bit was honestly comical and it does seem like a waste of time when you put it that way. However, I genuinely enjoyed the plot of her section of the game and I didn't mind the little beef that she had with Saul. It allowed you to meet all of the members of the Aldecados camp, see their opinions and takes on the situation and see how they live and operate as a tribe. I felt that at the end of the whole thing when you help them mend their relationship and you become an official Aldecado and get that jacket, it all seems worth it.
The point about Arasaka was honestly eye opening because across the whole game, you are absolutely correct in that you really never see them actively antagonize anyone. I did want to point out though that I think it was intentional to leave out the details of the corporation and its origins as that is lore that can be read more into if you read the official sourcebook for the game. I agree that it would have made a great improvement to add more of those details in the game but it wasn't there, unfortunately. Nevertheless, you are absolutely right about the actual citizens of Night City, they seem to be reserved and used to the situation at hand, if not even comfortable.
I also wanted to note, I feel that the Kerry Eurodyne and River Ward side missions were absolutely amazing and should definitely be mentioned if you are going to talk about the game. I won't spoil anything here but those quests are definitely worth playing. The Kerry Eurodyne story ties in well with the Johnny Silverhand plot of the game and gives a bit more about their history and new future with each other. The River Ward storyline honestly could have been its own game to be honest, its pretty great.
Last thing, I saw you mentioned how the punk aspect of the game was supposed to reflect on how you advance technology and apply it to things in a sort of makeshift way but they function as necessary (paraphrasing). Did you see the Aldecado's vehicles and the interiors / exteriors of them? I feel like that is the epitome of what you are referring to. All of those buttons and dials and the Crystaldome windshields turning into glass, its all high tech stuff but it is clearly visible and juxtaposes the rugged base of the cars and vans that they drive. It's pretty amazing to see first hand.
Overall, with all this said, I want to end with saying that your video was amazing, even if there were things here and there that I didn't agree with. You made excellent points that definitely should have been given second looks and I am proud of you for it. I probably would not have noticed if you didn't.
Agreed but what he was saying and what most of us know is there is only bits and pieces of good stuff in this game not enough to patch it all together to even make a used cyberpunk jacket ! Lol
He also suggests WE the player have no reason to go after Arasaka though, which is just a flat out lie.
Story wise, they built the tech that's eating our brain alive, in Cyberpunk (as in the universe not the style, the -verse actually came first, I'm not sure why he couldn't figure that one out) Alphatech (it's a newspeak term from the tabletop for technology in development) is so complex and new that unless you built it or knows someone who helped build it (or have an AI from behind the wall, which all seem to be basically magic-tier infinitely smart super-beings), you have no way of understanding, repairing, or in this case removing it if it's doing something. Which the narrative explains why you can't just ask for help nicely (and 1 of the endings, apparently the only one he bothered getting before posting this cringetastic review, even shows why you shouldn't bother working with Arasaka anyway), and leaving it alone means a very unique kind of death.
Narratively, you see Arasaka execute an entire space council for being inconvenient during the Corpo intro (which he mentions and just casually blows off), and otherwise Arasaka is regularly said and occasionally shown to be doing some nightmarish things. Kidnapping people off the streets to use as test subjects, violently executing anyone who gets in their way (which we see multiple instances of in various states of progress), murdering people in the streets for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (you do get to see a victim of this in one of the NCPD side missions). They have their own street gang as a holdover from a previous conflict from one of the tabletop games, who still regularly mugs people and runs a protection racket while exclusively using Arasaka manufactured weapons. They're openly Japanese imperialists keeping stolen land on American soil, something we begrudge China for doing to India IRL. Their leadership is also all by the real definitions of the terms, racist xenophobes with a bad case of nepotism. Oh, and their not-actually-dead head is a body jacker who steals his own son's body in one of the endings. Not all of these are reasons the story itself entirely agrees with, but they're all the reason I need to hate them personally.
Beat it only 2 x's?...go for more crappy endings man. Totaly worth it lol
same
@@KiraSlith we the player don’t give a shit about a busted SD card in our head how am I supposed to care about that plot point when it doesn’t even impact the gameplay. It’s like “oh nooooo wait who cares can I have a better antagonist yet I just want to check out the word and treat it like futuristic skyrim”
The thing that hurts the most is how much better fleshed out the side content is. The Main Story feels incredibly rushed, has little to no impact on the world, and kinda just ferries you from point A to point B without letting you take in the world.
exactly how can i get better rewards for doing side quests quietly but cant even keep Jackie alive if i go through the effort of going through the entire tower not getting detected once
shit game design thats how
Honestly! I enjoyed the game myself but that doesn't mean the main story was good, the side stories felt better tied together tbh.
I could name like 5 RPGs that are considered all time greats where the side quests carry the game, but cyberpunk doesn't get the same treatment
slight nitpick but the ending where you Side with Arasaka practically turns the world into cruelty squad where death is no longer a thing. and people (and by people i mean the extremely rich) can now live forever
Wait, how do the endings have little impact on the world. Literally nothing had had more impact on the world than V. You can essentially destroy Arasaka which is the biggest and most powerful corporation in cyberpunk. You can also side with it and guarantee that it will remain the biggest baddest Corp under the same man for basically forever. And this does not even include the phantom liberty dlc.
The issue of the player's initial ascension through the criminal underworld being reduced to a montage cutscene... highly suggests that the story was retconned late in development; that when Keanu got involved, they had to retool the entire story.
Because the way the game is set up, it very much looks like it was going to be a GTA IV cyberpunk edition sort of thing, where you start out as some unlucky random person at the bottom, and gradually get more and more involved in higher stakes criminal activity, before it all blows up into something more significant in the final act.
Essentially, it smells suspiciously to me like the intro... used to be the entire story, but properly fleshed out, with the mysterious chip job being the finale, or at least the mid-point cliffhanger, but then they had a big celebrity character and had to do extensive rewrites.
Let this be a warning to anyone writing books, games, films, whatever; the ones that work the best and satisfy the audience the most? Are the ones that start small, and stay focused, even if they become much bigger over time. An "epic" story isn't a mountain; it's the climb up the mountain, starting at the bottom... and the most epic feeling the audience has? When they're able to look back down the mountain and see the entire journey behind them.
Imma keep it 300. That sounds so much better.
Like being a pennyless bum, living in mama wells backroom.
Actually meeting Vik and Bug for the first time and growing the relationships with them.
Getting involved as you go from basically an unknown to growing and becoming well enough that it makes sense that new. More wealthy fixers seek you out. (As opposed to, "ah, I see you've driven into my section of the city. Allow me to introduce myself, because our criminal organisations are all about inclusiveness and geotracking.)
Like shit. Could have made the backstories much more important to the story.
I don't think this is entirely accurate. Look at the success of Cyberpunk. After most of the bugs have been patched, almost everyone is like "weLL I haD a BLasT". Truth is, people just want graphics in their game and perhaps one-two tear-shedding sidequests. Nobody really cares about the story and the reality is that even after this very botched release, with most quality features missing, Cyberpunk still is one of the top-selling titles on Steam. Even if they completely botched the story, as per their margins, the audience is very satisfied.
@@alex1stamford779 "Nobody really cares about the story"
Eeh, sure. Because it's not like nearly all the most beloved games of all time are story-heavy or anything.
"Even if they completely botched the story, as per their margins, the audience is very satisfied."
Would that be why the game is desperately 50% off on sale multiple times every year?
I guess that technically doesn't conflict with pondsmith saying that Johnny was always going to be on the chip, but he himself has said they didn't really change the main story much, if at all.
The media focused on the bugs because it was easier than realizing that they had fallen victim of CDPR marketing and that they had given glowing reviews to a mediocre game. If anything, SOME bugs made the game more fun (not those that broke quests or crashed the game)
Focusing on the glitches is giving this game a pass it doesn't deserve. But even focusing on the plot doesn't address the issue that the gameplay feels like a mediocre GTA knockoff from the PS3 era.
is that a perfect circle zelda pfp?
the real punk choice is to not give CORPO scum AAA games your hard earned money, and stop believing in these brown nosing review companies
@@JackPorter It's entirely hyppocritical to make a story focused on anti-corporation and force-feed it to you, considering this game might as well be the biggest corporate slop from CDPR with the heavy crunches and low quality control. Meanwhile, GTA 5 knew what it was making, and ended up being more fun.
@@traiforse5777 Here's to hoping GTA 6 doesn't end up like Cyberpunk 2077.
Pretty spot on. The game has been sitting on my shelf for about a year, collecting dust. When I beat it, it crashed again, during the credits. Couldn’t even get through credits. That pretty much sums up my cyberpunk experience. You’re right. Even if all of the bugs were removed, it wouldn’t fix the story.
Exactly. This guy get's it.
Honestly, in CP2077 I felt like a tourist in the world, not a character.
Damn you just made me realize I feel the same way
that is the point though, you are a person in a world that moves on without you, you arent some groundbreaking godlike protagonist. you will be forgotten and nothing you do matters, is the point of the game. it makes perfect sense, I dont get how everyone here is so lost
@@bredwright wow its almost like thats the whole point of the game, you're just a person, who will die and be forgotten
Considering that CDPR advertised that Cyberpunk was going to have a story where our actions and choices would affect the story/matter and that their would be non linear quest design, having a main story where what we do is pointless and V is just forgotten makes no sense. Seems more like CDPR scrapped whatever story they had planned to make a new one where Sliverhands is heavily involved when Keanu joined the game.
@@unknownlogicman9399 this is pretty funny to me. Before the revamped update, the story was "boring, repetitive, and *every action does not matter to the ending*". The bugs, the quality of releasing, and the high expectations tanked the game down to oblivion. But then, a while after the update, an anime based on the game released quite later, Edgerunners, not only is positively reviewed, but also saved the game's legacy as a whole. And the story is about David Martinez, a character that existed in the game itself, hailed as "legend" in the world of Cyberpunk, but throughout the story, David reached to the rank and later on died saving the people he loved while struggling to find a reason to live, as if nothing he does even matters. Legends dies at some point anyway.
So, we reach to one conclusion: Cyberpunk the game is about the cycle of life, we live to the heights, pursuing all means of goals, even if we're slowly killing ourself, and ended up being nothing but remembered with your name on a drink. Even V is overpowered at some sort, being able to beat Adam Smasher so damn easy, and that's it. Living like hell yet longing for the wishes people left you behind, and anything, we still die after all.
Well then. Is this a case of "How Cyberpunk ruined storywriting" or "Cyberpunk's brilliant writing"?
I’m still amazed how I only spent a week and half playing this game, beat it once, then moved on and never went back to it again. This was easily my biggest gaming disappointment ever.
