I am so furious right now. But make no mistake, although I'm angry about this particular part of the game, it is a testament to how incredibly good the rest of the game is. I wouldn't be furious if the game didn't have its hooks in me.

Female V. Played through the entire Judy arc, tragic but fantastic. She gave me her apartment key. After all I had lost in the biochip heist, she gave me my motivation to live. I didn't want to abandon her like Evelyn did.

So I made a deal with Hanako, despite my reservations. Fought long and hard to stay alive. Was so happy when she honored her part of the deal and got the chip out, a vindication of sorts. Called Judy and told her what I'd done, and she told me to get the hell back to her. So when I got the offer to go back and keep fighting, I didn't hesitate.

Roll credits. An open ending? Fair enough. Wished I'd get to go see Judy again though. At some point along the way I'd fallen head-over-heels for her without realizing.

... And then as the credits roll, Judy tells you she's leaving, and to have a nice life. Just like that, out of nowhere. Three lines of monologue to completely fuck everything, and not in a good way. The whole fight to survive, for what? Six months of heartache? What kind of ending is that? Was it something I said? Was there any point to any of this at all? I was too upset to hear any of the other monologues. Both Judy and the game stabbed me in back when I needed them the most. You don't do that in the fucking end credits. Fuck.

I'd explore the Aldecado ending, but just thinking about loading up the game makes me nauseous. Anyhow. Someone else have a similar experience? Or a completely different one?

But did she take you underwater to chat..?

Yep, she showed me that and a whole lot more of her. I realized what we had was serious, and I told her as much. She said I'd ruined her plan of leaving Night City, and I believed her. Feel like such an idiot now.

I chose the storage option. Same phone calls, I'd guess. Was going to go choose the "Go back and fight" option and see if I could keep the relationship going, but now I know that's futile and the only option is to not take the final sequence. Really disappointed.

Really did enjoy her story arc though. Especially the underwater blast from her past. Still thinking about the aldecaro (sp?) option to see what happens though.

I tried the storage ending, since that's what I would have done if I'd known. It does indeed have the same monologue.

If Judy had made it clear beforehand how much she detests Arasaka, and told you to fuck off in that phone call before you make the final choice, it would have made for a much better ending. It would at the very least be fair and make sense. Same here. The underwater part made me think of Ghost in the Shell. Maybe not entirely original, but I was pleasantly surprised anyway.

The rant helped. Can now confirm the Aldecado ending is much better, pretty much the "good" ending while the Hanako ending is the "bad" one. Deleted all the Hanako saves for catharsis.

Wish it had been explained better. To be honest, none of the Alt storyline made any sense to me, and Alt only really spells it out right at the end (if you ask). The whole thing was muddled by mixing in the Voodo Boys' own agenda and the whole Blackwall thing into Alt's story. On top of that, I don't think Alt was even mentioned when considering the Aldecaldo option.

From what I gather, Alt uses the soul killer to upload V's brain, somehow manages to disentangle Johnny from it, then replaces the Johnny on the chip with the now Johnny-free uploaded version of V. The chip remains in place but it's fine (even though it's damaged?) because it's now turning V more into herself.

On another note, it has become obvious that the "radiation sickness" and similar "immune system rejection" are just dumb plot devices to incentivise leaving your mortal coil and going into cyberspace. I think those could have been handled better, neither of them really made much sense logically nor thematically. The Hanako version would be more thematically fitting if it was non-fatal but made you dependent on daily Arasaka clinic visits, thus making Night City and/or Corpo your prison. As for Alt, it makes no sense that a super-intelligent AI doesn't know what immunosuppressants are, nor that a V that turns more into herself is attacked by the immune system in the first place.

I guess the tl;dr of my beef with the endgame decisions is that it requires game logic rather than common sense to pick the right one. In real life, very few people go to their friends rather than their doctor when they suspect they have brain cancer. In video game logic however, both options are equally valid simply because they exist.