#vik plays bg3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

annakie · 4 months ago

Text

Never Fade Away

THIS IS A VERY LONG POST with big spoilers in both words and pictures for Cyberpunk 2077!

But it's also all my feels about a playthrough that's taken me many months and almost 300 hours to complete.

----

I played Cyberpunk 2077 on release. As I said in this "Games I played in 2021" post, which is a thing I wish I'd remembered to do every year, I loved it. That said, it probably wouldn't have cracked my top 10 or maybe even 20 favorite games ever, but I thought it was amazing, right out of the box. I ran into a couple of bugs, like couldn't complete the Delamain questline, and definitely agreed with some popular opinions about the game that parts of it didn't seem quite done, I had a couple of crashes and times I had to reload from something weird happening, but playing on PC I didn't have a lot of the problems console players did apparently.

It very much felt to me like another Andromeda situation -- another game that needed another couple of months to finish ironing a couple of bugs out but was mostly a victim of its own over-anticipaiton and overhyped-edness by the fanboys (and girls.)

That said, when I finished it I set it aside to wait for major updates before I'd pick it up again.

So last fall when it's one and only DLC, Phantom Liberty finally released, it was right around when the BG3 hype was happening so BG3 came first. But I kept having to wait for mods to update after patches dropped, so during one of these breaks I went and started playthrough #2 of Cyberpunk 2077.

My first time through I was a Nomad, so to mix it up this time I went Corpo. I really enjoyed Corpo a lot more and thought it had some much cooler interactions than Nomad ever gave me. Although, I thought the introduction and subsequent friendship with Jackie felt more natural with Nomad.

There were several goals I had going in to this playthrough.

Different origin - check.

Send Jackie's body to Mama Welles -- with no spoilers from my first run, I thought sending the body to Vik to work on first would be the most logical choice and either he could help Jackie or at least get him interred properly so Jackie's mom WOULDN'T HAVE TO BE TRAUMATIZED by her son's body just showing up. Guess that was the wrong choice and it was way too late to change once I found that out. So yeah, start things off right with Mama.

Complete the Delamain quest now that the showstopper bug a LOT of people ran into was fixed. (Didn't mention it later, but check!)

Find all the Hidden Gems

Pick a different ending.

Install cool mods to enhance things without breaking the game.

Generally, just do everything. Except maybe the Sinnerman questline. (I aborted halfway through and didn't regret it.)

Understand the main storyline in ways that had confused the hell out of me the first time around.

High quality Screenshots screenshots screenshots screenshots screenshots.

So with 1 checked off, I decided before advancing the main storyline much, I'd try to raise my fame level a bit and also just let Jackie live for awhile.

I did some research and landed on installing the Welcome to Night City mod collection. It's well researched, well maintained, the creator is really responsive, and has a Discord with a well supported community. Importantly for me, it also didn't have any "sexy" mods, just great gameplay tweaks, fixes, customizable on how much harder/easier it made the game, and added a lot of flavor and experience but felt like everything just worked in the background. Also since I have a Premium Nexus Mods experience, the install and upgrades were very, very easy. I didn't do the upgraded CyberpunkTHING experience, since it makes the game harder. I was here for a good time.

(And yes, I endorsed every mod in the collection!)

Honestly it added so many things that I'm sure there was a ton of stuff I just experienced thinking that that's just how the game was now, but it was a part of a seamlessly integrated mod collection.

I'll definitely use this mod pack again the next time I play. But also I didn't install ANY other mods really for a very long time, and I now really wish that I had. But we'll get to that.

I also installed several other graphics mods on my own, like a high-res skin for River (and the... shall we say... anti-Kendoll mod for him lol) and like, this mod (and several others from that author) that tones down the hypersexuality of the ads in the game. I realized early on that they don't bother me in-game -- it totally fits the aesthetic and tone of the game! But also I didn't want all that in screenshots that I will have rotating on my desktop for years (shoutout to DisplayFusion) and would have the possibility of like, my AC guy or my neighbors kids having to see as my Office is my living room (and my living room is the smallest bedroom of my house).

I did a lot of the gigs in Watson before advancing the main storyline so I'd have an OK character for storming stuff this time. I recently found a list of places Johnny talks in early Watson jobs to avoid doing early next time:

Side Job: Losing My Religion (where you have to free the monk from Maelstrom)

Fixer Gig: Backs Against the Wall (recover stolen medicine from veteran)

Fixer Gig: Scrolls before Swine (get the CCTV footage for the cop, only if you watch before downloading)

So you can do all NCPD hustles, the first 10 Fixer gigs and and all side jobs except Losing My Religion without losing out on any of the Johnny experience.

