I love that the audible "click click" of noah stopping a voice recording has transformed into a feel-good staple of his videos. Also the borderline uncomfortable volume spikes.
That's part of the Noah charm. He's come a long way since the Thorough Look and Fallout which got me into his channel, but it's still not great a lot of the time. I enjoy these videos because of the writing. Noah is one of the best video essayists on UA-cam and he doesn't need to compensate for a lack of writing abilities with flashy editing and high production values. Extremely based and chadpilled if you ask me.
The concept you're getting at in the first 10 minutes was written about by the late Mark Fisher as "hauntology"- the idea that, as a symptom of late capitalist culture, we have collectively stopped imagining "the future", and are instead "haunted" by past notions of the future. In the same sense, most "futuristic" fiction today relies on a Blade Runner esque vision of the future that, ironically, is now pretty retro.
maybe people need to look around more for stuff not steeped in the past, or with a better eye, see how the things they think are were so new at the point, are actually rifting on things of the past too. so "hauntology" is from someone who thinks they are saying something only because the didn't stand up to get a better look.
@@DavySolaris it definately tracks in my mind, only caveat I have is how we have people perhaps not collectively imagining the future but always presenting a less interesting future than genre stipulating works like blade runner. With cyberpunk for example theres a myriad of writers, artists etc. that have contributed their own spin on the same themes making it part of our culture. The same with the 50s retro future or dunes very distant, dystopian, very alien future. The imagined future easily becomes very recursive, because all popular art is in a sense.
I'm used to Noah casually namedropping incredibly obscure things as if it's something everyone will immediately recognize, but I was not prepared for Quizno's Spongemonkeys.
@@cashnelson2306 I understand what you mean, but I don't think that's a particularly meaningful distinction. Obscurity, at least in my opinion, has less to do with the level of exposure it has and more with to what degree it permeates public consciousness. Whenever the topic of memorable commercials from youth comes up, I always jump to the sponge monkey coupon song. And, invariably, I would receive puzzled stares. I was unintentionally gaslit to the point that I questioned if the commercial existed or was something I hallucinated. It wasn't until maybe 3 years ago that I ever conversed with another person that remembered them. So, yes, I am comfortable with using the word "obscure."
@@puffnisse As an european, I can confirm, I'm from the US, and I knew about Spongemonkeys, since I'm from the US and its ovbiously well known in the US (which is the place I come from, as an european).
"Corporate capitalism doesn't care if you hate it. In fact, it can take that hate, package it in neon and chrome and sell it right back to you for 60 dollars" What a good line
@@xanaxodgrindcorelover9191 "ayyyy Tony seems we's stuck in a pervasive freakin' prison of capitalist intent which constraints our given reality eyyy oooooh gabagool!!!"
This is the first video I've seen about cyberpunk that actually addresses the fact that the game completely avoids any attempt at a critique of capitalism which is so critical to the cyberpunk genre
I’d say the reality is even worse, there is prodding and poking at capitalism and it’s ideas but they are all so generic and tropey that they blend in. With Johnny a lot of the criticism and dialogue that he spouts turns into whiney edgy teen rather than actual observation and analysis. The game feels like it’s one step away from delivering that criticism but never going for the final blow. With the hyper-sexualisation, the dredd style tower blocks and the mega wealthy corpos you meet. The opportunity is tangible but when it tries it feels weak and when it doesn’t it feels abridged. I personally love the game, the world, the feel of walking around with the audio design and the visual design but that’s because of something I can’t really put a finger on….
Yeah, that critical stance is where the "punk" part comes from. Lately, the punk genres (cyberpunk, steampunk, atompunk, etc.) have been more about cool looking technology than anything else.
@@Whysosadams The cynical side in me says it was on purpose. That Johnny Silverhand's whiny teenage attitude is a deliberately manufactured strawman of criticism against capitalism that people can point to and say "look at this fucking idiot".
Hot Take: we should decide if a game is or isn't the "greatest game of all time" after time stops... or the game industry dissapears... maybe we only need to wait for the heat death of the universe.
Why are you expecting any sliver of coherence from the gaming community? This is the community that popularized paying hundreds of dollars for a chance of getting a 2D texture on a 3D model so they can brag about it to their friends and other players onlime, thanks to these textures artificial rarity... If there's any level of stupidity still untouched by the human race, I guarantee the first one to reach said level *will be a gamer* Cyberdunk 2077 is exactly the product the gaming community deserved. I remember you couldn't question anything about this game before release without a bunch of fucking idiots cursing at you online, they'd do anything to protect their favorite gaming company from scrutiny, the game was perfect from the trailers alone, and if you disagreed you were a moron. Same with No Man Sky, same with Star Citizen and many other games At least NMS turned things around, yaay, they paid for a product that eventually became a decent product
@@rickydo6572 No argument here. I think the pre-sale model / kickstart was originally supposed to allow fans of a cool project to eliminate the pressure for a small team to release early (and badly) because they wouldn't have a corporate overlord and/or large investor making demands. Instead it's just incentivized maximizing hype. And everyone's been conditioned that every dollar spent on marketing leads to more than a dollar in sales. The resulting marketing environment is ridiculous. It's essentially required to hype things at this point unless you have a dedicated long-term following like Dwarf Fortress. But even Adams gave in and moved to a graphic update before the game was finished, when he said he was not interested in putting effort there yet.
The city kid story circle is painfully accurate though. You want to control your block, then your street, then your neighborhood, then your city, and it never ends. You essentially are born into a circle of escalation until you actively try to step away from it (Nomad)
@@JimmyMon666 The RPG elements in Mass Effect 1 were garbage, and similar to Cyberpunk 2077, it felt like a part of the game that the developers couldn't fully commit to, for reasons we will likely never truly know., a part of the game that was left it because goddamnit, Bioware makes RPGs, and therefore Mass Effect 1 must be an RPG! But that mindset clashed with the combat design, and made it all weightless and unsatisfying. It could be forgiven for this, similar to how people forgive Alpha Protocol for it's utterly garbage gameplay, if the narrative was strong enough to carry the rest of the package. It wasn't. Much like Cyberpunk 2077, the actual act of "playing" ME1 wasn't improved by the presence of traditional RPG elements. ME2 isn't remembered more fondly because it removed RPG elements, it's remembered because it chose to be something specific, and it managed to hit the nail on the head more times than it missed. You can't really say that for ME1 as a videogame.
@@JimmyMon666 mass effect one wasn't any more of an rpg than 2. If you're looking for a game that does something meaningful with stats, builds, etc you should really be playing something else.
saddest part of cyberpunk is how varied the quality can get at times. Parts of the game are really well done and those short moments where everything clicks together and works just shows what this game could have been with a few more years of development
The good parts are the ones the management didn't change too much so devs actually could flesh out. Everything that's buggy, shit or just unfinished is the opposite: A Change that was too big, that pulled resources from other places and then this change broke other stuff too. I'm guessing that's why the car AI is also so bad; they had to change a lot of the city's layout and the AI, but at that point fixing the pathfinding was really hard. Now they had to redo a lot of it, but ran out of time.
Its far more frustraiting to be teased by something worthwhile than to be consistently angry or bored. You ultimately leave the experience with an even worse impression overall.
Exactly man, the prologue had me so incredibly immersed right before it dumps you into the lifeless hell that is Night City. Those first few hours had me so optimistic about the future of gaming, that we would finally be seeing some creativity in a sea of generic open world games. And while that’s still exemplified to some extent, it ultimately succumbs to the same greed that has plagued the gaming industry. I still personally enjoyed the game no doubt despite the negative reception (which I completely understand), but I won’t ever deny the endless amount of potential Cyberpunk had.
As a veteran CP2020 player and GM, this game is exactly what the tabletop game was in the early to mid 90's - an action romp of shallow, stylish shootouts interspersed with moments of facedowns, shopping and just adolescent fun with a pseudo anti corporate message that no one cared about anyway. We were all V, amused by Johnny's anti Araska rants while pining for the latest cyberware or smart guns. CP2077 should've stayed in development for another two years at least but is a great representation of the tabletop RPG nonetheless.
"...and breathe deep like you were railing a massive line out of the city's ass crack." God, I love how one minute you're breaking down how the failures of the in game environment actively detract from immersion and other really meaningful concepts, and the next minute you drop a line like that. It's absolutely gold every time. Legitimately hilarious analogy.
You know, I can't argue about anything you said, but with that being said, there is something addicting about the game. I've played 300+ hrs on XB1, because I can't get my hands on a Series X, and I'm looking forward to my third play through.
Some of my favourite parts of this game were sitting in the passenger seat while someone else drove me somewhere, having conversations about this and that, looking out the window at the city or desert passing by. I don't know if that says anything about the game or as me as a person, but man... I didn't even buy into all the hype for this game, avoided all the promotional material and forum threads and whatnot, and did thoroughly enjoy my time with the game. But that feeling that it could've been so much more if management had given it a couple more years of development and hadn't just rushed it out the door just permeated everything.
Then after you finish the Delamain mission he's all like, "I can at least be your driver." And then every time you summon that car YOU have to drive. I felt so betrayed. Like what's the point of having a car with an AI if the AI car isn't going to drive the car AFTER it says it'll be your driver? I also avoided all the hype around the game. I only got it because Best Buy was doing a buy 2 games get 1 free and there were 2 games I wanted to get. I enjoyed my time with the game, but there was a lot of times I just had to sigh because the game fucked something up again. Quicksave before the start of any mission, quicksave after any mission ends. If you don't you're gonna have to go back because the autosave function would crash the game.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 Rock star seem pretty happy with GTA online and all the money they’re making from that, so I’m wary of even them diving into the genre
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 I'll happily replay cp2077 then play GTA 6+online, try forming you're own opinion then just fanboying and just watch GTA vs to 2077 UA-camrs
I'm was never particularly interested in cyberpunk and happened to click on this video out of sheer boredom, thinking it would be a short summary of events. This actually almost caused me to click off once I had realised the video length, but due to your captivating writing style and excellent anecdotes I now find myself almost halfway through and thoroughly enjoying it
Noah is, in my opinion, in the top 3 when it comes to video essays and games critique. His style and delivery are so endearing that I can't stop watching his stuff! He's got this low-budget charm and I can't get enough of it haha
God, that Lizzy Wizzy quest was so incredibly frustrating. It just ended. I was similarily confused and had to look up if a followup quest bugged out or something.
Ehh I feel like he missed the moral. Lizzy doesn't just "like killin". Her extensive body modification is slowly turning her into a cyberpsycho, one of the long running intrigue plot lines in the game. While most of the cyberpsychos we run into are people who were heavily modified for work then cut loose, here is someone on top of the world slowly sliding out of humanity as she replaces more and more of her body. It plays on the story of the manipulative corporate manager but in this case he is actually afraid of the monster that Lizzy's total freedom of modification is creating.
Corpo to corpo felt to me as the weirdest personally since a majority of the corpo specific characterization was V talking about how they knew how corps played at that it was never nice pretty much. Them ending up crawling back/trusting a corp again struck me as the strangest thing for them to do in light of how they acted during the game.
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot Yea for sure, Corpo to nomad and corpo to corpo are complete opposite tones. One a story of moving on after trying everything the other a story of someone broken as a person doomed to throw themselves back into the self destruction they temporarily moved away from as it's all they know. I think corpo to nomad is the most satisfying ark but corpo to corpo is also darkly satisfying in its own way.
Honestly I’d say they should have cut the corpo ending cause it makes no sense for any character. But it’s also the only ending where you face down Yorinobu, and find out what he’s all about.
I think when going corpo to nomad the story arced in a satisfying way. V's negative experiences in the corpo and merc worlds lead him to abandon his petty ambitions and escape to life as a nomad.
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot That's why I was initially annoyed that Fem-V couldn't hook up with Panam, but then later I found that Judy wanted out of Night City and had just been looking for a reason for that final push, so I gave her one.
The idea is great but the execution was non sense. The little montage with Jackie that happens is just weird in the Corpo path. Like this isn''t who V was lol it flows well with the Street Kid cause you're like oh yea cool this is probs what V is always getting up to.
"I DID NAHT ENCOURAGE A MAN'S MALIGNANTLY NARCISSISTIC DELUSIONS TO DISGUSTING EXTREMES FOR PERSONAL PROFIT! I DID NAHT! Oh, hi Johnny!" One of my all time fav. quotes from Noah haha
the relationship between v and jonny is kinda interesting. its like an abusive relationship with one person constantly gaslighting and belittling the other. then stockhome syndrome kicks in.
Perhaps the worst part of the "Johnny Goldenheart" ending, in my opinion, was how it treated V's decision to persist as a purely digital consciousness as a BAD thing. Both V and Johnny seem to regard it as a suicide, which was not my perspective at all. Given the option of _definitely dying_ after six more months in meat space, or transcending the physical world by joining my consciousness with a digital god-being, I would take the later and be happy to have been given the option. I didn't give Johnny my body for _his_ sake, I left that dying body for _my own_ sake. Achieving immortality, transcendence, joining with a greater being, and new definitions of what it means to exist within cyberspace, are all VERY fertile ground for the cyberpunk genre, and yet we are given no satisfaction for making this choice. It's treated like it was a bad decision, and then you watch Johnny buy a kid a guitar.
