Cyberpunk 2077

Understandable. I've been a PC person all my life so grew up with modding games. At least Cyberpunk is relatively easier compared to some games like Skyrim, or Fallout where whilst very moddable, is also very easy to break your game. Cyberpunk you can easily drop mods in and out with no real issue, and I've even managed to wrangle two different eye mods to work together. I've never made mods myself though back in New Vegas, and Fallout 4 I did play around a bit but only with easy stuff like adding rating to a hat in New Vegas so I could force Boone to wear it whilst still being able to let him keep his beret in his inventory. I also did a few re-textures for bodies so I could add tattoo's in both of those Fallout games though my Photoshop refuses to play with any sort of .dds file these days even after downloading the file to make it play nice, but oh well. I use mods more than I make my own stuff anyway, though some days I do wish I had that know how just so I could make stuff for my male characters when 90% of mods are female only.

Now I just use mods that are available to mostly get what I want in game. Certain mods, and AMM have been a blessing in Cyberpunk to help me 'live out' the romances I want in the game that don't actually exist, especially now I've added another V to my 'to play' list who doesn't have a canon romance either. (Placide, Saul, Takemura, I couldn't hyper-fixate on someone I can actually romance like Kerry, or even River, no I had to make life difficult for myself.)

Edit: On my Nomad I decided to fuck over Maelstrom because Jackie was all 'sitting down means you're an easier target' and my V was just 'actually you're right' which led to a fight and it was only later that I regretted not waiting for Royce to show up first as his mech fight was a royal pain in the butt. I did find Brick this time and saved him, and I know having him over Royce will make a quest later much easier. I'll probably alternate between the two choices in later playthroughs, but it was interesting to go a different route in a quest considering that opportunity doesn't happen very often. 

Well that Corpo is gonna run (lethal) quickhacks, sniper rifles, and mantis blades so... ah, I may have to invest on a weapon that's non lethal for boss fights and cyberpsycho's. XD I know the first time I got Oda down I didn't realize I had to get up close to him to 'complete' the fight because he went down fully and I briefly saw a prompt (might have been a finisher, idk) but in the time it took me to get back to him he'd started healing up and I had to do half the fight over again before I could fully take him down non lethally. Though to be fair to him, I did bully the hell out of him the entire fight with double jump and alternating quickhacks so he couldn't do anything but zip around the room and go invisible because every time I spotted his ass I quickhacked him so he was about as deadly as a kitten. I somehow expect the fight to be even more fun on this Corpo just because if he has to resort to mantis blades it's frenzy time.

what's even more annoying for me personally is the dildo unique blunt weapon is locked behind that quest. ugh! Love that weapon. (yes I actually suffered through that scene for it ONE time).

I was wondering why there were 5 million Meredith beautification mods on the Nexus, but I must have missed the rest of her… content.

I failed miserably at trying to get my custom male doll cyberware to not look like shit… but I did figure out how to put some custom doll lines I made onto a separate layer from tattoos, cyber ware, scars, etc. so I can have all the things, but weirdly sometimes when I load in they don’t show up. Not sure why. There’s also some weird stuff with photo mode vs not photomode as my doll cybernetics cover up my tattoos in first person but work fine everywhere else and the dark black with gold outline iris I went with sometimes doesn’t show in photo mode, but that could be the custom V eyes mod.

I decided to just get to it and play… I’m liking hacks. I never used then last play through. I also enjoy the combat mod I installed. But now I die a lot so… loading increases the likely hood my doll eyes (just the blackest ones from the Kerry eye for V mod that I upped the gold intensity) bug out and my doll lines vanish.

But I am remembering just how much more I like the early game in terms of quality of characters, quests, world building, and pacing. Not that the later game has nothing good, I just feel like they got the closest to really, really getting the tone of cyberpunk there. They get a bit back to it in the idea of the relic, but they really drop the ball with Alt, Johnny, and Saburo. And they really went too subtle with the implications of V being Soul Killed, and the themes of what an immortality that is technically not you means. And the contrived auto immune system blah blah. Technically, according to their own mambo jumbo, a post soul killed V should defy the immune response as it is no different than a Johnny construct. And so they kinda answered the most philosophical question they had (that I liked being vague) which is: are you the same person as your memories digitized or would you cease to be and a new you live on? I. E. your soul was killed. But there’s this weird middle of the game that’s fine but the stories aren’t quite as interesting. 

JS being the main character while still having V as the player character did not mix well at all for sure. I hate that a lot. Especially when you can just tell the reason you can save Johnny in 2 different flavors-but you can't save V at all (save for him going off to be with Alt-and again-only Johnny would want that!)