I can't even be bothered to finish the game. I got to the point of no return expecting to at least play the rest of the game without interruptions or stupid cutscenes, but V just had another seizure as soon as I met the Japanese woman. After that I was done. Game doesn't want me to interact with the world. But when I do its shitty fetch missions, I get interrupted with seizures and cutscenes that I don't care about.
@@Tommybotham this might make me look bad but I didn’t finish it either lmao got to like the last mission and just didn’t give af enough just UA-camd the endings on 2x speed and was like “yup they did basically what I thought was going to happen”
I played it in a food poisoning induced stupor, the food poisoning was more fun than the game so I only made it about 20 hours in before I had enough.
You described every game i ever play lol. Skyrim, 1 and done. Fallout 3,NV,4 1 and done. Witcher 1 2 3 ... one and done. Mass Effect 1 2 3 one and done (actually no i played mass effect 2 a second time through just to see if i could get everyone killed accept Morinth in the final mission. spoiler alert, YOU CAN! and then she kills you LMAO) hmm oh Zelda games? 1 and done. every Souls/bloodborne/knockoff ... one and done. OH GTA 3? VC? SA? 4? 5? ONE AND DONE! Of all the greatest games of all time ive played 95% of them only one time through. and enjoy that time. and have no desire to go play it again. Same thing with movies. i only watch movies once.
Mostly because i have good memory maybe? Just starting to think about a game or a movie and i can basically replay the whole thing in my mind again, so i dont need to watch it again, so i dont.
That doesnt make any of them bad. Its a very normal way to consume entertainment. Cyberpunk was good. i loved it.
@@uncletrashero Yeah see I'm not like that. Most of those games you've mentioned that I myself have also played I've done a multitude of playthroughs of because I wanted to enjoy a similar experience to what I experienced the first time playing it once more. And when it came to the more RPG-esque games you mentioned, I played them again because I wanted to try out different builds.
That said, with the few great games I have done a single playthrough of, I still definitely looked back fondly on my experience of it, the clearest example of this being RDR2. I thought it was a great game (for the most part), but I tried playing it once again and it just didn't do much for me. I think a lot of it had to do with just how incredibly long it was. That said, I still definitely thought the game had a great story with great characters and fun gameplay and absolutely incredible dedication to realism and detail.
When it comes to Cyberpunk though, my reluctance to do another playthrough was due entirely to me just feeling quite underwhelmed by the experience the more I continued to reflect on it. I did enjoy the experience for the most part when I played it the first time, but I think in retrospect a lot of that was just due to me hyping myself up for the game. The more I thought about the game though the more the glaring issues in it became increasingly more apparent and the more I in turn began to dislike it. And this was my own personal take on it, not biased by the views of others.
Anyways, if you liked/loved Cyberpunk, then more power to you. I on the other hand feel basically the same way as Manley Reviews does about it though. Maybe not quite as harshly as he does, but pretty damn close. The story really really doesn't hold up well to closer scrutiny IMO.
It’s so bad, I’m on my first play through and within 5 minutes of Keanu showing up I could feel the quality of the game dropping so fast I just gave up and stopped “playing”
Mans too underrated, these intros DAMN
lmao thanks man spent like a week on that shit just editing it.
How do you have such incredible production value? I'm really impressed. This is way more professional than pretty much any other youtuber.
I take a lot of enjoyment in doing the production. That’s the main reason
@@ManleyReviewsbut does that mean that you're implying that you do all the editing or something?
If so....just, holy shit dude... It's GOOD.
@@ManleyReviewsnice
yeah and it's such a shame that that alone managed to basically con everyone into thinking it's a good video
Dat edge doh
I would argue that cyberpunk story revolves around V being unable to accept his lot in life. Arasaka isn’t the antagonist, V is. As all their trouble is self inflicted.The prologue is the result of him trying force his way up night city food chain. The main story is about him accepting his own mortality. Depending on your ending either V comes to term with things or keeps going on spiral of self destructive behavior.
That’s what I got out of it as well. It’d be nice if they at least fleshed out Jackie’s role in the story more and add more meat to the story line the game would’ve a bit better. Obviously, glitches, bugs and all aside.
Yeah BIG CORPO like araska who want to make the elite inmortal is not the problem here looool
James, I like your analysis of the story.
Myself, I struggled finding an understanding of the story until I read some random comment on Reddit which set off a lightbulb for me. The way I like to view it now is that V arrives in Night City with no friends and over the course of the game he makes a network of friends, and the final mission is all about that friend network: do I risk my friends’ lives by asking for their help, or do I go it alone? And, during the end credits we get video voicemails from people we met throughout the game and find out how our decisions impacted them. At the beginning V is a lot like Johnny, a selfish prick… but in the end, like Johnny, V grows to care about others. After I saw the game in that light, I saw that story idea in every corner and shadow of Night City…
Honestly, Cyberpunk is the first game where I actually listened to every line of dialog without fast forwarding. And, by the end, I cared about the characters. No game has made me do that before, and I’ve been playing games since the early 80s.
Your entire journey is driven by the fact that you are dying, I think it's safe to say that the main plot of the game is about survival and not about a battle between you and corporations (namely, Arasaka).. which is what this video so disappointingly missed..
That's a Shit "RPG" Story Hook. The very fact you referred to V as a Him rather then them shows that There Will only Ever Be one V CDPR's V, We were Given V and But not Given the Choice of what kind of V. And Not Just The Sex Of V But Idea of Them As Well, Who are they, what do they want and more importantly why? These are core to a R P G and are not negotiable or at least to this extent.
All of this reminds me of Fallout4's Sole Survivor. And Bouncing Baby Boy 74 year old with cancer crap.
04:16 - "That's not a patch, that's a whole new pair of pants"
I'm dead...🤣🤣🤣
the best line in the whole video haha.
@@ManleyReviews _"you're just asking.........[long pause].........to die"_ is second best
Worst thing to me was the "branching storyline and your decisions ripple through it" lie. But yeah everything else you mentioned was right up there. Felt like every lifepath was streetkid after intro with dialogue illusion to justify it, ugh
so true. Just play as a street kid because CRAP WE DIDN"T HAVE TIME TO MAKE ANYTHING ELSE
Street kid is an archetype in the tabletop rpg. It’s got bigger connotations than the literal words. It’s an iconic background when making characters for the ttrpg. There’s a lot more nuance and reverence to the canon that wouldn’t be readily apparent if you aren’t familiar and think of “cyberpunk” as a more loose dystopian concept rather than the literal setting the game is based in.
@@ryandugan9176 I get what you're saying, but it I don't think you understand what the dude is saying.
tldr: It doesn't matter what lifepath you choose at the beginning of the game, the game as a whole seems like it's shoehorning you down the Streetkid path.
@@TornaitSuperBird exactly what I was saying, thanks! If you play as corpo suddenly all your contacts are gone or treating you like you're dead. Nomad suddenly has connections in the city and knows a lot about how things work in just 6 months? Wth? And all 3 paths end up with same car and apartment even though corpo grew up in charter hill and street kid grew up in heywood?
I played this game and really wanted to enjoy it, but after a few hours of playing, I just couldn't do it anymore and so I set the game down and never played it again.
Something funny is if you look back at Fallout 3. One of the major issues people had was the ending that railroaded you in with many possible outcomes that didn't need you to just die for the sake of story. Cyberpunk's team though, " That's a great idea, let's do it in spades!"
For an open world game I never felt so compelled to stay on track to the point it was nauseating.
to make an rpg that ends with main character's death is one thing and relic being responsible is not a bad choice
but cyberpunk is not an rpg
it's an action looter shooter with everengineered mechanics
you as a player, as V the legend of night city who gets to meet all other legends...
have no influence ofer anything
I'm surprised there was no comment on the part in the Arasaka ending when you got through an hour long torture scene where Johnny is chewing you out and insulting you for making what, at this point in the story, is a very reasonable decision. He goes as far as to say Jackie would be pissed at you even though he had no investment in Arasaka whatsoever.
They killed him
@@alfieshepherd6522 He stole from them.
@@TechnoMinarchist that dosent justify it
@@kinga.t.242 Maybe not but in this world that’s a known risk for committing a crime, Jackie wouldn’t immediately decide to kill them all just because they turned on him.
You mean V siding with the corp that makes the lives of his friends and family into walking future collateral damages, living in constant fear of drawing their ire by towing the line of legality just to make a living while Arasaka bleeds them to fund their war with Militech? Yeah, no reason to hate them at all
Incredible editing, writing, and forethought. The amount of prep that went into this to get such a clean product is astounding. Well done my G.
Thank you! Could say the same for your channel as well. Good luck out there man.
I've always been saying that bugs were minor problems compared to the rest of the game. And now that CDPR has patched some glitches (despite taking them 2 years to do so), people are bootlicking the shit out of CD Projekt, ignoring the scam and all of the unfulfilled promises just because of the anime.
most of the promised stuff are added or will be added with patches
@@kinga.t.242 so its perfectly fine to sell a broken pile of shit at full price? stop dick riding
@@DAVFEARON I never ever said that I'm just saying the that the game is great now
The anime isnt even good
@@czarnakoza9697holy shit someone that can freely think
Man, I wanted to love this game. I tried. Steam says I got 260 hours in it. Sometimes I enjoy just taking a drive through Night City, but I always felt like an outsider in the city. A tourist. I wasn't allowed to make a difference.
There's a line in the TTRPG handbook that explains a lot of the mentality. "Style over substance." Cyberpunk as an IP has this weird obsession with nihilism. They treat nihilism and edgy detachment as enlightenment. Things go wrong even when they should go right because they start from the position that things are terrible ("wrong city, wrong people") and work backwards to make events further that message. It was never about the content of the story, it was about the story being a vehicle for the aesthetic and the tone.
I think that fits the theme of the world of cyberpunk. We are just some rando merc who got lucky and is trying to claw his way out of hole we put ourselves into. Life just goes on, we are not the savior, the dragonborn or Commander Shephard we are just some kid who is trying to survive after a botched heist even on the ending were v survives life just moves on.
Correction, it just means we aren't destined to be heroic like Shepard or the Dragonborn. But that also means we aren't destined to be helpless, either. V could still be a hero, they just aren't fated to be so or set up as the hero from the start. That's what I mean by the arbitrary nihilism. Nothing is actually stopping V from making meaningful change except the haunting specter of Mike Pondsmith and the "style over substance" philosophy.
Its supposed to highlight rampant, mindless consumerism. Its not nihilistic and "style over substance" for no reason. It shows how vapid Western culture is and what it could become with an economic model that incentivises consumerism. There are overly sexualised ads for that reason, weird obsessions with pop stars etc. It is the epitome of idealising celebs and consumerist fashion while ignoring all the suffering around you. Its just a glam funky hit piece on capitalism.
