Picture time!
MGS is a good comparison. Now things have opened up, that's definitely the gameplay loop, crossed with Elder Scrolls; and obviously not nearly as deep as the former. But wander around open world during missions/side missions clearing out small fortresses of enemies as you go.
With my pistol damage multipliers combined with stealth multipliers, I'm still blowing people away left right and centre, but it's actually kinda fun now as I need to get headshots to do huge damage, and preferably without being seen to guarantee a one hit kill. Why are pistols the most punchy weapons in the game? The power revolvers are so much more satisfying than the shotguns, for instance. There are also pistols that are basically uzis, so why bother with machine guns? And I can snipe with them effectively even without the perk to remove the lowered damage from using a pistol at long range. Weird.
The keanu and V banter is surprisingly fun. Better than Bauer's Snake, I'd say.
I'm flabbergasted by how this has absolutely nothing to say politically, socially or trans-humanistically. Witcher 3 didn't, either, but many side quests made use of Pagan folklore; making it way more interesting than other fantasy games---or most fantasy in any medium. This is not the Cyberpunk equivalent to that. It does the Cyberpunk aesthetic okay (nowhere near enough sex changes, sex and drugs, yet in a PG-13 way it does the job okay); but the cyberpunk aesthetic, unlike most genres, is built of its themes. For example: why are the Japanese everywhere in cyberpunk? It's not because anime and maid cafes are totally rad, but that during the birth of cyberpunk, America thought Japan was taking over the world, as today they're shitting themselves over China. Pathetic.
This is going to be a fun one to review because while I enjoy my time greatly while playing it, the game is fucking broken. So the last week or so I am noticing that every single enemy I come across does the same damage to me, one shot and I am almost dead, two and I die. I figured maybe I am in a hard area but no, doesn't matter where I am. Then I figured let's see if armor works at all, so I went naked into a fight, dick swinging freely in the air and guess what, the exact same damage. Put all my armor back on... same damage. Yes I have a bug (or maybe it's a feature, who knows) where armor and defense means NOTHING. I also lowered the difficulty setting, nothing changes.
so the critical hit numbers are broken and mean nothing. Armor and defense means nothing. This is an RPG where the numbers don't matter, at least in my game (I searched, many have this too). But that means I play the game as a straight action game and it still works. Honestly the challenge is kind of welcome... so I don't know! The story is so good, combat can still be a ton of fun but that can't hide how damn broken this game is.
My full review is up!
Foolz I find the encounters to get more difficult, not so much because the AI is better, its always dumb and exploitable but enemies start to get all kinds of abilities and super weapons. There are missions where there is always some asshole with a super sniper and one shot takes me out. Smart guns will hit you when you are behind cover. Netrunners will detect you and start to fry you. So you cant go all rambo all the time. I find the fun in this game, the only fun because there is no other gameplay outside missions, is how inventive I can be in this missions. Cyberpunk is basically a giant open world Deus Ex mission simulator thats not as well done as Deus Ex but offers just enough options to be interesting. And the storylines and world building I also love.
Everything else is sadly a mess. The open world dynamics are completelt broken, for instance the wanted meter results in cops spawing on top of you, literally appear out of thin air and start shooting. There are no random chases, cops cant get into a car and give chase, instead to avoid the cops you drive three blocks and everything stops, they cant follow. Its a fake unresponsive open world, which I felt was the same problem with Witcher 3 but I guess everyone gives that game a free pass (even though it has far worse combat) but Cyberpunk is unforgivable. I get that the second a game gives you an open world, some cars and weapons we all immediately think GTA and expect the game to live up to those incredible standards; Witcher 3 had a fantasy setting so not really being able to have any emergent gameplay was acceptable, not so in this game. Also NO MINIGAMES, not one. WTF you'd think the future would have cool shit to do, nope nothing.
I am loving my time with it cause I am totally into the story and I still love messing around in missions. This is me the guy that spent 30 hours on MGS Ground Zeroes, you give me a base with enemies and great combat options and I will have fun. But if thats not you this game would be a big disappointment.