SouthernCrossCrusader

For a group apparently motivated to defend their little hideout, how did the Raffen not see V and Panam approaching in the van bouncing around, veering off and out of sight along the sole road leading towards them? I thought one of the most rudimentary pieces of cyberware in circulation are optical implants that allow the user to see much further and with greater clarity? The Raffen even had more than one person on overwatch, one on the roof and the other patrolling the balcony attached to the main building.

I couldn't have timed it better. I needed to wait for Rogue to call back with the trigger to go after Grayson on the Ebunike and instead of just having V sleep until getting the call, I can pass the time by helping the Aldecaldos take out the Raffen and rescue Saul. Once he's gone off with Panam and the others, that should be enough time for Rogue to call back.

Other than the flashbacks, Johnny's past feels like completely underutilized. I wanted to see more of his time with Samurai, more of his war against Arasaka, what he was like when he was still a soldier in the Mexican conflict. He references it at least once in the vanilla game and once more in Phantom Liberty, right before you meet Solomon Reed for the first time. It's a goldmine of storytelling just waiting to be tapped, yet the devs barely touched it!

After all that talk about Hanako almost activating her tracker and Takemura slipping one onto V so Hanako could send the proxy to his motel room, how is it that Oda never set off any alarms while fighting V? All that time it took to slowly wear him down, he never sets off even a single alert message to the rest of Arasaka security forces protecting the parade? And how did Takemura slip a tracker onto V in the first place? Was it during his recovery at Vics after the Konpeki heist? Or at some other point when they started working together after meeting with Oda by the waterfront?

Turns out Saburos sword was next to useless against Oda, while mag-dumping him over and over and over got the results... What the hell kind of boss fight is this? Can't go blade to blade with him, he just goes full razor-whirlwind and one-shots you even from 20 feet away! I am NOT looking forward to going into the Adam Smasher boss fight.

The Arasaka parade is a great setting. The big crowds of onlookers mesmerised by the parade floats while a deadly game of cat and mouse plays out above their heads, as V and Takemura have to work their way around Arasaka security forces to reach Hanako. More of this please, CDPR. A LOT more!

Hellman is finally in the rearview mirror and I can get back to positioning V at the point in the main story where the Phantom Liberty DLC was expected to be found: just after dealing with the VDBs and right before V goes to visit Hanako at Embers. Once that's done cleaning up the rest of the main game side content should be a breeze!

Messy NPC-follower behavior, endlessly repeating nonsense phrases as they run about pretending to participate in whatever is going on... It really guts the whole scene from start to finish. Panam is next to useless, from the first bullet being fired to the last, she contributes absolutely nothing to the players experience except an annoying noise in the background. This is why in just about every single RPG I play these days, if there's the opportunity to go without companions and just operate completely solo, I'll take it every single time!

I have absolutely no idea what made me reload a save right as Panam was pulling up the truck near the crashed AV. It had to have been something in the audio that was bothering me as I'd reloaded to fix the looping bug caused from the power station overload, but I can't hear anything in the recording.

A slight amendment to what I decided earlier about rushing through the Aldecaldos content. If there's an Iconic weapon to add to the collection or an interesting situation to experience (like getting the replacement kidney for Jake in Fortunate Son) I'll go for it.

How much more interesting would this section of the story have been if there was the possibility of cutting out Panam and the Aldecaldos completely? Rogue forwards Panams number to V once she's briefed him on the Kang Tao AV. But why make it mandatory to use Panam at all? At no point during The Pickup job was it essential to use Meredith Stout in order to secure the Flathead bot from Maelstrom... What was the sum total of Panams contribution to securing Hellman? Her EMP plan? Fails. The AV is at best momentarily disoriented. Her truck? It's only used once or twice to shoot down drones and I don't see why those can't be shot down by other means, given how easily I've taken out random gang members in their cars with the Shingen Mark V. The rocket launcher she pulls out of nowhere at the last second is the one thing that gets the proper result. Don't tell me V couldn't have called around Night City until a Fixer is able to source him a proper weapon system comparable to what Panam used. Having the option to go after Hellman completely solo would have been nice to have.

Not going to bother getting tangled up too much in the Aldecaldos quests. Once the Basilisk is secured and the nomads moved to their new campsite I'm pushing on to finish the rest of this game.

Combining Gorilla Arms and Sandevistan together makes fist fights so unbelievably easy it's astounding to me that CDPR didn't try to nerf them in some way. Both fighters are taken down in the blink of an eye. It makes me wonder just how feasible an "Unarmed-Only" build could be if the skill points are allocated properly.

"We put races in the game where your gunner shoots at the other drivers!" "Only, they aren't really races... The other cars can't be destroyed no matter how many bullets they take, and if you are out in front the cars behind you will have their acceleration artifically boosted in order to force you to deal with them!" What was the point of having Claire as a gunner? Now matter what, nothing she does affects the race in any way. Her bullets can bounce off the other cars all day long, she's not taking out any of the competition.