I still come back to this video every now and again to remind myself that I am NOT insane for not liking this game.
Truffle Shuffle?
I hate how many insane fanboys this game has. It was okay to play for the first time but people calling this a masterpiece that they cant stop playing makes me start to hate this game.
Ikr
Me too
Gamers will buy anything i tell ya. This game wasn't worth it.
Funfact: During the drive with PanAm, look down. The ground is clipping through the floor.
Honestly I didn’t even notice. You just get used it at this point in the game lmao
Over a year later, I played this game. I tend to be a "I couldn't care less" kinda guy with the stories in games and movies, so I went through it like "Yeah, yeah whatever, look at this city tho!"
The meat and potatoes of the game really are in some of the side quests. A whole ass conspiracy about mind controlling people, rogue taxi AI's, the fucking abduction of kids and stuffing them into a cow farm (this one still makes me feel a little sick), the jesus plot. A bunch of the side quests feel good, the main story to me was more like, yeah okay.
Even the random quests you get by just going around is more fun than the main story. On my second playthrough I found mysel doing all possible side quests before the next main story mission and man, I was kinda bummed out when I was done with side quests
@@balintgyuri6555 that is standard procedure for me with every rpg, i do all the side quests first and only then the main ones.
They should've just went "Bethesda" route and made the main "plot" rudimental and largely irrelevant, so the game could focus on the side content instead
The most frustrating sidemission for me was saving the cyberpsychosis victims. You go through the trouble to keep them alive with the initial promise to get a cure out of it and in the end it was all POINTLESS.
its because "cyberpsychosis is a curable disease" was a last minute decision by cd projekt red. In the original tabletop game, Cyberpsychosis was meant to keep players from installing too many cybernetics, unfortunately the plot reason for this is "disabled people cease to be human"
All cyberpsychosis plots are wrong too. In nearly each of them, "psycho" is not even psycho, just screwed by someone and doing revenge.
@@Ultrasemen That's... exactly the freaking point? Cyberpsychosis is made up to cover for systematic failures - Vet with PTSD, Militech agent put on performance drugs by the corp, etc.
@@selina7318 right, but in most cases there were no issues, it was mostly stuff like revenge or even self defence. Like an auto shop owner in Glen who had corpos try to take away his business with fake debt or something like that.
In original lore, cyberpsychosis in much more interesting - it's the reaction to the fact how imperfect normal humans are. For example, you install implant that boosts your reaction, now everyone is annoyingly slow. With every implant, you lose a bit of your "humanity".
@@Ultrasemen that part is intentional
Man it’s insane the amount of work that you put in this video. I imagine this type of quality only from multi-million subscribers channel. You’re great
Coming back to this once more. Still consider it to be one of the best reviews Cyberpunk has gotten to date and one of my favorites in general. An amazing presentation all-in-all, genuinely love you dude and wish you the very best!
Thank you! Hella appreciate it
he didnt understood the whole plot i think he didnt played the side missions at all
@@kinga.t.242 facts
Go look at CyberStuffXR, JDTechGear, or Hello Future Me’s videos on Cyberpunk, way more accurate and in-depth with the narrative breakdowns, pointing out both strengths and weaknesses readily
I regret this purchase so much. I regret even knowing and being involved with the conversation at all but in my opinion … I do not like this game. Choice does not matter, you do not get to choose the path of your character, you do not get to develop your own unique character in this world. This game is a linear game pretending to be an open world RPG. People defend it because they love Keanu Reeves IMO. I like Keanu Reeves but it doesn’t mean I will hype a game that sucks. Character creations in first person, you must be joking. Character development in a linear storyline that has no choices or character development? They need to just be honest and call it a AAA action game. If they had been honest about what it was, if the fans had been honest about what it was, I would have never gotten the game, had an opinion, or even been involved in the conversation.
Relate heavily to this. It’s slop, but slop I’ve invested too much into to not play. Despite everything I despise about it basically being summed up in this video.
Hands down the best thing I've seen on the internet in quite some time. I WAS THERE BEFORE YOU HAD 1Mil SUBS!
I really want to be reference this comment in 5 years once the milly rolls in
i am going to jump on the band wagon.
CHOOCHOOOOOO
Great arguments, editing, cinematics, and references throughout. All this and more add up to a total weekend score of 47/50, giving "The Bugs in Cyberpunk Never Mattered" a total MonteScore of 93/100. This places high on the list and simply is a great review, ranking with other similar videos like "Oprah is trying to sell $160 log carrying bags" from the same creator and the AoT Abridged which Manley subtly references in this piece. For more of my thoughts on "The Bugs in Cyperpunk Never Mattered", be sure to check out my post on GameTrader where I go into more detail about why this review might be paving the way for LED neck fashion.
LMAO HAHAHA The doug score would have been perfect.
Cyper PISS baby 🤠
I have no clue what's going on here but I love it.
Before we start the video, be sure to check out *CAAAAAARS AND BIDS*
@@זהסודי-ה7מ !Haha glad you got the reference
The way I always imagined the game went is once you insert the chip with Johnny's engram, his memories and motives slowly leak into V. So at first you're really only against Arasaka because V has their chip and is threatened by death. But after slowly transforming into Johnny, Arasaka becomes the true enemy because that's what Johnny truly believes. Johnny's motives are definitely lacking though.
@The Summer Company That is what happens. It's said in the game that you're slowly becoming more like Johnny. You as V don't hate Arasaka because Arasaka isn't the antagonist, but because of Johnny you might to start to hate them. At the end of the day it's the players choice on what to do, but they give a good reason as to why V would go against Arasaka.
@@chainsaw8507 I never really got the impression that I was becoming more like Johnny. In fact, other than the cut scenes where Johnny takes over, it never feels like Johnny is integral to my interactions with other characters and other than some sideline commentary which I can choose to ignore or go against.
The game can't just say that I'm becoming more like Johnny. It has to actually show that and it doesn't. It's the old saying of "show don't tell," that applies to any good story.
@@darkmojojojo The game does show it. Johnny talking to you is just a visual representation of his thoughts fighting yours. It's your choice to embrace those thoughts or not, but him talking to you is the games way of showing you the effect he has.
@@chainsaw8507 No, that's Johnny's engram talking because he's literally inside your head. It's no different than someone outside of your own head influencing your actions.
If there was something that happened where V said or did something that only Johnny would have done and then another character commented on it and V realized that was out of character of them, that would be showing. That doesn't happen. V is always in control other than the few times they let Johnny take the wheel on purpose.
@@darkmojojojo Nah, it actually is that. They literally say in game that Johnny talking to you is just how V's brain is interpreting it. Having someone talk to you at all times when making choices will and effect on anyone's judgment. The reason V doesn't do anything out of character is because you decide what V does. You decide what's out of character for your V.
what people dont realize about cyberpunk is that even though all the bugs are fixed now and there new dlc and everything, buying the game is still a company making money on a product they released unfinished, this happened with skyrim and even the witcher 3, and the problem is only ever going to continue to escalate so long as these games keep making money
The amount of work you put into critiquing Cyberpunk is more than what CDPR put into writing its story.
Lmao that’s i mean… not wrong I guess haha thanks for watching and lmao at ur name
Hilarious 😆
Insanely impressive video dude. Genuinely inspiring
Wow I really appreciate that!! You're with the JM of the beef boys right? sewper cool.
@@ManleyReviews I am James Miller adjacent, this is true
OOOhhhh I remember you from internet historian you were in one of the incognitos right? I swear I've seen your name floating about
@@ManleyReviews Yeah mate that's me! I'm in the latest one, he hopped on a Cyberpunk vid of mine too (it isn't as good as yours, don't watch it)
I've actually watched it before funny enough! I think I actually took inspiration from your thumbnail as well when I was shopping around for thumbs. don't downplay it bro your contents great!
Holy shit, samurai. This was one hell of a video. Thanks for making it. I hope you see lots of growth. You deserve it.
Nah Nicholas you the samurai. Growth would be tight! thanks for sticking around dudeski.
God, the Jackie spoiler in the marketing was just straight up garbage dude. I was over here thinking, “Nah, that’s probably just one outcome, or very late in the game.” But nope. When the game dropped, I legitimately reloaded save files for about an hour trying to figure what I did “wrong” to get him killed.
The game was supposed to be about you and Jackie taking iver the city, one way or another.
They collapsed that idea once Keanu came into the picture.
That little montage in the begining...that was our game, the game we were supposed to get.
But they were like "Hey, see this? Fck you, you're not getting that. Here's Cortana Wick to bland your way throughout this empty city that we made."
I really loved the characters and I understand the futility of it all, because I believe it's a good mirror to real life... That said, I agree that logically falls apart from a gameplay perspective. Still love the game overall and wished for more time with Jackie, Judy, PanAm, etc. Wished ending could have been bigger for night city itself
The biggest flaw with cyberpunk, it’s stripped down massively
It’s sad how this is the only video I could find on the internet that says this, there should be thousands of videos like this everywhere.
because its so stupid he didnt even understood the story of the game he thinks that its about v getting revenge on arasaka when its never like that
@@kinga.t.242 well if it was like that then it would actually have a better story
@@ghastlyghandi4301 no it wont the story in CP is easily one of the best stories iv seen in any game i ever played the guy who made the video misinderstood the whole story and the point of it
@@kinga.t.242 ah, well you must have incredibly low standards then (that or you haven’t played a lot of video games).
@@ghastlyghandi4301 i played more than 500 video games and even more name a story driven game and i probably played it if i really have low standards can you give examples why the story is bad
Literally the only part of the game where you get anything from the life path is when the nomad character can get their car from the intro back
After finally getting to play the game to the end, i was desperate to find someone who knows like me that the writing is absolute horseshit and CDPR fucked us over.
The writing is atrocious. The character motivations we're written by a 3rd grader.
@@ManleyReviews not to mention that half of the story is missing, the story missions were about 15 hours long, thats the lengh of just 1 Witcher 3 dlc, compared to Witchers 3 50hrs of story in the base game, thats without side quests. CDPR claimed that the story was only slightly shorter than witcher 3. You go from the prologue and get teleported to late mid game, the whole first half of the game is missing and gets relegated to a 6 months montage. Edit : just noticed that you cover that in the video, but thats one of the game gripes, they clearly cut the story and gave us a far shoter one than they originally intented but they ran out of time.
@@ManleyReviews You missed the part where many of the story points and lore are not from CDPR but from MIke Pondsmith the creator of the Tabletop that the game is based off of, he made Johnny a Rocker/terrorist and he named his tabletop Cyberpunk 2020 and created the worlds story/characters ect which is why CDPR named a cyberpunk themed game Cyberpunk 2077, its supposed to be a sequel to the story mike pondsmith created for his 2020 table top.