Leaving that there for next time. Anyway, it feels like it makes more sense to get this chance at the big gig when you have some experience, and can pretend you and Jackie were living life together a little while longer. Next playthrough -- use AMM to take some hanging out with Jackie screenshots early on.

---

Eventually I advanced the main storyline enough and finished the Heist, and was able to check #2 off my list. Loved not getting yelled at by Mama Welles this time. And felt with the added time that I had a right to be doing this -- still extremely stupid in retrospect -- gig. But it was more fun have tools to deal with the hotel guards this time.

Knowing who Takemora was and meeting Johnny again were really enhanced by knowing what the fuck was going on the second time around. Keanu really knocks it out of the park when you finally really understand the character.

Though I hate the early adversarial feeling between him and V, I get it a lot more now. Watching the relationship grow is really worth it.

---

I wasn't invited to Jackie's memorial the first time. So getting to go the second time and help repair Misty and Mama Wells' relationship was great, and I really loved getting to know Jackie better by picking out something for the funeral at his garage, and the added time with Misty.

---

I told myself I'd do a different spec than stealth-hacker. I was wrong. I still did that. I love using Contagion and Overheat to take enemies out non-lethally while crouched behind something nearby. The ones that really deserve it get a shot from Skippy later.

Yeah, as soon as lockdown was over I hightailed it down to Valentino's territory and then headed back to Watson / Japantown. I gave Skippy up as late as possible, when he was outliving his usefulness. I got him back as fast as I could, but I miss his voice. I miss his quips.

After that when I needed a weapon I mostly used the Arasaka experimental smart SMG. IDK, I just liked the feeling of stealing shit from Arasaka and using it to fuck up their own people whenever possible. But again, I didn't shoot weapons much anyway.

---

I spent so, so much time just driving around taking pictures of my cars and the amazing ways the light looked while driving through the city. I absolutely fell in love with the aesthetics of the city, every part of it, over and over again. I posted a few photosets. There are more in the queue. There are so many screenshots I didn't use.

Like, honestly out of everything I love about this game just... looking at it is maybe my favorite thing. There's so much to see, all of the time, everywhere. Your eyes can never take it all in. I'll be in a place I've been a dozen times and still find new awesome things to look at. I just can't describe how much I enjoy just... looking at this game.

I never fast travel anywhere -- except out of the Megabuilding 10 apartment. I took the metro a few times just to sit back and relax watching the scenery go by but normally I just drive everywhere.

Jackie's Arch and the Porche 911 (and its variant in the bottom screenshot) are my favorite vehicles. Bikes for maneuverability, but also likewise the Porche has better handling than a bike while still being really easy to weave through traffic in.

Night City is one of the few locations in any video game I've ever played that TRULY feels like it could be a real place. Every neighborhood is distinct. Though there are some familiar things, one Captain Caliente doesn't look like every other one. You'll see a few of the same signs around, there are some generic small building structures but where it makes sense. Yeah there's a few monolithic Arasaka buildings but of course they would be. How efficient. The megabuildings are similar, but different enough. It feels like every detail of the world was crafted so carefully. There's so much beauty even in the ugly bits.

I never want to stop looking at it, or screenshotting it. I just love the city so much.

I'm going to run out of screenshot space on this post.

---

I romanced River again. Look, I'm a basic primarily het romancer in video games. I love Judy, she's amazing, but River ticks my boxes -- the Paladin archetype who gives it all up to do the right thing even when it costs him.

I hate that he's the most undercooked of all the companions plot and time-wise. But there were some huge improvements this time. All the companions had gotten extra text message interactions. A fun little quest that added a bit more content in PL. They Really Want To Stay at Your House! And along with that, amazing mods are now available to make those things even better. (River Romanced Enhanced, the Really Want To Stay At Your House and Romance Interactions Enhanced mods)

Around the mid-point in game after seeing some amazing photosets on my desktop, I got brave and installed Appearance Mod Menu and a bunch of other pose and photomode mods that go along with it. Also some outfit mods for River. And then things really got cooking screenshot wise.

Even though it took a lot of effort to set this stuff up and to get poses to work right sometimes, I got to feel like River and my V went out and had real dates on the town.

Also sometimes... we just uh... stayed in.

There's so many photos that won't ever make it to tumblr. And so many more sets I want to take.

Well, that's what reloading old saves is for.

You'll see some of these screenshots again, or have before. I have a lot of things queued that will pop up... sometime. I like to surprise myself with my own photosets. :D

---

I finally installed the Virtual Atleir and started modding in outfits a little while after doing AMM, was trying to install things in waves as to not break too much. I got a few crashes here and there, but not as many as I was worried about, after installing stuff on top of Welcome to Night City.

