Board 8 > I'm starting Cyberpunk soon, what do I need to know?

(+) Yeah! (+)

PL is very very good and if you liked '77 I would call it a must-have. I think opinions are unanimous that it's as good as the best parts of the base game or better pretty much the whole way through. Speaking purely personally, it also really completed the game's thematics! But more on that later once FFD's ran through it, lmao

Currently in character creation.

Male or female? Which has the better voice acting?

I picked female. It's usually pretty good, but occasionally the lines are read with a tone that doesn't fit the scene. (They probably gave her her lines in isolation, which means the male voice would be the same.)

You weren't kidding. Went with female VA, and I've been playing for ten minutes and already noticed a good number of line readings that were clearly done in isolation, lol. Not a big deal though.

Female is usually considered to have better voice acting. I thought she did a great job

KamikazePotato posted...

Currently in character creation.

Male or female? Which has the better voice acting?

Both have extremely good voice acting but in very different ways. Gavin Drea manages to pull off an extremely convincing 'street punk' and I think he's a slam-dunk choice if you go Streetkid. He also did an incredible job in the DLC if you get that far, using the years since the base game to sound wearier, weather-beaten, and wiser, which perfectly fits the context of where V is at in the story. Cherami Leigh does a better Corpo, IMO, which is probably because it's the path that is least close to her usual typecasting. Nomad I think both are about equally good.

EDIT: Also, I wouldn't be sure Female and Male V have the same voiceread quality, because IIRC Leigh was cast a solid year sooner than Drea and they didn't record in the same studio. Very different context, AFAIK.

I've quite enjoyed my lady corpo va so far.

Very fun game so far. Already had my soul crushed twice by the ending to a side quest! The brain dance investigation was also super neat.

Question - should I be focusing on the main story for now? Done like 12 gigs and haven't met Keanu yet.

My personal take for progression is something like this:

-Prologue/earlygame (locked to one district): Do every gig and side mission you can. This is to help you get set up with a proper chunk of perks and also used to the combat.
-Advance the story.
-Once the map is open to you, start picking at sidequests and gigs as you please.
-Simultaneously, advance the two paths that don't start from the Afterlife as you see fit (I suggest intermixing MSQ and open world gaming).
-Once shit starts getting real dark and/or climactic, go do the Afterlife critical path for a while. Once it hits a point that seems like shit is really about to go down, return to the other two critical paths.
-Knock out all three critical path major segments in a row.
-Go sidequest more. Advance story as opportunity allows.
-If something is gonna send you to the Voodoo Boys, do this absolutely last. It leads to the DLC and that one is best experienced as one of the last few things before endgame.

There's so much side content you can add in more as you like, so don't feel pressured to do it all in one go. I suggest using the main story as a sort of palate cleanser between sidequest batches, since its setpiece heavy style contrasts well with the more gameplay-focused sidequests.

Sounds good, thanks for the tips.

Just don't bum rush the main quests. And expect that some of the stuff you try to do at the very beginning will get your ass kicked.

Did the Heist. Some stuff happened that I expected, and some stuff happened that I genuinely did not. Well played game.

Also wow I am overwhelmed by this new map. There are a million new icons, and I've gotten like three phone calls in a row from people saying "meet me NOW or there will be consequences!" after driving for five minutes.

The people who called you are probably the fixers of each region. They provide your jobs.

Take it slow and enjoy the scenery. Or race all over the place on a bike. You do you.

The game has no time limits afaik

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0c105604.jpg

I'm impressed at how much dystopia this packed into two shorts paragraphs. Every sentence was a little worse than the one before it.

Update did the interrogation and found out I'm definitely fuckoed and my brain is melting. But also kind of cool that the relic activated because Dex flatlined me. Johnny brought me back, just to slowly overwrite me.

Then I mostly kept doing gigs and sidequests. Liberated Clouds with Judy, by slaughtering some Tygers and talking down girl boss (Maiko?), though girlboss was definitely pissed off I didn't back her. Helped Panam rescue Saul in a duststorm. Started to investigate the mayor's death, met the cop.

But absolutely worst of all, I lost another AI (ish) friendo because the bastards killed Brendan. =(

Oh! I also did a weird gig for a clown with a grenade nose. Then I fist fought him in a completely separate one. At this point I'm vibing. Nothing can surprise me.

Oh I also went and downloaded all of edgerunners after seeing a Brain dance if what I assume was a scene from the anime.

That is the intro to Edgerunners, yup. It's a fun show. Aesthetically an absolute masterpiece.

I love how weird the gigs get to be sometimes. 'Just another day in Night City' where shit is never easy but it sure is strange

Edgerunners is such a good show that it made the internet reconsider Cyberpunk (the game) when it was knee-deep in controversy and gamer rage. The game may have recovered anyway after years of patches, but the show certainly made the rehabilitation process much easier.

This is the first time I've heard of Edgerunners. =x

Gotta say, I've been very impressed with the overall quality of the writing. It remains very high even during minor side quests.

Yeah, multiple times this game made me stop and think about what I was seeing. Without any spoilers, They Won't Go When I Go was an absolutely brutal thing to play through, in a way I can't really recall any other game pulling off save maybe Disco Elysium. It commits to the bit really hard, and I appreciate that a lot.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

-If something is gonna send you to the Voodoo Boys, do this absolutely last. It leads to the DLC and that one is best experienced as one of the last few things before endgame.

Question, I just saved Evelyn. Is this the leadup you were implying? Should I leave this questline for later?