@@ManleyReviews you just didnt understood the story at all
can you give me examples of bad writing ?
Also it's funny how the character creator was so propped up as well as the clothing system, but the whole game is in fpp. At least make the cutscenes tpp so you can see your character.
I know I'm 7 months late to this, but this video is fantastically made. The editing, cohesiveness, and jokes all flow really well together. I also love that you're not afraid to joke without a filter.
This made me think about what the story could've been. Each life path could have led down a different story route that all had V eventually either come in contact with the chip or be involved in something that leads to V going to mikoshi.
Like a nomad in the bad lands dealing with nomad clans, wraiths, raffenshiv, corporations, etc.
A corpo rat dealing with competitors, espionage, corporate secrets, etc.
And a street kid dealing with rival gangs, street conflict, drug deals, etc.
Each route would have you develop with different characters the game could've had a large cast of characters to get to know.
and it would never be the same game no matter how many times you play because all 3 routes have 3 different possible endings.
i believe it was to be one large tale that got split up
as a street kid V meets jackie
and then becomes a corpo dog
in corpo prologue V get's kicked out and runs from the city to join nomads
after that bakkers sell out to corpos and V comes back to night city in one last smuggling job meeting jackie after a long time
all of those things were to be a part of something greater
that line from teaser? "we have a city to burn"?
never happens
game promised was something completely else from what we got
No man, I disagree. This made-up version of what could've been was literally the production studio's job. The fact that it was so bad that a normal gamer like you or me could literally type a better idea into the UA-cam comment section means the developer's multimillion project gets zero benefit of the doubt that they could've made something good out of this project. Clearly anyone with a head on their shoulders would've gone with something closer to what you've described. And this company had $ MILLIONS to get some basic stuff correct. For whatever reason it was, it's clear this game was NEVER going to be good in these developers' hands. Don't do their job for them, they were paid more than enough to create trash.
@@timstalam But you know that your version isn't better? For example guy above is dreaming about making three games and releasing it as one, or making again mistake that was chapter two of witcher 2, but on much bigger scale.
"Normal gamers" rarely have any good idea for games as you can easily see checking typical mods and their mistakes.
@@_r4x4bootlicker be like oh no daddy corpo can't make bad stories normal ppl can't make good stories cause me love corpocock
The worst part is them expecting me to hate Corpos. But l always ask, why? What have they done to me? Why should l hate them? No answers.
And keanu reves sucks. I was tired of him 1 hour in.
They tried to do the Joker thing from Arkham Knight. They failed.
Besides, CP2077 was supposed to be an RPG. They emphasized that each and every day during the development...UNTIL Keanu came in, I guess. After he came in they turned the game into a GTA wannabe mess.
exactly, the game rushes you into corpo=bad so quickly, before you even have any reason to think so
The prologue, so the time before the chip-stealing mission would've been the perfect time to make you like the characters (including V) but also showing how much work and effort you have to put in to even matter in night city. You would have to do a lot of jobs in order to even survive, buy a new apartment, a new car and at some point you would have enough the street cred for the "gangster guy" to call you and then the whole story would start.
See, the thing is this game is based off a Table Top RPG by Mike Pondsmith called Cyberpunk. It came out back in the 80's and a lot of the stuff you have issues with story wise is actually explained by the TTRPG. Johnny was a character in the TTRPG, Rocker Boy was literally a class you could play. Arasaka, Morgan Blackhand, Adam Smasher, the Valantinos, even Ozob Bozo were all things you could read up on by getting into the lore of that game. It even had an updated rule set called Cyberpunk Red that got released just before 2077 to coincide with the game. It has some of the best splat books and lore guides in the business too. There's a book that is like a tour guide to Night City that has stuff like gang turf and even stuff like florists and that kinda thing.
i love all of his other videos but hes complaining about lore even tho this isn't the first installment in this series. He should have checked out the table top version or read about the lore before complaining about it.
@@bandbm5599 The game should be judged by what is contained in the game. The game messed that up. Though having played both the ttrpgs he is missing a lot
@@chocolatebutter192 yea I agree, he acknowledged the ttrpgs and didn't even bother to at least read a bit about it then blamed it on the game which is a sequel
@@chocolatebutter192 but another thing he didn't even have the story right tho, it's almost like he didn't even understand the lore and I don't think he played any of the side quests. He didn't even have the antagonist right.
Look that’s great, but the game needs to do enough to paint the broad strokes for the people engaging with it well enough
You can’t just say “oh this info all exists in an entirely different medium so if anyone hasn’t gone out of there way to find those details OUTSIDE of this piece of media that’s THEIR fault”
You can’t just hand wave a story for not explaining basic elements of their world or characters to the audience because that information exists somewhere else
This actually gave me more desire to play the game than my roommate telling me to ignore the bugs while also telling me about himself using bugs for fun. "If I haven't seen it, it hasn't happened"
Hey if you dig it, more power to ya.
When Jacky fucking died despite the 50 medkits dotted around the building the entire way back I gave up on the story.
Worst thing is they even knew there was an issue with the lack of motivation on V's part, because they gave us hundreds of dialogue options that practically said "I'm going to die, I don't give a shit about Arasaka, I don't give a shit about Silverhand, who the fuck are you, where the fuck am I, leave me alone".
Every time the game characters asked me "will you miss Night City" I'm like why? what is Night City? How the fuck am I supposed to answer this question? Who are you even to be asking me this? Before the ending you get this huge WTF moment where you discuss the future of Silverhand with Alt. Throughout the whole segment I just kept choosing the options that berate Silverhand and mock him for having to pack his bags and leave my brain. And then at the end Alt says "well you can't really remove Silverhand from your head and return to your body".
And then Alt disappears and Johnny is like "look... you actually can"...
WHAT? How is any of this adequate? Game just tells you one thing and pulls a switcheroo on you without even bothering to explain. The game has no intention of giving you any substantial meaningful information or backstory into the way things are in Night City, or the Badlands, or Arasaka, оr the Afterlife. I still don't know what the fuck Blackwall is and what happens beyond it. The game just tells you "just roll with it" cause the writers probably didn't have any fuckin clue if there is anything more to it either...
Cyberpunk 2077 is just a glitchy messy powerpoint presentation of a bunch of video game elements that some out of touch corporate douchebags in suits told the developers would guarantee profit. Couldn't have been more ironic, considering the game's anti-corporative setting.
Arasaka isn't the "big bad" of the game. The game makes very clear why they're an evil corporation, but all they ever are to the player character is an obstacle to their survival. Yeah, Johnny Silverhand has his vendetta against Arasaka, but V never goes in for that. In Part 1, V wants to be famous, and the best way to do that is to steal Relic 2.0 from Yorinobu. In Part 2, V wants to survive, and the only way to do that is to figure out how to remove it, which of course means getting involved with Arasaka, one way or another.
You are right that it's never made clear why Johnny's engram is on Relic 2.0 though. He was put on there to lure out Alt Cunningham, which is touched on but never explicitly said by anyone. As for why he was kept as an engram in the first place, Arasaka was using him as a test subject for Soulkiller, and kept everyone through it and Relic "on file" in case they needed them for some reason.
I'm sure the writers aren't literally rеtаrded and the story made sense as plotted.
It's just told extremely poorly. Players with knowledge of the lore thoroughly analyzing every line could understand what the story was *trying* to convey, but it's kind of still the game's fault to fail to convey it to the audience.
Well they are the big bad. Just there's no compelling storyline that justifies it. But the entire dialogue from Keanu Reeves is constantly "Stop the corporation". I mean, the end of the game deals with them specifically.
If they aren't, then no one is, and well... a story without an antagonist is truly a snafu
Still relevant review only wish he would have kept going.
Dude it took me 3 years to realize the outro is sadworld, mad respect.
the Jakie death flag was the most painful thing I ever had to sit through. I just wanted him to shut up and nut put a bullseye on his back. Good on you man for calling that out. Not sure why people are getting bent about this video.
This was REALLY well edited dude. I’ve been a subscriber for a long time, but this has gotta be one of your best, well put together videos. It had me laughing pretty much through the whole thing. The among us jokes and when you fucking yelled in the boom mic made me cry from laughter
Ngl, I'm kinda mad at the fact that I'm only just discovering this channel.
Love the review and it’s energy. A few things I have to point out BUT keep in mind I haven’t yet played the game.
Silverhand is not a character made up by the game he was around 50 years before the game started and was a renown soldier who became a rocker kid. The reason he was left alive was mainly a trophy for the Arasaka CEO at the time as a sort of final “F U” to Silverhands. Also Arasaka are definitely an evil company all though again I have no idea how well the game explained all of this
I just started playing and found my way to this video because after finishing stealing the chip I found myself bored with the game. The main story doesn’t give me time to breathe. There are a bunch of cool side quests I’ve been given but I can’t find the time to do it because the main quest keeps pushing me forward. I mean I don’t have to go straight through but that would kind of break immersion since everything the main characters give me seems urgent. And back to the point I’ve never getting to breathe. There’s no chance to explore night city or be a cyberpunk. I’m not even sure if the city is supposed to be explored.
Well, well, well, here we are. So first of all, great video. I think you did an excellent job in the editing and you explained your points well. I do, as expected from our conversations, have some disagreements. I think this may be an issue with how the game presents things but people like Johnny Silverhand and the Arasaka family are fleshed out in the handbooks for the Cyberpunk TTRPG in a way that may not clearly be explained in the game. If you spend enough time reading things from the world you may pick this stuff up but it's not as easy to stay engaged in the lore if you're having a hard time playing the game in general, either due to bugs or whatever.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
Johnny, for instance, does talk about his history of having to fight a war in Central America that leads to him hating corporations (since they controlled the governments by that point). The gang that kidnaps Alt Cunningham was hired by Arasaka so that she could be used to create the Soulkiller and she ends up dead as a result of that kidnapping (there's a whole sequence about this in the game which relies a lot on show don't tell). That leads to Johnny having a personal vendetta against not just the corporation, but Saburo Arasaka specifically . Also, Arasaka did send someone to find you after you steal Johnny's engram: Takemura. They also sent some unnamed assassins. While Arasaka as a company was open about working on Relic, they weren't open about having Johnny Silverhand's engram so they tried to keep the operation discrete. If you read up on the lore related to Saburo Arasaka, you can explain why he made a copy of Johnny's brain: he wants to own everything, including his enemies. Having ownership of Johnny's "soul" is a prize. You may have missed it in one of the endings where Saburo re-enters the living world by having his engram put in his son's body (this was the whole point of the Arasaka ending: Saburo always knew he would take his son's body and it's likely that his son expected it, which is why he ran away). Hanako being aware of the truth makes sense in the context of the family: they all play the long game.
