Johnny's story is actually pretty good, and the interaction with him turns out to be more complex and interesting than one thinks it's going to be at the beginning. Good stuff.
I like Johnny and the interactions with his band and etc but not in the way it was inserted on the main storyline with that relic Mcguffin. It is a question of space, you know, you spend alot of time building a relationship with Jackie, Judy, Panam and Goro then you spend time with Silverhand and his crew and the two sides of the game dont communicate much. In the end, you dont spend enough time with any of them as the game tries to do the two stories and doesnt invest enough time on any of the two. Silverhand for example doesnt comment much on your relationship with Panam, Judy or the other characters.
Because there is no space for those other characters, most of them dont evolve on their own, River barely develops beyond the good cop on a corrupt system cliche, Panam is also a walking stereotype, Judy is okay at best. Goro is really good because his discomfort with being on a position he isnt used to be and is interesing because he is challenged and that creates a conflict in him because the people he trusted betrayed him and the one that is helping was a lowly thief on his eyes. The other characters suffer because of a lack of serious internal conflict and that happens because the game doesnt properly invest on them. Is it because River is a bad character? Is Panam bad? He didnt have enough time to actually grow, Panam never faces any serious setback or is challenged on any serious way, Judy is never challenged to get out of her eternal mopey attitude.
Johnny is the only character that actually has a developed story arc where he tries to compensate for his mistakes, that scene on Pistis Sophia and on his burial site are the turning points for his character and some of the best scenes of the game. However, it isnt nowhere as powerful as the Red Baron stuff on Witcher because the game just fly through those relationships. Kerry and Rogue in particular, they have ALOT of unfinished business with Silverhand, accept you way too quickly without some serious fight back and he doesnt need to take much effort to sort of heal those relationships. Actually, CDPR wasnt wise in using Keanu Reeves the way they did, instead of wasting so much time with him doing some short commentary on each side quest you do what isnt a great deal, they should have used him more on those relationships that the game delegates as secondary quests and that was a big mistake.
Because the game also wastes alot of time with Johnny, pretty much with exception of Panam in the end and Takemura on the Arasaka ending, the other characters you met that are actually on your timeline are really disconnected from the main plot, actually, Johnny's characters are also disconnected from the main plot. I still think they should have gone with V's storyline or Johnny's storyline, Johnny has a cool development but he deserved his own story on a DLC or something like that not in the main game.
It was a marketing decision from CDPR that makes sense marketing wise but it didnt make sense quality wise.