I had thought the same thing because the journal is weird about it, but you have a while before hitting the dlc trigger.

so holy fucking shit I haven't played any this week but I've watched the first six episodes of edgerunners so far and it slaps

like, no notes

just fantastic

also Rebecca might be my spirit animal

(FFD don't read this pls)

I am SO FUCKING EXCITED for her death at Smasher's hands y'allllllll

fuck what a ride (edgerunners spoilers)

The dystopian cyberpunk world doesn't lead well into happy endings so I wasn't expecting one here (nor in the main game if I'm being honest, but we'll get there at some point) but that was brutal. Lucy (and Falco) even getting out of there was surprising. Bittersweet was always the best case scenario here and it still hit me right in the feels.

Becca was the absolute realest though and got even better after being promoted to second in command, somehow being the most loyal and reliable, all the way to the very last line. That being said, THEY WERE HAVING A MOMENT -- fuck adam smasher, all my homies hate adam smasher. johnny, becca, when will it end?! (hopefully if/when V crosses paths with him again)

The exploration of the inevitability of cyberpsychosis and watching both Maine and David slip down the slope was so interesting to watch. And watching the people closest to them (Dorio/Rebecca) at first trying to pull them off the ledge before diving off the cliff after them is heartbreaking.

But after all that, I have to wonder just how close to cyberpsychosis my V is teetering. I am chromed to the teeth and have the Edgerunner perk to push me past my limits (...and send me into fury after kills sometimes...) so it's got to be close. Surely the Relic can only mitigate so much.

My V ended up being an amalgamation of the main cast, as she's almost pure netrunner with monowire (like Lucy), fully chromed (like David), with the personality and gunskills of Becca (lmao "Bang." still top tier).

For such a short jaunt, all of the characters are unique and fully fleshed and it's just a great watch. I wish I could watch for the first time again right now. Stupid braindance causing me to take a five hour detour, but totally worth it and did it's job I GUESS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnnbP7pCIvQ

even the prequel music video is great and heartbreaking god damn

Now you get to be ambushed by random music from the anime as you play through the game.

WE WILL MAKE HISTORY (we'll make you history)

In a lot of ways, V is the superior successor to David Martinez. Where he couldn't go, you still might. But it takes a lot to become a legend...

Also, fun detail: Johnny Silverhand had to deal with Cyberpsychosis too. Not only is the Relic itself mitigating Cyberpsychosis, but two other things are helping out a lot here. First, Johnny himself knows how to handle the burden more or less decently -- him being so erratic and violent in the flashbacks is partly from the chrome, but he was still functional. Second, and this is maybe even more important...V has a support network who can hold him/her up, which David didn't because he never let Becca in the way he should have, unlike V with Misty, Jackie, Vik, Panam, Judy and others. Cyberpsychosis isn't actually a one-way trip. As per the detailed setting lore, therapy and welcoming empathetic treatment from other people can help. It's not just the guy in your head keeping you sane -- it's every single real one you've met along the way and opened up to.

(Bonus fun detail: you know why the OST for Edgerunners slaps so hard? Akira Yamaoka arranged it. Yes, the Silent Hill one! Dude hasn't missed once in a lifetime.)

KanzarisKelshen posted...

David didn't because he never let Becca in the way he should have

"Alright David, let's go... To the top then." shattered me. Ride or die. I figured that cyberpsychosis was a teetering edge more than a straight shot, it's just way easier to give in than pull back. The little maniacal cackles my V gives off during Fury suggests she is tightroping that line really hard though.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

you know why the OST for Edgerunners slaps so hard? Akira Yamaoka arranged it.

My man does not miss, god damn.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

But it takes a lot to become a legend...

...man but it worries me that becoming a legend often requires death...

Hoping to put some hours in this weekend and she if we can avert this inevitability.

Motorcycles >>> cars in this game, both for handling and because you get to see your outfit

Also met Alt. Amazing sequence. The Voodoo Boys can go fuck themselves.

I've been doing the races and crying, though The Beast is probably the best handling car I've had. Bikes all the way for long distance, double jumps and air dashes for short distances.

Went Scuba Diving with Judy, finally cyberwaifu'd up. That being said...

JOB ADDED: I REALLY WANT TO STAY AT YOUR HOUSE

oh come on

I just... nailed a man to the cross. And not in some figurative sense. Literally. Nails through the wrists and feet and then sat there and watched him die. I mean, I went there kind of figuring I'd be a viewer, but then I became an active participant and... god damn, for reals. Johnny egging me on the entire questline to see it through got into my head I guess. I didn't think they would actually even go through with it even after I was driving the nails. Absolutely wild.

Going to call it for the night on that one. Somehow that was the hardest hitting quest on a day full of them (Human farm with River, a gig about a BD of the murder of a child, and the mayoral candidate getting his brain overwritten and my own deck getting hijacked in the process). Game rarely missing with these things right now. I thought I would be hitting the DLC by now, but every time I start to head there I get a call from someone with something interesting going on. Or drunk Judy, which is also fun.

That quest was, I think, the exact moment I reevaluated '77 from just 'a fun videogame' to 'a game that genuinely has things to say', and started putting its pieces together. I can think of a lot of games that would have done that kind of scene and made it godawful, like absolutely game-killingly bad. But this game somehow managed to stick the landing. It's completely harrowing, but not because it's bad -- rather, it's because it's raw. As raw as anything can be. It's notably one of very few instances where Johnny doesn't fuck around and act like a clown even a little. He's not a religious man, but he gets what having principles and living, and DYING by them, is like.

Game good. Truly.

Taking my cutscene and gameplay decisions as a total whole, I feel that my V is what I like to call a High-Functioning Cyberpsycho

Honors her word, loyal to friends, only hits back when someone deserves it...but those pedestrians had better hope I'm getting lazy with my driving. And even if all those Scavs deserved to have their spines snapped, that's still a lot of snapped spines.