I kind of regret waiting so long to do Virtual Atlier and clothing mods but also not. I think I manually collected like 95% or more of all the ingame clothing. I still stop by clothing stores but they usually have nothing new for me, or just things like... masks that I never use. There's such a huge variety of clothes already in the game that I didn't get to build a lot of outfits around pieces that I love. I made a whole post of ingame-outfits I made and love!

And there's one in the queue somewhere of modded-in outfits, too. Not even all of them.

Cyberpunk 2077 is the ultimate Dress-up my dolls and make them kiss game, and I may never stop playing that aspect of it.

---

Hey speaking of Kerry Eurodyne, I love him. And Panam. And Judy. And Vik. and Claire. And Misty. And Rogue. And the rest of Samurai (Well, I chose Denny and always will.) The only thing I don't love is how it feels like you still don't get enough time with any of them, except MAYBE Panam.

I would love to be able to space out all of their missions even more. I try to put as much space in between the companion missions as possible, but this time it backfired on me a little because i crammed Judy's stuff in way later in the game than I should have, around when I was doing Kerry's stuff. When all of the main quest and most of the side quest stuff was done. And we all know that we don't get Kerry until way too late anyway. But doing Panam's stuff happened so long ago that sometimes I'd just drive out to see the Aldecados and hang out for a day because I missed them. (And, as you can see in the River screenshot above, I "brought him along" to introduce him tot he family once or twice.)

I have a great photoset in the queue of all the main characters hanging out at the Corpo apartment together I can't wait to come up someday. Not posting a preview screenshot here.

Except I forgot Claire. It took me like an hour to set that scene up and now I'm thinking about doing it all again to include Claire.

Anyway, mostly I just want to say that aside from just loving River, I love them all and don't want to leave them behind either.

Or the Fixers. Or Reed. But we'll get to Phantom Liberty.

---

Just one more quick stop here to talk about the music.

I installed the Improved Radio Continued mod and wow it really enhanced the music experience for me.

I am a 98.7 Body Heat gal, with a flip to Pacific Dreams when Ponpon Shit or History would play, but loved about half the new music on Growl FM. It took some finagling, but Improved Radio let me make my own custom radio station with JUST the songs I wanted. So it's a mash of those three stations, without the songs I disliked. (There's one on Pacific Dreams, the REALLY long one that has the interlude of someone saying the same word over and over really slowly? That one... ughghgh) and that was amazing. There's a handful of songs from other stations I liked too, that got added in. And, I'm sorry, no Us Cracks allowed. I love them as characters, still hate their music.

What I didn't expect was to really fall in love with the music of Samurai this time around. Like, I knew I should have the first time but I didn't put effort into listening to them since metal isn't my usual vibe. But it IS my brother's, at least when we were in High School and College, so I listened to it a lot back then and there are still metal songs I do like.

So this time I put all the Samaurai songs in my playlist and holy shit I fell in love with them.

A couple of weeks ago I was driving to visit my parents IRL and the entire way up there I just listened to the Samurai songs on repeat. I'm a big fan now, thanks second playthrough.

----

So, Phantom Liberty was the big reason for the new playthrough. Let's talk about it.

I absolutely LOVE Dogtown. oh, Pacifica, but worse? Amazing. So much new stuff to see, and do. I loved exploring every nook and cranny.

It added SO MUCH to the game, I can't imagine playing the game without it. I didn't even go to there until I was like 2/3rds of the way through the rest of the content and I wish I'd spread it out EVEN MORE.

I will say that I thought some of the main quests were a bit long. I felt myself itching to get out and go do something else throughout some of the long sessions like basically having to do most of the stuff with the President in one big long chain, though it made sense. I loved those quests, though! And I think I'll like them even more on a subsequent playthrough some day.

The only part I really did not like at all in Phantom Liberty was -- ok look I made the choice to side with Reed the entire way. It's Idris fucking Elba okay, I have loved him since The Wire. And I absolutely understand why Songbird did what she did, and what she would have done if I'd have sided with her. And maybe I will next time. But this time, I was all in on Reed -- though I didn't become an Agent for the NUSA, fuck that. And I gave Songbird her final wish. Because again, fuck the NUSA.

But oh man, that last quest? With that FUCKING ROBOT following you around the base at the end, that is an instakill if it finds you? FUUUUUUCK that. It was so frustrating that I stopped playing for over a month because every time I thought about going back into the game to finish that my head wanted to explode.

Eventually I watched a couple of Youtube videos and read a couple of articles about exactly where to go and how to hide from it.

