Cyberpunk Salon Review

Cyber Makeover

Forget hair cuts and manicures. In Cyberpunk Salon players replace eyes, hands, and legs with cybernetic implants. If you enjoy a game with little content and fewer choices, which is doubtful, then this title is for you. Cyberpunk Salon is a great example of an intriguing premise wasted on poor execution.

Cyberpunk Salon by Pawsome Games is a makeover game with a twist—instead of doing hair, players give customers cybernetic implants. Sounds cool right? Well, it isn’t. Each customer comes in with either an injured eye, hand, or leg—or a combination thereof. Players then choose between giving them a cyberpunk enhancement or an everyday item. However, if you don’t choose the cybernetic implant to lose the round. For example, you can replace an injured eye with a cybernetic one or an egg, but choosing the egg means you fail. Honestly, the most engaging part of makeover games is the choices. However, Pawsome Games choose to eliminate any meaningful choice from Cyberpunk Salon, making it feel more like an unpolished demo.

Repetitive Gameplay

When replacing a leg with a cybernetic one, you’ll be prompted to connect the limb to its power source. You do this by tapping the hexagons on screen until they create a connected pattern. When replacing a hand, you’ll need to connect several color-coded wires by dragging them across the screen. It’s possible to connect the wires incorrectly—you’ll see sparks—but you won’t progress until you place them correctly. To replace an eye, you rotate it until the lightning bolt pattern matches the pattern around the rim. Then you rotate the iris until the number in the center of the eye reads 100 percent. You’ll be given a few options for eye color but none of them ever match the other eye which is somewhat annoying. Hand and leg implants can’t be customized aesthetically.

Occasionally you’ll be able to choose an outfit for your patient after fixing them up. However, it doesn’t matter how you dress them as fashion plays no role in success or failure. On top of that it appears there are only three outfit options per gender. The fact that Cyberpunk Salon doesn’t offer different options for cybernetic implants is already disappointing enough. It would have been nice if the title at least allowed players more wardrobe options.

Ads, Ads, Ads

As if the above wasn’t bad enough, Cyberpunk Salon forces an ad on you between every level. I wouldn’t mind so much if the game itself was enjoyable. But clearly, Pawsome Games is just looking to cash in on the cyberpunk craze. Also, levels are extremely short. Even the levels in which you apply all three implants and choose an outfit can be completed in under two minutes. Asking players to watch an ad every few minutes is just obnoxious. It can also be jarring when the audio from ads starts up since the game itself has none.

All in all, Cyberpunk Salon is a game worth skipping. Pawsome Games gives players the bare minimum with this title. Makeover games are supposed to allow players to be creative. Contrarily, Cyberpunk Salon forces players to make the same choice over and over. The lack of options combined with excessive ads makes this title a great example of what not to play.