One thing I think this game handles better than most is the anticlimactic ending. Specifically where its not really a 'bad' ending. You've won. sort of . Made a few friends did a few scores but for all the adventures and struggles you just went through in the grand scheme of things you're still nothing as far as the world is concerned. Sure you're a few notches up the ladder but there is still a very tall hierarchy above you that at most views you as an ant if they even consider you at all. The world still chugs along. It barely felt your epic adventure and will not notice if you are gone. You are just one of countless others going through similar struggles and adventures.
I feel like the game hands you mixed messages on whether or not you (V) truly made a mark. Up until the player flatlines Smasher, they didn't really do anything that anyone else couldn't have done. There are only a few occasions where the game acknowledges V's accomplishments and while I like it that it's not constantly thrust in the player's face Hero of Kvatch style, when it does happen it caught me off guard as at that point I had settled in with the notion that the game didn't take note.
The player has the opportunity to wipe out the leadership of every gang save 6th Street and the Mox but the situation on the street never changes. The player never has the opportunity to take on contracts from corpo higher ups despite supposedly being hot shit and Rogue having the ear of some corps. The player never has the opportunity to work for the city government despite contributing to Peralez' victory in the mayoral election. The game has trouble giving V quests and contracts fitting his/her station. It wasn't until PL that this was realized: V working for NUSA and Hands, who unlike the rest of the fixers has a goal and used V as a precise instrument.
Each of the fixer's jobs should have ended with some kind of proper questline; Dino and Rogue could have given work from corps, Wakako and Padre could have given work from the Valentinos' and Tyger Claws' respective leadership (tweaking the quests where the player ends Gustavo Orta, Jun Azagami, and Marcus Ichida), Regina could have given work from NCPD, taking into account the player's involvement with River and Peralez, El Capitan could have given a cool detective questline looking into how Gunner offed the previous 6th Street boss, etc. If V is truly at the tippy top of the merc food chain, there absolutely should be work coming from high places.
Something else that I've harped about before is how there should have been some kind of mechanic where the player can join a gang and wage turf wars or side with law enforcement and wipe out gang activity. It would have been really cool for there to have been some kind of off brand nemesis system as the game severely lacks boss fights. As I said before, V wipes out almost the entirety of gang leadership and wages a genocidal campaign against the city's organized crime, but it ultimately impacts nothing.
The reason I brought all of that up was that the game fails to convey the impact and consequences of V's actions such that when V really does accomplish something (killing Smasher, something that even Morgan Blackhand never got around to), it isn't treated as anything particularly special. The street cred mechanic is almost entire vestigial and becoming a "legend of the afterlife" is hardly any different from how it was before, or at least that's how the game portrays it. I just finished an exhaustive playthrough so this crap is fresh in my mind.