Regarding the point about V being a model citizen of the 2077 dystopia, this stems from one of the big differences between the tabletop games Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun. Shadowrun is about fighting corporations, while Cyberpunk 2020 is about trying to survive when the corporations have won. They're the water everyone swims in now, not an evil to be destroyed. 2077 is the future of that world. Disclaimer: I've never played Shadowrun personally.
so lame they killed him off, in a trailer it seemed they wanted two arcs; one where he was alive depending on the choices you made. Like saving your brother Paul, in Deus Ex.
@Starless that was the reasoning I had to tell myself to finish too. By the end of the game I felt like it was just because maintaining his storyline would’ve made the rest feel as hollow as it was.
@@bcyost1908replying 3 years later to say, EVERYONE died! They spent so much time establishing your relationships with Jackie, T-Bug, Dexter DeShawn and Evelyn Parker and then they all got unceremoniously tossed in the garbage for characters that do not get this same carefully written, superbly acted intro. The only remaining face you continue to have a relationship with is Judy and she’s quite standoffish during the intro. I get wanting to establish that life in Night City is brief, painful, and characterized by the pursuit of a goal nobody reaches, but goddamn, introduce the new characters too! Felt like they figured they could just swap in new faces and you would remain invested due to the work the tutorial characters did, but much like the prisoners in Alien 3, i found it nearly impossible to care about new characters now that it’s been established that the storyteller has no intention of respecting your emotional investment.
That moment reminded me of a bit from the song "Road Trip" by Ninja Sex Party. The song's speaker, Danny Sexbang, spent the majority of the song thus far banging his way across the world. And, still not satisfied at having slept with ALL the beautiful women on Earth, concludes the only next step is to continue his carnal romp across the stars. What made the comparison all the more apropos to this moment in the video is that, in the comedy song "Road Trip", Danny explicitly began his sleeping tour to avoid starting a meaningful relationship with a girl he was starting to connect with as a person. Like V in the Street Kid ending, Danny eschew personal growth in favor of just doing what his character was already doing within the wider Ninja Sex Party canon: rock out and get laid. For extra hilarity, the song ends with Danny leaping from his spaceship to meet alien women, sans space suit (he was way too horny to put one on, you see). The last second of the song being his agonized asphyxiation gurgle. That's the amusing visual image I had when V was leaving his spaceship while the words "time for SPACE CRIMES!" were being uttered.
If you think about it a bit and understood the peralez and doorset sidequests, this is the only ending where V might survive as he/she played their cards right. Mr blue eyes seems to be connected to Night Corp who are at war with Arasaka underneath the whole story. Which gives you a legit chance at acquiring soulkiller and a biochip yourself, to rewrite yourself onto your body. Now of course this is just chasing the next rainbow, but it somehow made sense if you read V as truly desperate at this point. You ruined your body for fame and now you pay the fame to get your body back.
This game should've went with the immersive sim/Deus Ex route by ridding the loot system and giving us grid-based inventory, incentivizing stash use and valuing every consumable and combat item differently. Imagine grenades not being hoarded anymore, and being used tactically?
I feel like the game suffered a lot from the looter shooter mechanics and lack of meaningful exploration. The sense of 2077 missing something is just amplified when I went to play DXHR and DXMD. There's no 2077 equivalent of Detroit PD station or Palisade Bank to break into. The game was too big for its own good.
The worst decision it made was to be an RPG. They pretty much would've had to make 3 separate games to facilitate nomad, streetkid and corpo gameplay styles. The end result... Is quite a mess. Nothing really works because they didn't have enough focus to FOCUS on roleplaying a.k.a. restrictions, opportunities and immersion. Honestly, the bit more than they could chew. The game lacks focus and it shows
I learned very early in the game that 1) enemies can be prone-locked by frags 2) you can shoot em while theyre prone very easily 3) grenades are cheap as shit to craft
@@alastor8091 because for a AAA game, GAME TIME is a selling point. Beign REPLAYABLE is another big one (most RPG have this one backed in as well). Trying to sell a Linear game is hard... you can, Naughty Dog has made lots of linear games that are very popular. But CD Projekt RED already has a reputation of making RPGs (the fact that the "RPG" part on all Witcher games was not that good... it's another different disscussion).
I really enjoyed the "Johnny Golden Heart" ending when I played, but after watching this... I hadn't even considered how absolutely screwed that kid was just by having that guitar. I was happy just to have a little narrative arc at all, even if it was cheesy. That's poor kid is DOOMED.
Even though it may seem like a saccharine ending with a high potential for the kid to end up even worse, I am of the belief that Johnny HAD to hope that his good gesture would reverberate into something positive. Especially considering that his natural disposition is that of cynical nihilism intermixed with bouts of anger and violence. I am sure that Johnny would have been a great student of Kreia, And would have just smirked and replied back to her “Apathy is death” when she would have begun chastising him for having done that altruistic deed.
Its a completely unfair and biassed analysis of the Johnny ending by Noah, and im not used to that from him so quite disappointing. He leaves out the entire point of the ending and why you are even there at that busstop... Obviously to visit V's grave, which is kind of strange to do that in V's body, so yeah, still pretty Cyberpunk to me. The kid is just there to show how V's (and yours, you have been playing V for 50 hours....) sacrifice had an impact on Johnny and he is indeed no longer the cynical a-hole because of it. I think its rather beautiful, because when you think of it... What you are left with is a person who is maybe a bit V and Johnny at the same time.
I so deeply love that you talk at length about Snowcrash and Neuromancer and how this game relates and differs. I already enjoyed your videos but tjat was such a nice touch and so well done that I'll be subscribed forever.
Normally, I take each of this channel's essays in a piecemeal fashion, spending maybe twenty minutes per session over a week. This one flowed so well that I watched the whole thing in one evening. I appreciate the digressions about other notable cyberpunk works, and the thoroughness to comparing and contrasting the various backgrounds & endings. Nothing felt superfluous or self-indulgent.
it’s funny, my takeaway of V as a character was much more positive playing as a female. The relationships felt more natural, the voice work more nuanced and sensitive, kind where needed and aggressive where fitting. Not to mention that Judy’s romance is much more compelling than Panam’s.
Don't quite agree there. For me Fem V sounded either super sultry or super aggressive (almost "bitchy") all the time, with no middle ground or natural transition in between. The constant contrast was just too jarring for me. Male V had the Boston street accent and somewhat of a forced gruff tone/persona, but at least he sounded more consistent throughout the entire game. I also disagree on the romance. Panam's ride or die relationship (and her struggles between NC and her family) definitely appealed to me more and also felt more integrated into the story itself - especially if you took the Nomad path and Star ending.
@@mollymillions6586 women acting hard and bitchy sound just cringe, that is how fem v sounds many times in the story, male v vocie actor had some cringe dialogue too, they both could be way better imo
I had the weird experience of simply feeling left out as Female V. I'm not really attracted to women and in what was advertised as an inclusive game, it felt like all the budget, focus and time was spent fleshing out only the female romance options... The male romance options felt like poorly written side content in comparison, and even the other optional flings were all only women as well. The romance scenes as Johnny were even forced upon the player too. Maybe I was being too hopeful for a Triple A game, as if there was ever much choice given with the developers uncomfortably shoving their own sexual preferences down my throat. Sorry for the sudden rant anyways...
I said the same thing when people complained about Keanu's performance. His often limited emotionality has literally been a meme for like twenty years with the "woah" thing from the Matrix. Not sure what people were expecting... I guess magic from this new IP?
Yeah i've always gotten the impression he was best at colder, more deadpan characters. Like John Wick. He's no drug obsessed Cyberpunk future rockerboy.
@@kiiwikiori7542 I don't know, he brought an interesting sort of "tired" energy to the role that I thought worked pretty well. Johnny may have been a drug-fueled rockerboy, but he was in his mid thirties by the time he raided Arasaka tower. He fought a war, saw the corporations he fought for exploit the land and its people, and set out to fight a war "against the fuckin' forces of entropy". Lines like telling a pack of groupies that they're "wasting your lives, following us around like dogs", or when he explains his motivation and ideology to V just wouldn't work as well with a younger, more energetic performance; Johnny is a man who fought the system, changed nothing, and lost everything.
something neat about the crucifixion sidequest (spoilers): the apostles didn't actually go around calling jesus "jesus," but rather we get that name from the latin "iesus," which itself comes from "Ἰησους" (iesous) - which is the attic greek transliteration of the hebrew "yeshua." "yeshua" is the source for the english name "joshua." in cyberpunk 2077, you can crucify a man who shares a name with jesus.
I love your channel! didn't expect to see you on gamer analysis youtube lol. I bet you'd like ThorHighHeels' content as well, though it's not long form like Noah's, still p good as far as gamer youtube goes
the video is exquisite. it manages to be a genuine, comprehensive look of a deeply broken (both in terms of glitches and general writing/structure) game and all its successes and failings
Just a reminder this IS an adaptation of the Cyberpunk Red roll playing system by Mike Podsmith. Interesting enough, they also made a role playing system for the witcher after the third game came out. It's very good, I used to DM it for a year, now I'm playing and my best friend took over for me.
I love Noah's reviews and watch all of them but many critiques in this essay don't make sense from the perspective that the game is an adaptation with existing lore and a team that worked closely with Mike.
RED, as well as earlier versions of the RPG, are very different in aesthetic to CP77, though. RED takes place in an even more volatile time period, with aesthetic choices that are a bit further removed from what we see in 2077. 2077 is, believe it or not, a pristine and relatively safe world by comparison. With the exception of some namedrops to characters, orgs, and objects (e.g. braindance kits) 2077 is much closer to the cyberpunk movies of the 80s and 90s than it is to the TTRPG. I think Noah’s critiques hold up just fine even if he fails to mention the TTRPG
You are the first person besides me to point out how *yick* that scene in Snow Crash is. I felt like I was losing my mind because either people didn't remember it or didn't understand why I was *yuck*. Love the review.
The pigeon clicking reminds me of Bethesda chests/dungeons. Almost no chest or safe is worth lockpicking but I continuously do it, for 1 potion and 12 gold.
It's also called a "Skinner Box". You'd probably enjoy the video about it by Extra Credits, or this analytical piece about Skyrim by NeverKnowsBest: ua-cam.com/video/6NXSxkWQp0M/v-deo.html
Thank you for making this. This is one of the most intelligent pieces about CP 2077 I have seen so far and not just a "LoL, crazy bugs" video. I'm glad someone addressed the game's deep issues under it's glittering, RTX powered facade.
lol, this game literally has no grind considering how broken the character progression is. It sucks because combat is very fun in the first 15 levels, afterwards you are just a demigod wiping out everything in existence with barely any effort and combat just becomes boring.
48:30 When crafting satire, one must take care to make sure they never actually do the harmful thing being satirised. Which is why “it’s not exploitation, it’s satire!” fails as a defence. If it does the thing, then it does the thing. That can’t be extracted from the work, and it can’t then satirise other works for doing the thing because the snake eats its own tail.
There is change in Johnny Silverhand, he admits that getting his friends killed and using them before was wrong as it amounted to nothing but this time, he wants to save V, he is not doing it to stick it to the corpos, he wants to save V. Maybe it depends on how you interacted with Johnny but you said in the street kid ending, Johnny just wants to repeat history once again, which is simply not true. In his grave yard talk, if you choose "the guy who saved my life" instead of "NC legend" or the other, it will also result in better bonding points with him. Around the one hour mark. Johnny's logic about why you should allow him and Rogue do it is not that weird as well. In the Nomad ending, as Johnny points out a lot of Aldecaldo people die, their deaths heavy on your soul and in the corpo ending, you end up resurrecting the devil and returning Arasaka to absolute power again undoing the deliberate damage that Yorinobu was causing. So why not let Johnny and Rogue take their revenge and save you If you keep calling him an asshole though it might look like he just wants to use you to exact revenge, but if you develop some camaraderie with him, he proves that he cares about V.
It also makes the johny golden heart ending at least not as dumb. It's still dumb in a way how stupidly optimistic he became, but at the very least his "yeah i am given a new life by my buddy, and i am going to use it better than my last one" attitudes fitting.
I personally absolutely love the secret Johnny ending, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper". In my opinion, that ending is the best and it shows their character development: both are aware that whoever they choose, people will die fighting for them. Both V and Johnny wanted nothing of it anymore. This wasn't about Johnny sticking it to the corps anymore, this was to get V into Arasaka tower to save him. The line "The guy who saved me", which triggers this ending makes perfect sense in this context. At that point, Johnny realizes what he really wants: saving his closest and only true friend. V embraces their relation and both become literal brothers after that.
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot >it's also hilariously unrealistic I think that's kind of the point. You get the ending credits if you die on that one, and your max health keeps going down the further you go. It *is* a suicide mission. >Maybe before the chip did IRREVERSIBLE damage to his DNA and then he might have been able to be saved by Alt? No matter what ending you choose, the changes are irreversible. That makes this point kind of moot.
yeah i think he's right on alot of points but I have a pet peeve of people critiquing a characters motivations because its not something they would do themselves. Like no shit thats why their own character lol. also real people do stupid irrational shit all the time
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot yeah because its like the hardest dungeon in the game and you lose if you die once im pretty sure. so who cares if its unrealistic, its unrealistic to slaughter the entire legion and kill caesar in fallout new vegas but no one gives FNV shit for that.
I might have imagined most of it, but my high relationship with Johnny might have resulted in a more mellow Johnny making the Johnny Goldenheart ending plausible.
I subconsciously knew this was gonna happen at some point. You're the perfect person to dissect this sort of game. Looking forward to getting through this one! EDIT: top notch analysis Noah, you really hit the nail on the head here. I fully share all your sentiments regarding this game. Keep up the great work amigo.