Unfortunately, I think the writers tried to do a lot of show don't tell which can be very hit or miss if you don't show clearly enough. I think in some ways they could have done a better job but I also think they hoped to hint at things enough that a player would want to look up stuff on their own. Hard to say but I think, in terms of motivations and backstory, a lot of that stuff is explained. As far as the main character motivations, that's kind of where it falls apart. I do like how a lot of the side stories spend time building the characters and some of them do have some great arcs, but V's motivations have always been a bit thin. Some of that may be because of the need to have a vessel that players can fill but it could have been done better.
Also, just last thing: the aesthetic of the characters and civilians is pulled straight out of the TTRPG manuals, most of which came out in the 80s. This may be why you find a conflict between the cyber and punk of Cyberpunk. It's not just a genre, the TTRPG from 1988 is literally just called that, though I suspect you'd probably know that by now. This is one of those cases where those that are familiar with the series are rewarded greatly by the adaptation but those that aren't are left needing to search through fanwiki articles or watching tons of UA-cam videos. Same thing happened with Watchmen, same thing happened with Witcher. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to handle it when it's not something that is already ingrained in the culture like Batman or Spiderman.
Hey Aldo thanks for checking it out. Funny thing is, I had a feeling you were going to bring up these exact points in a rebuttal, all of which I actually agree with.
I did some digging on the original lore of the game, reading summaries and backstories of the primary characters, and took a look at some of the original literature. MOST plot point grievances are solved with digging in the lore, but as a generic video game consumer I just can't be bothered to really do the game's homework for me in that sense. I didn't analyze each line of dialogue as I found myself getting glossy eyed on most of the interactions halfway through the game. This may make the vid feel a little "strawman-y." That's more for entertainment purposes.
Funny enough I was the same way with darksouls. I didn't really care about the lore in the game until after the fact when I could watch and hear it presented to me in a more cinematic and intriguing way. But while I was playing I couldn't really be bothered much with the world building, which, combined with the fact that game is so lassie faire with it's story, perfectly suited me in not forcing it down my throat. Cyber punk feels like it wants to drown you in story (rightfully so) but also oddly enough doesn't give you enough of it.
The side content was the coolest part, and I actually recorded 10 minutes of me talking about it, but on second thoughts, it just never felt fleshed out enough. It seemed like the side content just wasn't taken nearly to the extreme I was hoping it would, as I wanted to treat cp like skyrim where I just forgot about the plot.
I know they went pretty literal from the manuals and literature. I just don't like the aesthetic of the literature and plot lmao. In a perfect world I would have loved to see CDPR just take the genre and do something original with it instead of try to stay lock-step with the original material, which just feels flat compared to their previous works.
@@ManleyReviews I'm hoping that future DLC can rectify some of the story missteps but it almost seems like the game CDPR released is meant to be an introduction to a platform, similar to GTA or Red Dead. It could very well be that they mean to flesh out the world and introduce new characters to it over time, probably on multiplayer. I suppose we'll have to see, though. From what I can tell the development of the game was fairly chaotic, especially with Keanu deciding to have a bigger part in the story. We'll see how they move forward, I guess.
@@TranslucentMeaning I'm hoping so as well, although I think a game this ambitious needs GTA5 money and time to perfect otherwise it falls flat. Given their dev history with this game, I think it would need years to make this game really start tapping into it's settings potential.
Almost every turn in the game I kept fighting off thoughts of "oh this could have been so much cooler if they had several extra years and less time pressure." Would have loved to do things like actually physically explore the net as a net runner, meet other engrams, or possible switch out SD cards and people like in a Majora's Mask way etc. So many routes that could have been taken imo. I hope the DLC gives some cool AF side story content that hooks me, but I'm not holding my breath.
@@ManleyReviews if you were really a "generic video game consumer" that "couldn't be bothered to do the homework" then all these plot points you are saying ruined the game for you wouldn't actually matter. "Generic video game consumers" play for the gameplay itself not every minor detail that makes up the entire story, which you seem to be primarily focused on.
@@ManleyReviews Let me start by saying that I love the quality of your video. I agree with Translucent Meaning, in that this first game seems to be a platform introduction. However, I guess I'm one of the 'few' who actually enjoyed the plot. Partly because I grew up playing the TTRPG games, but also because I've participated in developing software, writing fiction, and grew up watching these genres come to life. One thing I think a lot of people miss about where the genre of cyberpunk differs from dystopian science fiction is that they are character driven stories revolving around the individual and the setting. There are rarely any 'large scale' world saving themes in cyberpunk as opposed to traditional dystopian science fiction. The Matrix isn't really cyberpunk. Its a dystopian science fiction story that 'looks' cyberpunkish. An 'evil' corporation would never survive and would be subjective. Johnny Silverhand perception that Arasaka is 'evil' is his own opinion. In the context of the plot, the chip was 'experimental' and isn't supposed to even exist because Arasaka is trying to keep the fact that they have the Soul-killer software quiet. Going after V would be an admission that something valuable was taken and in the scope of a real cyberpunk setting, V is beneath their attention in the beginning and Yorinobu wouldn't want it known that something was stolen from him. Arasaka is based on traditional Japanese corporations with influence from the zaibatsu style of of integrated business conglomerates. Look at all the industries that the biggest Japanese companies have their fingers into in today's markets. Mitsubushi does cars, electronics, appliances. That's why Arasaka doesn't have any defined industry because it deals in all of them.
From a storytelling aspect, gamers I think are a little too reliant on the game providing you with reliable narration, and in the general since a lot of the 3rd person narration you get in the game is reliable, but V and Johnny Silverhand are unreliable narrators. They never see the whole picture, know everything with truthful clarity. Their perceptions are biased and colored by their limited knowledge and experiences. When writing fiction or plotting for other media you have to make a decision on which type of narrator you are going to use. A more personal but unreliable narrator will build sympathy and rapport faster than a 3rd person reliable narrator. And because this is a story of V and how he deals with his traumas the unreliable narrator is the better choice, but it also means that what you learn and are told through his lens is going to be biased and unreliable. By default any narration or information that comes from a character is classified as unreliable by default.
But against, while I disagree with a lot of what you talk about, I greatly appreciate the time, effort, and quality of your video. Have a great day.
Nothing's going to go wrong....
*IASIP intro starts playing*
Uh-oh
So true.
This video made me realise how many issues I had with the story that I just sort of let go as I was playing because I really wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. But after playing two endings neither felt particularly satisfying or impactful and I started to dwell on all the stuff that didn't work.
I really wish the game had just let you define who your character was, the whole sequence at the start where you and Jackie become successful mercs is what the whole game should've been about. Instead you skip that and get railroaded into this contrived race to save your identity from being replaced by a dude whose backstory I never fully connected with.
Johnny Silverhand would have been better off as another reoccurring npc, somebody of significance to the story for sure, but not the crux of the entire plot.
I acutully really enjoyed the story I’m sorry you didn’t like it
The montage sequence was definitely the "Oh fuck that's a bad sign" moment for me. You can patch bugs but you can't patch the plot.
I think that the sandbox killed a lot of potential this game had. If they had it more heavily based on instancing, ie little hub areas with either vehicle or transportation cutscenes between them they could have focused their scope. With smaller Deus Ex areas they could provide more detail, character, dialogue, story effects while simultaneously limiting their QA needs, performance impact, engineering problems.
well said.
I think it is because the game STARTED as a Cyberpunk game as close as possible to the tabletop as they could... And then they got overvalued in the market and turned the title into a clusterfuck.
I honestly liked the montage, it gave us a good impression on v and Jackie’s friendship
the montage feels like it was just put together at the last minute
because all those scenes feel liek they should be a playable part
to actually start liking jackie
@@poppag8281but it would have given you an even better impression of their friendship if you had been able to actually play it would it not?
It's honestly so tragic cause there are so many moments where you see something come together and realize there's something there but not quite. Like you get these little glimpses of what could have been and then some NPC starts talking to a light post about some completely unrelated topic or you get sent to your 30 millionth crime bust cause helping cops is mad punk dude
I just finished your twilight princess video, and you made a lot of really good and thought-provoking points in that one but it seems like he played one Playthru and didn’t really absorb any of the story on this one. If you didn’t like the game, I totally get it. I think that’s the most initial knee-jerk reactions when people play cyber punk and there’s plenty of reasons to. I think the game plays actually would drag the experience down in a lot of ways, which is kind of funny, but the fact that you’re lambasting the story for having bad writing, when you literally didn’t understand the story is probably the funniest thing about it to me. I encourage you to give it another stab because there’s a whole layer that you completely missed because your hate Boner was too strong. With all the problems at this game had on lunch this makes it a very easy target. Totally fair that a lot of UA-camrs would take the chance to shit on it but the longer I watched you review the more I realized you literally didn’t understand anything that happened in the game. I think you’re most valid complaint is that unlike the Witcher where you can see the effects of milf guard on the world the effects that era soccer has on night city isn’t as obvious unless you’ve read up on the source material beforehand and I actually goes for a lot of what goes on in the city because the game sort of assumes that the player was already familiar with the story of silver hand and Morgan black hand. The Takeaway you had from the story of this game is pretty much the same one I had during my initial play through because I didn’t really pay attention to any of the dialogue or look very closely at any of the sub text from the dialogue… I don’t know this analysis doesn’t seem as good as your newest one but I guess that kind of goes without saying when are you considered newer versus older work? Regardless, it was a good watchmen and I hope to see you do more. I really really hope that you take a second look at some point maybe when the DLC drops
Spot on
manley puts so much work into the quality of his vids bro i swear
I enjoyed this video, and I agree with a lot of it, having almost finished the plot. And I LIKE the game. I really like the side missions and gigs, and driving around Night City, and the fixers, and honestly they could have just created a gang war between the neighborhoods and had my character need to choose to be an Animal, or Tiger Claw, etc. and that would have been simple enough. I feel like V is just being dragged through the game, he has no agency, and decisions don't matter. Plus, he often gets "taken over" by Johnny, so in those scenes, you sort of have to play as Johnny but only move the plot the way the game wants. {plus, Johnny in your body trying to kiss Rogue, weird.) Even the side missions have flaws. Like Panam who keeps wanting to bypass Saul and go her own way. My character was a Nomad and several times I selected things like "you should listen to Saul" and every time, she just did what she wanted anyway with no consequence, and so I realized, siding with Saul or Panam here was not a choice. Kerry... well... Kerry is supposed to be 80 years old, and he acts like a petulant teenager, and even if you tell him to stop, this isn't a good idea, don't blow up a young band's equipment because you don't want them to sing "your song" you are instructed by the game to just go along with it, so you do, just to finish. There was a quest with Judy, that you make a decision and you do a whole questline, and then in her next quest you ask about all you did and you get one throwaway line that everything went back to the way it was and nothing you did mattered. And what happened to the Peralez story line? It just fizzled into nothing, and it was kind of interesting... I did like a lot of the characters, I liked Mindy, Jackie, River, Judy, Nancy, even Rogue, and the voice acting was good, and the city design and the cars were pretty sweet... it just seemed to lose the thread in the way the Witcher 3 did not. Sorry for the long response, but I needed to get this off my chest!
