One thing this developer does well-enough is linear quick-time-event stories, characters and environments. One thing they're (relatively) terrible at is gameplay mechanics.
One scenario in Phantom summed this up perfectly: the story of Babs and Paco, two Barghest (enemy) lackeys in a camp that had a story to tell the player. If the player (who is basically Dr. Manhattan at this point) slaughters the camp Babs and Paco will magically remain immortal & oblivious throughout the carnage until the player sits to hear their story - a disturbing tale of Paco subordinating himself to a stronger man so he can run with the pack... By the end of the story their buddies magically come back to life, are slaughtered again but this time Babs & Paco become hostile and quickly die as a result. Great story choombas, pity your designer's gonk if-then-else coding got you zeroed. But get this: they magically come back to life later on... in a manner of speaking.
Phantom is packed full of these "but magically" problems and can be immensely frustrating if you expect a living district with its own logic. It reminds you that you're alone in a world of hollow pre-scripted geometry, and that you're wasting your time there as well.
One of the reasons PnP-derived games tend to be so engaging is their thorough codex (lore, logic & mechanics) generally won't allow a DM (game designer) to BS the players, in other words: the story has to conform to the codex, not the other way around. Sadly this wasn't the case with Cyberpunk2077, nor remedied in Phantom.
New characters in Phantom were tropish, with a fetishized Asian woman, about-to-retire deadmeat, an evil-white-man villain (sans English accent), an elder well-dressed & spoken mastermind, a pinched ballbreaker matriarch (actually not that bad in this case), and Reed... letting us know why Elba couldn't have been Bond. Secondary characters in new gigs were far more interesting, but your experience with them is limited. There were some nice post-gig encounters with some of the characters, especially one of the NCPD geniuses. Overall the writing and acting in new gigs is in a league above those of the main story.
As for story, the main plot itself was a taped-together ball of goofs (said DM vs codex issue), with a tedious endgame and a needlessly dumb epilogue, like swear-at-the-tv dumb. Fortunately there's a better ending (to Phantom) which is shorter and more combat-heavy, including a great last-stand set-piece where the game really tries to kill you in a (mostly) stand-up fight. Afterwards you're back in the main to game pursue whichever ending.
Also I should mention: Phantom also contains potentially triggering simon-says sessions of player abuse similar to the main game - like the Nomad start when the game locks you in the garage with dogmeat, disables all your combat abilities, tells you to open a crate, you choose the dialog option to say no its unprofessional, game tells you to open the crate, then you say no, game tells you to open crate, you say no... and so-on until you decide to kill-9 in disgust and do something productive with your life instead. There's heaps of these icky little invitations to quit throughout Phantom, mostly when following the main plot.
Ran perfectly on Linux (all-amd) via Steam Proton.
One scenario in Phantom summed this up perfectly: the story of Babs and Paco, two Barghest (enemy) lackeys in a camp that had a story to tell the player. If the player (who is basically Dr. Manhattan at this point) slaughters the camp Babs and Paco will magically remain immortal & oblivious throughout the carnage until the player sits to hear their story - a disturbing tale of Paco subordinating himself to a stronger man so he can run with the pack... By the end of the story their buddies magically come back to life, are slaughtered again but this time Babs & Paco become hostile and quickly die as a result. Great story choombas, pity your designer's gonk if-then-else coding got you zeroed. But get this: they magically come back to life later on... in a manner of speaking.
Phantom is packed full of these "but magically" problems and can be immensely frustrating if you expect a living district with its own logic. It reminds you that you're alone in a world of hollow pre-scripted geometry, and that you're wasting your time there as well.
One of the reasons PnP-derived games tend to be so engaging is their thorough codex (lore, logic & mechanics) generally won't allow a DM (game designer) to BS the players, in other words: the story has to conform to the codex, not the other way around. Sadly this wasn't the case with Cyberpunk2077, nor remedied in Phantom.
New characters in Phantom were tropish, with a fetishized Asian woman, about-to-retire deadmeat, an evil-white-man villain (sans English accent), an elder well-dressed & spoken mastermind, a pinched ballbreaker matriarch (actually not that bad in this case), and Reed... letting us know why Elba couldn't have been Bond. Secondary characters in new gigs were far more interesting, but your experience with them is limited. There were some nice post-gig encounters with some of the characters, especially one of the NCPD geniuses. Overall the writing and acting in new gigs is in a league above those of the main story.
As for story, the main plot itself was a taped-together ball of goofs (said DM vs codex issue), with a tedious endgame and a needlessly dumb epilogue, like swear-at-the-tv dumb. Fortunately there's a better ending (to Phantom) which is shorter and more combat-heavy, including a great last-stand set-piece where the game really tries to kill you in a (mostly) stand-up fight. Afterwards you're back in the main to game pursue whichever ending.
Also I should mention: Phantom also contains potentially triggering simon-says sessions of player abuse similar to the main game - like the Nomad start when the game locks you in the garage with dogmeat, disables all your combat abilities, tells you to open a crate, you choose the dialog option to say no its unprofessional, game tells you to open the crate, then you say no, game tells you to open crate, you say no... and so-on until you decide to kill-9 in disgust and do something productive with your life instead. There's heaps of these icky little invitations to quit throughout Phantom, mostly when following the main plot.
Ran perfectly on Linux (all-amd) via Steam Proton.