30:30 I've always held this sentiment, but I've never heard it expressed so well. Some of my favorite gaming experiences is when I am into an experience, atmosphere or vibe that I'm clawing at the edge of the maps, trying to get at a nonexistent peek of what else might be out in the world. The edge of Tristram in Diablo 1 or gazing out over the forested valleys and walls of Firelink Shrine. With the seemingly compulsive rise of large, open-world games I feel like people have forgotten that what makes those moments so good is precisely because there is nothing out there and **you** get to imagine and fill in those gaps.
They set the expectations though, true that it could never possibly hope to meet fan expectations, but when you cannot even deliver a fraction of features you promised, you failed fans. The game needed at least another 2-3 years which would have prevented the removal of promised features and might have delivered any innovation promised. Because the game launched so early and tried to do so much in a new engine, it meant the game couldn't possibly be more than mediocre in all aspects but story. It leads to a game that is mediocre to outright trash in some systems like police, which makes GTA 3 seem innovative. It was sad because if CD Projekt Red never went public (Stock Market), this game might have been able to deliver on the promise of greatness.
Ohhhh happy weekend for this. Watching now. "He never lived to see how mechanically boring and narratively frustrating achieving that dream would be." Good lord, this. Alright, finished it. Goodness, man. This is an utterly perfect take on Cyberpunk 2077. Thank you so much for your voice in this arena.
There's a lot to say about this game, but I want to comment on one particular aspect that I think really underpins a lot of the non-story issues with the game's mechanics. Namely, the way they handled "side content". I'm not talking about the quests tied to important named side-characters or interesting one-off diversions like the crucifixion, I'm talking about the "gigs" and police contracts and economy stuff. Cyberpunk compares unfavorably to GTA in this aspect because it seems to half-understand the point of even including this side-content (to make the world seem bigger and more alive) but doesn't at all understand what kinds of side-content actually serve that purpose. Worthwhile side-content satisfies the player's "I wonder if I can do X..." question and moves on. Take the convenience store robbery thing in GTA for example. It's a super simple detail that serves very little practical purpose, but it's fairly likely that players are at some point going to try holding up a convenience store, so having the clerk respond in a unique way rather than just screaming and running away like a regular NPC adds a ton of credibility to the world. Same could be said of GTA's fully functioning strip clubs and hookers. You know players are going to go there, so if you put a little dev time into mocking up some awkward animations you'll at least preserve the suspension of disbelief. The thing is, if you really start combing through GTA you'll find that these are the exception rather than the rule, and that's perfectly fine. Most GTA players probably never noticed that trash trucks never actually pick up bins, or that fire trucks are never actually going to a fire (that the player didn't cause anyway...), because Rockstar budgeted their effort well, and spent it on things that players would actually notice despite the fact that they don't meaningfully add to the bullet-point list of "things you can do". Cyberpunk's side-content seems totally optimized for making that "things you can do" list sound impressive while neglecting the world-building details that actually matter. I can't even think of a situation where my "I wonder if they thought of this..." question was answered affirmatively. For instance, if you're paying attention you can find out about Clouds way before the mission there. What happens if you track it down? Nothing. You can't simply interact with it like a customer. All of the commercial buildings, shops, clubs, etc. are like this. Compare to GTA IV's hot dog stands, or the functioning car washes. They're much less mechanically substantial than cyberpunk's ubsurdly over-designed food-inventory-effects-economy system (and probably took close to the same amount of work to implement), but if Cyberpunk got rid of all that and simply replaced it with a cutscene where your character sits down and eats their ramen for 10 seconds the game would be so much better. I can say this with confidence, because Cyberpunk offers a direct A/B comparison with their bars. Some bars, usually those tied to a story, let you sit down and have a shot while exchanging some fluffy dialogue with the bartender. These were unambiguously better than the bars that just gave you a menu of pointless drink-items to buy. It's not even like they just lacked the time and resources to do that kind of thing; rather, they misspent the resources they had. All those food models took time to make. I'd happily take having only one variety of nicola if it meant the character would be animated when they drink it.
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot lol i think he was making a joke because we both have absurd usernames. but yeah, whenever i strayed from the core missions in cyberpunk i just kept thinking "why the hell did they waste their time on this crap instead of working on the important stuff".
@@ciggy_ True although that was a comparison of Modernizations between Deus Ex to Human Revolution and Duke Dukem 3d to Forever. It would be interesting to go through Deus Ex, Dues Ex Invisible War, Human Revolution and then Mankind Divided. Showing how revolutionary the first one was to how lackluster its sequel was then going into the modern ones and how they took stuff from the original and how they improved or maybe di not improve upon them. I think it could be an interesting video. Of course I find basically every video Noah does interesting so there's that lol.
With the hindsight of how well Cyberpunk: Edgerunners turned out, what you say at 4:05 seems especially relevant now. Edgerunners was fast-paced, and told a tragic, personal, small-scale story about someone trying to survive in night city. It worked because its creators understood what makes the genre work and took that into account from the beginning. CP2077 as a game did not.
1:04:40 - But is a character NOT learning from their mistakes a bad narrative? I thoroughly enjoyed roleplaying V as what he was, a somewhat egotistical money and fame driven product of Night City - being manipulated by a very charismatic narcissistic rock star who became his closest friend The Streetkid/Arasaka/Takemura ending felt like a bittersweet and depressing end to a flawed character and I loved it for that reason. V had to give up all his and Johnny's principals and anger all his friends just to stay alive, he helped Arasaka stay at the top and all he got was a ticket on the soulkiller - No happy ever after, no big explosion at the end, no major leagues -- just a scared kid who doesn't want to die yet and Johnny being disappointed with his decision was the cherry on top. I might just be a depressed cynical asshole, but I love bleak endings and heavily flawed characters - Too many games have "action hero 1, who will never do anything immoral" as their protagonist, especially in narratively driven games. We're all trying to be decent human beings in real life and I've played far too many games in my life to be excited about saving the world.. every time I want to enjoy a story Great video as always!
But that's the thing, this was supposed to be a RPG with different choices and different paths for the story. V was supposed to be us our own character, different people want to be themselves but all we get to be is a egotistical money and fame jackass. You might enjoy that and if CDPR marketed it as a linear game and not as a RPG with branching paths then we would've enjoyed it too but they didn't.
@@sillylittlesheepjax6009 Roleplaying can be done in many ways and they already mastered the way on how to make a voiced characterr still feel like your own, they just forgot. Witcher series - Geralt, he was voiced and had a pre-built history yet we could still put ourselves on him, he could still be our own character. Wanna know why? Because the writing actually accounted for different people to create and connect to different yet similar Geralt's.
@@imixupwords5340 So by that logic, the only thing holding back the narrative is that there is RPG name attached to it? Would you have appreciated it more if it was a linear game?
@@postmodernmarxistnihilist4282 Yes, because then my expectations would be that it is a linear game, that CDPR carefully hand-crafted this story; not that of an RPG with choices that matter. People have different expectations for different kinds of games, I expect great racing simulation and fun activities from Forza Horizon but not storytelling like how I would expect that in a Third-Person Adventure or FPS game like Halo or God of War(though I wish racing games could). CDPR marketed this as a RPG where the smallest choices can impact the big picture, so my expectations were that of what they said, but sadly they lied about the whole game :(
Seriously though, I hope this is remembered as *the* definitive Cyberpunk 2077 review. I've watched basically every videogame analysis channels review at this point and as usual Noah is in a league of his own. Not to say there weren't any other good ones, but Noah doesn't miss. Probably helps that he didn't binge the game then attempt to write a 1.5hour script and edit it all within like a week of the game coming out.
That's the only thing I found disappointing about Cyberpunk so far: Jackie does not get enough screentime. That sidequest for his funeral still hit hard either way.
I held off watching your take until I played the game myself, so I'm a bit late to adding anything. I gotta say you nailed a lot of stuff on the head. I must've spent a a good hour running around Pacifica looking for fixer quests until I figured out there was only one, and I took me a good while before I realized that the lack of fast travel points in the city core was probably another loss to the development time. But I still love this game and city despite everything it's missing and could have been. Just walking around the city at night and looking at the sky scrapers feels amazing in every sense of the word; the art design behind the mission during a Japanese matsuri is exactly how I would imagine a futuristic murder rampage / heist of a corporate princess during a parade. It's such a beautiful game, and I hope the DLC CDPR has planned actually fill in what's missing. Hopefully you'll have a chance to look at those too.
Yeah, if they only focused on story, like the Witcher 3, were i basically spent 80% of my time talking, this game would be so better I can also see how many writers there was in this game It's all over the place
It being all over the place does not have to be a bad thing, but there needs to be a certain level of competence to make that work. And would need some extra compotence (or probably a lot more time) to work with the gameplay elements.
@@Rifky809 I’ve been a gamer for 30+ years and my favourite games have included the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series, System Shock 2, Half Life Alyx, the Deus Ex franchise, Skyrim, Fallout IV VR, Dishonored, Alien Isolation etc... And I think Cyberpunk is one of the best, if flawed, games I’ve ever played. I can see where the disappointment comes from, and that Night City could have RDR2 NPCs, and a slower focus on gradually opening up its world, such as forcing you to use the trains and autonomous taxis that were never programmed. I also hate the combat until several missions after the first act. Early on you can headshot opponents a dozen times with a sniper rifle, because the game isn’t ready for you to be badass yet. But once you level up, the combat is awesome. I’ve been playing different FPS every other week since wolfenstein in 92.
@@Y2Kr4SHM4N well, good for you! Personally I can never get into the combat of cyberpunk, it really looks awesome but it really gets repetitive at times. Story is great, I hope they expand the story with some expansion or dlc, but each to their own I guess.
The lack of Imagination you touched on as the central failing of the game really resonates with my most intense personal gripe with it. Going through Cyberpunk I felt that there was so little substance in every feature and that the only aspect of Cyberpunk actually getting representation were the aesthetics, which left me deeply disappointed going in as a Witcher fan from before the release of Witcher 2. Personally I think that the game wouldve likely been immeasurably better if the devs got 2 more years of development as that wouldve probably meant actually finishing the RPG systems and adding depth to the aesthetics. The budget-GTA feeling that characterizes the game feels like a Minimum viable product approach chosen by management and the lead devs in order to actually be able to deliver a decently functioning product for such a premature deadline. This is notably the complete antithesis to CDPRs own stated and marketed philosophy ("We are rebels"), which leaves me wondering if Im just not sufficiently disillusioned with corporate media and this was all a marketing ploy all along or if the management and sales and marketing branches of corporations really tend to become this detached from the product theyre working with. Anyways thanks for the great video Noah, youve made my Saturday night. Keep em coming!
Sadly, Cyberpunk is weirdly uneven/mediocre on aesthetics as well. There are lots of better character creation systems out there than Cyberpunk has. and you can't change your appearance once the game starts even though the in-game lore and even some actual missions revolve around heavy cosmetic body modification. You can't modify clothing or vehicles aesthetically at all, there's no provision for de-linking clothing stats from appearance so if you min-max your gear stats at all you're guaranteed to be wearing stupidly mismatched clown ensembles, and there's almost nothing you can do to decorate or customize your apartments. Night City itself looks pretty great most of the time, but that's about it.
1:16:43 - "A High profile reminder that corporation doesn't care if you hate it. In fact, it can take that hate, package it in neon and chrome and sell it right back to you for 60 dollars". Best quote of the entire video
Reminded me of his thoughts on games like Postal, and people buying them to feel like edgy outsiders when really "nothing's more _insider_ than having your most violent fantasies wrapped up and sold to you as a consumer product."
'Although Cyberpunk 2077 is, supposedly, an original work and not an adaptation of a series of novels (...)' Actually, it's an adaptation of a tabletop RPG from the late 80s/early 90s called 'Cyberpunk 2020', which may account for the fact that the in-game world feels more like a mash-up of different existing works of fiction, rather than a fully original creation, as well as how dated some of these concepts might seem now. The game itself is said to take place in a world alternative to ours (Johnny's flashbacks take place in 2023), which is why there's stuff like Japan being the world's dominant superpower (it would be much more logical for China to replace the US in that role), etc.
@@queen_zoestra I don't know. Noah's usually very thorough when it comes to his videos, so it'd be surprising if he missed an important detail like that. Maybe this sentence was just awkwardly phrased in a misleading manner, suggesting that he's not aware of the game's roots as a tabletop RPG? Anyway, he does have a point that the world of CP 2077 feels very much retro and that it seems heavily inspired by other, already existing pieces of cyberpunk media, because the same criticism would apply to the original CP2020 RPG system. In the core rulebook you could even find a section, where Mike Pondsmith lists some suggested reading/watching and it includes some very obvious inspirations, such as 'Neuromancer, 'Blade Runner', 'Terminator', 'Robocop', 'Mad Max', etc.
Watch the whole video. He knws abt cp2020, but he criticized how the setting still heavily revolved around cp2020. More than 50years have passed, yet you still see the same johny, the same antagonist, and the same supporting characters
Cyberpunk 2020 is a TTRPG setting that players can run their own stories in. 2077 is not an adaptation of any known story it merely uses the setting. Like you wouldn't say that shadow of mordor is an adaptation of lord of the rings just because it takes place in middle earth.
