Review RPG Codex Review: Shadowrun: Dragonfall

[Roguey]

No, RPG Codex. You are the RPS.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Way ahead of you. Roguey.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

RPG Codex > We are having a good time...NOT!

 

[DeepOcean]

because the villain is pretty obviously right.

To me was the inverse, I knew the setting, when I got in there I thought WTF is this guy talking about? On shadowrun setting, Dragons are manipulative to get power but they behave in the exact same way that metahumans, it isn't as if you killing dragons you are going to get rid of all manipulative sons of bitches, on contrary to metahumans, the dragons, know the shit what is incomming and know that humanity will misuse magic to the point of fucking the whole planet, actually if wasn't for the sacrifice of one of them there wouldn't be any metahuman alive by 2057.

 

[Vibalist]

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.

I don't agree with your assessment that the game is merely OK, I think it's rather good. However, you're spot on about that last confrontation with the villain. I wanted to side with him or at least be able to express my sympathy towards his cause in some fashion and felt pretty restricted when I couldn't.

Some of this comes back to the dialogue options being terrible in general. There's nothing wrong with the good/snarky/mean approach when it comes to picking responses in a game that isn't about freedom anyway, but they were just horribly written.

To me was the inverse, I knew the setting, when I got in there I thought WTF is this guy talking about? On shadowrun setting, Dragons are manipulative to get power but they behave in the exact same way that metahumans, it isn't as if you killing dragons you are going to get rid of all manipulative sons of bitches, on contrary to metahumans, the dragons, know the shit what is incomming and know that humanity will misuse magic to the point of fucking the whole planet, actually if wasn't for the sacrifice of one of them there wouldn't be any metahuman alive by 2057.

This is a good point, but the game should have allowed you to argue this point when talking to the dragonslayer guy (whose name escapes me). As far as I remember your dialogue options amounted to saying "you're a horrible monster" in three or four different ways, which felt kind of basic and stupid compared to other similar games.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Bros, I'm gonna give it a try.

I'm curious what's influenced by the difficulty settings.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

because the villain is pretty obviously right.

To me was the inverse, I knew the setting, when I got in there I thought WTF is this guy talking about? On shadowrun setting, Dragons are manipulative to get power but they behave in the exact same way that metahumans, it isn't as if you killing dragons you are going to get rid of all manipulative sons of bitches, on contrary to metahumans, the dragons, know the shit what is incomming and know that humanity will misuse magic to the point of fucking the whole planet, actually if wasn't for the sacrifice of one of them there wouldn't be any metahuman alive by 2057.

I don't know the plot that well so I'm gonna take your word on that. I heard some stuff about horrors though, is that it? In any case, my elf didn't know that either so from that perspective...

 

[Minttunator]

As always - great job with the review, Darth!

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

Doesn't this sentence bother anyone else?

every level gives you the opportunity to you access the Matrix

and do funny things, like taking control of turrets

should probably say fun things

because the villain is pretty obviously right.

To me was the inverse, I knew the setting, when I got in there I thought WTF is this guy talking about? On shadowrun setting, Dragons are manipulative to get power but they behave in the exact same way that metahumans, it isn't as if you killing dragons you are going to get rid of all manipulative sons of bitches, on contrary to metahumans, the dragons, know the shit what is incomming and know that humanity will misuse magic to the point of fucking the whole planet, actually if wasn't for the sacrifice of one of them there wouldn't be any metahuman alive by 2057.

I don't know the plot that well so I'm gonna take your word on that. I heard some stuff about horrors though, is that it? In any case, my elf didn't know that either so from that perspective...

I agree completely. There is no information about what DeepOcean said in game. In fact the only information you have about dragons in game is that they're nay unstoppable, highly intelligent and already control a large portion of the planet. From any other sentient species point of view that's a huge threat. Coupled with the events happening on endgame slides, that's all the information a player, not familiar with the shadowrun universe, or in fact the PC has to make his/her decisions.

Btw would coding tooltips for interface buttons that include keyboard shortcuts have killed the devs? There is no info on those ingame. Had to go through the buttons on my keyboard and still don't have all of them, unless not all of the functions have shortcuts of course.

 

[Septaryeth]

I agree completely. There is no information about what DeepOcean said in game. In fact the only information you have about dragons in game is that they're nay unstoppable, highly intelligent and already control a large portion of the planet. From any other sentient species point of view that's a huge threat. Coupled with the events happening on endgame slides, that's all the information a player, not familiar with the shadowrun universe, or in fact the PC has to make his/her decisions.

