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Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
You mean pretty good one, given only the apex choice had any sort of lasting consequences (maybe there's another one in the director's cut).

I guess it depends on what you consider to be good choices. Sure, the Apex one was the only one that made a big difference later on. But what are we comparing it to? In Fallout, for example, the cathedral and the military base are the same whether or not you side with Killian or Gizmo. The same can be said for PST. Sure, both games give you different choices in the final area depending on what you did before (like convincing The Master or getting the weapon that can kill you), but so does Dragonfall (you can convince the main antagonist that he's wrong if you conduct the proper research). I'd say that the Apex decision felt much more like a decision that had lasting consequences than many in other games.

If you're talking about decisions that have interesting consequences in the game world, Dragonfall has some good ones. There are a couple of times when people will e-mail you later, showing you some of the consequences of your actions. And some ones like letting the Humanis leader escape or leaking information that will have large impacts that's not immediately apparent. I think Glory's progression also changes depending on how you handle her mission.

One of the best things about the choices in Dragonfall that I should mention is that it avoids the typical (and typically terrible) type of choice you see in RPGs - do I feel like seeing the "nice person" path or the "bad person" path? I Dragonfall, you sometimes screw people over you wouldn't normally want to, like the cafe in the Aztechnology mission or the stuff with the Lodge, because it's the easiest way to accomplish your goals. You're left with some ambiguous choices, like with Apex or the free information group. I've seen people argue (to a standstill) about what was the most moral path for certain choices, and others talk about how they didn't want to make a certain choice but felt compelled to because of what they needed at the moment. That's pretty rare in RPGs.

Oh, and as ESh said, it also has a pretty fleshed out and interesting alternative ending (that you actually play through, not just a different ending slide).
 

orcinator

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
1,704
Location
Republic of Kongou
I guess it depends on what you consider to be good choices.

Offering more tangible consequences than say, skyrim would be nice.


If you're talking about decisions that have interesting consequences in the game world, Dragonfall has some good ones. There are a couple of times when people will e-mail you later, showing you some of the consequences of your actions. And some ones like letting the Humanis leader escape or leaking information that will have large impacts that's not immediately apparent. I think Glory's progression also changes depending on how you handle her mission.


Yeah you get a paragraph of consequences for each mission, which is never referenced again no matter how severe your actions might have been (betrayed a Johnson? well you get a paragraph with "don't worry we'll handle it ;-)" at the end and that's that). And it's not like the other aspects of the game make up for it, given the combat is nuXcom for smaller babies and your out of combat actions boil down to walking though hallways, clicking on hotspots and occasionally passing a stat check, in addition to most dialogue choices being yes/sure/fine when it's not an ovcious fight/don't fight [stat x] choice.



One of the best things about the choices in Dragonfall that I should mention is that it avoids the typical (and typically terrible) type of choice you see in RPGs - do I feel like seeing the "nice person" path or the "bad person" path? I Dragonfall, you sometimes screw people over you wouldn't normally want to, like the cafe in the Aztechnology mission or the stuff with the Lodge, because it's the easiest way to accomplish your goals. You're left with some ambiguous choices, like with Apex or the free information group. I've seen people argue (to a standstill) about what was the most moral path for certain choices, and others talk about how they didn't want to make a certain choice but felt compelled to because of what they needed at the moment. That's pretty rare in RPGs.

It's the same sort of thing you see with telltale games, and everyone should know how much those choices matter.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
I've been playing this recently, not the greatest thing in the world, but it's playable. I have a question, however - why don't cyberware enhancements get counted in the karma screen? What is the point to getting the Encephalon cyberware if you can't use the extra INT to bypass the restriction and get higher Drone Control and Drone Combat?
 

RGE

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 18, 2004
Messages
773
Location
Karlstad, Sweden
If you get Cyberware Affinity 6 your cyberware attributes and skills will suddenly count in the karma screen, except for getting extra etiquettes from a Charisma bonus.
 

Jason Liang

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
Messages
8,337
Location
Crait
Yeah, there's lots of buggy gear and cyberware that never got fixed.

The extra INT *should* make your Drones more accurate. That's what INT does. It's only a small bonus but eh.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
Great, that means I won't have to spend nuyen on cyberware for INT boosts. Too bad I was planning on doing a cybered up street samurai/adept run in the future. I'm going Returns -> Hong Kong -> Dragonfall playthrough and I'm enjoying it so far, the "atmosphere" isn't soul crushingly absent, so there's a reason to play through the nu-Shadowruns. It's waaaay too easy, though, the AI is retarded, frequently killing itself on Acidic Fog, the mobs tend to not use many special abilities etc.
 

Jason Liang

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
Messages
8,337
Location
Crait
Yeah, play on the hardest difficulty; the AI is still gimped. To ungimp the AI you have to modify the AI files so that the AI performs more than 1 attack a round.

Samurai is probably best for Hong Kong since you get to play with all the cyberware; most of it is busted but Hong Kong's combat is weak sauce anyway.
 

Nerevar

N'wah
Patron
Repressed Homosexual
Joined
Jul 10, 2017
Messages
1,128
Location
Balmora
Make the Codex Great Again! Pathfinder: Wrath
Hmm never experienced the directors cut content might have to check it out and see if there is any good character "interaction" he he he.
 