@@estusflakes5508 I think that you're wrong on both accounts, because shadows of Mordor is a continuation of the story of a character who is mentioned in the silmarillion, which would make it an adaptation, and cyberpunk 2077 is a continuation of the story of Johnny silverhand, the core books of both cyberpunk 2020 and cyberpunk red, so it is in fact an adaptation of the series canon
Great video, captures a lot of my feelings about the game, but my one nitpick is that the game technically isn’t a broad adaptation of the cyberpunk genre as a whole but an adaptation/sequel to the tabletop rpg Cyberpunk 2020, with Johnny’s storyline being ripped straight from an official campaign.
And "Cyberpunk 2020" itself isn't a broad adaptation of the cyberpunk genre, but instead of Walter Jon Williams's "Hard-Wired". Mike Pondsmith hadn't even read "Neuromancer" when he wrote the original "Cyberpunk 2013", which later expanded to "Cyberpunk 2020".
Same, I kept wondering if I’d missed the part where this was acknowledged? The game certainly references the books and movies being discussed bother overtly and in spirit but most aspects of the game, from the weapon names to many characters and to Night City itself come directly from the pen and paper modules and core rule books, and the faithful recreation of that RPG is precisely why I enjoy this game despite its many flaws.
It's the one reason I feel he should do a re-review, despite the game changing too. I'm confused as to how you could miss this, providing Noah is a great writer and one must assume, researcher...
It's super interesting watching this after three years of updates and public opinion on the game taking an actual 180. A lot of the critisisms feel valid, but I would love a follow-up analysis of how additional content and patches diluted the problems of the base game, especially with Phantom Liberty, and how effective the strategy was to nudge the game into a more compact, dense product.
I'd actually argue that the corpo origin flipped to the nomad ending feels exceptionally poignant for the protagonist's arc. A corpo V basically gives their life and limb in pursuit of playing the corporate game but doesn't really have real connection to the people around them, but taking the nomad path finally lets them see that the only winning strategy was to step away and not play and in doing so find real family. It also results in letting Alt through the Blackwall and dismantling Arasaka from the inside, which really achieves more than anything Johnny was looking to do. It dripfeeds hope at an alternate solution to V's impending death outside the constraints of Night City (and also gives female V a chance to escape with Judy for a new start as well). Of course, it's only part of the fraction of the content I found actually interesting and emotionally resonant and since almost every other ending is just varying shades of sour pyrrhic victory I pretty much came to the same conclusion that this game could have just been a linear narrative without any of the roleplaying and it wouldn't have lost a whole lot. I feel like if I had gotten any of the other endings I would have felt exceptionally unrewarded when rolling credits.
I think the Corpo to Nomad route would have more weight if the corpo part was more fleshed out. Unfortunately, the prologues to the intro are so short that there's really not that much room to see what that V was - before being turned into Streetkid with a veneer of corpo popping up from time to time when dialogue options remember that was your background.
Exactly. I feel like the canon story should be Female V - Corpo - Judy Alvarez - Nomad ending. At least to me, it was the most satisfying reading of Cyberpunk 2077
Babe, wake up! New Noah Caldwell-Gervais video just dropped! Was having a particularly shitty night, so I really appreciate the upload, mate. Hope you're doing well :)
@IntrepidFinch I agree It's a very lovely comment section, even if someone disagrees with some of the stuff in the video. I love his TLoU video, even if I disagreed with a lot of what he said of part 1, and some of what he said of part 2. I just respect his views and look forward to hearing his thoughts and insight on cool video games, as they either provide me with something I hadn't considered before, or they help me to better put to words what I've been feeling about a certain game.
@IntrepidFinch I subscribed to Noah after randomly finding his RDR2 video in my feed back in '19. agreed. I love both of those games very much, and I'm always in search of fair, different perspectives on those games. I like hearing people's views on the game (so long as they're not being toxic about it). I seek out critique, good, bad, middling. It's fun to hear what others thought, regardless of whether I agree or not.
@IntrepidFinch it isn't. Playing it, to me, was the most intense, and emotional experience I've had with any piece of media. I'm looking forward to the next game, tv show, movie, book, which will rival this experience :)
An excellent analysis. I personally enjoyed cyberpunk but only because I related to V as someone going through a similar life threatening experience. It allowed me to roleplay more effectively and made the game very immersive. I struggled suggesting the game to my friends however because without that aspect tying me to V's character I didn't find the game to be that remarkable except for the rare engaging side content.
After seeing so many people uniformly tear the shit out of this game, it's fascinating to finally hear a proper critique which acknowledges the things it did well in addition to the (many, many) things it did poorly. And you always give very thorough, very thoughtful critiques.
@@Aggrofool Both of those games are infinitely more creative, artistically bold, and emotionally effecting though. Which makes them both worth playing. Especially Disco Elysium, analyzing that game mechanically or thematically still doesnt quite capture just how enriching it is to actually experience it. Cyberpunk is mainly dull and frustraiting with fleeting moments of entertainment that are ultimately just not as good as other media in this genre. Its more interesting to dissect as a product of the conditions it was concieved and released in than to actually play itself.
@@joshuataff4911 Id argue its very reasonable to not want to play Kentucky route 0, its really not for everyone and not too engaging. I prefer reading about it the same way i prefer reading about pathologic.
@@hypomotion I can understand that completely. Im not trying to knock down anyone for their preferences. I was more just attempting to lay out how the circumstances around these games differ. That though the essays Noah has done for all of these games are wonderful, theres a clear distinction on why Disco Elysium and Kentucky Route Zero are worth playing on their own right for the unique experiences they provide. Something each player takes away that cant be captured completely even in an essay three times the length of what anyone has written about then. Where as, I feel at least, Cyberpunk is infinitely more interesting to dissect as a product of our cultural, economical, and political climate than to play as a game experientially because of the circumstances and pre-release expectations surrounding it. The game itself just feels like a soup of half baked ideas and industry trends.
@@joshuataff4911 fair enough, that does make sense. The games are unique in their own ways that differentiate them from other experiences and give them their own life of sorts, so I get why cyberpunk is preferable to observe rather than play for you due to its obtuse blandness.
I totally agree. Kabuki and little China in particular seem like the only sub districts they finished. And that makes sense those would of been the first since V lives there and the intro is there. It really does feel like it needed another year and half or so.
Odds are if you want him to, our boy Noah is gonna make a video about the game you're thinking of. He just needs time, classic rock and maybe some weed.
"There are fresher hells still to come, and I turn to the cyberpunk genre to warn me of them in advance" That stuck out to me when I first saw the video, and on a rewatch it stands out even more. And to top it all off with the "Imagination isn't something you can patch in later" line, it's such an apt condemnation of the game. One of your better videos, Noah, you really nailed the point home with Cyberpunk's fundamental flaw as an immersive RPG and as a cyberpunk title, has to be one of the better dissections of a game I've seen.
I got the achievement for buying all the cars. I did every single mission, quest, side quest and was still short. I had to reload an old save and cheat the game to get 1,8 million.
@@willywitchdoctor They didn't. They probably wanted people to play it over and over because each playthrough was supposed to be different. Of course that wasn't the case in the end.
@@bruhtholemew yea it's really annoying because I basically ruined my build putting points into achievement skills and by the end I never wanted to try another run
@@bruhtholemew Yeah, pretty sure that's the case because they initially had more ways to make money like more side missions or activities or even that ability to rob places. But all of that was cut for... Management reasons.
@@willywitchdoctor A second run is not too bad if you had another build to play through, and if trying to speed through *just* the main story + major character sidequests. I'd messed up by doing the final mission too late my first playthrough, which made it incredibly easy and boring. Doing it a second time - without wandering too much in between - made the game play quite nicely/satisfyingly, narratively speaking. Of course, I then messed it up again by deciding to do the secret ending, which essentially required max leveling due to the enemy scaling :/
Great video, and I agree on the diagnosis of the problems and the remedy, but I do think the analysis gives the Rogue ending short thrift. While Johnny is repeating his behavior, his motivation to help V--provided the player actually spends time leveling up his "social link" sufficiently--colors the ending much differently. It feels like a redo for both Johnny and Rogue as they try to redeem their initial failure in the hope of helping V survive. It's Johnny's last hurrah at being a better person, though perhaps his inability to imagine a different approach/methodology is also a commentary on his inability to change. As much as he wants to be better, he will always be Johnny Silverhand.
"The only meaningful choices in CP2077 are at the end and that's only a choice of ending scenario based on yes or no quest completion not any particular choice within those quests." That is the biggest disappointment about CP for me and a testament to the fact CDPR lost touch with what made their games special.
![Trying to Untangle Death Stranding [Full Spoilers]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RJAhH3IdQ4w/mqdefault.jpg)
![Trying to Untangle Death Stranding [Full Spoilers]](/img/tr.png)
![The Outer Worlds in Close Critique [Spoilers]](/img/n.gif)
I love that the audible "click click" of noah stopping a voice recording has transformed into a feel-good staple of his videos.
Also the borderline uncomfortable volume spikes.
hes great at writing, not so great at basic audio production. BUT some how i still love it
I always assumed it was him flipping to the next page of his digital script
yeah i just hurt my ears a minute ago smh, still a good vid tho
That's part of the Noah charm. He's come a long way since the Thorough Look and Fallout which got me into his channel, but it's still not great a lot of the time. I enjoy these videos because of the writing. Noah is one of the best video essayists on UA-cam and he doesn't need to compensate for a lack of writing abilities with flashy editing and high production values. Extremely based and chadpilled if you ask me.
My pigeon brain likes it
"Imagination isn't something you can patch in later."
Now I'm torn between this video and Fallout 76 for the prize of "Best Closing Line."
That could basically be the tagline for 99% of all media of the last ten years, to be honest.
What was Fallout 76's one?
@@robertprewitt7777 Man such a great quote, thanks Robert
@@TheHarkonnenScum As far as AAA goes, maybe.
FFXIV a Realm Reborn did it tho.
The concept you're getting at in the first 10 minutes was written about by the late Mark Fisher as "hauntology"- the idea that, as a symptom of late capitalist culture, we have collectively stopped imagining "the future", and are instead "haunted" by past notions of the future. In the same sense, most "futuristic" fiction today relies on a Blade Runner esque vision of the future that, ironically, is now pretty retro.
@@irselr subbed :)
maybe people need to look around more for stuff not steeped in the past, or with a better eye, see how the things they think are were so new at the point, are actually rifting on things of the past too.
so "hauntology" is from someone who thinks they are saying something only because the didn't stand up to get a better look.
@@xBINARYGODx not exactly accurate, no, I'd maybe investigate Fisher's work more directly in case my summary is mis-selling it
@@DavySolaris it definately tracks in my mind, only caveat I have is how we have people perhaps not collectively imagining the future but always presenting a less interesting future than genre stipulating works like blade runner.
With cyberpunk for example theres a myriad of writers, artists etc. that have contributed their own spin on the same themes making it part of our culture. The same with the 50s retro future or dunes very distant, dystopian, very alien future.
The imagined future easily becomes very recursive, because all popular art is in a sense.
@Jotaro97 only if you want to be extremely, extremely reductive about it, sure!
I'm used to Noah casually namedropping incredibly obscure things as if it's something everyone will immediately recognize, but I was not prepared for Quizno's Spongemonkeys.
"obscure" is an interesting way to describe a primetime tv ad campaign
@@cashnelson2306 I understand what you mean, but I don't think that's a particularly meaningful distinction. Obscurity, at least in my opinion, has less to do with the level of exposure it has and more with to what degree it permeates public consciousness.
Whenever the topic of memorable commercials from youth comes up, I always jump to the sponge monkey coupon song. And, invariably, I would receive puzzled stares. I was unintentionally gaslit to the point that I questioned if the commercial existed or was something I hallucinated. It wasn't until maybe 3 years ago that I ever conversed with another person that remembered them. So, yes, I am comfortable with using the word "obscure."
@@cashnelson2306 Yes, because everyone on the internet is from the US.
@@puffnisse As an european, I can confirm, I'm from the US, and I knew about Spongemonkeys, since I'm from the US and its ovbiously well known in the US (which is the place I come from, as an european).
Yet he doesn't know chums is a real thing
"Corporate capitalism doesn't care if you hate it. In fact, it can take that hate, package it in neon and chrome and sell it right back to you for 60 dollars"
What a good line
very mark fisher “capitalist realism” esque of it
@@xanaxodgrindcorelover9191 "ayyyy Tony seems we's stuck in a pervasive freakin' prison of capitalist intent which constraints our given reality eyyy oooooh gabagool!!!"
@@Sablus I read that in the voice of Bobby Dook, the star of the Scaredy Cats youtube channel
Also the anger in "nothing fucking works."
@@neofromthewarnerbrothersic145 yooo same. I just assumed it was bobby.
What has Mildread done to us?
“there are strands of all of those things”... so now we know what type game it is
Directed by Hideo Kojima
A stranding-like
a thing-ful game
great reference
Everyone knows that Bubsy 3D was the first strand-type game
"corporate choices at the upper & mid levels of CD Projekt Red have essentially permanently sabotaged their anti-corporate video game"
which, ironically, is also an oddly powerful message against corporations
Corporate is a part of CDPR, so the fault lies with CDPR itself, just like any mal practice in any gaming studio would lie with them.
The best kind of accidental irony statements.
You'd think the same would be true of Watch Dogs Legion given Ubisoft's... everything... but people are defending that bland mess.
@@engrfka Technically, CD Projeckt S.A. CDPR is the dev.
This is the first video I've seen about cyberpunk that actually addresses the fact that the game completely avoids any attempt at a critique of capitalism which is so critical to the cyberpunk genre
I’d say the reality is even worse, there is prodding and poking at capitalism and it’s ideas but they are all so generic and tropey that they blend in.
