(L) Cyberpunk: Edgerunners [Netflix]

[frubam]

The ending

Spoiler for ending:

I teared up (;_; ). I felt the Kamina moment at the end, but you knew it was going to happen. I appreciate they didn't renege on the cyberpsychosis from all of the added parts. For a sec there I thought he was gonna overpower it with the power of love(which DID happened at the end), but it was still an inevitable fate. Lucy got her wish, but it was all still so morbid; her being up there by herself. I felt that the dream(going to the moon) didn't matter as much as making it up there with David. I'm sure she just did it to fulfill that promise, but she looked so empty inside it hurts =0(.

Sucks Rebecca kicked it too. Might as well let her make it out if they were gonna allow Falco to live, but oh well... I liked her design and her crazy personality in a battle. The thing with liking David was a bit unnecessary though.

[Nachtwandler]

I watched 4 eps for now. Ep. 4 final was great, but I already spiled myself that overall ending is pretty sad. Would have finished it already if I would not a bit busy currently.

[Renegade334]

Originally Posted by frubam

5 episodes in. Pretty enjoyable thus far. As someone who's never played the game, I felt like playing the game would make the initial episode experience a bit better, because it felt like there was some general knowledge a game player would have to understand the world easier. Like, I know I'm not the most attentive person around (require multiple views to grasp a story), but so far in, I couldn't tell you what an Edgerunner actually is, which I'm sure if you played the game, you'd already know.

Yeah, it's kind of better (though not mandatory at all) to have played the game before; some of the lingo and concepts (ICE, MaxTac, OldNet, ripperdocs, braindances, quickhacks) and lingo ("choom", "preem", "eddies") can confuse complete newcomers, but it's not that off-putting for long. Players will also get a kick out of recognizing actual locations inside the game itself - for example:

Spoiler:

The Martinez apartment looks almost identical to the one V (MC of CP2077) moves into at the end of the game's prologue, even though it is in a now cordoned-off megabuilding. Lucy's apartment building suspiciously looks like the one Judy lives in. Kiwi's own pad appears to be Regina's fixer office. And the pool Lucy is hung above after she was captured can be found at an in-game location named "luxury apartments". And then of course there is Corpo Plaza.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/YTdNhsNQgz4

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Oh, and...neat thing is that with Update 1.6 you can now find Rebecca's shotgun in the bushes of Corpo Plaza, which she lost after Smasher went full Hulk on her. There is also a braindance lying around, which can prompt V to ask about who David Martinez was. You can even get his yellow vest.

And, last but not least, at the Afterlife bar, you can now order a "David Martinez", which indicates that David is now remembered by the fixer and merc community as one of the [dead] legends of Night City.

Originally Posted by frubam

The ending

Spoiler for ending:

I teared up (;_; ). I felt the Kamina moment at the end, but you knew it was going to happen. I appreciate they didn't renege on the cyberpsychosis from all of the added parts. For a sec there I thought he was gonna overpower it with the power of love(which DID happened at the end), but it was still an inevitable fate. Lucy got her wish, but it was all still so morbid; her being up there by herself. I felt that the dream(going to the moon) didn't matter as much as making it up there with David. I'm sure she just did it to fulfill that promise, but she looked so empty inside it hurts =0(.

Sucks Rebecca kicked it too. Might as well let her make it out if they were gonna allow Falco to live, but oh well... I liked her design and her crazy personality in a battle. The thing with liking David was a bit unnecessary though.

I think these two dialogue lines from the game sum up quite appropriately life in Night City:

V: Guess I meant, I dunno... a happier ending... for everyone involved.
Johnny: Here, for folks like us? Wrong city, wrong people.

Seriously, reading through all the data shards and mission briefings in-game only reinforces just how inhumane, callous and exploitative the city is at its very core, with little room for moral decency and selflessness. "Voted worst place to live in America", as the original game trailer announced, with more than half the population living below the poverty line. I've played several open-world games (Skyrim, GTA4/5, several Assassin's Creeds, The Witcher 3 among others) and their metropolises but Night City is the only one that had me wishing I could be done with it ASAP, with little taste for exploring it further. It's just that soul-sucking.

Spoiler for game endings, don't read if you're still playing the game:

and there is actually only ONE game ending that is somewhat hopeful - Panam's route, "The Star" - because V leaves NC for Arizona, to find a cure for his steadily decreasing lifespan.

To give you an idea just how violent and dreary the world is in 2076/2077, the new colony in Antarctica, which is judged to be one of the least violent places you can find on Earth (its first brothel only opened ten years after its founding), "only" has 70 homicides per 100,000 citizens.

By comparison, the most violent country in the real world, El Salvador, tops off at 52.02 per 100K. Makes you wonder just how nightmarish the rest of the planet must be.

[Jaden]

This is actually good. My only complaint is the English voice acting, but I never have good expectations for that in the first place.