I'm not familiar with the Shadowrun universe but I thought the opposite.
In the end, you have the opportunity to point out how the doctor was behaving just like a dragon - secretive, manipulative, arrogant, and destructive.
And I found his counter-argument to be very weak - both metahumans and dragons are predators/hoarders, so what if the dragons are immortals?
Would a human/elf CEO behave any different? Is Telestrian Industry(from SSR: DMS) any better? Heck, even Aztechnology didn't need a dragon to order them to make "Bloodline". (correct me if I'm wrong)
Even without the dragons, there are people lining up for the seat of power to do exactly the same thing. Same shit is still going to happen to anyone beneath them.
There is nothing more to say to a maniac who believes dragons are the only power-hungry threats in the world.
At least Dragonfall stops the argument here, before it goes too preachy like the end of DMS.

But it would be amazing if you have the option of siding with him(maybe killing your teammates like in MotB) and return to the kieze to see everything burns.

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

I agree completely. There is no information about what DeepOcean said in game. In fact the only information you have about dragons in game is that they're nay unstoppable, highly intelligent and already control a large portion of the planet. From any other sentient species point of view that's a huge threat. Coupled with the events happening on endgame slides, that's all the information a player, not familiar with the shadowrun universe, or in fact the PC has to make his/her decisions.

I'm not familiar with the Shadowrun universe but I thought the opposite.
In the end, you have the opportunity to point out how the doctor was behaving just like a dragon - secretive, manipulative, arrogant, and destructive.
And I found his counter-argument to be very weak - both metahumans and dragons are predators/hoarders, so what if the dragons are immortals?
Would a human/elf CEO behave any different? Is Telestrian Industry(from SSR: DMS) any better? Heck, even Aztechnology didn't need a dragon to order them to make "Bloodline". (correct me if I'm wrong)
Even without the dragons, there are people lining up for the seat of power to do exactly the same thing. Same shit is still going to happen to anyone beneath them.
There is nothing more to say to a maniac who believes dragons are the only power-hungry threats in the world.
At least Dragonfall stops the argument here, before it goes too preachy like the end of DMS.

But it would be amazing if you have the option of siding with him(maybe killing your teammates like in MotB) and return to the kieze to see everything burns.

I just meant that it's better to have tyrants you can actually kill and if they're from the same species as you they might be less likely to try and wipe all of you off, rather than unkillable immortal ones that have a lot more experience at scheming. But most of all what I'm saying is that you are not given a lot of reason to oppose the main villain, when he revealed his plan I wanted to ask him to present all the information he had on the subject that had him come to his conclusion tbh.

 

[Zetor]

I agree completely. There is no information about what DeepOcean said in game. In fact the only information you have about dragons in game is that they're nay unstoppable, highly intelligent and already control a large portion of the planet. From any other sentient species point of view that's a huge threat. Coupled with the events happening on endgame slides, that's all the information a player, not familiar with the shadowrun universe, or in fact the PC has to make his/her decisions.

The entire metaplot with horrors is usually way above the paygrade of random shadowrunners, though it's the cornerstone of quite a few SR books (typically the Harlequin series) and has a very strong foundation in Earthdawn. It is further complicated by the fact that the only three people who talk about this are Feuerschwinge herself, Aljernon, and the 'recruiter' in the epilogue... all of that after the deed is already done. In fact, Aljernon and the recruiter remark on how you didn't know / couldn't have known the real story.

I guess they could've had Aljernon drop some exposition on the player instead of the cryptic portents of doom, but I kinda like that they didn't (which is in contrast with DMS where the metaplot stuff is laid on thick, and after a failed run you're suddenly talking with some of the most powerful entities in the SRverse for no particular reason -- if anything, I'd call THAT a weakness in storytelling). Really, in SR, runners deal with things they don't understand all the time, and they're almost never fully informed on what they're supposed to do. Even in the MKVI mission all you know is 'break in, get the prototype, bring it back unharmed', but it turns out to be a bit more complicated than that. So yeah, I actually think withholding information from the player was a good thing in this case.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I think that most of the arguments for "But I want to side with the villain, he makes so much sense!" are dispelled during the conversation between two gentlemen in the end-game tram

 

[MicoSelva]

Lo Pan Civic Centre.
Good job, Darth Roxor .

 

[Cyberarmy]

Good review!

I really like to see a better AI in this game, this alone will make game more challanging. AI never fires twice in a round, they just open fire and leave their full cover, mages seldom used aoe spells on me. I only remember once and that was followed by a grenade.
Also special ammo and/or gun modifications are really needed and some better cybernetics.