With Johnny a lot of the criticism and dialogue that he spouts turns into whiney edgy teen rather than actual observation and analysis.
The game feels like it’s one step away from delivering that criticism but never going for the final blow. With the hyper-sexualisation, the dredd style tower blocks and the mega wealthy corpos you meet. The opportunity is tangible but when it tries it feels weak and when it doesn’t it feels abridged.
I personally love the game, the world, the feel of walking around with the audio design and the visual design but that’s because of something I can’t really put a finger on….
Yeah, that critical stance is where the "punk" part comes from. Lately, the punk genres (cyberpunk, steampunk, atompunk, etc.) have been more about cool looking technology than anything else.
Corporations != capitalism
@@Whysosadams The cynical side in me says it was on purpose. That Johnny Silverhand's whiny teenage attitude is a deliberately manufactured strawman of criticism against capitalism that people can point to and say "look at this fucking idiot".
@@acrosstundras Capitalism was created by the wealthy, they created corporations. It's their system.
It can never be ours.
Hot take: we should decide if a game is or isnt the “greatest game of all time” after the game actually comes out
Hot Take: we should decide if a game is or isn't the "greatest game of all time" after time stops... or the game industry dissapears... maybe we only need to wait for the heat death of the universe.
See if people are still talking about it 20 years later.
Why are you expecting any sliver of coherence from the gaming community? This is the community that popularized paying hundreds of dollars for a chance of getting a 2D texture on a 3D model so they can brag about it to their friends and other players onlime, thanks to these textures artificial rarity...
If there's any level of stupidity still untouched by the human race, I guarantee the first one to reach said level *will be a gamer*
Cyberdunk 2077 is exactly the product the gaming community deserved.
I remember you couldn't question anything about this game before release without a bunch of fucking idiots cursing at you online, they'd do anything to protect their favorite gaming company from scrutiny, the game was perfect from the trailers alone, and if you disagreed you were a moron.
Same with No Man Sky, same with Star Citizen and many other games
At least NMS turned things around, yaay, they paid for a product that eventually became a decent product
@@rickydo6572 No argument here. I think the pre-sale model / kickstart was originally supposed to allow fans of a cool project to eliminate the pressure for a small team to release early (and badly) because they wouldn't have a corporate overlord and/or large investor making demands. Instead it's just incentivized maximizing hype.
And everyone's been conditioned that every dollar spent on marketing leads to more than a dollar in sales. The resulting marketing environment is ridiculous.
It's essentially required to hype things at this point unless you have a dedicated long-term following like Dwarf Fortress. But even Adams gave in and moved to a graphic update before the game was finished, when he said he was not interested in putting effort there yet.
@@estebanrodriguez5409 no. IMHO it has just to be better than anything that came before.
The city kid story circle is painfully accurate though. You want to control your block, then your street, then your neighborhood, then your city, and it never ends. You essentially are born into a circle of escalation until you actively try to step away from it (Nomad)
"You know how Mass Effect one fixed it's inventory issues? By releasing Mass Effect two."
I almost fell over laughing 😂
Yup, also because it so true, and probably why mass effect 2 is the one that actually made mass effect super popular and mainstream.
@@NathanWubs and also eliminated nearly all rpg elements from the game as well.
But I liked the inventory of ME1 :c
@@JimmyMon666 The RPG elements in Mass Effect 1 were garbage, and similar to Cyberpunk 2077, it felt like a part of the game that the developers couldn't fully commit to, for reasons we will likely never truly know., a part of the game that was left it because goddamnit, Bioware makes RPGs, and therefore Mass Effect 1 must be an RPG! But that mindset clashed with the combat design, and made it all weightless and unsatisfying. It could be forgiven for this, similar to how people forgive Alpha Protocol for it's utterly garbage gameplay, if the narrative was strong enough to carry the rest of the package. It wasn't.
Much like Cyberpunk 2077, the actual act of "playing" ME1 wasn't improved by the presence of traditional RPG elements. ME2 isn't remembered more fondly because it removed RPG elements, it's remembered because it chose to be something specific, and it managed to hit the nail on the head more times than it missed. You can't really say that for ME1 as a videogame.
@@JimmyMon666 mass effect one wasn't any more of an rpg than 2. If you're looking for a game that does something meaningful with stats, builds, etc you should really be playing something else.
saddest part of cyberpunk is how varied the quality can get at times. Parts of the game are really well done and those short moments where everything clicks together and works just shows what this game could have been with a few more years of development
The good parts are the ones the management didn't change too much so devs actually could flesh out.
Everything that's buggy, shit or just unfinished is the opposite: A Change that was too big, that pulled resources from other places and then this change broke other stuff too.
I'm guessing that's why the car AI is also so bad; they had to change a lot of the city's layout and the AI, but at that point fixing the pathfinding was really hard. Now they had to redo a lot of it, but ran out of time.
Its far more frustraiting to be teased by something worthwhile than to be consistently angry or bored. You ultimately leave the experience with an even worse impression overall.
Exactly man, the prologue had me so incredibly immersed right before it dumps you into the lifeless hell that is Night City. Those first few hours had me so optimistic about the future of gaming, that we would finally be seeing some creativity in a sea of generic open world games. And while that’s still exemplified to some extent, it ultimately succumbs to the same greed that has plagued the gaming industry. I still personally enjoyed the game no doubt despite the negative reception (which I completely understand), but I won’t ever deny the endless amount of potential Cyberpunk had.
More time wouldn't fix the broken design philosophy of the game.
@@comicsans1689 Design philosophy is pretty standard actually, it still would have some serious issues but so did the Witcher 3
"so much of what you do is lonely and bereft of story"
put that on my grave lolol
*Raises can of Monster in solidarity.
I relate to this so hard. Guess my life is going to end with a whimper and not a bang and I don't really mind that tbh.
R.I.P 🤣
As a veteran CP2020 player and GM, this game is exactly what the tabletop game was in the early to mid 90's - an action romp of shallow, stylish shootouts interspersed with moments of facedowns, shopping and just adolescent fun with a pseudo anti corporate message that no one cared about anyway. We were all V, amused by Johnny's anti Araska rants while pining for the latest cyberware or smart guns. CP2077 should've stayed in development for another two years at least but is a great representation of the tabletop RPG nonetheless.
I straight up blocked out that Keanu "I NEED TO GET ONLINE I NEED A COMPUTER" and you saying it brought it back like some Vietnam PTSD man
Some memories are so painful we instinctively block them out
"...and breathe deep like you were railing a massive line out of the city's ass crack."
God, I love how one minute you're breaking down how the failures of the in game environment actively detract from immersion and other really meaningful concepts, and the next minute you drop a line like that. It's absolutely gold every time. Legitimately hilarious analogy.
Haha
Anal-ogy
Haha
@@CaptainArthanos *bevis and butt head laugh intensifies*
His deadpan serious delivery of those outlandish vulgar sentences is comedy gold
You know, I can't argue about anything you said, but with that being said, there is something addicting about the game. I've played 300+ hrs on XB1, because I can't get my hands on a Series X, and I'm looking forward to my third play through.
@@nightcitypunk8517 you must like shallow games
Some of my favourite parts of this game were sitting in the passenger seat while someone else drove me somewhere, having conversations about this and that, looking out the window at the city or desert passing by.
I don't know if that says anything about the game or as me as a person, but man... I didn't even buy into all the hype for this game, avoided all the promotional material and forum threads and whatnot, and did thoroughly enjoy my time with the game.
But that feeling that it could've been so much more if management had given it a couple more years of development and hadn't just rushed it out the door just permeated everything.
Then after you finish the Delamain mission he's all like, "I can at least be your driver." And then every time you summon that car YOU have to drive. I felt so betrayed. Like what's the point of having a car with an AI if the AI car isn't going to drive the car AFTER it says it'll be your driver?
I also avoided all the hype around the game. I only got it because Best Buy was doing a buy 2 games get 1 free and there were 2 games I wanted to get. I enjoyed my time with the game, but there was a lot of times I just had to sigh because the game fucked something up again. Quicksave before the start of any mission, quicksave after any mission ends. If you don't you're gonna have to go back because the autosave function would crash the game.
rushed is a light word for this mess of a game ,
Im just waiting for Rockstar to make a Cyberpunk game and successfully do what CDPR failed to do.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516
Rock star seem pretty happy with GTA online and all the money they’re making from that, so I’m wary of even them diving into the genre
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 I'll happily replay cp2077 then play GTA 6+online, try forming you're own opinion then just fanboying and just watch GTA vs to 2077 UA-camrs
I'm was never particularly interested in cyberpunk and happened to click on this video out of sheer boredom, thinking it would be a short summary of events. This actually almost caused me to click off once I had realised the video length, but due to your captivating writing style and excellent anecdotes I now find myself almost halfway through and thoroughly enjoying it
Noah is, in my opinion, in the top 3 when it comes to video essays and games critique. His style and delivery are so endearing that I can't stop watching his stuff! He's got this low-budget charm and I can't get enough of it haha
I hope Noah turns his eye to Phantom Liberty some day, I'd be interested to hear his thoughts on it.
God, that Lizzy Wizzy quest was so incredibly frustrating. It just ended. I was similarily confused and had to look up if a followup quest bugged out or something.
Ehh I feel like he missed the moral. Lizzy doesn't just "like killin". Her extensive body modification is slowly turning her into a cyberpsycho, one of the long running intrigue plot lines in the game. While most of the cyberpsychos we run into are people who were heavily modified for work then cut loose, here is someone on top of the world slowly sliding out of humanity as she replaces more and more of her body.
It plays on the story of the manipulative corporate manager but in this case he is actually afraid of the monster that Lizzy's total freedom of modification is creating.
Corpo to corpo felt to me as the weirdest personally since a majority of the corpo specific characterization was V talking about how they knew how corps played at that it was never nice pretty much. Them ending up crawling back/trusting a corp again struck me as the strangest thing for them to do in light of how they acted during the game.
Personally Corpo V going from desperately hanging on to her place in the Corpo system to blowing up the system is the most satisfying thing ever.
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot Yea for sure, Corpo to nomad and corpo to corpo are complete opposite tones. One a story of moving on after trying everything the other a story of someone broken as a person doomed to throw themselves back into the self destruction they temporarily moved away from as it's all they know.
I think corpo to nomad is the most satisfying ark but corpo to corpo is also darkly satisfying in its own way.
Corpo to corpo felt like a slap in the face. I felt like the game called me a stupid twat for choosing this path and that it was the wrong one. :/
@@mokkaveli Yeah. It does. Also felt like we are insulting Jackie considering that he pulled us out of that life.
Honestly I’d say they should have cut the corpo ending cause it makes no sense for any character. But it’s also the only ending where you face down Yorinobu, and find out what he’s all about.
I think when going corpo to nomad the story arced in a satisfying way. V's negative experiences in the corpo and merc worlds lead him to abandon his petty ambitions and escape to life as a nomad.
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot That's why I was initially annoyed that Fem-V couldn't hook up with Panam, but then later I found that Judy wanted out of Night City and had just been looking for a reason for that final push, so I gave her one.
@@Cyromantik nice
Nah, the transition between the prologue and ch1 was so abrupt and badly done, it ruined the entire story arc
@@Centrioless Well that's the same for all of them. Corpo was one I enjoyed as I could see V wanting to claw back a reputation
The idea is great but the execution was non sense. The little montage with Jackie that happens is just weird in the Corpo path. Like this isn''t who V was lol it flows well with the Street Kid cause you're like oh yea cool this is probs what V is always getting up to.
"I DID NAHT ENCOURAGE A MAN'S MALIGNANTLY NARCISSISTIC DELUSIONS TO DISGUSTING EXTREMES FOR PERSONAL PROFIT! I DID NAHT! Oh, hi Johnny!"
One of my all time fav. quotes from Noah haha
Literally had me HOWLING out loud. Utter brilliance.
I just wish he didn't blow up my speakers, it really took all the funny out of it
@@SerechII For real. Sound warning from 56:40 - 57:07 for the uninitiated.
also rip headphones users.
the relationship between v and jonny is kinda interesting. its like an abusive relationship with one person constantly gaslighting and belittling the other. then stockhome syndrome kicks in.
Perhaps the worst part of the "Johnny Goldenheart" ending, in my opinion, was how it treated V's decision to persist as a purely digital consciousness as a BAD thing. Both V and Johnny seem to regard it as a suicide, which was not my perspective at all. Given the option of _definitely dying_ after six more months in meat space, or transcending the physical world by joining my consciousness with a digital god-being, I would take the later and be happy to have been given the option. I didn't give Johnny my body for _his_ sake, I left that dying body for _my own_ sake. Achieving immortality, transcendence, joining with a greater being, and new definitions of what it means to exist within cyberspace, are all VERY fertile ground for the cyberpunk genre, and yet we are given no satisfaction for making this choice. It's treated like it was a bad decision, and then you watch Johnny buy a kid a guitar.
Regarding the point about V being a model citizen of the 2077 dystopia, this stems from one of the big differences between the tabletop games Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun. Shadowrun is about fighting corporations, while Cyberpunk 2020 is about trying to survive when the corporations have won. They're the water everyone swims in now, not an evil to be destroyed. 2077 is the future of that world.
Disclaimer: I've never played Shadowrun personally.
