Cyberpunk 2077 is fine, especially after 2.0 patch, combat is great, different builds can give you a lot of fun. But when it comes to storytelling it misses the point entirely. V has a pretty good life, the horrors of dystopia doesn't really apply to him. Of cours Jackie, the Relic etc, are a huge problem for him, but in this world you're a cybernetic demi-god, have all the money, cars, apartments, there are no downsides.
Yeah there's some real gnarly shit in the side content. Sometimes I feel like criticism of the game is coming mainly from people who just did the main quest and not much side content.q
My issue with it, and the same goes for a lot of RPGs that do this type of storytelling, is if you immerse yourself into it makes zero sense to do any side stuff, due to the impending doom coming.
The games fun, but I'm just griping about that form of storytelling. It detracts for me, especially if there's a lot of good side content because I'll constantly be pulled out of the game remembering the doom that the character has conveniently decided to ignore. It's the type of plot line for narrowly focused games, not something as sprawling as this.
Yeah CDPR has real issues with that kind of dissonance. Witcher 3 had a similar problem with Geralt ostensibly chasing Ciri but also fucking around and doing side content.
V almost immediately gets a cyberghost implanted into their brain which starts to kill them/overwrite their identity while also verbally abusing them. The only way it can be seen as a "good life" is if you illogically fuck around for hours and hours on end with all the sidequests which no person who's essentially dying of brainghost supercancer with a small hope of being able to cure it if they focus on the main tasks at hand would do.
i havent been able to do a deep dive into the expansion yet but its thrown me off that the initial plot of phantom liberty is...assisting the president of the NUSA. like oh...ok i guess thats what punks do now? anarcho-biden ass politics
without spoiling too much, the whole plot of the expansion is kinda liberal bullshit with garbage about maintaining "loyalty to the ideals of the country" and "duty to protect it". the missions themselves are cool, the story sucks.