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

I agree completely. There is no information about what DeepOcean said in game. In fact the only information you have about dragons in game is that they're nay unstoppable, highly intelligent and already control a large portion of the planet. From any other sentient species point of view that's a huge threat. Coupled with the events happening on endgame slides, that's all the information a player, not familiar with the shadowrun universe, or in fact the PC has to make his/her decisions.

The entire metaplot with horrors is usually way above the paygrade of random shadowrunners, though it's the cornerstone of quite a few SR books (typically the Harlequin series) and has a very strong foundation in Earthdawn. It is further complicated by the fact that the only three people who talk about this are Feuerschwinge herself, Aljernon, and the 'recruiter' in the epilogue... all of that after the deed is already done. In fact, Aljernon and the recruiter remark on how you didn't know / couldn't have known the real story.

I guess they could've had Aljernon drop some exposition on the player instead of the cryptic portents of doom, but I kinda like that they didn't (which is in contrast with DMS where the metaplot stuff is laid on thick, and after a failed run you're suddenly talking with some of the most powerful entities in the SRverse for no particular reason -- if anything, I'd call THAT a weakness in storytelling). Really, in SR, runners deal with things they don't understand all the time, and they're almost never fully informed on what they're supposed to do. Even in the MKVI mission all you know is 'break in, get the prototype, bring it back unharmed', but it turns out to be a bit more complicated than that. So yeah, I actually think withholding information from the player was a good thing in this case.

I'm guessing that in PnP the games focus is a lot more on getting cool stuff to play with and doing crazy runs than on the plot then? Probably since the combat in the game is very simplistic and along with gear/augmentations very underwhelming they had to cobble together some sort of "epic" storyline. I enjoyed both modules more while they weren't in save the world/epic territory at which point I suppose I became somewhat resentful towards the plot and didn't really give a damn about a few cryptic hints after the gameplay was over. Best part of DF for me was at the middle when I did some fun runs and didn't have to follow the plot I didn't really buy into/wasn't interested in case it happened to actually be

Spoiler

yay a long dead homicidal dragon is returning and I have to find some old fart in all likelihood long dead to kill it/help me kill it

from the start.

 

[Zetor]

I agree completely. There is no information about what DeepOcean said in game. In fact the only information you have about dragons in game is that they're nay unstoppable, highly intelligent and already control a large portion of the planet. From any other sentient species point of view that's a huge threat. Coupled with the events happening on endgame slides, that's all the information a player, not familiar with the shadowrun universe, or in fact the PC has to make his/her decisions.

The entire metaplot with horrors is usually way above the paygrade of random shadowrunners, though it's the cornerstone of quite a few SR books (typically the Harlequin series) and has a very strong foundation in Earthdawn. It is further complicated by the fact that the only three people who talk about this are Feuerschwinge herself, Aljernon, and the 'recruiter' in the epilogue... all of that after the deed is already done. In fact, Aljernon and the recruiter remark on how you didn't know / couldn't have known the real story.

I guess they could've had Aljernon drop some exposition on the player instead of the cryptic portents of doom, but I kinda like that they didn't (which is in contrast with DMS where the metaplot stuff is laid on thick, and after a failed run you're suddenly talking with some of the most powerful entities in the SRverse for no particular reason -- if anything, I'd call THAT a weakness in storytelling). Really, in SR, runners deal with things they don't understand all the time, and they're almost never fully informed on what they're supposed to do. Even in the MKVI mission all you know is 'break in, get the prototype, bring it back unharmed', but it turns out to be a bit more complicated than that. So yeah, I actually think withholding information from the player was a good thing in this case.

I'm guessing that in PnP the games focus is a lot more on getting cool stuff to play with and doing crazy runs than on the plot then? Probably since the combat in the game is very simplistic and along with gear/augmentations very underwhelming they had to cobble together some sort of "epic" storyline. I enjoyed both modules more while they weren't in save the world/epic territory at which point I suppose I became somewhat resentful towards the plot and didn't really give a damn about a few cryptic hints after the gameplay was over. Best part of DF for me was at the middle when I did some fun runs and didn't have to follow the plot I didn't really buy into/wasn't interested in case it happened to actually be

Spoiler

yay a long dead homicidal dragon is returning and I have to find some old fart in all likelihood long dead to kill it/help me kill it

from the start.

I don't think anyone disagrees that the story is way too omg epic for its own good (but then, how is this different from basically any fantasy CRPG where you end up dealing with gods or demigods and/or saving the universe because the player must feel that they are the center of the world!11), but DF handles it much better than DMS. The DF runners are pretty much pawns who sometimes get in way over their head, and it's pretty much made clear that you aren't considered any kind of significant threat. The epilogue does touch on this quite a bit, btw; also, look at the "run away from Berlin ending" txt file to see what happens if you just want to get away from it all.