Ah yes noah narration. Time to hide in a blanket with hot cocoa. I really wanted to play as Jackie in the game so much personality and heart to him.
so lame they killed him off, in a trailer it seemed they wanted two arcs; one where he was alive depending on the choices you made. Like saving your brother Paul, in Deus Ex.
it really sucked that there wasn't anyway to prolong his existence in the game, instead of him dying even before the title card popped up....
@Starless that was the reasoning I had to tell myself to finish too. By the end of the game I felt like it was just because maintaining his storyline would’ve made the rest feel as hollow as it was.
I really think it ruined the game, was having fun with one sidekick who I had time to get to know and then bam he's gone.
@@bcyost1908replying 3 years later to say, EVERYONE died! They spent so much time establishing your relationships with Jackie, T-Bug, Dexter DeShawn and Evelyn Parker and then they all got unceremoniously tossed in the garbage for characters that do not get this same carefully written, superbly acted intro. The only remaining face you continue to have a relationship with is Judy and she’s quite standoffish during the intro.
I get wanting to establish that life in Night City is brief, painful, and characterized by the pursuit of a goal nobody reaches, but goddamn, introduce the new characters too! Felt like they figured they could just swap in new faces and you would remain invested due to the work the tutorial characters did, but much like the prisoners in Alien 3, i found it nearly impossible to care about new characters now that it’s been established that the storyteller has no intention of respecting your emotional investment.
"Now is the time for SPACE CRIMES" is a merch slogan yearning for a shirt, as unrepresentative of your work as it may be...
That moment reminded me of a bit from the song "Road Trip" by Ninja Sex Party. The song's speaker, Danny Sexbang, spent the majority of the song thus far banging his way across the world. And, still not satisfied at having slept with ALL the beautiful women on Earth, concludes the only next step is to continue his carnal romp across the stars.
What made the comparison all the more apropos to this moment in the video is that, in the comedy song "Road Trip", Danny explicitly began his sleeping tour to avoid starting a meaningful relationship with a girl he was starting to connect with as a person. Like V in the Street Kid ending, Danny eschew personal growth in favor of just doing what his character was already doing within the wider Ninja Sex Party canon: rock out and get laid.
For extra hilarity, the song ends with Danny leaping from his spaceship to meet alien women, sans space suit (he was way too horny to put one on, you see). The last second of the song being his agonized asphyxiation gurgle. That's the amusing visual image I had when V was leaving his spaceship while the words "time for SPACE CRIMES!" were being uttered.
If you think about it a bit and understood the peralez and doorset sidequests, this is the only ending where V might survive as he/she played their cards right.
Mr blue eyes seems to be connected to Night Corp who are at war with Arasaka underneath the whole story. Which gives you a legit chance at acquiring soulkiller and a biochip yourself, to rewrite yourself onto your body.
Now of course this is just chasing the next rainbow, but it somehow made sense if you read V as truly desperate at this point.
You ruined your body for fame and now you pay the fame to get your body back.
I would also accept "Now is the time for SPACE CAPITALISM"
It's representative of our times with the Elon Musks of the world
This game should've went with the immersive sim/Deus Ex route by ridding the loot system and giving us grid-based inventory, incentivizing stash use and valuing every consumable and combat item differently. Imagine grenades not being hoarded anymore, and being used tactically?
I feel like the game suffered a lot from the looter shooter mechanics and lack of meaningful exploration. The sense of 2077 missing something is just amplified when I went to play DXHR and DXMD. There's no 2077 equivalent of Detroit PD station or Palisade Bank to break into. The game was too big for its own good.
The worst decision it made was to be an RPG. They pretty much would've had to make 3 separate games to facilitate nomad, streetkid and corpo gameplay styles.
The end result... Is quite a mess. Nothing really works because they didn't have enough focus to FOCUS on roleplaying a.k.a. restrictions, opportunities and immersion.
Honestly, the bit more than they could chew. The game lacks focus and it shows
I dont see why there's almost like a war against linearity in games these days.
I learned very early in the game that
1) enemies can be prone-locked by frags
2) you can shoot em while theyre prone very easily
3) grenades are cheap as shit to craft
@@alastor8091 because for a AAA game, GAME TIME is a selling point. Beign REPLAYABLE is another big one (most RPG have this one backed in as well). Trying to sell a Linear game is hard... you can, Naughty Dog has made lots of linear games that are very popular. But CD Projekt RED already has a reputation of making RPGs (the fact that the "RPG" part on all Witcher games was not that good... it's another different disscussion).
I really enjoyed the "Johnny Golden Heart" ending when I played, but after watching this...
I hadn't even considered how absolutely screwed that kid was just by having that guitar. I was happy just to have a little narrative arc at all, even if it was cheesy. That's poor kid is DOOMED.
Even though it may seem like a saccharine ending with a high potential for the kid to end up even worse, I am of the belief that Johnny HAD to hope that his good gesture would reverberate into something positive. Especially considering that his natural disposition is that of cynical nihilism intermixed with bouts of anger and violence. I am sure that Johnny would have been a great student of Kreia, And would have just smirked and replied back to her “Apathy is death” when she would have begun chastising him for having done that altruistic deed.
Its a completely unfair and biassed analysis of the Johnny ending by Noah, and im not used to that from him so quite disappointing. He leaves out the entire point of the ending and why you are even there at that busstop... Obviously to visit V's grave, which is kind of strange to do that in V's body, so yeah, still pretty Cyberpunk to me. The kid is just there to show how V's (and yours, you have been playing V for 50 hours....) sacrifice had an impact on Johnny and he is indeed no longer the cynical a-hole because of it. I think its rather beautiful, because when you think of it... What you are left with is a person who is maybe a bit V and Johnny at the same time.
I so deeply love that you talk at length about Snowcrash and Neuromancer and how this game relates and differs. I already enjoyed your videos but tjat was such a nice touch and so well done that I'll be subscribed forever.
>inventory is compared to Mass Effect 1
OH BOY
Normally, I take each of this channel's essays in a piecemeal fashion, spending maybe twenty minutes per session over a week. This one flowed so well that I watched the whole thing in one evening. I appreciate the digressions about other notable cyberpunk works, and the thoroughness to comparing and contrasting the various backgrounds & endings. Nothing felt superfluous or self-indulgent.
I'm so glad this is a Jackie Welles Respect Zone
it’s funny, my takeaway of V as a character was much more positive playing as a female. The relationships felt more natural, the voice work more nuanced and sensitive, kind where needed and aggressive where fitting. Not to mention that Judy’s romance is much more compelling than Panam’s.
Don't quite agree there. For me Fem V sounded either super sultry or super aggressive (almost "bitchy") all the time, with no middle ground or natural transition in between. The constant contrast was just too jarring for me. Male V had the Boston street accent and somewhat of a forced gruff tone/persona, but at least he sounded more consistent throughout the entire game. I also disagree on the romance. Panam's ride or die relationship (and her struggles between NC and her family) definitely appealed to me more and also felt more integrated into the story itself - especially if you took the Nomad path and Star ending.
She's a street thug, she's supposed to sound bitchy.
@@mollymillions6586 women acting hard and bitchy sound just cringe, that is how fem v sounds many times in the story, male v vocie actor had some cringe dialogue too, they both could be way better imo
Both have the same problem of sounding way too bitchy
I had the weird experience of simply feeling left out as Female V. I'm not really attracted to women and in what was advertised as an inclusive game, it felt like all the budget, focus and time was spent fleshing out only the female romance options... The male romance options felt like poorly written side content in comparison, and even the other optional flings were all only women as well. The romance scenes as Johnny were even forced upon the player too. Maybe I was being too hopeful for a Triple A game, as if there was ever much choice given with the developers uncomfortably shoving their own sexual preferences down my throat. Sorry for the sudden rant anyways...
I said the same thing when people complained about Keanu's performance. His often limited emotionality has literally been a meme for like twenty years with the "woah" thing from the Matrix.
Not sure what people were expecting... I guess magic from this new IP?
Yeah i've always gotten the impression he was best at colder, more deadpan characters. Like John Wick. He's no drug obsessed Cyberpunk future rockerboy.
@@kiiwikiori7542 I don't know, he brought an interesting sort of "tired" energy to the role that I thought worked pretty well.
Johnny may have been a drug-fueled rockerboy, but he was in his mid thirties by the time he raided Arasaka tower. He fought a war, saw the corporations he fought for exploit the land and its people, and set out to fight a war "against the fuckin' forces of entropy".
Lines like telling a pack of groupies that they're "wasting your lives, following us around like dogs", or when he explains his motivation and ideology to V just wouldn't work as well with a younger, more energetic performance; Johnny is a man who fought the system, changed nothing, and lost everything.
something neat about the crucifixion sidequest (spoilers):
the apostles didn't actually go around calling jesus "jesus," but rather we get that name from the latin "iesus," which itself comes from "Ἰησους" (iesous) - which is the attic greek transliteration of the hebrew "yeshua." "yeshua" is the source for the english name "joshua." in cyberpunk 2077, you can crucify a man who shares a name with jesus.
I recently discovered your content and it's an absolute delight. I can't get enough of these essays and your amazing humor.
I love your channel! didn't expect to see you on gamer analysis youtube lol. I bet you'd like ThorHighHeels' content as well, though it's not long form like Noah's, still p good as far as gamer youtube goes
Are you a dude
fuck off bro
the video is exquisite. it manages to be a genuine, comprehensive look of a deeply broken (both in terms of glitches and general writing/structure) game and all its successes and failings
Just a reminder this IS an adaptation of the Cyberpunk Red roll playing system by Mike Podsmith. Interesting enough, they also made a role playing system for the witcher after the third game came out. It's very good, I used to DM it for a year, now I'm playing and my best friend took over for me.
I love Noah's reviews and watch all of them but many critiques in this essay don't make sense from the perspective that the game is an adaptation with existing lore and a team that worked closely with Mike.
RED, as well as earlier versions of the RPG, are very different in aesthetic to CP77, though. RED takes place in an even more volatile time period, with aesthetic choices that are a bit further removed from what we see in 2077. 2077 is, believe it or not, a pristine and relatively safe world by comparison.
With the exception of some namedrops to characters, orgs, and objects (e.g. braindance kits) 2077 is much closer to the cyberpunk movies of the 80s and 90s than it is to the TTRPG. I think Noah’s critiques hold up just fine even if he fails to mention the TTRPG
crowbcat had the best "cya in the big leagues" glitch still makes me laugh when Ithink about it
I watched that video and couldn't find it; do you have a timestamp?
And with that my Saturday evening is occupied. What a nice surprise!
My exact thoughts!
Truth. Getting a new Noah video is the best surprise.
1½ hour = long?!?
Yeah I guess
Yes. Your whole evening is an hour a'd a half video
When they got rid of the RPG tag on the game, I was glad I hadn't pre-ordered.
They never let people know about that from my knowlege and that pissed me off
Being sad about Jackie dying is what I remember. The rest is just blur with Silverhand popping out here and there.
You are the first person besides me to point out how *yick* that scene in Snow Crash is. I felt like I was losing my mind because either people didn't remember it or didn't understand why I was *yuck*. Love the review.
The pigeon clicking reminds me of Bethesda chests/dungeons. Almost no chest or safe is worth lockpicking but I continuously do it, for 1 potion and 12 gold.
I do it because how dare things be locked in my presence!
It's also called a "Skinner Box". You'd probably enjoy the video about it by Extra Credits, or this analytical piece about Skyrim by NeverKnowsBest:
ua-cam.com/video/6NXSxkWQp0M/v-deo.html
Thank you for making this. This is one of the most intelligent pieces about CP 2077 I have seen so far and not just a "LoL, crazy bugs" video. I'm glad someone addressed the game's deep issues under it's glittering, RTX powered facade.
I think Sphere Hunter also did a good job reviewing Cyberpunk if you ever check that out.
Absolutely agree, however he seems to think the game is influenced more by William Gibson's Night City when it was Mike Pondsmith's NC.
Bugs aside, i wish the game had more story/side missions and less grind.
What happens if Dragon Age Inquisition had triple the budget
@@Aggrofool Hmm this is what happens when they have triple the budget. Or you saying DA:I would be better with triple the budget?
lol, this game literally has no grind considering how broken the character progression is. It sucks because combat is very fun in the first 15 levels, afterwards you are just a demigod wiping out everything in existence with barely any effort and combat just becomes boring.
this is absolutely the best video to curl up with while recovering from surgery. heck yeah great timing!
I hope that you recover from surgery soon and feel better 🙂
Get well soon friend !
Get well soon!
48:30 When crafting satire, one must take care to make sure they never actually do the harmful thing being satirised.
Which is why “it’s not exploitation, it’s satire!” fails as a defence. If it does the thing, then it does the thing. That can’t be extracted from the work, and it can’t then satirise other works for doing the thing because the snake eats its own tail.
The Room comparison is sheer brilliance of writing. Amazing. Well done.
There is change in Johnny Silverhand, he admits that getting his friends killed and using them before was wrong as it amounted to nothing but this time, he wants to save V, he is not doing it to stick it to the corpos, he wants to save V. Maybe it depends on how you interacted with Johnny but you said in the street kid ending, Johnny just wants to repeat history once again, which is simply not true. In his grave yard talk, if you choose "the guy who saved my life" instead of "NC legend" or the other, it will also result in better bonding points with him. Around the one hour mark.