While recording this I hadn't realised why Takemura hadn't triggered the next step of his storyline, starting the Arasaka parade and the meeting with Hanako. I hadn't paid attention at the time and missed a crucial detail in the journal, and now looking back I can't believe they'd put that kind of stop on story progression. You can't trigger the Arasaka parade until "other leads" have been investigated. Why not? Is Takemura waiting patiently, unwilling to do anything until V has wrapped up his completely unrelated business with the Aldecaldos in the badlands? It's because the writers snagged themselves on their own damn hook. The Aldecaldos storyline involves Anders Helman, and Takemura shows up after V and Panam have captured him from the Kang Tao AV crash. Hanako even mentions it after the fact once she's sent her proxy to the motel where V is hiding out after the parade and Arasakas' attack on Takemuras safehouse. I wonder how many other people got caught by that same silly problem, waiting for ages and ages having started with Takemura without even touching the Aldecaldos side of the game.

Ozobs' amazing introduction is cut way too short yet he's still an awesome character! I still don't understand why CDPR never tried to go for some kind of companion system, something akin to what you find in Fallout 4. If Jackies' story had been written better, as in he actually survives beyond Act 1, he would have been the perfect introduction to a companion system. Having a single NPC character going around with V everwhere to do side content like fixer gigs would have made the entire experience feel so much more alive. Ozobs' first interaction with V is hiring him to drive to a Tyger Claws hangout, kicking off a fight before promptly departing. Why couldn't there have been a follow-up moment where he offers to join V as a partner and fellow merc? Now that I think about it, Judy doesn't exactly hesitate to bring some iron and get stuck in when V goes to rescue Evelyn from the scav hideout. She could have been a Mox-themed companion once her clouds questline was wrapped up, Panam or Mitch from the Aldecaldos as Nomad companions once the Basilisk tank is used to drive off the Raffen Shiv. The potential was right there for the taking. It's not like Fallout 4 was the only game out there that utilized such a gameplay feature.

The final step of Delamains' questline, absolutely perfect with only a couple of beats I'd change. Only got hung up a little in the main garage area where the entire floor is electrified and the drones are going crazy everywhere. The game wasn't entirely clear which path the player is supposed to take and hopping over the gap between the lasers (still no idea what those are meant to be for) wasn't what I expected to be the solution. Other than that, the crawling in and out, up and down through ducts and access panels in such a small area was brilliantly done. The devs should have gone for that in as many areas of Night City as possible.

Had my doubts before, wether or not I'd bother touching another CD Projekt Red title after Cyberpunk 2077, be it a Cyberpunk sequel or a new Witcher saga. But given how much more fun I've had in games that have been made by just a handful of people working with what little resources they have... There's no longer any doubt. Even after all the time CDPR has had since launch, Cyberpunk still feels broken. In spite of their attempts at making Night City seem more alive, the environment still feels totally static. Once this let's play series is done, I'm closing the door on CDPR titles.

Sneaking into the industrial park this time felt way too easy. I wonder now if there is any bugs or glitches that can cause guards to not spawn into their proper places or get hung up on pauses in their patrol routes. The outdoor section looked almost completely abandoned other than the security tower and the guys protecting the Iconic Shingen. And the only time I had trouble inside was one wandering guard who noticed one of his buddies laying unconcious on the floor. But that was 100% my fault for not hiding him properly.

Last time I went through this, Panam called right in the middle of testing out the shard on the control room, "V! DROP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND COME HELP NOW!" Everything feels like it's flowing a lot better. As long as you don't bother going to the first meeting with Rogue at the Afterlife, Takemura's storyline can be done without interruption from Panam or any of her nonsense with Saul.

The cyberpsycho encounter in Santo Domingo could have been opened up further. How is it the fight doesn't spill out into the streets and stays neatly contained in that little yard? The guy is riding a shielded exosuit and armed with that huge cannon, no way in hell he's not causing massive collateral damage to the neighborhood with lots and lots of bystanders getting wasted by stray shots. It could even have been an added layer to cyberpsycho encounters where Maxtac gets involved, Regina even references them once or twice via text messages when V is tracking down psychos that have already claimed multiple victims. Couldn't it have been a part of the challenge for V to get to the cyberpsycho and perform their non-lethal takedown before a MaxTac AV hovering nearby can deploy their operators and confirm a kill? A cyberpsycho in an exosuit rampaging around Santo blowing up cars and firing into crowds would no doubt have attracted the attention of the NCPD and then MaxTac. Instead he's just obediently waiting for V in a small yard, with only a lone surviving merc for company.

Can't believe I spent all that time driving around in the last episode looking for the last Delamain cab, and this time when I do locate him he nearly gives me the slip when driving off! It's done anyway, so until Delamain calls back with the final stage of his little storyline, I can resume cleaning up NCPD spots on the map and adding to the collection of Iconics for Vs' stash wall.

I'd forgotten how annoying it can be to be led around by a convenient little marked path on the minimap for so long, only for the game to just drop it completely. "Here you go, the missing Delamain is hidden somewhere in this enormous industrial park! No clue where exactly but have fun finding it!" At least the missing car in Santo Domingo is actively driving around, you can spot it easily as long as you stick to the area with all the houses.

All this time I've played Cyberpunk without bothering to listen to any of the in game radio stations. I used to listen to the radio in the grand theft auto series, where you could often hear references to events playing out in the main story missions as news bulletins, or characters you come across as the player having their own moments on the radio shows. The media in Night City seem completely passive by comparison, from what I've seen at least. There's one quick nod to which of the Militech execs survives The Pickup job in Act 1, Meredith Stout or Anthony Gilchrist, making a statement about exosuits being given to the NCPD... But that's about the only memorable thing I've seen so far. Maybe if the music soundtrack wasn't so irritating I'd be willing to keep the in game radio switched on more often.