I 100% agree with everything you said. there were parts that were cool, but man. .. yeah.
For some reason the thing that made me the most upset is the fact that there is a character creation, but the game is in 1st person.
Ngl the characters creation is kinda shit- or maybe I just got spoiled by elden ring
@@A.DEN0 both
@@ryszakowy fact- I don't care for dick editor option if the whole fame has like 8 hairstyles and preset faces- not to mention tattoo sucks
Thats bc its much more immersive in FPS
Simply to save money and not have to develop animations or anything that comes with third person efforts. But in the process, you get a Main Character with no facial expressions, or body language... cause you're missing 90% of your body. Witcher worked exceedingly well in this area, but for some reason CDPR gave up on that for this one.
Could be reviewers who harp on the glitches are controlled opposition. Maybe CDPR put the glitches in on purpose. Broken games and patches are the norm now and we all now companies are evil. How's that for a cyberpunk theme?
Haha I think that’s a bit extreme, given it would cost them sales either way. But hey that does sound cyberpunky
That meme's been done to death already.
100%. I wouldn't be surprised.
Got the game for real cheap, decided to actually play it since most of the bugs were worked out, and yeah, the story has been pretty terrible. If I had the option, I never would've even taken the job from Dex Deshawn, the whole deal seemed way too suspicious. In order to play lore-accurate V, you can't level up intelligence, cuz damn is he stupid af.
I still can't get over the fact they made it seem like you create an own character before launch but V is such a prewritten character, you have 0 influence on his behavior. This killed it for me. I mean you create his appearance, you choose his background and he has this simple name "V". There was every right to assume you play your OWN character but that is just completely not the case at all.
@@Grapefruit5000 it's a modern day fallout 4
I agree with mostly everything. The thing I don't think would work as well is their whole "Is this you or Johnny" thing they got going in the story. The choices you make throughout, whether they are actually your own choices, or you are being influenced by Johnny to do X, Y and Z. Which I think is an interesting thing to talk/point out. Ofc, it could have been done better, like with everything else in the game.
But all in all, it seems a bit hand fisted in, like some comments, seems they had to rewrite it all because of Keanu, and I can see that being the case.
I also think that the whole "your journey to merc" should have been something you actually play yourself like you said. It is what I am most interested in, instead of Arasaka suicide mission for Johnny.
Though all in all, I didn't go into it with that many expectations, and I personally had a good time, is it a good game that I would recommend? Fuck no, but did it work for me personally and have some of my favourite moments in gaming ever? Yes.
So dunno what I think about it. I sometimes get the urge to go back and play it, because I personally like the gameplay quite a bit, especially with mods.
Thank you for your review. When I first bought the game I suffered through numerous bugs, but I was sure that I could get around it for the gameplay and story. Except I still wasn't having fun. Getting to play as a Stealth Netrunner was interesting, but I had to make it worthwhile as combat kept dragging on with no changes from Haywood to Pacifica. I spent more time laboring in transit from location to location then I did strategizing or in combat combined.
And then the story was the worst. Up until the big heist I could find the story moderately enjoyable, yet completely predictable. For what was promised as a "Choices Matter" game nothing I did was changing my actions, and was later proven correct when searching online. From the background you choose, the combat roles you take, to the non-existent life altering choices mid game, nothing offered me a chance to branch out and make my story.
And all of this was hampered by the fact that the game where my "Choices Matter" I'm not the protagonist, I'm not even a real deuteragonist, I'm the vessel to orchestrate Johnny Silverhand's story. If you like the character of Johnny Silverhand then I'm sure you can like the game, but if you were me and hated him then the entire game is a slog where you're hauling around a judgmental jerk who's slowly killing you, and demands you suffer for his benefit in every ending.
i love cyberpunk but you're right. part of being an adult is accepting that some things you like/love are not as good and at times very flawed. i myself shared some of your thought while playing the game.
It's fucking insane how people talk about how this game has "the best story in all of gaming!!!" when the game's themes are shallow, the characters feel like they're designed to be "cool" (but actually end up really cliche or stereotypical), and just in general, it feels like a *fucking joke*. Like instead of being a real serious dystopian world, it's some flashy techno-wank about being "le cool merc!!!"
People are saying it's some kind of "masterpiece of storytelling" when it can barely come up with a theme deeper then, "hrmm, the corporations are bad, but we're not actually going to do anything about it!"
Cyberpunk seems "mature" the way an 11 year old drinking apple juice out of a whiskey glass is.
People are meatriding this game so hard when there's like *million* other games with better storytelling, deeper themes, and over all have something to say beyond some cheesy action movie line.
When you look at real RPG storytelling in something like, Fallout New Vegas or Disco Elysium or something, where there are actual *ideas* being presented and your character actually gets to affect the world and learn and change, it makes the "cool merc shit" in CP2077 seem like edgy nonsense.
Hell, every other piece of "cyberpunk" media in the genre did it, from the Matrix to Ghost in the Shell to Deus Ex. CP2077 can barely even be called cyberpunk.
I will concede that the gameplay is pretty good because of the updates and whatnot, but the point of the video stands, it's not exactly a "groundbreaking story!!" like people are saying.
While I’ll say that Disco Elysium is the better written story. It appears you didn’t play the game in full. Or you have no idea what the cyberpunk genre is about.
The “edgy” part of all the characters is a theme of cyberpunk. It’s a defense mechanism. The more profound moments in this games story is when they drop the act and just act like human beings.
I am surprised that someone who claims to be informed about the cyberpunk genre has no knowledge of its tropes and themes.
Style over substance. That is one of the most common themes in cyberpunk stories. It’s a facade that everything is fine and we are in control because we are badasses and cultural rebels but the truth is we fit into the neat little boxes that the powers that be have shoved us in. The punk part of cyberpunk seems to be misunderstood. Punks are obnoxious and surface level assholes, but they are human and only show that when they stop trying so hard.
@@Acrylescent Okay, first all, its hardly "the genre" as a whole. I've seen *plenty* of cyberpunk beyond the game and I can say that the whole "defense mechanism" thing, no offense, sounds kind of like a copout. If it's a defense mechanism put up by the characters in-game, then it should warrant more then just a mention. It shouldn't just be a thing that is "addressed but then forgotten". Which is kind of my gripe with CP2077. It presents compelling themes but kind of cuts them short. I'll admit, even something as simple as the "quiet life vs. blaze of glory" question felt like it could be a really neat theme.
I've *played the game*, which yeah, admittedly not the full thing because well, tbh I lost interest. If it "gets good" near the end, that's still the whole "everything else" that I need to sit through. And yeah, there are definitely moments that are human, or feel like the characters really get a chance to shine. Shame most of those characters die or otherwise are gone before getting a chance to really show it. (Jackie being a big one. He's your friend in Night City, someone you can rely on when almost no one else can. But like, he dies pretty early in.) There are definitely other characters that similarly feel really human at times, and I will **give credit where credit is due**.
But the game doesn't really seem to drop the act out of a conscious decision to show that the "badassery" is part of the superficiality of the world. It comments on the "human underneath" with its characters, but then spits you right back in like it didn't just happen. Everyone seems *aware* that the whole flashy, sexy, edgy, bad-ass aesthetics of Night City are "just advertising", but no one seems to really explore that idea deeper.
Cyberpunk as a genre has always felt so much "darker" comparatively. the colors are less saturated, most stuff is gray or black, and interactions tend to either be long and pensive or "not at all". Granted you could argue that's a bit narrow or "actually closer to tech noir", but it still fits.
It feels like the game couldn't commit to the deeper themes, it *presents* things, maybe name-drops some interesting ideas or considers them for a little bit, but kind of just leaves it hanging.
Characters that outwardly act badass and edgy but are deep down sensitive and human can definitely be done well, and in this regard CP2077 actually does an alright job. But you run the risk of making them seem more "angsty" than compelling.
If you have characters acting like irresponsible teenagers suddenly drop it and say "okay real talk time", it *can* work, but sometimes it doesn't, because, no offense, it comes off as whining.
Granted, maybe there's a quest I haven't gotten to yet that really explores it deeper, maybe there's a character who's willing to *really* take on the whole social norms of the world, but it feels to me more that the game just couldn't quite commit, having to placate both the people in it for cool fight scenes and explosions and the people in it for the RPG freedom-of-choice and storytelling.
Which is fine, the game definitely does both things, and I think it does an "alright" job at all the things it does, but when you try to do everything and please everyone, you can't really go the distance for any of those one things.
And yeah, punks certainly are obnoxious and surface level, but that's even the thing punks criticize about punks. The punk community at one time and even still somewhat today, had it's fair share of would-be ideologues and visionaries that really *did* see a cause worth fighting for.
Which kind of underscores something about CP2077. The storytelling is, *fine* if you ask me. It's not as strong as the gameplay, which is pretty solid, but its still not "the worst". Looking back at my original comment, it's harsher than I probably should have worded it. But I maintain that I'm only this harsh BECAUSE people seem to lack the ability to criticize the game because they like it. "I like this game, therefore 10/10 masterpiece with no flaws". Maybe I'm overcorrecting for that attitude, but if your game has a "meh-to-good" story, then at least accept that. The game can still be solid and enjoyable and even one of your faves.
And to be honest, maybe that can be attributed to the whole "guys we got Keanu on board, drop everything and redo everything to show him off!" thing.
@@thewideduck5708 but it’s not addressed and then forgotten, during the game the defenses are slowly eroded until there is clarity. But if you choose not to let V put those defenses down then yeah you just seem like every other asshole in NC.
I never said punks didn’t believe in what they were fighting for just that it had a very distinct flavor.
This is far from a 10/10 game lol but there are staples of the genre that are very ingrained in the game. Just like people blind love it, so many people blind hate it and can’t help but tear it down even if it’s contradictory.
I’m not sure the fight fire with fire method works when you have defy the genre in order to make your point.
But I’m not trying to convince you, but only that you are objectively incorrect about the themes and the characters in the game.
stuff like this restores my faith in humanity. stories in games are better when they're serious and tightly knit, but recently the game stories are cringe and feel like made for children who want to become legend (or superstar in forza), its cringe. Have people forgotten about the good story games?
really entertaining video with nice points bro, subbed !
