The way I looked at it is you are still you and you are back working in a corporate environment and for my background it made sense to me since I chose corpo.
What’s weak about the first 30 minutes? I thought that was a highlight. That’s the only time your background really matters
I see what you’re saying and I didn’t understand on my 2nd or even 3rd play through either although I didn’t pick Arasaka because I didn’t wanna piss off Johnny but going through the lore of the game Arasaka is pure evil. Saburo is Tojo level evil. Hanako is cucked and in one of the endings lets her dad steal her brothers body. Takemura shyt talks you the whole game and people don’t realize it because they don’t speak Japanese and understand Japanese insults. Arasaka has a collection of peoples captured souls. That’s what Mikoshi is.
They aren’t going to give you your old life back.
It’s subtle because the writing is so good but you’re being played the whole time.
Start 10:00. You’re getting sold to “Hell”man for experimentation. It’s called the Devil ending. You get a call from Misty in the end saying the cards are bad.
You aren’t going back to being a Corpo my guy. Your data aka soul with be ripped apart and someday uploaded into a murder bot.
As for the first 30 minutes, your relationship with Jackie isn’t near expanded enough on. If you choose Street Kid or Nomad you meet him, get a montage, and do one mission with him and you are supposed to feel like your lifelong bros. Never mind the boring brain dance mini games that were unskippable when the game was first released. The Arasaka heist should’ve been in the middle of the game with the first half being spent with Jackie doing missions. Would’ve made it more impactful.