3.5/5 ★ – JimboHarman's review of Cyberpunk 2077.

Unfortunately the story didn’t grip me as much as I would’ve hoped, there are some really great character moments and the game explores identity and how the characters struggle to be true to themselves. Especially with the whole metaphor with the relic in V’s head being that he will become a legend like Jackie and him wanted but will lose himself as a cost when Johnny inevitably takes control which I thought was a really interesting way to explore the themes but in general I thought the story could’ve been more focused on those themes. For the most part you’re just running errands for people, you want something from them but before they can help you, you’ve got to help them. I liked doing stuff for Panam because she had her own struggles with identity but unfortunately most of the other side characters were just plot devices- they’re likeable but not all that interesting. I would put the lack of focus down to the fact that the story is so shaped by the player however the main missions don’t change that much based on your choices, the main changes to a play-through happen in side quests and the things you do in the final mission itself, which speaks to the quality of the side quests which are awesome but it’d be nice for the main missions to hold more weight in shaping your story. The gameplay is very addictive, two days into my play-through I had put 12 hours into the game and after beating it a definitely intend to go through the game again, I really love how you can choose your characters background and I think next time I’m definitely going to dabble in the side stuff more. The gameplay itself isn’t all that remarkable but the progression of your character and the RPG elements create a brilliant sense of progression. Unfortunately the game is buggy, stilly little things that CD Projekt Red should’ve definitely ironed out like HUD glitches, animations glitching out and most annoying of all dialogue glitching out so the characters all talk over each other. Luckily my game only crashed once which is far less than I would expect, especially as I played on PS4. ENDING SPOILERS BELLOW: In my initial play-through I got ‘The Devil’ ending which was pretty depressing with V betraying Johnny by working with Arosaka, landing him further from home he’s ever been, literally in space, where V gets the choice to sell his soul to Arosaka (literally) or die on his own terms back on Earth, which is the one I chose, making my V’s arc one of being true to himself and where he came from. The ending had me feeling pretty empty at first after betraying Johnny and myself but that final ending was bittersweet when I chose to go back to Earth.