As for pen-and-paper... it depends, but IMO the metaplot should only appear in high-end 'epic' campaigns, if at all. The metaplot isn't something that most runners are aware of, never mind try to influence it. In my last SR campaign, most of it revolved around the team escaping from Seattle to HK and then trying to survive, make contacts, and generally try to achieve personal goals (avenge x, learn what happened to y, save z -- and most of all, get enough nuyen to accomplish all this). There was no trace of the SR metaplot anywhere... and even the (uncharacteristically epic) overarching plot was secondary to the interaction between the runners, the planning and execution of each individual run, etc etc. Also, basic gameplay in SR tabletop is actually quite fun due to the many dimensions you can approach problems in (magic, decking, face skills, shooting, intimidation, brute force, etc), usually at the same time.

BTW, if you want real 'badguys' in SR, look no further than the Aztechnology megacorp, simply because they're (knowingly or unknowingly) inviting the horrors into the world in their lust for power. That Aztech project in Dragonfall is actually kinda tame compared to some of the shit that is rumored to go down in Aztlan. Aztech also isn't controlled by dragons; in fact, they actively fight against dragons. Considering that the biggest and most intense run in DF is against Aztech, I'm content.

edit: words

 

[Gord]

because the villain is pretty obviously right.

To me was the inverse, I knew the setting, when I got in there I thought WTF is this guy talking about? On shadowrun setting, Dragons are manipulative to get power but they behave in the exact same way that metahumans, it isn't as if you killing dragons you are going to get rid of all manipulative sons of bitches, on contrary to metahumans, the dragons, know the shit what is incomming and know that humanity will misuse magic to the point of fucking the whole planet, actually if wasn't for the sacrifice of one of them there wouldn't be any metahuman alive by 2057.

There's also another factor about your chars decisions regarding dragons:
Even if you'd accept his ideas about dragons and are ok with genociding an entire species, you might still be pissed about Vauclair's plan being based on sacrificing large parts of Berlin for his plan - at least if you go with the heavily implied theme of playing guardian angel of the Kreuzbasar and being very much in favor of the F-State.

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.

I don't know, the scope and breadth seems still pretty much the same to me, but the depth seems better:
They have improved the different parts, including the in-between stuff, you now get more stuff of the kind you'd expect shadowrunners to do, and in general DF is presented and build more effectively (which you see e.g. in the empty maps you mentioned - DMS had lots of maps that had unused, empty parts, making it look as if they originally had intended much more for them, but cut it for whatever reason, while in DF they usually provide map space only when they are going to use it).

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Even if you'd accept his ideas about dragons and are ok with genociding an entire species, you might still be pissed about Vauclair's plan being based on sacrificing large parts of Berlin for his plan - at least if you go with the heavily implied theme of playing guardian angel of the Kreuzbasar and being very much in favor of the F-State.

Yeah, you had pretty much no other option that mentioning that shit sanctimoniously in game. But in game you play someone who murders tens if not hundreds of people for mere money, and only asks the reason why in hindsight.

 

[thesheeep]

I also see how some characters would actually have agreed with the villain that dragons must be wiped out, and that Berlin is an acceptable sacrifice. So it would have been nice if you could actually join his endeavor, even if that would probably have turned your whole team (except for Glory, maybe) against you.

 

[Trash]

Excellent review Roxor. Thanks. Looking forward to give this baby a spin.

Do hope the modding community will take off on this thing. Or that it is at least succesfull enough for HBS to make another expansion or even a sequel. Looks like they actually learn along the way.

 

[V_K]

I don't really get all that "Dragons are evil, why can't I side with the villain" whining. You can easily side with Apex, who basically pursues the same agenda, only is much more sane in her methods. And unlike Vauclair she doesn't try to kill you.

 

[Ulminati]

I don't really get all that "Dragons are evil, why can't I side with the villain" whining. You can easily side with Apex, who basically pursues the same agenda, only is much more sane in her methods. And unlike Vauclair she doesn't try to kill you.

If the Renraku Archology taught us anything, it is that AIs are inherently trustworthy.

 

[Jaedar]

I don't really get all that "Dragons are evil, why can't I side with the villain" whining. You can easily side with Apex, who basically pursues the same agenda, only is much more sane in her methods. And unlike Vauclair she doesn't try to kill you.

If the Renraku Archology taught us anything, it is that AIs are inherently trustworthy.

But we haven't been there

 

[Ulminati]

This is what happens when you unshackle an AI in Shadowrun: