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Masahiro Sakurai discusses performance, development, & refunds regarding Cyberpunk 2077 [Via Source Gaming translation]
- Thread starter Neoxon
- Start date
You know its a joke but at the time Brawl exposed defective Wii's because it was dual layered which there weren't many of and tons of Wiis would play games fine but not Brawl.
Can't remember what the other game was at the time. When it happened to me it was a well known problem.
Yes, actually. I'm not the sort that types lmao with a straight face for the sake of it.
The translation likely heightened it, but the wording here is pretty amusing.
It's an expectations thing. Even if we ignore their abhorrent transphobic behavior and the horrible last gen performance, based on what CDPR told the public people expected a different game. That is not to say the game is without merit but people were expecting a genre defining game similar to TW3 and that is not what CP2077 is. That said, I enjoyed my time with it enough to beat the game but I cannot say that I didn't notice the warts. Here's hoping future patches and expansions fix some of the shortcomings.
Oh yeah, I always forget that GoT is a western game and not straight from Japan.. my mistake. sorry.. but yeah, it was the second most mentioned western game by developers asked in that article.. Witcher 3 I believe did pretty good for a western RPG there too if I remember correctly - that both games have good Japanese VO helps too, probably
I just think it's extremely doubtful the average era poster has more perspective on this topic than he does. Era chooses 3 or 4 whipping boy games per year to disparage for crunch while creating an entire culture around anticipating the next Smash Bros content drop. Sakurai has been vocally against the direction the game industry has gone for years now and it's part of why he went independent in the first place.
The game is a shallow, broken mess, and this video helped me realize that:
It's really sad just how terrible it really is.
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Outside of the racist spirits (two of which you could argue were unfortunate coincidences) & that one boss in Kirby Super Star, I don't recall any other previous problematic things he's done.
Put almost 100 hours and the level design is wonderful. Don't know how you can think this. Tons of different ways to enter buildings/compounds. Able to skip entire areas by having certain stats leveled.
He puts his team through crunch and aside from that I know that he made several other comments over the years that were just problematic (I admit that I can't remember them off the top of my head, but it often involved comments about other controversial games that had similar problems to Cyberpunk 2077)
The reason I say is not to be "that guy" but because he shouldn't be put on a pedestal.
I'm glad a video made you realize that.
Some people that actually played it on PC had a good time with it tho. Its ok.
We only know of his working conditions, not his team's - with the exception of Melee, which was crunched hardcore and was definitely more of a management issue since Iwata himself took part in debugging the game so it could meet the Gamecube's launch. Ultimate's dev cycle was also much easier on Sakurai than the previous Smash games.
Wasn't there a whole thread about the working conditions and him admitting to crunch?
Eh, I'm probably wrong as usual...
Very disappointed to read this, I'll await full context though. But what we've seen is pretty yikes and I respect the hell out of this man. There is nothing about Cyberpunk that deserves praise.
The game is amazing for me and probably will end up as one of my goty contenders, it's just really good, idk. As said in another thread, that video doesn't show everything the game does right, as expected. And no I'm not going to make a list of things about this, we've been through this and everyone who hates it will not be convinced otherwise. I'm just saying I get where he's coming from with that statement.
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source? i know he is a workaholic but haven't heard of poor conditions for the rest of his team
OH never mind.
It was him that was put through crunch, not the other way around.
Okay, never mind, Nintendo are the assholes.
😂
(Like I said, I'm wrong about these things per usual)
Sakurai giving the game a pass for its social issues isn't a huge surprise, but it's still saddening. I get the feeling Sakurai is a huge fan of the art of making games, so I imagine such a catastrophic failure of execution like CP2077 must resonate with him in a way it likely doesn't for people who just consume media.
That being said - he should be aware of the myriad issues that CP2077 has beyond just being a buggy, unfinished mess. The months of corporate-sponsored trolling of the LGBT+ community, the in-game homophobia and transphobia, and CDPR's generally hostile response to any and all criticism should not be overlooked just because a bunch of people worked really hard and were passionate about what they do.
Hopefully Sakurai does some research and learns a bit more about CP2077's problems beyond the fact that it launched in such a bad state.
