Cyberpunk 2077 - Review

[Kordanor]

Great work here @Kordanor; , how are you finding presenting your vids in English? Do you get more notice or less?

Thanks a lot!

It's very hard to compare and there are multiple factors playing into that.

So the current stats are 150 Views on the German video, 61 on the English one.

The most important reason for the difference is probably the active subscriptions on my German Review channel, which are 567 vs the meagre 33 on the english channel. But the English channel is new and the German Review channel is 7 or 8 years old - and while I didnt have any video which "exploded" I have a couple ones with 1-3k views (which, yeah, is a lot for that channel) - and the english one is still lacking any video which draws new viewers to the channel (this is basically almost purely luck based).

For the views on the German channel it (probably) helped that I could post it to some interested folks in a RPG facebook group, I am also lucky and happy that one viewer has been sharing it on a discord group. For the English one I am thankful that HiddenX posted it here. Obviously neither isn't causing a huge stream of views, but well, every single one counts.

So yeah, not sure which one is "doing better" as I didn't put them into a vacuum. I certainly hoped the english channel developed better and faster than it does. As you might have seen I am also doing a Let's Play on the english channel, which might seem a bit weird to mix videos which are that different (also in quality) together, but growing it with reviews alone is not possible within a limited amount of years (unless I finish more games, and for that I dont have the time).
So I have to check how things develop further for the next year or two and if it's worth to put the additional effort into the English Version (Primary German Version takes maybe 18 hours to do (for 20-25 minutes), and the English one another 12 hours (translation does take about a similar amount of time as writing the origina, the narration takes about a similar amount of time as well, collecting and cutting the video is much quicker the second time as I can reuse most of the original parts as I keep the video material in the German one mostly in English now)

 

[Kordanor]

Hey Kordanor,

Nice video, nice review

Regarding Night City exploration, you advise against it? I mean, there nothing worth outside the main beaten path? No fun or valuable stashes/loot/treasures, no dramatic scene to be found, nothing different hidden atop/inside that building or behind that hiiden corner/alley ? Is city exploration really not worth the time the player spend doing it ?

Thanks! And yeah. There is absolutely zilch.
The only exploration"worthy" things are the blue question marks on the hex fields which are already showing "here is something remotely interesting".
That said, the whole item and crafting system is pretty much obsolete, so there wouldn't be much value in loot anyways. But there isn't anything else outside the beaten path either. So no loot, and nothing to find.
I think I found one border patrol car very far in the north, and I think the policeman was being shot. I think that's as interesting as it gets. You usually can't go in any buildings for example. Even if you are going into a trailerpark for some quests you will not be able to enter any of these trailers. What you see (the icons on the map) is what you get, and nothing else.

 

[Couchpotato]

Finished it three times on the PC. Just waiting for the promised free DLC. Anyway like I said already had just a few mission bugs and graphic glitches. I enjoyed the game.

It's basically the same formula of Witcher III in a modern setting that's all.

 

[JFarrell71]

Thanks! And yeah. There is absolutely zilch.

Do not agree. At all.

 

[Kordanor]

Do not agree. At all.

Well, then give some examples of areas which are interesting to explore (without any associated quests or blue symbols).

 

[JFarrell71]

Well, then give some examples of areas which are interesting to explore (without any associated quests or blue symbols).

Sure. One off the top of my head is a community full of mannequins with a story that explains how they were used to try to trick corporate forces into thinking there was more armed resistance than there was. A final party thrown by fugitives that you find out about at a beach house in Pacifica. There are ambient conversations found only in specific locations. There's plenty.

I don't know why you'd exclude map markers, though. Most games point at most of their interesting content. You can turn those markers off, and then on top of the unmarked stuff there are all the crime scenes, etc.

 

[Couchpotato]

Never been found of reading details from notes or recordings, but recent games have shown players enjoy it. One example is how Dark Souls tell a story with descriptions.

 

[Kordanor]

Never been found of reading details from notes or recordings, but recent games have shown players enjoy it. One example is how Dark Souls tell a story with descriptions.

I am not very familiar with Dark Souls but I think in Dark Souls or other games the narration basically happens over these items which are basically pillars of the story and you basically have to jump from pillar to pillar to make sense of it.

In Cyberpunk 2077 there is sooooooo much text…if you really wanted to read everything you would probably spend 30-50% of your time in the game reading… (and not "meaningful" reading as in torment or Disco elysium or whatever, but reading of fluff, pure background, with no effect to any decisions or quest solutions)

 

[JDR13]

I found lots of little interesting things and easter eggs from exploring, so I wouldn't say there's zero meaningful exploration.

That said, I'd agree it's not a strong point either. The problem is the paint by numbers approach they took where most things are marked on the map even in areas you haven't been yet.

 

[JFarrell71]

In Cyberpunk 2077 there is sooooooo much text…if you really wanted to read everything you would probably spend 30-50% of your time in the game reading… (and not "meaningful" reading as in torment or Disco elysium or whatever, but reading of fluff, pure background, with no effect to any decisions or quest solutions)

Yeah... I would say I'm a person who generally likes to read in games, but like you say, a lot of it is pure fluff, and it really started to blend together after a while. Dozens about dozens of conversations about crime deals gone wrong, that sort of thing. I collected all the shards I came across but I only probably ended up reading 25% of them.