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
I'm genuinelly perplexed that people actually love and play this scam of a series. No really. The only substance it has is that shallow tactical game that's embarassing even for mobile standards. Beyond that it's just walls of (cringeworth) text from frustrated book authors that couldn't earn a penny in the book industry and then tried their hands in a medium so innapropriate it should be a capital crime. Oh and pixels that apparently came out from a 1st year class students. Oh and pretty portraits. Look at this..

t89ojb.png


This resumes the series nicely - a mediocre gameplay core embellished by things like that portrait. They didn't even have the decency to try making something open and dynamical akin to the Genesis game. They were coward like that.

In retrospect, we should feel embarassed to have thrown money at this. 1 million bucks! for such a mediocre work.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
Eh, I wasn't expecting anything with this series and I knew what I'm getting myself into. In that context, they are fine, even Returns. They are also one of the few cyberpunk games in general, so variety is also a factor. Yeah, they aren't great or anything, like I said, but they are playable and enjoyable, some missions are very fun, too. I also got them all for 8 euro combined and I think I got my money's worth.
 

Jason Liang

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
Messages
8,337
Location
Crait
Dragonfall is great. It's lightning in a bottle- all the rpg elements are at just the right level - story, combat, characters, variety. The best rpgs are not just 100% pure combatfag.
 

Iznaliu

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 28, 2016
Messages
3,686
Hmm never experienced the directors cut content might have to check it out and see if there is any good character "interaction" he he he.

I don't think there is any of that bullshit, unfortunately for you.
 

Vorark

Erudite
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
1,394
Play pure Adept: you can walk all over the map punching things. Take the rat shaman for maximum lulz. And as mentioned, play on Hard.

The mini campaign was what I wanted base HK to be: lowkey story and interesting encounters. Only decent thing in vanilla HK was the Whistleblower mission and that was it. Almost lost my shit when the QI mission or whatever it was showed up, fucking idiotic.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
I'm genuinelly perplexed that people actually love and play this scam of a series. No really. The only substance it has is that shallow tactical game that's embarassing even for mobile standards. Beyond that it's just walls of (cringeworth) text from frustrated book authors that couldn't earn a penny in the book industry and then tried their hands in a medium so innapropriate it should be a capital crime. Oh and pixels that apparently came out from a 1st year class students. Oh and pretty portraits. Look at this..

t89ojb.png


This resumes the series nicely - a mediocre gameplay core embellished by things like that portrait. They didn't even have the decency to try making something open and dynamical akin to the Genesis game. They were coward like that.

In retrospect, we should feel embarassed to have thrown money at this. 1 million bucks! for such a mediocre work.

With that attitude why exactly are Fallout 1+2 and NV great again? Because the combat is even shallower in those 3 games...
 

Jacob

Pronouns: Nick/Her
Patron
Joined
Dec 24, 2015
Messages
3,336
Location
Hatington
Grab the Codex by the pussy
Many of Codex' beloved RPGs are actually heavy on the adventure (By that I mean the puzzle and investigation stuff) elements and not so heavy on the tactical combat side. And I like it that way.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Yeah, play on the hardest difficulty; the AI is still gimped. To ungimp the AI you have to modify the AI files so that the AI performs more than 1 attack a round.

Samurai is probably best for Hong Kong since you get to play with all the cyberware; most of it is busted but Hong Kong's combat is weak sauce anyway.
Planning into replay, do you still have the modded files for the Ai?
 

Vorark

Erudite
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
1,394
Yeah, play on the hardest difficulty; the AI is still gimped. To ungimp the AI you have to modify the AI files so that the AI performs more than 1 attack a round.

Samurai is probably best for Hong Kong since you get to play with all the cyberware; most of it is busted but Hong Kong's combat is weak sauce anyway.
Planning into replay, do you still have the modded files for the Ai?

It was agris who did this tweak, download links are here for both DF and HK.
 

Jacob

Pronouns: Nick/Her
Patron
Joined
Dec 24, 2015
Messages
3,336
Location
Hatington
Grab the Codex by the pussy
No, I believe adventure game is a :obviously: genre and liking it will not hurt a gentleman's reputation.

You believe that, but the average person doesn't.
You: "I like Shadowrun Dragonfall, but it's more of an Adventure game than a pure RPG."
Average Person: "Oh, so it's more like Zelda than Skyrim?"

They won't even get as far as to understand what you are talking about.

If I remember correctly, classic adventure games like Monkey Island is a regular on videogame magazine's top video games list. If by "average person" is someone who regularly play games and follow the news to an extend, I'm sure he'd understand, and would consider an adventure game one of the classic genre, even if they haven't played any.
 

Jason Liang

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
Messages
8,337
Location
Crait
Dragonfall isn't a text adventure. It has mostly entertaining, creative encounter design. Even your first "real" mission, the Humanis complex, is a chain of great encounters- the roadblock, escaping the interior, and escaping the exterior. And for Dragonfall that's a throwaway- it's not one of the mission that most people instantly think of. For me, Dragonfall gives you just the right mix of tactical options. Some might feel the combat complexity is too simple, but that's a fine line to balance - it's far easier to fall into too complex. And the complexity is just enough for the AI, which is another key point. Some games have all these cool tactical options, but what's the point if the AI isn't sophisticated enough to use those options? Age of Decadence has this issue - your character has all these cool tactical options on their weapon and sidearms, you have a dozen ways to knockdown and eviscerate your enemies, but what's the point if the enemies can't do the same to you? The enemy AI never tries to knock you down with Shield Bash or Hammer knockdown, never bola chokes you, never ambushes you with an explosive bomb. And the point is, combat in that game would be a nightmare if the AI did. So having a system that optimizes complexity but allows that complexity to be shared by both the AI and the PCs is a rare find.
 

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