My opinion may be chaotic, but it's a collection of thoughts I wrote down while playing and tried to piece them together
A brilliant must-play. Great story, world, graphics, sound, character development, gameplay, real impact of choices, interesting solutions, and replayability
Unfortunately, key bugs, interface, and lot of things that could've been included only give it an 8/10
Lack of proper introduction to game:
- 1 cyberpsychosis too soon. No explanation how stun works, and u kill. Then, reading shards, without seeing press T, u need dive deep into menu. This wasn't explained until 2h later on a mission
- Lack of proper keybinds explanation, such hiding weapons and extending ur arms
- Complicated menu interface, which gets u lost at first
- bad mission description. As u complete main missions, expansions also update. u don't know when it actually starts
INTERFACE
- Default Imperial instead of normal
- Only 8 weak tattoos
- Interactive hitboxes too small
STORY
+ Great prologue with a strong ending, plot, and side missions. No sense of repetition thanks to creativity
+ Nice long introduction to Silverhand and his brilliant role
+ Great dialogue and options that have a real game impact
WORLD
+ Great world and locations
GRAPHICS
+ Great graphics, even after all these years, surpassing modern titles
- Too dark in some rooms and no flashlight
SOUND
+ Great sound design. Music, effects, voiceover
POLICE AI
- Despite accidentally hitting police cars or cutting off road, there was 0 reaction. Once, someone started shooting at me for no reason, and even though I ran away, I got a star. They only intervened twice throughout entire game
GAMEPLAY
+ Cool idea with braindance and its editing, unfortunately underused
+ Cool hacking ideas
- Useless crafting. Why make weapons/hacks when u've plenty of them? Only use is for components for implant upgrades
- Food and drink. It might be useful at higher levels, but I never used it on normal
+ Great, extensive, multi-threaded character development, but it could be more readable
Only thing that's wrong is skills are bad designed because if u play ur own way, u lose important perks from other categories
- Useless apartments. Yes, boost, but why bother?
- Useless clothes, 95% without stats
- Bad driving model like Forza Horizon = great graphics but ride like on butter
- No vehicle customization. Even though some say u can, u can't
+ Missions can be completed in many ways
- Poor inventory management. Lack of segregation, duplicate implants
- There's an attribute reset, but only 1, no sense with so many builds
BUGS NOT FIXED FOR YEARS
- In Braindance, PDA scan
- Choosing dialogue option = movement
- There's a buy option in autofixer, but it's not
- Hacking the Hacker Kill Lucius mission
- Cyberpsychosis Bloody Ritual
- Disappearing cars in race
- bad described iconic hacks. No difference, combos don't work
OTHER
- Dive into the Deep End - only 1 where u can complete entire mission silently, but u've to enter Delamain loudly
- parade mission. Game suggesting that saving Takemura is impossible. u learn online that it is
- Check out the Bartmoss Collective website. Only works in megablock
+ It's cool that after completing it, it returns to last checkpoint, so u can check all endings
+ 7 endings
about 75h of full game play + side missions, 21/57 Steam achievements
3h for remaining endings
DLC:
BUGS:
- failed Pentakill tarot card
- 1 crash
- blocked fast travel
- unable to call a vehicle
- no visible Lina's motorcycle
OTHER:
+ devs saw that skills are pointless and give a lot of shards with 1 random point
- relic is pointless for me. I didn't use any points
- doesn't roll back to last save with main choices like in base game
Fortunately, I did it manually. Unfortunately, acquired items and side missions need to be done again
- into the abyss 1 unclear mission
- point of no return after calling Reed; all activities are blocked until main storyline is completed. Why text like this when main storyline end game without possibility of return? Why use an implant or a Blackwall weapon at end when all missions are already done and game ends anyway?
About 30h for full expansion + side missions, 35/57 Steam achievements
2h for 2 ending
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- Doesn't count iconic weapons
- Counts with a delay
- It was fun to accidentally do ncpd during game, but for achievement is too much, too boring and monotonous
- It completed at 3/4 of car buying. I bought them all anyway
Fortunately, they added option of mods, and what they couldn't do or were too lazy, community did. For example, I missed a garage or flying like in GTA, and there are tons of other mods
Now I've other games waiting for me, and I'm up to date with story, but despite a few bugs, it's a brilliant mustplay and 1 of few games I'd gladly return to. Instead of sneaking and hacking with male V on 2 run, i'll play hard guns with female V to unlock other dialogue options/romances. A 3 time with mods and melee weapons, etc