Tennmuerti

@nasher27 Aside from not having played Unity/Syndicate I'm pretty much on the same page as you, so I actually think your tastes are more rational, rather then weird.

Hmm , seeing as everyone else is saying that Alexios voice acting is not off putting during gameplay (I've only watched some comparison videos) I think I'm back on board of rather giving him a try :P In any case if it becomes jarring early on i can just switch.

I was leaning towards Alexios, because of what Alex said he is more of a goofball and might fit the crazy world more (also coming off of mr. serious Byak), plus pretty much everyone I follow on streams is playing Kassandra so it would be nice for a different experience. Thirdly I think her jog animation looks awful (especially compared to how awesome animations we in some previous AC game, like 3).

But having looked up the comparisons of conversations ... just oooof, Alexios voice acting feels real all over the place and out of place with many scenes and frequently at odds with even the sound design around him and everyone else and even his own animations. It seems hella cheap/rushed. While I don't think Kassadra is in any way shape or form stellar (from what I have seen), it's a far cry from femshep for example, she is just barely above average. I think I will take at least baseline competency and not feeling out of place from the scene the character is in. So Kassandra it is.

It's not as heavy handed with the anime cheese as the first game, at least it does not front load that so much at the start of the game. The game is somewhat more serious in tone which is nice considering the setting they are pulling from. The sheer amount of wishy washy melodrama almost made me stop playing the first VC, before pushing through that bs and coming fully around on it at the end. That said VC4 still has a lot of that, for me it seemed to have started on the right foot and as it developed it seemed to earn all that anime drama better overall. The biggest cheese fest is relegated to squad side stories however (where i think it fits perfectly tonally).

To me it's kind of like how people feel about MGS story actually, since you mention it, if you buy in and accept it on its own terms with all its silliness it's a heck of a fun ride; but if you don't buy into it's tone you're gonna hate it and think it's silly garbage all the way through, most likely.

As to the question of how much story there is? A lot. On average every chapter has one battle and about 6-8 talking scenes. So if you decide to skip stuff you're gonna be skipping a lot. And to be honest I'm not sure i can judge how good the game is if you completely take away that story part and have 0 investment in the characters or the events. Xcom this isn't that's for sure. I feel like playing just for the tactical layer would take away from VC4 significantly, as it's not that hardcore of a tactics game, at the end if the day.

All of the above said, it's an excellent game imo, and is definitely in the running one of my favorite games this year.

On one hand this pack sounds super awesome, especially getting all that gear in the main campaign, laser stuff etc. On the other I feel like i'm severely burned out on Xcom2 with multiple playthoughs with the expansions and without, Long War, just hundreds of hours. So I'll get it for sure, since it's free, but it will most likely be one of those save for a super rainy day when there is totally nothing else to play moments.

Kinda picked up Valkyria Chronicles 4 first, but this is definitely on my list next, especially as it seems it would benefit from some patches in the meantime. But it's great seeing all the feedback here.

I really hate that the Steam reviews have long since stopped being even remotely any kind of barometer of a games depth of general gameplay quality and would rather be a bitch fest over some few stumbling blocks or protest tantrums (deserved or not).

@mikewhy Yea considering i'm not seeing this issue pop up widespread and the gameplay footage seems fine on streams, I can only assume something is up with my PS4 pro all of a sudden.

I have a serious issue with an action game that can't maintain even a steady 30 fps (on a Pro) when simply moving the camera around in the city.

(Edit) Or in action apparently. Yep this is totally making me hate the combat and consequently the game. Wish there was an equivalent of a Steam 2h refund real bad now.

(Edit 2) Ye fuck it this is awful, i'd rather bite the bullet and not play it entirely rather then do so out of obligation that i've spent money on it.

Ironically I think the side conversations you can have along the way in the codex with Blade Wolf about AI, were several orders of magnitude more thought out then anything I've seen in the mainline games and their pseudo babble (from watching playthroughs).

I am 100% with you on this.

However it turns out that the RPG games with shooting that did this like ME1 and Alpha Protocol got dinged by the games media for having shooting rely on RPG dice rolls. When in reality it was nothing of the sort and indeed the more you invested in gun skills in those games the tighter your spread/recoil on specific weapon types would become to the point of ridiculous point accuracy that would make Call of Duty blush. "But oh no guns shoot too wildly and inaccurately, down scores!" "Yes mr. journalist buddy you didn't spend many points in being able to use that type of gun, it's an RPG" ... So now instead we have games like Fallout 4 where you spend skill points in light guns and magically do double damage instead of being more accurate or better controlling recoil. Thankfully we are now past the era of rampant game simplification, and the "influencer" segment is way more understanding/welcoming of meatier games systems, being willing to dig into them much more so the traditional press. But I am apprehensive that the negative stigma still lingers and might carry over to Cyberpunk.