That being said - he should be aware of the myriad issues that CP2077 has beyond just being a buggy, unfinished mess. The months of corporate-sponsored trolling of the LGBT+ community, the in-game homophobia and transphobia, and CDPR's generally hostile response to any and all criticism should not be overlooked just because a bunch of people worked really hard and were passionate about what they do.
Hopefully Sakurai does some research and learns a bit more about CP2077's problems beyond the fact that it launched in such a bad state.
Uh, if you're going to make a serious accusation against someone, only to immediately say "I'm probably wrong as usual", maybe reconsider making those accusations in the first place.
Lol, so true.
At this point, not only is it a heavily buggy game, but the gameplay itself is half-baked and needed to be in the oven for another year or so.
I may come back to it in a year or so, but I've stopped playing it and not planning on completing it until there are significant improvements.
Even ignoring the fact that I don't really take Ubisoft's leadership at their word on anything at this point, would you say Ubisoft's games are as good as Sakurai's? Lmao
Good for them? It's still a shallow mess, regardless of whether anyone enjoyed said shallow mess. Maybe understand the objective criticisms instead of becoming defensive. I never said someone can't have fun with a fundamentally broken game.
Happy that the devs got an acknowledgement like this from an industry legend. Must be atleast some solace for all they've been going through before and after the release. It's unquestionable that a lot of talent and effort (too much effort considering the crunch) went for the game. And obviously I don't think it's the transphobia that makes it a "dream game" in his view or what he is moved by.
Third most mentioned overall, after Animal Crossing and before FF7R.
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Yeah, this is something that I assume just is not covered much in Japanese press/games journalism. Honestly, I probably would not have considered most of the issues in the game if it came out pre-2010ish - trans rights were not as openly talked about, especially in games journalism, and games journalism as a whole was even more homogeneous than it is now. Like I can remember N'gai Kroll talking on 1up Yours about racism in RE5 and just thinking "I don't think I've ever heard racism and video games talked about before." Same with Leigh Alexandra's review of Persona 3 Portable, where I just read it like "I have literally never seen someone write about how male-empowerment JRPG tropes feel as a woman, or what it's like to romance female characters as straight woman playing a male character."
I think Japanese games press is probably so homogenous that those conversations about representation are just not happening, and it's a detriment to the Japanese discourse.
I am fairly certain that some of the western criticism of stuff like like Persona games and how they represent gay/trans characters must be visible to some degree just because Atlus is such a big presence in Japan and Atlus USA is passing that feedback to their Japanese counterparts, but without representation I doubt that the concerns are given much attention.
So yeah, in agreement that Sakurai shouldn't be excused, but I think this point of view is partly the fault of games press not elevating conversations about trans rights and the knock-on effect of established creators not feeling pressured to think about LGBT or race issues.
And beyond just games press not having adequate diversity in Japan, I also doubt things like Vampire: The Masquerade/White Wolf's nazism gets covered at all, and being able to see patterns of behavior throughout the industry and consistent criticism of that behavior is essential to facilitating better conversations and forcing issues to be more deeply considered.
The dude can barely come out of the hole where he's crunching almost perpetually in a country that has significantly different world views than us long enough to keep up with news that may or may not have reached the East. I don't get the criticism that he's been lazy or purposefully ignorant or whatever. It's obvious when you look at him and read his interviews he's always working.
With that said. I'd also wager that whatever he does in his 1 minute of spare time per day is probably not relating to video games
With that said. I'd also wager that whatever he does in his 1 minute of spare time per day is probably not relating to video games
I mean, outside of the issues surrounding the developers of the game and the performance, the game itself is pretty good.
On a good PC it runs perfectly fine. My brother in law has it locked at 36 fps with some ray tracing on a 2060 and a 3600. I don't know how consoles are but from what I understand it's the base Xbox One and the base PS4 that have the most issues. Once I disabled my OC, which the game wouldn't run on, It hasn't been particularly buggier than other open world games upon release for me.