Spent 6 hours in this game. Whole experience felt like I’m forced into doing tasks rather than actually playing, and after Jackie died everything got worse. I haven’t had a worthwhile experience in an open world fps game since FarCry 4.
Have finished the game now, since it was in sale and I heard the Bugs were fixed.
It's still super buggy(PS5), but alright nothing gamebreaking you can play it.
But I realized very early how bad everything else is, especially because I often read that "you should play it now, its so good."
I played Elden Ring before that and I'm not high on these kinda games, but after Cyberpunk I understand now how good of an open World game that is. Every corner gives you something, even if it doesn't look like it.
Cyberpunks world on the surface looks interesting but gives you nothing, no point to search for anything.
It's damn funny since one of CDPR devs said that world is so rich and full of details that you won't need more content inside cities especially enterable buildings ""you will never be in situation like you are like i need to get in there, because city is so big, it's overwhelmingly huge"" yeah huge full of nothing and invisible walls, 98% buildings can't be entered, you can't go to brothel or random apartments or skyscrapers (just Arasaka for missions)
@@Dregomz02 yeah, exactly pretty early I started only using the Map markers to get to the mission and the fast travel, cause there was nothing to see on the way.
My only critique of this vid essay, is that V's actions being meaning less is counter-productive to the Cyberpunk aesthetic. Individual actions being fruitless, is cyberpunk through and through. Otherwise, you completely nailed the entirety of the main stories issues.
To give CDPR credit, I've never been so invested in a side story, as I was with V's police force neighbor being depressed about the death of his roommate, and V investigating to try and help the neighbor, only to find the neighbor committing suicide, and then finding out the roommate was a turtle all along. That one side quest that is completely miss-able, yet truly encompasses the themes of Cyberpunk far more than the main story. 10/10 vid from 2 years ago lol
Cyberpunk with a capital C is a series of scifi roleplaying games, like Dungeons and Dragons, and is what the whole scifi subgenre is named after. Cyberpunk 2077 is part of that IP, that's why it's ""named after a genre"". Kinda disappointed you didn't mention this and just called it a "vibe" during the intro
But knowing this only makes me even more frustrated in the videogame adaptation; the subgenre called itself after the pen & paper games for a reason
Cyberpsychosis was originally meant to represent that putting too much cyberware in your body meant you'd lose your free will to the corporations owning your parts and basically become a radio-controlled human, but that was considered too anti-corp by the publishers so the author just turned it into a mental breakdown instead
Johnny Silverpants is a cameo from the originals that was dragged for way too long (the whole actual game), they never tell you why anything about him matters because he's mostly old fan bait. And he is a ghost in the story because he cannonically died before the videogame was conceived, so the plot had to be contrived as fuck to enable this meaningless cameo
Good review, I agree completely with everything
Scamboli recommended my ass here and this content delivered! Love the passion and production you put into this video Manley.
Fr? Thanks for noticing man.
It would’ve been nice if to make the punk stuff work there was actually a visual class difference you seen when walking down the street and npcs actually heckle each other for being two high or low on the totem poll. Cause then the “punk” people are actually fighting against a status quo while also looking retro to reference when cyber punk was written.
Well, that's what you get when you pay no attention to the world and the plot. Arosaka isn't the antagonist. Taking down the big bad company isn't the end goal at all. The whole game tells you that you are a small cog in this entire grinding machine of Night City and you are surprised you didn't change the world in the end? Why would you, that's the idea of cyberpunk, you are not a protagonist in this world, you are just a protagonist of your own survival story? Overall I see your own expectations projected. You just didn't get it cause you expected to save the princess and live happily ever after or whatever. You just got used to being a hero taking down the evil empire and killing a dragon. That isn't the story they tell. For that matter, the only thing you can do about this world is to make it worse.
after the Panam mission I didnt delete the game, I formatted my drive entirely
“Fuck Arasaka” wasn’t as big a plot point as “I need the tech at Arasaka to get this ghost outta my head” was
Not to mention how your choices in the game that are supposed to matter end up not mattering even more because the ending you go with will ignore them.
In every single ending I have gotten, Johnny and V get into a huge argument and fight even though I always get along pretty good with him and we're bros by the end, and then V always go "I'm sorry I know I promised to let you have my body but I just can't do it." even though never at any point did I ever pick a dialogue option that said I would let him have my body, or even got that without my input from a cutscene or anything.
at one point johonny asks if you would take a bullet for you, thats what the game is refering to
@@poppag8281 Then they should've written that. They didn't. Don't make excuses and write their game for them.
@@jaffarebellion292 they did write that?please re read my comment
@poppag8281 He asks if you'd take a bullet for you, not if you'd let him puppeteer your corpse. Reread MY comment.
Hi, Cyberpunk Red & 2015 enjoyer here. Just wanted to point out that Silverhand was used as a unstable face for a Morgan Blackhand Ai since Morg was way more of a threat and actually fought smasher Borg-on-Borg. Silverhand may be less predictable than Morgan but he's nowhere near as smart or strategic so would be less of a threat if he went rouge but it the Morgan Blackhand Ai would be a massive boon that allowed them to create Borgs en-masse.
I mean the comic where you see Silverhand die and the time Morg went missing pretty much confirms this.
honestly I searched "cyberpunk sucks" because I felt like I was losing my mind seeing everyone praise cdpr for fixing some of the bugs after years of the game being out...I needed to know that other people were aware how bad the story and gameplay is besides me LOL
This ^^^
I played CB 2077 again after a year (1.61) and while a lot of the bugs are gone, I started noticing just how rushed, incredibly short and boring the plot is.
Like when I last played CB I couldn't even focus on the plot, because the game crashed or bugged out constantly, but now that a lot of the bugs ar fixed, I got to notice just how rushed and clearly cut the content is.
The game is shorter than a Witcher 3 DLC and CDPR said the game will be only "slightly" shorter than Witcher 3.
These f*cking devs lied, scammed and wormed their way out of this bullsh*t, mainly because of the anime these fatherless, basement dwelling sheep now revere.
The game is still broken, cut, pathetic mess that I'm glad I pirated and never actually bought lmao.
ME TOO I just found this channel because I searched "cyberpunk still bad". Was absolutely befuddled
You’re not alone I get tired of people praising it I seen one guy call out the greatest comeback for a game in gaming history I was like what where is the come back
Here are some problems I have with the plot, some inconsistencies.
1] V doesn't know who Adam Smasher is. It kind of makes sense if you start life as a nomad, but it doesn't if you start as a street kid or corpo. A street kid or corpo would definitely know who Adam Smasher is. What makes this worse is that you go through a brain-dance segment that shows you Adam Smasher, so even if it makes sense that you wouldn't know who he is in context of picking the nomad origin, you'd know who he is after the brain-dance, and that he works with Yorinobu.
2] V doesn't know what MaxTac is. Again, that makes sense if you start out as a nomad, but why does Jackie have to explain to a street kid or corpo what MaxTac is? What makes this worse is that V knows what a cyberpsycho is, regardless of which origin you pick. How do you know what a cyberpsycho is, but not one of the largest organizations whose soul purpose is to hunt them down?
3] Takemura saves you by hooking you up to Delamain. Why couldn't this have been done for Jackie? Sure, Jackie was bleeding out, but V took a bullet to the head and was injured further in the car crash. A little consistency is all I'm asking for.
4] As you pointed out, why does the chip need to be kept in cold storage, but can only work in a human body? The human body is a lot hotter than literal sub-freezing temperatures. It makes no sense.
5] SPOILERS: In one of the endings, you find out that Saburo Arasaka implants himself in his son, Yorinobu. Why? Would a synthetic/robot body not be more suitable?
5] How is the chip killing V? No, seriously, how? How does the body belong to Johnny in the end? It's changing V's neural pathways, which would just make V think they are Johnny Silverhand. It doesn't erase V's memories, just their personality. If the chip worked the way the game described, it would have to be rewriting V's organ functions and how the brain communicates to said organs via the spine, and even if that happened, it wouldn't make any sense because the chip literally just implants a personality by restructuring the neural functions that make up a person mentally, not physically.
6] Why would Takemura inform Yorinobu that he's found V if he knew, not suspected, KNEW, that Yorinobu was the one would killed Saboru? Why would Takemura needlessly put himself and V in danger by informing Yorinobu that V is alive, especially when you consider the fact that Takemura needs V to prove to Haniko that Yorinobu killed their father?
7] Were there no camera's in Yorinobu's suite that could easily prove he killed Saboru? Why did Haniko and Takemura go along with the charade if they knew Yorinobu ended his father's life?
8] Why did they kill T-Bug in such a stupid way? She died opening a door for our heroes. She should know how Arasaka operates. Why not tell the boys to smash the window and then temporarily disconnect to avoid Arasaka ICE protocols? This is less a plothole and more a critique, because I liked T-Bug as much as I liked Jackie.
9] Haniko tells V that Arasaka can find and capture them at any time they'd like. So why don't they? I mean, I know it's because the plot says so, but that's stupid. The game's plot hinges entirely on Arasaka, the most powerful company in the world, not finding V simply because they don't want to.
10] Why did Alt Cunningham go back beyond the Black Wall? She's not the real Alt anymore, she's an A.I. program that managed to escape the Black Wall, something rogue A.I.'s have been trying to do ever since Rache Bartmoss caused the event that destroyed the net in the first place. Alt, literally, has all the power in this situation. Why go back into your prison now that you're free?
You said it man. Granted I understand some of the explanations are for player exposition but I fully agreed just show the player what’s happening without using plot harming exposition lol.
I agree with the rest of the points as well. Just seems like loose writing. Thanks for the giant comment
@@ManleyReviews Thanks for taking the time to read it, and thanks for making this video. It was awesome 👍.
ofc broski
3) Jackie's body took way too much internal damage and was pretty much haemoragging, Delamain himself states that the damage he took is too severe the only reason V even survived getting shot was because the nanites in the chip began to heal their brain as stated by Viktor in the very next scene.
4) The chip outside of the body is only sustainable at colder temperatures, it's also not like V actually inserts the chip into their body, they insert it in their external chipslot, which is probably thermo regulated and considering it is EXTERNAL, meaning it is protected from the body's extreme internal heat, thus it allows the chip to function normally. To be honest, this is a pretty small nitpick.