[frubam]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

Spoiler for post:

Yeah, it's kind of better (though not mandatory at all) to have played the game before; some of the lingo and concepts (ICE, MaxTac, OldNet, ripperdocs, braindances, quickhacks) and lingo ("choom", "preem", "eddies") can confuse complete newcomers, but it's not that off-putting for long. Players will also get a kick out of recognizing actual locations inside the game itself - for example:

Spoiler:

The Martinez apartment looks almost identical to the one V (MC of CP2077) moves into at the end of the game's prologue, even though it is in a now cordoned-off megabuilding. Lucy's apartment building suspiciously looks like the one Judy lives in. Kiwi's own pad appears to be Regina's fixer office. And the pool Lucy is hung above after she was captured can be found at an in-game location named "luxury apartments". And then of course there is Corpo Plaza.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/YTdNhsNQgz4

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Oh, and...neat thing is that with Update 1.6 you can now find Rebecca's shotgun in the bushes of Corpo Plaza, which she lost after Smasher went full Hulk on her. There is also a braindance lying around, which can prompt V to ask about who David Martinez was. You can even get his yellow vest.

And, last but not least, at the Afterlife bar, you can now order a "David Martinez", which indicates that David is now remembered by the fixer and merc community as one of the [dead] legends of Night City.

I think these two dialogue lines from the game sum up quite appropriately life in Night City:

V: Guess I meant, I dunno... a happier ending... for everyone involved.
Johnny: Here, for folks like us? Wrong city, wrong people.

Seriously, reading through all the data shards and mission briefings in-game only reinforces just how inhumane, callous and exploitative the city is at its very core, with little room for moral decency and selflessness. "Voted worst place to live in America", as the original game trailer announced, with more than half the population living below the poverty line. I've played several open-world games (Skyrim, GTA4/5, several Assassin's Creeds, The Witcher 3 among others) and their metropolises but Night City is the only one that had me wishing I could be done with it ASAP, with little taste for exploring it further. It's just that soul-sucking.

Spoiler for game endings, don't read if you're still playing the game:

and there is actually only ONE game ending that is somewhat hopeful - Panam's route, "The Star" - because V leaves NC for Arizona, to find a cure for his steadily decreasing lifespan.

To give you an idea just how violent and dreary the world is in 2076/2077, the new colony in Antarctica, which is judged to be one of the least violent places you can find on Earth (its first brothel only opened ten years after its founding), "only" has 70 homicides per 100,000 citizens.

By comparison, the most violent country in the real world, El Salvador, tops off at 52.02 per 100K. Makes you wonder just how nightmarish the rest of the planet must be.

Spoiler for context:

Well that is very interesting, thanks for the extra details =03! I haven't played the game, but I will admit, the story of the anime really pulled me into its world. It's actually pretty amazing how they've adapted the exact same locations from the game. Really hammers in the immersion of that world. Definitely want to play it someday, if only for payback at the end, but man, I'm kinda beaten down from all the morbidity of what I've been watching and reading. That line you mentioned about the happy end... even if I could play it now, I'm not sure I'd want to see more people suffering. Heart can't take much more....

[MeoTwister5]

Saw the first 2 episodes.

I guess no matter what the story is about or who the protagonist is, Night City always wins. Night City will chew you up and spit you out.

TBH the show makes me wanna play the game again for some reason.

[Renegade334]

@Frubam:
Well, the CP2077 world is not Soulsborne-levels of bleak with every [side]quest storyline ending on a tragic or bittersweet note, but at the end of the day, you realize that, for all the technological advances made along the way and all milestones achieved (like creating colonies on Mars, moving human consciousness from one body to the other or storing it onto a digital support), the future is by no means a good one and it's all going downhill.

TL;DR…

An overview of the CP2077 world

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It's this bad.
(P.S. All of this can be gleaned in-game just by reading the data shards, looking at the ads, watching the TV news and eavesdropping on passersby in the streets of Night City)

Now, mind you, the game has parts that show you that there are still decent people in the world. But before you get to that, you'll be left asking "how did it come to this?"
And while Johnny Silverhand can be annoying to listen to with his constant "blah blah corporations must be destroyed because they are the Antichrist blah blah" speeches...he does have a point.

Thing is, dreams are what draw people to Night City, but it's reality that eventually drives them away. That is, if it doesn't kill you in the meantime.


The anime shows that truth quite well.

[MeoTwister5]

FWIW the game runs a LOT better than it did at launch and even a few months after launch. I've played the game to completion twice. The anime really brings out the Night in Night City.

I'm hoping that the DLC will be good.

[Renegade334]

@MeoTwister5: it's actually named after its founder, Richard Night, a visionary entrepreneur who wanted to create a multicultural safe haven, technological jewel and corporate paradise away from the death and destruction of the Collapse. He found a blood-soaked stretch of land (whose inhabitants had been massacred during a major battle between police forces and the Hell's Angels, thus driving the real estate prices into the ground) around real-life Morro Bay and created Coronado City, completely levelling the nearby landscape to make room for living space.
As always, nothing lasts or stays pure in the CP2077 world: it is highly implied that the very mafias and gangs that Richard Night had sworn to keep at bay ultimately assassinated him and the corporations that bankrolled his vision used this opportunity to completely take over Coronado City, which was renamed Night City in its creator's honor. All manners of misgovernance (such as the building of Pacifica) and crime ensued afterwards.
Night City became an independent territory later on, fighting off the Militech-controlled NUSA with help from Arasaka (who was one of Richard Night's main sources of funding), and devolved into the hellhole we all know today.

