Review RPG Codex Review: Shadowrun: Dragonfall

[tuluse]

Nice review Roxor.

I played an adept in DMS and it sucked so I avoided it for Dragonfall. I wish you can gone into more detail about the mechanic changes they made for Dragonfall.

 

[Excidium]

I didn't play one either but from what I've heard it still sucks.

 

[Grunker]

Bro it's not less content, it's different content.

cut the number of runs and make them more complex.

"cut the number of runs" = less content

Unless your claim is something like "so if you have 8 runs and cut 4 you can make 4 runs with in-depth legwork." But the systems for handling runs is already there. Making new runs is much easier than adding new and complex gameplay to handle legwork, no?

Nice review Roxor.

I played an adept in DMS and it sucked so I avoided it for Dragonfall. I wish you can gone into more detail about the mechanic changes they made for Dragonfall.

I played an adept in Dragonfall. It's better. I had little trouble beating very hard with my adept. However, it's still not as good as other builds.

I don't see how Dragonfall is any more focused than DMS. It doesn't cut a single thing DMS did out and adds more stuff. Of course I've always disagreed with Grunker's claim that SRR was too ambitious since it didn't seem ambitious to me at all. DMS was just a series of combat set pieces with dialog that didn't do anything. Where is the ambition?

That's because you've never accepted that by "ambition" I meant "trying to achieve a wide breadth of content". Well, call it breadth of content or whatever, I don't care what we call it. The point is that SRR had a ton of shallow content like big story segments where you have meetings with a bunch of people and have long, pointless conversations which insinuate story impact choices but don't deliver. Or very large area-maps with little or nothing to do in them. Or hints of legwork-segments that are stunted or simple fetchquests where you run to one guy, then another, then another, then another, then start a run.

Dragonfall has a city-map and a lot of small run maps which are there to serve a purpose, and most rooms have interactive shit in them. There isn't near as much superflous shit as there was in SRR.

 

[Excidium]

"cut the number of runs" = less content

Unless your claim is something like "so if you have 8 runs and cut 4 you can make 4 runs with in-depth legwork."

Exactly.

But the systems for handling runs is already there. Making new runs is much easier than adding new and complex gameplay to handle legwork, no?

Yes, and that's why it would be left for another DLC.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Can anyone picture this game ever become a modding sensation Neverwinter Nights style, or still discussed, discovered and revered more than 15 years later like Fallout? There's your answer.

It's linear. It's ridiculously simplistic. It's limited. It's cringe worthy most of the times.

It has more in common with an IPad game than with classics that will always be classics.

 

[Infinitron]

do you even proofread

maybe having an israeli brofistmonger and a vile female cryptonazi as editors for english language reviews isn't the best idea
unless you want this prestigious magazine to be
dishonoured

Darth Roxor, can I show him your first draft?

 

[Sensuki]

13 hours on the original and 23 in Dragonfall? WAT

The OC took me 8 hours and that was with AFK, reading everything, crashes and reloads.

 

[ghostdog]

Darth Roxor, can I show him your first draft?

 

[Excidium]

13 hours on the original and 23 in Dragonfall? WAT

The OC took me 8 hours and that was with AFK, reading everything, crashes and reloads.

it took me around the same time as roxor.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Good review, I was cautious at first about this expansion but now I'll certainly try it out.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Right-click -> save as

Darth Roxor, can I show him your first draft?

Well, for what it's worth, there was no word "embue" in the first draft

I played an adept in DMS and it sucked so I avoided it for Dragonfall. I wish you can gone into more detail about the mechanic changes they made for Dragonfall.

Like I said, there hasn't been a whole lot of mechanic changes, barely any, in fact. Class let's call it "rebalance" has been done more on the basis of possible stuff to do during the runs. Shaman is less ridonk op because of less envirosummons, docker is much more useful cuz of more docking, etc. Problem is Adept doesn't really have more or less opportunities for anything, so he stays kind of shit

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Can anyone picture this game ever become a modding sensation Neverwinter Nights style, or still discussed, discovered and revered more than 15 years later like Fallout? There's your answer.

It's linear. It's ridiculously simplistic. It's limited. It's cringe worthy most of the times.

It has more in common with an IPad game than with classics that will always be classics.

It's sad, but even kickstarter can't turn back the wheel of time and take us back to 1998 again. These games - Shadowrun, Wasteland 2, Broken Age etc - are products of their time, no matter how much they try (or claim to try) to draw on the oldschool gaming exprience.

For me the last classic of the modern gaming era (in the sense that you described) was Mask of the Betrayer and that was almost 7 years ago. Maybe the new Torment can live up to this game, I'm keeping my hopes up although Wasteland 2 doesn't look particulary good, at least right now.

 

[Applypoison]

cool review, I especially liked the lenght/format

There is one thing, however, that really needs to be said here. Whoever was in charge of the marketing for Dragonfall needs to be flogged

PCGamer is the one who needs to be flogged. "One of the most complex RPG stories of the decade" WHOA BRO

 

[Bleed the Man]

Good review. It covers everything that this expansion can offer, for good and ill.