5) First off, based off of what Alt and Hellman tell us with regards to the chip, the chip by virtue of its design was meant to be inserted in a human body. Alt tells V in the end that the relic (aka the biochip) has heavily reconfigured their DNA to match Johnny's construct. Hellman tells us that the Relic's efficiency and functionality is heavily dependent on genetic compatibility, with V being the extreme outlier. All of this clearly tells us that the chip was meant to be inserted in a human body. Also being in a synthetic or robotic body would mean being deprived of basic human intimacy and pleasures, such as tasting, smelling, touching etc. It also brings in the possibility of Cyberpsychosis (a condition that is caused by excessive cybernetic implants where victims due to their bodily changes under go severe mental turmoil as they lose grip of their humanity, there is much much more to Cyberpsychosis and a variety of different causes but that's the original ttrpg explanation for it)
5) That's literally the point though, the game at multiple points asks the players to define what makes a person a person. Sure in an absolute physiological sense, V technically isn't dying but in a figurative sense they absolutely are. This is much more existentially terrifying and interesting then V just dying from cyber aids. The only reason V is still dying after Johnny is separated from our neural network is because like I mentioned before, the chip heavily reconfigured the body's DNA and hence the body sees V's construct as an intruder, pretty much meaning V's own immune system is what might end up killing them.
6) Takemura had suspicions of Yorinobu but kept them aside and still believed that you were responsible for Saburo's death. It's only after Yorinobu sends those Arasaka assassins after us that Takemura manages to put 2 and 2 together.
7) T-Bug disables the camera's in the penthouse by hacking into the subnet, that's how V and Jackie were even able to break into his penthouse without getting caught in the first place. My bigger question is why Konpeki Plaza security weren't alerted to this clear act of a breach. There's a plausible theory on the internet that Yorinobu was the one who set up the heist in secret so he could frame both of you for Saburo's death, it would explain how V and Jackie were even able to get as far as they even did in the heist, especially considering the fact that Konpeki Plaza is literally Arasaka property. Hanako was raised to never oppose her family and maintain stability, she was angered because of the fact that Yorinobu killed Saburo but didn't want to oppose him because he is still family, it is a pretty weird explanation tbh but it is in line with her character. Takemura doesn't go along with Yori's charade I don't get where you are getting this from, Takemura was suspicious of Yori and its only up until Yori sends those Arasaka assassins after him that his suspicions are confirmed.
9) Arasaka has lost track of V because of the fact that their Kiroshi optics were hooked up with an anti surveillance system that allows them to be a blur in scanners and cameras. It's also worth mentioning that they are implementing random encounters of Arasaka going after you, albeit in a very rough shape.
10) Alt's motivations and goals are very unclear and vague (maybe they are saving it for the expansions or for the sequel), it is shown that she can escape the Blackwall at any moment she pleases (as shown in the Voodoo Boys quest) but chooses not to, why? Idk but this isnt really much of a plothole as it doesn't have much bearing over the actual plot imo.
@@cynicalmemester1694
10) Because Blackwall isn't just a prison, it's also a shelter. Netwatch created Balckwall to separate AIs form safe part of net. Alt can escape Blackwall, but doing it would alarm Netwatch and they would try to do anything to neutralise thread of rouge AI breaching Blackwall, so Alt not overusing her freedom makes her safe and hidden from Netwatch interest.
I love Manley's content. He is wrong about the story of this game (in this video). Cyberpunk 2077 is NOT about becoming a legend. ***Massive lore and story spoilers ahead***
- it doesn't matter how you become a merc because there are many many many people just like you who don't matter. If you chose the legend path V does not develop as a character everyone recognizes it and your love interests (if you gain one) leaves you, as you accept a mission to become the pawn of the scariest secret cabal in the game(the sun ending). Being a legend is not V's motive, V's motive is surviving while coming to terms with their death (depending on your ending).
* why should you take down Arasaka?
Arasaka and all the corp do destroy live and the environment, the world of cyber punk was once ours but from the 1930's to 2077 it has had an alternate history due to the mega corps. the corpo wars, the nuclear wastelands, the human experimentation. the extreme poverty. the entire location of night city, the near destruction of the USA and Europe. the access corps have to your mind, the cyberware, the state of the economy, cyberpsychosis (its likely a computer virus not a mental illness), the actions of every politician. the reason Nomads even exist, The end of the internet, the sentient AI. The lack of health care, etc. etc. etc... every issue in cyberpunks world is much like the issues in the real world but a thousand fold.
- Depending on your ending you don't Take down Arasaka, and your reason to try in the first place is brought on by Johnny's engram in your head as he erases your mind and takes over your body. and the fact that the people who do want to take down Arasaka would like your help because your desperate enough and powerful enough to take on any job that gets you closer to a cure. Every corp and most egregiously Arasaka (who is effectively not just a corporation but the government of Japan and large portions of south east Asia, for reference Militech effectively IS the New United States of America's Department of Defensive.) is trying to literally own the body and spirit of everyone in the world in one way or another. In Arasaka's case that is in the corpo life patch as they try and take over the ESC (European space counsel, tons of lore) and "Mikoshi" a database that houses the engram of thousands of rich and powerful people (because those are the people that can afford it) It gives them tons of secrets and political leverage, imagine if you had JFK's brain sitting in a jar and you could ask him questions, imitate his likeness, see all his memories and bring him back to life. Back in Silverhand's time soul killer was a rumor to turn your brain into data. Silverhand fights in a corpo war becomes jaded moves to night city becomes a merc works for Morgan Blackhand (an actual important person), starts a band (samurai) continues working for Blackhand, his girlfriend ALT Cunningham the most prolific and skilled netrunner since Rache Bartmoss (guy who destroyed the internet). She gets kidnapped to finish Mikoshi/soul killer program. Blackhand is hired by Militech to blow up Saka tower, Johnny is on just one of the teams. Johnny has main character syndrome, he's actually not important or powerful and his backstory feeds us what he wants us to see. He isn't Arasaka's greatest enemy, he's not smashers rival, he's just a guy that happens to be kinda niche famous after his death because of his band and he happened to know personally or meet all the actual important people in the story. But to everyone else he's just a dipshit rockerboy. so when the nuke goes off Saka with their limited use of soul killer take all his data because they don't have the capacity to edit his engram so they try and interrogate him and use his memories as a reference of the attack to try and figure out who was actually behind it. He gets forgotten, Yorinobu who left the company for 20 years because he knew his dad was trying to take over his body one day ends up in the custody of Johnny's engram that now presides in an experimental chip that overwrites its host brain for the engram to take over called the relic. Thinking it will give him leverage not knowing its actual use case he returns to the night city branch of Arasaka where they are weakest yet still has resources so he can bide his time and make deals with people he thinks can help him. The prologue happens... V Yorinobu doesn't really chase V because Jackie is dead which gives him a fall guy and he already has what he wants (control of the corp), you are hard to kill and the attention isn't worth the trouble. In addition Goro pulls strings after he finds V which makes him low priority. V tries to look for a cure and Goro tries to use V to testify to Saburo's murder, Hanako already knows due to Saburo's engram but needs to play dumb because she doesn't want to end her brother but since Goro, V and others know or are starting to piece it together she needs to gather support to gain the trust of the board of directors. So she can get close enough to Yorinobu to use Saburo's relic on him. V also comes across an AI from beyond the Blackwall (more lore shit I'm not explaining) that has taken on the form and has the memories of Alt Cunningham. This AI wants to use V by manipulating Johnny and promising to cure V to break into Arasaka tower to access Mikoshi which will let Alt have control of the engrams which "cures" V but really lets the AI assimilate what are effectively the computational power of thousands of other AI's so she can potentially take over the net beyond the Blackwall or even breach or destroy it all together( Deep lore sequel bait). The path the V takes and the future of the world depends on Vs decisions to ultimately either work for Arasaka or destroy Mikoshi. If takes the devil ending Arasaka will gain power and start a fifth corporate war, if he destroys Mikoshi, rogue AIs will invade the world. (the consequences of are what terrifies every country, corp, and citizen in the know)
* quick aside, during the Panam quest line the EMP is not pointless, it temporarily shuts down the ability of the AV to use counter measures and communicate to the rest of Kang Tao. while it was hopefully going to also be a means of grounding the AV it still gave Panam the opening to shoot it out of the sky, if you didn't use the EMP the turret and drones that you defeat later in the very same mission would have been able to automatically shoot it down before the rocket even got close. the EMP also kicks off the Aldecado questline as many of them die in an effort to rescue the occupants of the downed AV believing it to be a civilian craft and Panam having no way to contact them due to being in the radius of the EMP. so many of them get Iced by Kang Tao who believed that the Aldecado's are the ones that shot them down even though it was just V with the help of Panam. which gives the player a sense of moral responsibility to help her and the Aldecado's in the rest of the quest line since we inadvertently caused their weakness in the first place.
- This is just a small glance at what's actually going on in the story. The details missed if you don't read the shards or ask the right questions in the story and look for the answers in the game. If you don't pay attention to why your playing and you don't actively listen to the dialogue and play the jobs gigs and side quest. which is why this is Manley's worst video and the one that will age like milk, like so many others he didn't give this game the time of day and in the process missed the forest for the trees. @pbp7293 was kinda right but way too rude with no proper argument and @scambolireviews made me sad because he's my favorite. @ManleyReviews I hope you read this 2 years later comment. Post phantom liberty and Edge Runners and revisit this game its world, lore and story, I would hate for you to miss out on this franchise due to a bad(worst release in videogame history) launch and first impression. Even if you don't make another video on this game that's fine with me if you haven't already, I just hope you can give it another chance with closed wounds, keen eyes and an open mind.
Sorry for the grammatical errors and horrible sentence structure. I wrote this on a whim out of frustration from recently playing the game for the first time post patch 2.0 carrying into patch 2.1 released the same week of writing. I know this video was made before the community started breaking down the lore and the game dialogue and choices differed to as they are in the game now. But some people saw the potential then (Skill Up) and some never returned which is why I felt the need to comment.
I stumbled across this video and I was writing pretty much what you wrote in my head and I was like someone had to already wrote that to him let me check the comments. Happy that I found one and I hope he sees your comment too
The production on your videos is absolutely excellent. You should have a million subs by now.
I’m glad someone said this. When the game came out I really didn’t have that many bugs. What got me was the terrible police, the lack of RPG. I thought I was getting skyrim2077 and got the most average single player FPS
bingo
So here are my thoughts. I waited for it to get fully patched, I played after 2.0, then undated to 2.1 with the expansion. I played for 45 hours. It started ok, in act 2 with Silverhand, things did get boring. The writing was also always confusing.
Anyhow, I was about to start the DLC, but got hit with the glitch that tells you your game can't be loaded because your save file was created with the DLC, , but the DLC is now detected as being installed incorrectly. Now, every save file is corrupt, now the game is uninstalled and I will never touch it again. The End.
I was so hyped for this game. Waited and waited and even defend everything CD Project Red would do until release. I played through the Prolog for 8 hours and then quitted. The game is so shitty that I just can't make it through the entire story.
The plot and dialog was my main gripe about the game other than not having NG+. The game was Tame Edgy, Edgy by Committee. All the dialog and vibes CDPR tried to make cool was LAME.