But yeah, the night does bring out the neon, neomilitaristic and brutalist beauty of NC.
Patch 1.5 is definitely more playable than the original mess that CDPR released. It's still buggy here and there but it's a lot more stable.

[stray]

Apparently cinnamon bun Rebecca almost didn't make it out of preproduction, CDPR didn't want a loli and Trigger had to fight for her. Thankfully Trigger won that round.

[Renegade334]

Spoiler:

CDPR: let's code the game so that the player can't aim V's guns in the direction of little kids or even chuck grenades in their general direction.
Trigger: We MuSt HaVe a LoLi AnD sHe MuSt DiE gRuEsOmElY!
CDPR: listen here you--

Yeaaah.
Also CDPR: let's code in little kids sporting full-chrome implants that would make Maelstrom proud. A lil' bit of nightmare fuel there.

[FlareKnight]

Originally Posted by stray

Apparently cinnamon bun Rebecca almost didn't make it out of preproduction, CDPR didn't want a loli and Trigger had to fight for her. Thankfully Trigger won that round.

Good for Trigger. As if short people wouldn't exist in that setting. I'm sure some people would absolutely make themselves taller using augmentations. But some might prefer to stay short or heck some might prefer going shorter for various reasons. But lolis would certainly exist within that setting so it's fine to have one on the team.

Rebecca was a fun and (as much as anyone in that cast) crazy addition to the group. I will say the anime does make me want to give the game a shot sometime. But we'll see.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

Good for Trigger. As if short people wouldn't exist in that setting. I'm sure some people would absolutely make themselves taller using augmentations. But some might prefer to stay short or heck some might prefer going shorter for various reasons. But lolis would certainly exist within that setting so it's fine to have one on the team.

Rebecca was a fun and (as much as anyone in that cast) crazy addition to the group. I will say the anime does make me want to give the game a shot sometime. But we'll see.

When they say loli here I don't think they were talking about height, but style.

[MeoTwister5]

Well in the game IIRC you couldn't kill the child model characters, even the ones chromed to the max, like in Skyrim and Fallout.

[Nachtwandler]

At least in first two Fallouts you could do it (though, unless you want to play a total maniac it was highly detrimental). They sort of removed it in some game versions, apparently, but still.

Finished the series yesterday. I really liked it, it had all the things people love Trigger for and actually got me interested in original games.

Some people coplained about it being two fast-paced and chaotic but I was fine with the pace and being chaotic is one of the things Gainax/Trigger are famous for so you either love it or hate it. I'm the former.

[Ghostfriendly]

A very strong series with lovely detailed backgrounds, excellent music and a good old cyberpunk plot full of double crosses and hopeless battles. The characters were such self-destructive goons, without actually being idiots, that their deaths were quite satisfying. All the delicious inevitability of Greek tragedy, well adapted for a setting of urban malaise and corruption, as well as appropriately criticised toxic machoism. Showing once again that Goblin Slayer is toxic trash, truly foolish cyberpunks/adventurers like the tripwire fellow wouldn't realistically often get on a team. Even if realism were the point of cyberpunk or fantasy, rather than heroes slaying dragons or flawed heroes striving to. The ending could have done with a few less ridiculous Blues Brothers pile-ups, but no one could accuse the final conclusion of excessive levity.

[ryllharu]

Originally Posted by Ghostfriendly

The ending could have done with a few less ridiculous Blues Brothers pile-ups, but no one could accuse the final conclusion of excessive levity.

Trigger can't hold themselves back completely, that much is obvious.

But the restraint they used elsewhere crafted a truly evocative expression of Night City. Beautiful on the surface, damaged on the inside, rotten in the core, hollowing out everything over time, and inevitably only granting pyrrhic victories.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Great show. The ending is pretty much expected for any mafia & crime story. Mostly never really end well in-story but they are well-written.

So, the character exploration & development is basically...

Spoiler for Major Plot Point & Ending of the show:

retooled & remixed of Simon (David), Kamina (Maine), Yoko (Becca) & Nia (Lucy) from Gurren Lagann. And they pretty much switched the ending where instead of Simon & Yoko surviving while Nia dead, we now have Simon (David) & Yoko (Becca) dead while Nia (Lucy) lives. And the fact that the big bad managed to kill our "hero" and won reminded me of the ending of a certain Gundam anime. Sad but inevitable & well written.

[EroKing]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/EWB7ylAVObY

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YouTube

https://youtu.be/FhDIvQep1Iw

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[sa547]

If anyone is familiar with some older movies discussing and depicting the Yakuza, then the show's plot parallels that genre -- mostly with their very bleak endings -- wherein a gang rises to supremacy through brutal determination then falls as it decays due to excess ambition and obsession for power, and most of the gang members are decimated over time until there's one or two left surviving the final carnage.

Tragic, but what a white-knuckle emotional ride.

Here's hoping for a second season, but this time rolling a new character for a different fate, say, a corpo or a nomad.