Finally, I finished Phantom Liberty, tried out the one end where you side with Songbird, so let see if I understood, the two options are:
1 - Be a simp to no gain when she is too chromed up to even be Only Fans material.
2 - Everyone is a bitch, forget you were dying, act like big cry babies because you tried to, you know, save your fucking life, the NUSA did a oopsie on you and that is a supposedly fuck you because you were a bad boy and refused to simp to both Songbird and Johnny.
So, the poles sold a "spy thriller" but with very little in spying and thriller and alot of simping for a character that isnt even compeling to deserve that. I was expecting some Deus Ex style Mr. Blue Eyes conspiracy within the NUSA but the whole key of the story is to save or not save waifu with magic powers, it was underwhelming to say the least.
I see rather clumsy attempts of trying to make the Songbird be like some mirror for V, a V that would do everything he can to survive and show the price for that, that could work IF:
a) All the people Songbird betrays werent fucking assholes to begin with and didnt deserve betrayal every step of the way.
b) If the people you are planning to fuck up (Arasaka) to save yourself werent also massive dicks.
It would make sense for you to feel some guilt and reflecting that maybe fucking others to save yourself isnt worthy it, but the way it is, the messaging of the story is very confused and contradictory, it is overall a weaker story than the main story with worse characters.
As I said, the best content is actually the side content, it is ironic that the poles invested so heavily in making a movie that turns out to be a 2deep4you B movie and the actually better part of their game is fucking around Night City.
It is funny, that Cyberbug is CDPR game with their best gameplay but most underwhelming story, it isnt awful, I played games with worse stories but as I was finishing Phantom Liberty yesterday, I was thinking, that was it? It confuses being depressing with being interesting, not because I necessarily wanted unicorns and rainbows but that all that depression actually said something worthy saying.
Well, actually they tried saying something as I explained above but that was so mumbled, contradictory and clumsy that I felt nothing for it. It is interesting that I enjoyed Witcher 2 overall story (it is their best in terms of story so far even if the gameplay is shit) and some parts of Witcher 1 and 3 stories but I have to say there are interesting moments on Cyberbug but alot of clumsy storytelling attempts that didnt impact me and felt forced as fuck, the expansion is even worse at that because the characters are nowhere as likeable or relatable as Jackie or Takemura (sorry Panam simps but she is a bitch without redeemable qualities), even the "villains" (Are there even proper villains on this DLC?) felt almost non existant.
Honestly, I felt bored for the most of the DLC main story missions but it is decent fun dicking around, it was worthy the few bucks I thrown at it and I dont regret the time with it, the gameplay can be fun , especially at lower levels now with 2.0 but if they are planning making a sequel for this, they need to really revise some of their storytelling ideas(like Cyberbug comical oversexuality that gets more and more artifical and tiring as you play and hear the same ads over and over again) but I doubt CDPR will evolve to be better now that they are planning to complete their transformation into yet another american corporation making entertainment products like sausages to twitter "modern audiences".