Johnny's logic about why you should allow him and Rogue do it is not that weird as well. In the Nomad ending, as Johnny points out a lot of Aldecaldo people die, their deaths heavy on your soul and in the corpo ending, you end up resurrecting the devil and returning Arasaka to absolute power again undoing the deliberate damage that Yorinobu was causing. So why not let Johnny and Rogue take their revenge and save you
If you keep calling him an asshole though it might look like he just wants to use you to exact revenge, but if you develop some camaraderie with him, he proves that he cares about V.
It also makes the johny golden heart ending at least not as dumb. It's still dumb in a way how stupidly optimistic he became, but at the very least his "yeah i am given a new life by my buddy, and i am going to use it better than my last one" attitudes fitting.
I personally absolutely love the secret Johnny ending, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper". In my opinion, that ending is the best and it shows their character development: both are aware that whoever they choose, people will die fighting for them. Both V and Johnny wanted nothing of it anymore. This wasn't about Johnny sticking it to the corps anymore, this was to get V into Arasaka tower to save him.
The line "The guy who saved me", which triggers this ending makes perfect sense in this context. At that point, Johnny realizes what he really wants: saving his closest and only true friend. V embraces their relation and both become literal brothers after that.
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot >it's also hilariously unrealistic
I think that's kind of the point. You get the ending credits if you die on that one, and your max health keeps going down the further you go. It *is* a suicide mission.
>Maybe before the chip did IRREVERSIBLE damage to his DNA and then he might have been able to be saved by Alt?
No matter what ending you choose, the changes are irreversible. That makes this point kind of moot.
yeah i think he's right on alot of points but I have a pet peeve of people critiquing a characters motivations because its not something they would do themselves. Like no shit thats why their own character lol. also real people do stupid irrational shit all the time
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot yeah because its like the hardest dungeon in the game and you lose if you die once im pretty sure. so who cares if its unrealistic, its unrealistic to slaughter the entire legion and kill caesar in fallout new vegas but no one gives FNV shit for that.
I might have imagined most of it, but my high relationship with Johnny might have resulted in a more mellow Johnny making the Johnny Goldenheart ending plausible.
I subconsciously knew this was gonna happen at some point. You're the perfect person to dissect this sort of game. Looking forward to getting through this one!
EDIT: top notch analysis Noah, you really hit the nail on the head here. I fully share all your sentiments regarding this game. Keep up the great work amigo.
How could he not make a video on it?
..but to soon
He and Matthewmitosis are insta-watch.
30:30 I've always held this sentiment, but I've never heard it expressed so well. Some of my favorite gaming experiences is when I am into an experience, atmosphere or vibe that I'm clawing at the edge of the maps, trying to get at a nonexistent peek of what else might be out in the world. The edge of Tristram in Diablo 1 or gazing out over the forested valleys and walls of Firelink Shrine. With the seemingly compulsive rise of large, open-world games I feel like people have forgotten that what makes those moments so good is precisely because there is nothing out there and **you** get to imagine and fill in those gaps.
They set the expectations though, true that it could never possibly hope to meet fan expectations, but when you cannot even deliver a fraction of features you promised, you failed fans.
The game needed at least another 2-3 years which would have prevented the removal of promised features and might have delivered any innovation promised. Because the game launched so early and tried to do so much in a new engine, it meant the game couldn't possibly be more than mediocre in all aspects but story. It leads to a game that is mediocre to outright trash in some systems like police, which makes GTA 3 seem innovative. It was sad because if CD Projekt Red never went public (Stock Market), this game might have been able to deliver on the promise of greatness.
Ohhhh happy weekend for this. Watching now.
"He never lived to see how mechanically boring and narratively frustrating achieving that dream would be." Good lord, this.
Alright, finished it. Goodness, man. This is an utterly perfect take on Cyberpunk 2077. Thank you so much for your voice in this arena.
There's a lot to say about this game, but I want to comment on one particular aspect that I think really underpins a lot of the non-story issues with the game's mechanics. Namely, the way they handled "side content". I'm not talking about the quests tied to important named side-characters or interesting one-off diversions like the crucifixion, I'm talking about the "gigs" and police contracts and economy stuff. Cyberpunk compares unfavorably to GTA in this aspect because it seems to half-understand the point of even including this side-content (to make the world seem bigger and more alive) but doesn't at all understand what kinds of side-content actually serve that purpose.
Worthwhile side-content satisfies the player's "I wonder if I can do X..." question and moves on. Take the convenience store robbery thing in GTA for example. It's a super simple detail that serves very little practical purpose, but it's fairly likely that players are at some point going to try holding up a convenience store, so having the clerk respond in a unique way rather than just screaming and running away like a regular NPC adds a ton of credibility to the world. Same could be said of GTA's fully functioning strip clubs and hookers. You know players are going to go there, so if you put a little dev time into mocking up some awkward animations you'll at least preserve the suspension of disbelief. The thing is, if you really start combing through GTA you'll find that these are the exception rather than the rule, and that's perfectly fine. Most GTA players probably never noticed that trash trucks never actually pick up bins, or that fire trucks are never actually going to a fire (that the player didn't cause anyway...), because Rockstar budgeted their effort well, and spent it on things that players would actually notice despite the fact that they don't meaningfully add to the bullet-point list of "things you can do".
Cyberpunk's side-content seems totally optimized for making that "things you can do" list sound impressive while neglecting the world-building details that actually matter. I can't even think of a situation where my "I wonder if they thought of this..." question was answered affirmatively. For instance, if you're paying attention you can find out about Clouds way before the mission there. What happens if you track it down? Nothing. You can't simply interact with it like a customer. All of the commercial buildings, shops, clubs, etc. are like this. Compare to GTA IV's hot dog stands, or the functioning car washes. They're much less mechanically substantial than cyberpunk's ubsurdly over-designed food-inventory-effects-economy system (and probably took close to the same amount of work to implement), but if Cyberpunk got rid of all that and simply replaced it with a cutscene where your character sits down and eats their ramen for 10 seconds the game would be so much better. I can say this with confidence, because Cyberpunk offers a direct A/B comparison with their bars. Some bars, usually those tied to a story, let you sit down and have a shot while exchanging some fluffy dialogue with the bartender. These were unambiguously better than the bars that just gave you a menu of pointless drink-items to buy. It's not even like they just lacked the time and resources to do that kind of thing; rather, they misspent the resources they had. All those food models took time to make. I'd happily take having only one variety of nicola if it meant the character would be animated when they drink it.
wtf is that name
@@____-gy5mq look who's talkin
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot lol i think he was making a joke because we both have absurd usernames. but yeah, whenever i strayed from the core missions in cyberpunk i just kept thinking "why the hell did they waste their time on this crap instead of working on the important stuff".
Once again hijacking the comments to suggest A Thorough Look at Deus Ex.
Don’t know if you’re aware but has Done a video on the new deus ex at least:)
@@ciggy_ True although that was a comparison of Modernizations between Deus Ex to Human Revolution and Duke Dukem 3d to Forever. It would be interesting to go through Deus Ex, Dues Ex Invisible War, Human Revolution and then Mankind Divided. Showing how revolutionary the first one was to how lackluster its sequel was then going into the modern ones and how they took stuff from the original and how they improved or maybe di not improve upon them. I think it could be an interesting video. Of course I find basically every video Noah does interesting so there's that lol.
@@ciggy_ yeah but comparing two modernizations is different from a full retrospective.
Laputin machine ftw
Cyberpunk scratched the surface, Deus went neck-deep in to the subject.
The intro song is Inner City by The Buggles for anyone wondering.
Thank you!
With the hindsight of how well Cyberpunk: Edgerunners turned out, what you say at 4:05 seems especially relevant now. Edgerunners was fast-paced, and told a tragic, personal, small-scale story about someone trying to survive in night city. It worked because its creators understood what makes the genre work and took that into account from the beginning. CP2077 as a game did not.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't waiting for this.
Noah is the only one who can make me sit through an hour and a half long essay for a game I will never play.
As a Spokanite myself, the meth head line was delightful and suprising! Another banger of a video, Noah!
I loved my time with Cyberpunk. But man, this is a remarkably well done review. You earned a sub♥️
What a brilliant parallel with "Oh Hi Mark" line!
"You can't patch in imagination." Classic.
A certified hood classic
LET'S GOOOOOO! A new Noah video is always a pleasant surprise.
Not if an EA*-game :-(
*Early Access
when you're binging Noah videos and he posts during your binge
Your writing is beautiful, it flows through my mind in a completely understandable but wholly satisfying and complex way. Really excellent stuff.
1:04:40 - But is a character NOT learning from their mistakes a bad narrative? I thoroughly enjoyed roleplaying V as what he was, a somewhat egotistical money and fame driven product of Night City - being manipulated by a very charismatic narcissistic rock star who became his closest friend
The Streetkid/Arasaka/Takemura ending felt like a bittersweet and depressing end to a flawed character and I loved it for that reason. V had to give up all his and Johnny's principals and anger all his friends just to stay alive, he helped Arasaka stay at the top and all he got was a ticket on the soulkiller - No happy ever after, no big explosion at the end, no major leagues -- just a scared kid who doesn't want to die yet and Johnny being disappointed with his decision was the cherry on top.
I might just be a depressed cynical asshole, but I love bleak endings and heavily flawed characters - Too many games have "action hero 1, who will never do anything immoral" as their protagonist, especially in narratively driven games. We're all trying to be decent human beings in real life and I've played far too many games in my life to be excited about saving the world.. every time I want to enjoy a story
Great video as always!
But that's the thing, this was supposed to be a RPG with different choices and different paths for the story. V was supposed to be us our own character, different people want to be themselves but all we get to be is a egotistical money and fame jackass. You might enjoy that and if CDPR marketed it as a linear game and not as a RPG with branching paths then we would've enjoyed it too but they didn't.
@@imixupwords5340 u know what rpg even is??? ur char is voiced so of course he will have his own personality
@@sillylittlesheepjax6009 Roleplaying can be done in many ways and they already mastered the way on how to make a voiced characterr still feel like your own, they just forgot.
Witcher series - Geralt, he was voiced and had a pre-built history yet we could still put ourselves on him, he could still be our own character. Wanna know why? Because the writing actually accounted for different people to create and connect to different yet similar Geralt's.
@@imixupwords5340 So by that logic, the only thing holding back the narrative is that there is RPG name attached to it? Would you have appreciated it more if it was a linear game?
@@postmodernmarxistnihilist4282 Yes, because then my expectations would be that it is a linear game, that CDPR carefully hand-crafted this story; not that of an RPG with choices that matter.
People have different expectations for different kinds of games, I expect great racing simulation and fun activities from Forza Horizon but not storytelling like how I would expect that in a Third-Person Adventure or FPS game like Halo or God of War(though I wish racing games could).
CDPR marketed this as a RPG where the smallest choices can impact the big picture, so my expectations were that of what they said, but sadly they lied about the whole game :(
Another definitive NCG joint, so thoughtful (and thorough) that no one need bother talk about this game ever again.
Seriously though, I hope this is remembered as *the* definitive Cyberpunk 2077 review.
I've watched basically every videogame analysis channels review at this point and as usual Noah is in a league of his own. Not to say there weren't any other good ones, but Noah doesn't miss. Probably helps that he didn't binge the game then attempt to write a 1.5hour script and edit it all within like a week of the game coming out.
Yeah, Jackie's death got me too.
I chose his drink, btw.
That's the only thing I found disappointing about Cyberpunk so far: Jackie does not get enough screentime. That sidequest for his funeral still hit hard either way.
Oh man I needed this. Your timing is impeccable!
I held off watching your take until I played the game myself, so I'm a bit late to adding anything. I gotta say you nailed a lot of stuff on the head. I must've spent a a good hour running around Pacifica looking for fixer quests until I figured out there was only one, and I took me a good while before I realized that the lack of fast travel points in the city core was probably another loss to the development time. But I still love this game and city despite everything it's missing and could have been. Just walking around the city at night and looking at the sky scrapers feels amazing in every sense of the word; the art design behind the mission during a Japanese matsuri is exactly how I would imagine a futuristic murder rampage / heist of a corporate princess during a parade. It's such a beautiful game, and I hope the DLC CDPR has planned actually fill in what's missing. Hopefully you'll have a chance to look at those too.
Holy snapfu, this review is brutal. I've played the game preupdates, and post DLC PL, and it feels different.
Yeah, if they only focused on story, like the Witcher 3, were i basically spent 80% of my time talking, this game would be so better
I can also see how many writers there was in this game
It's all over the place
It being all over the place does not have to be a bad thing, but there needs to be a certain level of competence to make that work. And would need some extra compotence (or probably a lot more time) to work with the gameplay elements.
It was exceptional. The narrative was fascinating, and very nuanced and complex.
@@Y2Kr4SHM4N Cyberpunk is more fun to observe than to play imo
@@Rifky809 I’ve been a gamer for 30+ years and my favourite games have included the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series, System Shock 2, Half Life Alyx, the Deus Ex franchise, Skyrim, Fallout IV VR, Dishonored, Alien Isolation etc...
And I think Cyberpunk is one of the best, if flawed, games I’ve ever played. I can see where the disappointment comes from, and that Night City could have RDR2 NPCs, and a slower focus on gradually opening up its world, such as forcing you to use the trains and autonomous taxis that were never programmed.
I also hate the combat until several missions after the first act.
Early on you can headshot opponents a dozen times with a sniper rifle, because the game isn’t ready for you to be badass yet.
But once you level up, the combat is awesome. I’ve been playing different FPS every other week since wolfenstein in 92.
