Cyberpunk 2077

[Art Blade]

I think "bosses" here are what you'd call "doable." They're just stronger than the usual opponent and the one I was talking about was certainly a highlight with regard to the environment and light effects but also a lot stronger than the usual opponent.

The good thing about this game is that you can define your character's skills the way you see fit: specialise in something or combine abilities and preferences when it comes to combat. You could focus on hacking skills or firearms or melee weapons and even within those three categories there are sub-groups like for instance tech weapons or blunt melee weapons. I combined hacking (strong suit) with some powerful weapons. Meaning I froze that guy in place with hacking skills and then kept emptying my clips into his head, rinse and repeat.

[PZ]

Now, that sounds like my kind of boss encounter 

[Art Blade]

 

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah the stream I watched the guy had some pretty high level weapons and hacking abilities, plus help from something else that essentially killed most every enemy ahead of time hehe. The "boss fight" in the ending was trivial for him at that time.

[Art Blade]

do you remember what that "something" was? I don't mind a spoiler now if it's something useful for me

[Art Blade]

oh by the way, Dweller, I actually reached a "point of no return" so I *am* about to hit the end game.

[Art Blade]

Well, I finished my first playthrough regarding the main story.

That Basher wasn't posing a serious threat to me (even though I was "only" level 35 out of 50) but it wasn't exactly too simple, either. Just right.

As to how it technically ends: You can either end it for good OR go back to the last save before going to the final missions and keep playing as all of the "unfinished business" is back again so you can continue with side missions and all that.

I like the idea. See, compared to for example FO4, you're allowed to return to a world that hasn't been impacted by final decisions. In FO4, the institute would still be there and not be blown up and destroyed for instance. So this game actually does what some of us have been doing anyway: return to savegames "when the world was still nice" kind of thing. Only here it's "official." So now I can keep exploring and stuff or choose to start from a different setting or the same (Nomad) again.. I don't know yet. But it's been cool and I will play more.

As to the story:

The ending that I saw was cool. It was a long series of events that took (at least me) a few hours to complete and it was enjoyable. As far as I can tell, I didn't make any bad calls or choices. It panned out in a way that matched my entire playthrough and therefore I'm really content.

my first end
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If you can't really make out what's in the pic: You're looking at the backs of my character (left) and his girlfriend Panam sitting there together after crossing the border (left the city behind, joined her Nomad clan) and they're looking at the stars, free again. You see the reflection of the night sky in some kind of lake.

[Art Blade]

I decided to play the finale again but made a different choice which changes the finale kind of from the start. I still have other options for the same finale, different options at different times during the finale. Very interesting

[PZ]

Very cool. Is there anything like a Games plus mode to replay again with all your stuff?

[Art Blade]

no. Even after finishing the main story it simply puts you back to your last save game before starting the finale. There is an "end screen" however, stating that there were some surprises in my inventory at that stage (having finished) but I couldn't really find whatever it was. There's a hint it might be necessary to go to a shop (any ripperdoc) to get cyberstuff if that was gifted but I didn't find anything new there, either.

Anyway, I finished the story 3x now (made one major change and saved, then made another but minor change within that 2nd finale) and I'm done finishing this Nomad story line.

I think I'm going to start over now and do some things differently (character development) but more importantly, I want to start out as City Kid (or some such) which will leave the Corpo(ration) start for last. Corpo is again something like the Institute in FO4.

[Art Blade]

Just for the facial details a review of my old and a preview of my new character.

About the new character: it's always, no matter which game, nearly impossible to create a convincing Asian face.  However, this one is better than most. All settings were manually selected (for both characters) I wanted a Japanese look this time. A great many details in this game (especially high tech and gear) are related to Japan, the rest mostly to North America.

Oh and I heard one in-game comment about Night City (which is named after some guy called Richard Night) that makes me believe that it's modelled after L.A.

old Nomad character
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Street Kid new career
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[PZ]

Mostly I do not care about character customization, but I am slowly changing as I change the look of my character.

Too bad there is no Games+ mode - that feature is very high on my list of features I look for in a game.

[Dweller_Benthos]

do you remember what that "something" was? I don't mind a spoiler now if it's something useful for me

Sorry I got to this late, I don't usually remember to check here on weekends. You probably played this scenario already, if not spoilers:

Spoiler

The path the person picked that I watched was to go with Keanu Reeves and do the end mission, with some woman who was a friend of Keanu before, or something. It was really hard to keep the characters straight, as I didn't know them, I mean Keanu and the player character, as they were merged somehow? And it wasn't clear who was talking, even the person playing it commented on that and I guess the idea is that they are becoming one person? Whatever. But anyway, going through the mission, which was fairly short I thought, for a final mission, they had help from a person, or AI, wasn't quite clear on that, who was hacking the building they were in and killing everyone there so essentially they walked through with very little fighting until they met the Smasher guy who does some important action, then there was the decision to either continue as Keanu or the other guy, and the streamer chose Keanu just to see how it pans out, final scene, ride off into the sunset essentially. To put it bluntly I thought it was stupid and I didn't even have the emotional investment of having watched the entire game much less played it. If I had played it, I would be a bit underwhelmed for sure and not a little bit mad. Then to top it off, unlike Art, I would have been really upset when the game is either done or go back and retcon the ending and continue like nothing happened. So no matter what ending you choose there are no consequences for it, so why bother? I like how Fallout 4 handled it, you continue with the consequences of your decision and if you decided to blow up the Institute, then you've got a giant radioactive crater in the middle of the city to look at every time you're there to remind you of what you did.

It's also why I was a little upset with Far Cry 5 after the ending because they did the same thing, the world blows up but ehhh, just go back a save and continue like nothing happened. Luckily they released New Dawn so you can continue the game with that as the true ending. If that had been included with the main game in the first place it would have been perfect.

So, Cyberpunk isn't high on my list to get anytime soon, even if I had the hardware to run it. Maybe eventually when it drops to half price if I'm not doing something else.

[Art Blade]

OK, got it. Yeah, that help option is there for "V" (player character) as well. But I also played a variant without that help and it was quite a shoot-out before the Smasher guy popped up on top.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah it seemed that using the help really cuts down on the fighting in that scenario.

Have fun with the second character. It's my suspicion that there will be little difference on who you choose for your starting person, except for the first few missions before you get to the city, from there it's essentially the same. Maybe a bit difference in abilities to start, that sort of thing.