I'm in the

Spoiler

APEX run

, and having a really good time with it. My only complaint would be the companions, which in my opinion are poorly written and bland. But still, as I said, pretty fun game overall, with some runs that are very interesting and enjoyable to do.
Looking forward to more expansions or DLCs from HS.

 

[Duellist_D]

Good review, imho spot-on.

I had my share of fun with DMS, but Dragonfalls Design was even better, even though the difficulty is still non-existant if you avoid building deliberately crap Characters.

It might not be a AAA-Game, but it was fun, delivered a lot of bang for the buck (played around 23 hours for the second campaign), the design was beautiful, it had "soul" and i would gladly see a third campagin.

 

[Morkar Left]

Very good review this time Darth Roxor. It lists all the flaws and the many improvements. Good job!

So far, I consider the "dlc" very good and fun to play. It still relies mostly on the great Shadowrun setting but now it's actually an rpg. Generally I prefer much more open world games but the nature of shadowruns makes hub-based misssions plausible and doesn't bother me here.

The remaining flaws are the still too easy combat (I play on very hard and have no trouble), the lack of customization and outfitting of your other runners and cyberware still should provide more power (but should be way more expensive therefore) and the lack of social skills.

For further "dlc" (I really hope there is a lot more to come) I wish they would introduce a general hub (safehouse/neighborhood) that is persistent and allows you to add new missions which could be official dlc and/or usergenerated content. It should contain some moneysinks as well like recurring payments for your lifestyle and Doc Wagon contracts.
Plus I would like it if for this more "general" setting Doc Wagon / Bumona contracts would just allow you to survive a run when you get shot down instead of just let you respawn immediately with x% of your HP. You could still complete the run with the other runners to get your payment. When one of the other runners gets shot down he is only available for the next run (maybe he has to skip even more runs till he is on his feet again). Could even extend for your main char; you have to pause some time while moneysinks for lifestyle continue (rent, ammunition costs, food etc.). Depending on the quality of the Doc Wagon contract, you can start directly your next run or you have to wait some time longer (costing you money). If you have no Doc Wagon contract, well it's game over / reloading time. Karma rewar

I think a good strategy for HBS along the line would be to improve the Dead Man Switch campaign with more content/possibilities and sell it as a bundle with Dragonfall as an enhanced edition for all the people who missed SRR so far to make some additional money.

PCGamer is the one who needs to be flogged. "One of the most complex RPG stories of the decade" WHOA BRO

The story is good but not that great. It's a video game after all. But decade means 2010+. Considering this they are absolutely spot on.

 

[Shadenuat]

Good review. I don't like how screenshots break the text though, even if they tend to illustrate what has been said, I'd prefer them smaller, maybe clickable and to the right.

I don't really look at screenshots in reviews though, just not interested in them when reading.

 

[Gragt]

I don't really look at screenshots in reviews though, just not interested in them when reading.

I'm also an advocate of text is all you need, with maybe a picture at the top and a few at the bottom.

 

[Excidium]

Screenshots are good to break the WORDSWORDSWORDSWORDS now and then

 

[Darth Roxor]

Pix worked much better in old codex when they were reduced to like 200 px thumbnails.

Unfortunately nu-codex staff is incompetent and still hasn't managed to get proper thumbnails working

 

[Gragt]

Screenshots are good to break the WORDSWORDSWORDSWORDS now and then

Fortunately not everyone finds words intimidating.

 

[Excidium]

I posted that just to see who would be the first pseudo-intellectual to respond

 

[crawlkill]

I spazzed out over "of mein Vater," too! pretty impressed with the overall non-shittyness of the German, though. it's just a blessing it wasn't voiced. I noticed a dialogue in Bloodlines the other day in which this ancient vampire bitch pronounced Leipzig "Liepzig" and I, I'm not even human anymore.

v even-handed review, anyway. I fell off the game after two really combative missions in a row--the silence-the-shadowrunner gig and the first trip to the sewers. combat was just so boring, slow and easy that I absolutely could not care anymore, even though I liked what they were doing with the setting.

 

[Mrowak]

Good stuff. Now that Kodex Kritical Konsensus has been reached buying it is a non-brainer.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

I spent 16 hours on dragonfall, which includes re-doing large parts of the last dungeon. (edit: on very hard of course)

Anyways the end game is pretty shit, and really highlights the games flaws. Dungeon crawling goes poorly with this games system is reason #1, and the forced conversation options gets jarring because the villain is pretty obviously right, whereas all you get to say are [snarky]"you're wrong" [blunt]"you're wrong" [angry]"you're wrong"[etiquette:academic]"I believe that you may be mistaken". Then there is a debriefing where everyone feels good about themselves in the typical clicheed fashion ("i'd want it no other way"), and an epilogue which illustrates why the "villain" was right after all.

As a whole the game is kinda unfocused. You do random missions that are not really related to the end, and the ending was bad as well. Plot fails like that. The best part of the game is the middle probably. Also their writing is getting... Tiring. All the pseudoedgy companions, the troll librulism dispensers, general writing style, and so on.

Far as RPGs go, it's not bad, not good, just ok.