Look, I love exploring, I love taking my time, I love making sure I explore everything and miss nothing. That fucking robot harshed my gaming style so much. No regrets about cheating my way through that part. Zero. I made it through with only dying to it one more time and got the fuck out of there. I was also glad to see in the comments of the video I watched and articles I read that I was very much not alone in that opinion. I might side with Songbird at least most of the way to the end in future playthroughs JUST to never have to do that base again.

Otherwise, though, Phantom Liberty was a triumph. I want a mod that makes the Dogtown apartment not shit but also not luxury, and then I want to just stay there a long time.

----

So, I'm almost done with the game.

I installed two Hidden Gems mods that turn the easy-to-miss stuff into Fixer (and Ronald in Dogtown) quests and LOVED THEM. I wanted to see and do it all. And I did. I'm done with that. It took me many more hours of gameplay to get through all of that. Worth it.

In my playthrogh, River is waiting for me at my Megabuilding apartment to spend one more night together.

And then I'm calling Panam and having the Aldecados come help me storm Arasaka.

Last time I had Rogue help, and to be honest, I feel like that's still the right choice. Rogue helped start this. She should help end it.

But one of my goals was to do more things different. And to be honest, I hate the endings, so much.

It's not that I necessarily think there should be a happy ending for V. But I think that the game should let us help make sure other people have happier endings.

So here's the thing. V is richer than like 95% of Night City by the end of the game. She's got like six apartments, at least a dozen cars even if you don't buy many at the car store, My V still has like 8 million eddies.

I don't care what the game says.

In my game, V went to a financial lawyer.

V set up trusts with each of the Fixers, or maybe one for all of them, where they can access funds to hire mercs to help people who couldn't afford a Fixer but needs one. I'd trust most of them to use this wisely, or maybe Regina, or Rogue, or Dakota or Padre would help oversee it. At least a million eddies out there, to help those who get fucked by the system most.

V sets up a trust for Judy, so she's always got enough to get by. She sends her the best tech she's gotten her hands on to ply her trade with. Maybe a new van. Set aside some to help the Dolls.

V sends her heavy duty vehicles and Scorpion's bike to the Aldecados, along with a huge stash of weaponry and half a million or so eddies to help them stay solvent.

Misty's and Vik's rents paid up for at least a year. A vehicle each. Another 250k or so for each of them. They have room to breathe. Whatever Cyberware is laying around goes to Vik -- but if River wants a couple of pieces installed, he gets them (within reason. No cyberpsychosis for my man.)

Same for Claire. Set her up with her shop's rent paid up, and a trust, give her The Beast back, and another car of her choosing.

Kerry doesn't need much, but she gives him Johnny's outfit to remember him by. Or maybe to Rogue. What do these two giants want? Whatever it is, they can have. Split the memorabilia.

And then River.

First of all, a trust for Joss and the kids. 250k each, the kids get theirs in small chunks as they age. If there's a note on either of the trailers, it's paid off. If Joss wants to move into the city, done. Set the kids up with scholarships to the best schools they want to go to. A decent, reliable car for each of the four of them. Maybe Randy wants the Megabuilding apartment for when he's ready to live on his own again.

River gets most of what's left after all that. The Glen apartment specifically, that's where they made their best memories. There's still going to be like 4 million and a bunch of cars and property left. If V dies, it's his.

This is the closest thing to happily ever after that they can get, and in my mind it absolutely happens, at some point.

Honestly, if it were me, if I didn't know the "two years later" of it, then V would have taken the President's offer and gotten Johnny out of her head surgically and lived. The will probably would have triggered. Or knowing that the surgery could be risky she'd at least have put in a provision that a percent of it triggered so Joss, the kids, River, Judy, Claire and Panam would be taken care of.

She'd never have left River destitute and desperate to take care of the family. I can't accept it.

V would wake up maybe with less money, but her assets protected enough that even without being a Merc she'd be OK. The people she loved would be OK. River would have taken care of things, and would love her without her implants.

It'll never be happily ever after in Night City, but the people that matter most will be OK.

---

But I'm going to finish today, maybe tomorrow. I planned on it today but then I spent 4 hours writing this post and have a PF2E game tonight to DM that I need to prep for.

I installed the River's Epilogue Enhanced - Nomad Star Ending mod and.... so I'm bringing the Aldecados to Arasaka, and am going to have the happiest ending possible modded into the game. With my headcanon that a trust is waiting for him and the family. They'll be fine.

I love this game. I loved it before, I love it so much more now.

I can't wait to play it again someday.

#cyberpunk 2077 #river ward #kerry eurodyne #panam palmer #judy alvarez #johnny silverhand #rogue amendiares #cp2077 #long post #pptt

8 notes · View notes