The game does some stuff incredibly well. The level design of the city is stellar, with multiple ways to enter buildings, multiple ways to scale between the different levels, areas where you can use double jump to scale things even better. It's just really well done with awesome verticality to it. Additionally there's true variety in the ways in which you can approach combat. Sure, the AI sucks, but melee, guns, stealth, hacking, and smart weapons are all viable and fun to play. The writing for many quests is really good. Judy's storyline was particularly good. Many characters are written realistically and it's better done than most other games I've played.
On the other hand the game was advertised as an RPG where you get to create your own character, in reality you're only playing as a mildly customized V. Your background barely matters. The RPG elements of quests is more of determining how things happen rather than altering the outcomes. The police system was a joke, as already pointed out over and over, and overall the game has a severe lack of meaningful overarching systems. There's no faction type stuff, there's no allignment system, there's not many quests that have a meaningful impact on the world (new shops or gear, etc . . .). Additionally for all the focus on cars and fashion in the marketing there's no car customization (was planned but got cut) and it's difficult to find the gear you want with the stats you want, so your character ends up looking ridiculous.
Barring all the social issues surrounding the game, I can easily see where someone would absolutely love it. On the flip side I can see where someone wanting a meaningful RPG would be dissappointed. I'd probably give the game a 8/10.
On a good PC it runs perfectly fine. My brother in law has it locked at 36 fps with some ray tracing on a 2060 and a 3600. I don't know how consoles are but from what I understand it's the base Xbox One and the base PS4 that have the most issues. Once I disabled my OC, which the game wouldn't run on, It hasn't been particularly buggier than other open world games upon release for me.
The game does some stuff incredibly well. The level design of the city is stellar, with multiple ways to enter buildings, multiple ways to scale between the different levels, areas where you can use double jump to scale things even better. It's just really well done with awesome verticality to it. Additionally there's true variety in the ways in which you can approach combat. Sure, the AI sucks, but melee, guns, stealth, hacking, and smart weapons are all viable and fun to play. The writing for many quests is really good. Judy's storyline was particularly good. Many characters are written realistically and it's better done than most other games I've played.
On the other hand the game was advertised as an RPG where you get to create your own character, in reality you're only playing as a mildly customized V. Your background barely matters. The RPG elements of quests is more of determining how things happen rather than altering the outcomes. The police system was a joke, as already pointed out over and over, and overall the game has a severe lack of meaningful overarching systems. There's no faction type stuff, there's no allignment system, there's not many quests that have a meaningful impact on the world (new shops or gear, etc . . .). Additionally for all the focus on cars and fashion in the marketing there's no car customization (was planned but got cut) and it's difficult to find the gear you want with the stats you want, so your character ends up looking ridiculous.
Barring all the social issues surrounding the game, I can easily see where someone would absolutely love it. On the flip side I can see where someone wanting a meaningful RPG would be dissappointed. I'd probably give the game a 8/10.
Source Gaming Translation
Ding-dong, on behalf of Push and Kody, Source Gaming's translation of the column is now live!
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Worth noting that the SG translation does not paint anywhere near as rosy of a picture as the original translation did in regards to Sakurai praising the devs for refunds (in fact it doesn't mention any praise at all and only brings up how surprised he was about it), and as expected, the "dream game" comment had more to do with him opining on the realities of game dev. The OP needs a much more clear title altogether.
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The full translation paints a much different picture than the OP suggests. Even the "dream game" comment doesn't mean what we originally thought.
I honestly think this entire thread should be closed and redone with the now full translation.
I honestly think this entire thread should be closed and redone with the now full translation.
I've been playing it with a 3090 and I'm somehow on the final mission already. I heard and expected it to be a shorter experience than something like Witcher 3, but this honestly feels like 30% of a full game. As impressive as the graphics are, there's not a lot going on under the hood.
Honestly, I don't think it was a good idea to post the OP before we had a translation that wasn't based on random excerpts.
Who would of thought the Original OP and topic name is wrong/outta context /s
As long as we can get that outrage going amiright?
Either way glad this got cleared up Original OP wasn't a good look on Sakurai, even though some had the sense to wait till an actually credible translation appeared
As long as we can get that outrage going amiright?
Either way glad this got cleared up Original OP wasn't a good look on Sakurai, even though some had the sense to wait till an actually credible translation appeared