@@Y2Kr4SHM4N well, good for you! Personally I can never get into the combat of cyberpunk, it really looks awesome but it really gets repetitive at times. Story is great, I hope they expand the story with some expansion or dlc, but each to their own I guess.
The lack of Imagination you touched on as the central failing of the game really resonates with my most intense personal gripe with it. Going through Cyberpunk I felt that there was so little substance in every feature and that the only aspect of Cyberpunk actually getting representation were the aesthetics, which left me deeply disappointed going in as a Witcher fan from before the release of Witcher 2. Personally I think that the game wouldve likely been immeasurably better if the devs got 2 more years of development as that wouldve probably meant actually finishing the RPG systems and adding depth to the aesthetics. The budget-GTA feeling that characterizes the game feels like a Minimum viable product approach chosen by management and the lead devs in order to actually be able to deliver a decently functioning product for such a premature deadline.
This is notably the complete antithesis to CDPRs own stated and marketed philosophy ("We are rebels"), which leaves me wondering if Im just not sufficiently disillusioned with corporate media and this was all a marketing ploy all along or if the management and sales and marketing branches of corporations really tend to become this detached from the product theyre working with. Anyways thanks for the great video Noah, youve made my Saturday night. Keep em coming!
Sadly, Cyberpunk is weirdly uneven/mediocre on aesthetics as well. There are lots of better character creation systems out there than Cyberpunk has. and you can't change your appearance once the game starts even though the in-game lore and even some actual missions revolve around heavy cosmetic body modification. You can't modify clothing or vehicles aesthetically at all, there's no provision for de-linking clothing stats from appearance so if you min-max your gear stats at all you're guaranteed to be wearing stupidly mismatched clown ensembles, and there's almost nothing you can do to decorate or customize your apartments. Night City itself looks pretty great most of the time, but that's about it.
Being from Spokane, your "Spokane area meth dealer in 50 years" portrays a very specific idea in my mind lol
1:16:43 - "A High profile reminder that corporation doesn't care if you hate it. In fact, it can take that hate, package it in neon and chrome and sell it right back to you for 60 dollars". Best quote of the entire video
Reminded me of his thoughts on games like Postal, and people buying them to feel like edgy outsiders when really "nothing's more _insider_ than having your most violent fantasies wrapped up and sold to you as a consumer product."
I don't know if the audio peaking during the Tommy wiseau yelling was intentional but fuck I hope it was because it is such a fitting aspect.
Noah, my man. I *just* sat down and needed to get my mind off meatspace for a few hours. Thank you.
'Although Cyberpunk 2077 is, supposedly, an original work and not an adaptation of a series of novels (...)'
Actually, it's an adaptation of a tabletop RPG from the late 80s/early 90s called 'Cyberpunk 2020', which may account for the fact that the in-game world feels more like a mash-up of different existing works of fiction, rather than a fully original creation, as well as how dated some of these concepts might seem now. The game itself is said to take place in a world alternative to ours (Johnny's flashbacks take place in 2023), which is why there's stuff like Japan being the world's dominant superpower (it would be much more logical for China to replace the US in that role), etc.
I was coming here to say that. Like wtf, did he not research this at all???
@@queen_zoestra I don't know. Noah's usually very thorough when it comes to his videos, so it'd be surprising if he missed an important detail like that. Maybe this sentence was just awkwardly phrased in a misleading manner, suggesting that he's not aware of the game's roots as a tabletop RPG?
Anyway, he does have a point that the world of CP 2077 feels very much retro and that it seems heavily inspired by other, already existing pieces of cyberpunk media, because the same criticism would apply to the original CP2020 RPG system. In the core rulebook you could even find a section, where Mike Pondsmith lists some suggested reading/watching and it includes some very obvious inspirations, such as 'Neuromancer, 'Blade Runner', 'Terminator', 'Robocop', 'Mad Max', etc.
Watch the whole video. He knws abt cp2020, but he criticized how the setting still heavily revolved around cp2020. More than 50years have passed, yet you still see the same johny, the same antagonist, and the same supporting characters
Cyberpunk 2020 is a TTRPG setting that players can run their own stories in. 2077 is not an adaptation of any known story it merely uses the setting. Like you wouldn't say that shadow of mordor is an adaptation of lord of the rings just because it takes place in middle earth.
@@estusflakes5508 I think that you're wrong on both accounts, because shadows of Mordor is a continuation of the story of a character who is mentioned in the silmarillion, which would make it an adaptation, and cyberpunk 2077 is a continuation of the story of Johnny silverhand, the core books of both cyberpunk 2020 and cyberpunk red, so it is in fact an adaptation of the series canon
Great video, captures a lot of my feelings about the game, but my one nitpick is that the game technically isn’t a broad adaptation of the cyberpunk genre as a whole but an adaptation/sequel to the tabletop rpg Cyberpunk 2020, with Johnny’s storyline being ripped straight from an official campaign.
And "Cyberpunk 2020" itself isn't a broad adaptation of the cyberpunk genre, but instead of Walter Jon Williams's "Hard-Wired". Mike Pondsmith hadn't even read "Neuromancer" when he wrote the original "Cyberpunk 2013", which later expanded to "Cyberpunk 2020".
Same, I kept wondering if I’d missed the part where this was acknowledged? The game certainly references the books and movies being discussed bother overtly and in spirit but most aspects of the game, from the weapon names to many characters and to Night City itself come directly from the pen and paper modules and core rule books, and the faithful recreation of that RPG is precisely why I enjoy this game despite its many flaws.
It's the one reason I feel he should do a re-review, despite the game changing too. I'm confused as to how you could miss this, providing Noah is a great writer and one must assume, researcher...
The most cyberpunk thing about CP2077 was its development cycle
It's super interesting watching this after three years of updates and public opinion on the game taking an actual 180. A lot of the critisisms feel valid, but I would love a follow-up analysis of how additional content and patches diluted the problems of the base game, especially with Phantom Liberty, and how effective the strategy was to nudge the game into a more compact, dense product.
I'd actually argue that the corpo origin flipped to the nomad ending feels exceptionally poignant for the protagonist's arc. A corpo V basically gives their life and limb in pursuit of playing the corporate game but doesn't really have real connection to the people around them, but taking the nomad path finally lets them see that the only winning strategy was to step away and not play and in doing so find real family.
It also results in letting Alt through the Blackwall and dismantling Arasaka from the inside, which really achieves more than anything Johnny was looking to do. It dripfeeds hope at an alternate solution to V's impending death outside the constraints of Night City (and also gives female V a chance to escape with Judy for a new start as well).
Of course, it's only part of the fraction of the content I found actually interesting and emotionally resonant and since almost every other ending is just varying shades of sour pyrrhic victory I pretty much came to the same conclusion that this game could have just been a linear narrative without any of the roleplaying and it wouldn't have lost a whole lot. I feel like if I had gotten any of the other endings I would have felt exceptionally unrewarded when rolling credits.
I think the Corpo to Nomad route would have more weight if the corpo part was more fleshed out. Unfortunately, the prologues to the intro are so short that there's really not that much room to see what that V was - before being turned into Streetkid with a veneer of corpo popping up from time to time when dialogue options remember that was your background.
Exactly. I feel like the canon story should be Female V - Corpo - Judy Alvarez - Nomad ending. At least to me, it was the most satisfying reading of Cyberpunk 2077
Babe, wake up! New Noah Caldwell-Gervais video just dropped!
Was having a particularly shitty night, so I really appreciate the upload, mate. Hope you're doing well :)
@IntrepidFinch I agree
It's a very lovely comment section, even if someone disagrees with some of the stuff in the video.
I love his TLoU video, even if I disagreed with a lot of what he said of part 1, and some of what he said of part 2. I just respect his views and look forward to hearing his thoughts and insight on cool video games, as they either provide me with something I hadn't considered before, or they help me to better put to words what I've been feeling about a certain game.
@IntrepidFinch I subscribed to Noah after randomly finding his RDR2 video in my feed back in '19.
agreed. I love both of those games very much, and I'm always in search of fair, different perspectives on those games. I like hearing people's views on the game (so long as they're not being toxic about it). I seek out critique, good, bad, middling. It's fun to hear what others thought, regardless of whether I agree or not.
@IntrepidFinch it isn't. Playing it, to me, was the most intense, and emotional experience I've had with any piece of media. I'm looking forward to the next game, tv show, movie, book, which will rival this experience :)
I just realized I never used the money in the game except for that one Rogue mission you are required to.
An excellent analysis. I personally enjoyed cyberpunk but only because I related to V as someone going through a similar life threatening experience. It allowed me to roleplay more effectively and made the game very immersive. I struggled suggesting the game to my friends however because without that aspect tying me to V's character I didn't find the game to be that remarkable except for the rare engaging side content.
After seeing so many people uniformly tear the shit out of this game, it's fascinating to finally hear a proper critique which acknowledges the things it did well in addition to the (many, many) things it did poorly. And you always give very thorough, very thoughtful critiques.
That weird moment when you're more interested in watching Noah's Cyberpunk 2077 analysis than actually playing Cyberpunk 2077.
I felt that way about Kentucky Route 0 and Disco Elysium
@@Aggrofool Both of those games are infinitely more creative, artistically bold, and emotionally effecting though. Which makes them both worth playing. Especially Disco Elysium, analyzing that game mechanically or thematically still doesnt quite capture just how enriching it is to actually experience it. Cyberpunk is mainly dull and frustraiting with fleeting moments of entertainment that are ultimately just not as good as other media in this genre. Its more interesting to dissect as a product of the conditions it was concieved and released in than to actually play itself.
@@joshuataff4911 Id argue its very reasonable to not want to play Kentucky route 0, its really not for everyone and not too engaging. I prefer reading about it the same way i prefer reading about pathologic.
@@hypomotion I can understand that completely. Im not trying to knock down anyone for their preferences. I was more just attempting to lay out how the circumstances around these games differ. That though the essays Noah has done for all of these games are wonderful, theres a clear distinction on why Disco Elysium and Kentucky Route Zero are worth playing on their own right for the unique experiences they provide. Something each player takes away that cant be captured completely even in an essay three times the length of what anyone has written about then. Where as, I feel at least, Cyberpunk is infinitely more interesting to dissect as a product of our cultural, economical, and political climate than to play as a game experientially because of the circumstances and pre-release expectations surrounding it. The game itself just feels like a soup of half baked ideas and industry trends.
@@joshuataff4911 fair enough, that does make sense. The games are unique in their own ways that differentiate them from other experiences and give them their own life of sorts, so I get why cyberpunk is preferable to observe rather than play for you due to its obtuse blandness.
I totally agree. Kabuki and little China in particular seem like the only sub districts they finished. And that makes sense those would of been the first since V lives there and the intro is there. It really does feel like it needed another year and half or so.
Hell yes! Been hoping he'd post a vid about this!
Odds are if you want him to, our boy Noah is gonna make a video about the game you're thinking of. He just needs time, classic rock and maybe some weed.
Really wanna see a DLC and update video, hear Noah’s thoughts on how games change a lot more over time nowadays than they used to.
"There are fresher hells still to come, and I turn to the cyberpunk genre to warn me of them in advance"
That stuck out to me when I first saw the video, and on a rewatch it stands out even more. And to top it all off with the "Imagination isn't something you can patch in later" line, it's such an apt condemnation of the game. One of your better videos, Noah, you really nailed the point home with Cyberpunk's fundamental flaw as an immersive RPG and as a cyberpunk title, has to be one of the better dissections of a game I've seen.
I got the achievement for buying all the cars. I did every single mission, quest, side quest and was still short. I had to reload an old save and cheat the game to get 1,8 million.
Same i had to do the vendor glitch. I have no idea how they expected you to customise your mods AND buy all the achievement cars
@@willywitchdoctor They didn't. They probably wanted people to play it over and over because each playthrough was supposed to be different. Of course that wasn't the case in the end.
@@bruhtholemew yea it's really annoying because I basically ruined my build putting points into achievement skills and by the end I never wanted to try another run
@@bruhtholemew Yeah, pretty sure that's the case because they initially had more ways to make money like more side missions or activities or even that ability to rob places.
But all of that was cut for... Management reasons.
@@willywitchdoctor A second run is not too bad if you had another build to play through, and if trying to speed through *just* the main story + major character sidequests. I'd messed up by doing the final mission too late my first playthrough, which made it incredibly easy and boring.
Doing it a second time - without wandering too much in between - made the game play quite nicely/satisfyingly, narratively speaking. Of course, I then messed it up again by deciding to do the secret ending, which essentially required max leveling due to the enemy scaling :/
Noah, I swear to christ. I JUST finished your Wolfenstein videos (again) and was thinking "okay, what to do now..."
Thanks, man!
Wow! My first Noah Caldwell video I've actually caught since I started binging content here. A more than welcome surprise!
Great video, and I agree on the diagnosis of the problems and the remedy, but I do think the analysis gives the Rogue ending short thrift. While Johnny is repeating his behavior, his motivation to help V--provided the player actually spends time leveling up his "social link" sufficiently--colors the ending much differently. It feels like a redo for both Johnny and Rogue as they try to redeem their initial failure in the hope of helping V survive. It's Johnny's last hurrah at being a better person, though perhaps his inability to imagine a different approach/methodology is also a commentary on his inability to change. As much as he wants to be better, he will always be Johnny Silverhand.
"The only meaningful choices in CP2077 are at the end and that's only a choice of ending scenario based on yes or no quest completion not any particular choice within those quests." That is the biggest disappointment about CP for me and a testament to the fact CDPR lost touch with what made their games special.