Yeah, I felt a bit sad saying goodbye right at the end but that was literally it. I only briefly liked him for that final segment sitting on that rooftop where he was like 'yeah choosing which of your friends will die sucks' before he gave me the suicide solo run option, that part was honestly the only time I didn't want to punch him or rip him out of my head. I got tired of doing his missions, doing the dumb Alt stuff, and him abusing V's body and trust really quickly. I also hated how much of the Kerry stuff was whilst Johnny was in control, we didn't really get enough solo time with Kerry to fully establish a reason for romance that wasn't 'you have Johnny in you' which adds to the squick factor of him possibly only being interested in a male!V at first because he wants Johnny to fuck him and is why he won't let a fem!V romance him. I know during the first kiss he says it doesn't matter with the whole Johnny thing or not but... idk, the boat scene was also just... odd. The only time it felt like a proper connection was after the secret (and Sun I guess) ending where you wake up in your mansion with him at your side and he's worrying about you, and it is just you because Johnny is gone by then.

The Johnny/Alt scene we saw just felt... weird. It kinda felt like he went fully after Arasaka because of what happened to Alt, but then he treated Alt like absolute trash, and then him moving onto Rogue was just ??? and I'm still kinda meh that Rogue was initially willing to fuck Johnny in V's body knowing full well V likely would remember fuck all about it, before she stopped it because it became too weird for her. Ugh. But you're right, it has been 50 years but nothing has changed in tech, or medical stuff, and everyone is still clinging on to the Johnny shaped hole left behind (which kinda only makes sense for Kerry given his hang ups over the man.) And like, what did his blwoing up Arasaka even accomplish? Fuck all. He got a lot of innocent people killed, and Arasaka simply rebuilt - which honestly kinda feels like what happens in every ending. You might do them some damage in Sun/Star/Secret but they'll likely either easily rebuild or simply be swallowed up by another Corp that isn't any better. Honestly nothing really changes with Arasaka, it kinda feels pointless especially when you reach Alt and she's just 'yeah you're still gonna die' everything you did up to that point in game just felt like a waste of time.

V just wants to save themselves and will use any means necessary at this point, can't say I blame them. Meanwhile Johnny is repeatedly bipolar and aggressive for no reason. Hell, even in the same quest in one breath he'll be worrying about V and the next he'll be shouting about taking over their body and fucking up Arasaka and nothing makes a whole lot of sense. I still really wish we'd gotten more opportunity to work with the different gangs more, maybe build up a reputation with them. Maybe then you'd get contacted by Fixers in the area after you've proven your worth a bit rather than how it is now with them calling you up the second you step foot in their territory. Even the story doesn't keep up with itself. We met Padre in the 6 month time skip, but when I entered his area on my Nomad he called him up and introduced himself as if they'd never met before. (I don't think he did it on my Street Kid, I can't remember their conversation.)

Honestly the game feels like it was designed for a Street Kid considering all paths eventually join to that of the 'Merc' and I wonder if Nomad, and Corpo were just thrown in last minute when they changed the story to include Johnny and cut out all the prior life path stuff like 'childhood hero' and 'what brought you to Night City.' Especially as V talks the same no matter what life story. A Corpo shouldn't be constantly using slang, a Nomad might have their own slang or words, or something, but no, unless you've got a [Corpo] or [Nomad] option specifically, every V just feels like they're a Street Kid.

I'm also once again having issues triggering quests. I'm supposed to just wait 12-24 hours to trigger some, but I've waited several days in questing/resting/time skipping. I'm gonna be pissed if Panam's questline bugs out on me when I actually want to do the Nomad ending on this character.

There's a lot of wasted potential in the game, gangs are definitely one, and yeah, Wakako should give you shit after the Judy questline but no actions like that have any sort of consequences. It's a shame, it may have added more depth. Maybe if you'd gotten into a gang's rep and become 'one of them' they could have helped you on the Assault on Arasaka instead of only being able to rely on Rogue, or the Nomads. The Nomads have the Basilisk sure, but they've lost a lot of people over the course of the game so they're not at their strongest. Imagine storming Arasaka with Maelstrom fucking shit up, the Animals beating on everything, or the Voodoo Boys hacking everything in their path. It's not like the Rogue, or Nomad choice are particularly special considering they both end in 'lol you're screwed.'

Street Cred feels like it was just another exp bar put in to cut you off from buying gear too early, and to lock side quests behind considering that's all it really does. Fixers from other areas will still contact you whether it's high or low which is silly if you've not really established yourself very high. I just use a mod that removes the street cred problem just because it feels like it's also there to make you go do side stuff and busy work to pad out the game time.

That could have been cool, it's a shame, the origins add a bit of flavour or might make the odd quest easier to access a location but it doesn't really do that much, though I suppose it has been nice that the Aldecaldo's have been acknowledging that my V is a Nomad - though sometimes some of them do act like he's some random gonk from the city.

Oh yeah I took that Takemura text option. It really does feel like they cut something with him, seeing as he vanishes after the parade until the epilogue unless you side with Haneko, but even then he’s kinda blank.

I’ve been dragging my feet to go to Konpeki Plaza cause I do really, really like the V/Jackie Dynamic. I only really felt as close a friendship with Judy but she peace’s out. So the rest of the game feels kinda lonely cause I think Silverhand is supposed to be the new buddy, but there aren’t thaaaat many bonding moments with him.