Shadowrun Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

[Lord Azlan]

I don’t really like having to read a lot of text in games so surprisingly I really liked this game.

Small price and it took 30 hours to complete.

I thought it had very good storytelling compared to what I am used to. On a few occasions I felt the choices I made could lead me down a rabbit hole with lots of twists and turns. Eventually I began to second guess myself and I began to ponder what would have actually happened if I made a different choices. Pretty neat.

The Trial Run for the Lodge. That mission was just so uncomfortable and in the end I tried to brave it out by saying the mission was ok and I would work for them again – but then I didn’t.

I liked the Humanist side plot with its undertones of racism in Europe.

In the final mission of the game I thought I would side with Vauclair and let him loose the dragon on Berlin. My team then sided against me! What the heck is going on? When I argued against him and said he can’t destroy Berlin to save humanity or whatever the retard went on about Hiroshima. What the fuck could I say – we have a game character using real life examples against me!

I got to like our little village with all the shops. It helps when you do missions for the various citizens which is probably more than you do in most RPG where shops are just shops.

Apex Rising mission – bugged. Had to do it three times and only succeeded once Steam had verified game files and downloaded a huge something. Opponent AI was a bit naff as I think at least once in this mission they could have taken out the main terminal but decided to shoot my characters instead. I liked this mission as my small band had to protect three different items.

My character – I trained up in long range and rifle – but was mostly useless. I think something is bugged.

I feel the game has a great story – I never saw the twist coming. It’s quite grown up for a computer game. It has lots of potential and possibly some replay value in discovering how far you can go down the rabbit hole with other character builds.

Thumb up to Codex curator and reviewer of this one.

 

[miles teg]

Just finished the game myself and I really had a blast. I second everything Lord Azlan said, except the part about reading: I like reading when writing is good and this game has great writing. I was pretty surprised by that, the dev. team being small and everything, but I felt myself engaged in like 95% of the conversations, reading every single line until the end.

What I loved the most, is the level of detail in every single map. I had a lot of fun exploring just to see if a mission could be resolved in a different way and I was never disappointed: there was always a computer entry, an item, or a conversation that could avoid bloodshed. I also loved the fact corporation plans are rarely explained to you clearly: you have to search for hints and documentation in terminals and sheets in order to understand what is going on and this definitely helps immersion. Overall I think that Bioware could learn something from this team in terms of mission progression and story telling.

Combat was a bit of a disappointment. Pretty repetitive and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like the *only* difficulty in the game is due to companion's high miss rate. I didn't count how many times Eiger missed a point-black shot with a shotgun... Hell, even Glory never had more than 70% hit chance in melee. I don't know if I was doing something wrong (never bothered to give companions better weapons... but given how the system works with spells, I feared that a better weapon would lower the hit chance even further) or not, but I really felt that encounters were unnecessary long, and that this length was artificially created by making me waste turns with misses.

Overall, it's a great game, unless you only play this kind of games for the "tactical" part: that's definitely the weak point of this title.

 

[prodigydancer]

I feel like the *only* difficulty in the game is due to companion's high miss rate.

That's why Aim is one of the most useful spells in the whole game.

I didn't count how many times Eiger missed a point-black shot with a shotgun...

Shotguns are meh and sniper rifles are situational but with AR Eiger is... well, not really a killing machine but a very, very decent source of DPS. Keep Haste on her and enemies will fall like flies.

Hell, even Glory never had more than 70% hit chance in melee.

Her damage ouput is underwhelming but she's good at crowd control if you make her use tazer instead of her pistol.

---

The game isn't hard at all if you know what you're doing. Particularly, rigger is OP because class A combat drone hits like a truck (on par with Eger's sniper rifle I think) and becomes available quite early.

 

[Abu Antar]

The game is on sale at the Humble store. 67% off. https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/shadowrun_dragonfall_dc_storefront

Returns is also on sale.

 

[Zombra]

Paaaaaaaauuuuul

 

[Rutteger]

Just started playing this again. Gave up after the first couple of missions on my previous attempt.

The lack of responsiveness of the UI really irks me. Sometimes I click on an interaction icon and nothing happens, but I can't tell because there's no immediate feedback when you do successfully click on something. Also, I hate that the PC runs when you click on something that's far away, but walks when moving to nearby locations... Why! I don't need that kind of immersion in a game like Dragonfall.

Otherwise I'm enjoying the game much more this time around. I like the economy a lot. I don't have enough money for anything which makes saving up for that one spell or armour piece really satisfying. Writing has been pretty meh generally, but I did enjoy

Spoiler

the mission in the abandoned genetic research facility where the delusional lab tech is obsessed with the schlocky fantasy show

This kind of game is a tough medium for comedy but that worked well.

I'll echo the concerns of others that unbuffed NPCs have awful accuracy. Glory is particular frustrating because I feel like a melee fighter is a bit "high risk, high reward" in Dragonfall, and you're often not rewarded for leaving cover to try melee attacks.

 

[DalekFlay]

Glory would be high risk if the game were hard at all. As it is, just run her in to kill dudes who are low on health and then run her out.

 

[Alfons]

Glory would be high risk if the game were hard at all. As it is, just run her in to kill dudes who are low on health and then run her out.

If you go by comparison she is high risk. When you can full auto snipe anyone across the map running in is high risk.

 

[DalekFlay]

If you go by comparison she is high risk. When you can full auto snipe anyone across the map running in is high risk.

Fair enough, I just never recall her dying. I would sit her somewhere taking pot-shots with her pistol until people were damaged, then run her in to kill them in melee. I remember the mage guy dying a lot more because of low health and ranged enemies in tight spaces.

 

[Mystary!]

I found that using Glory's two double attacks, whatever they were called, made her hit atleast once even with piss poor accuracy. She doesn't really need to do damage anyway, her job is just running around forcing dudes out of cover so the rest of the team can mow them down. That's what the armor shred is for aswell.

 

[Rutteger]

I found that using Glory's two double attacks, whatever they were called, made her hit atleast once even with piss poor accuracy. She doesn't really need to do damage anyway, her job is just running around forcing dudes out of cover so the rest of the team can mow them down. That's what the armor shred is for aswell.

Yeah, now that I think about it she does force enemies out of cover which can be useful.

Fair enough, I just never recall her dying. I would sit her somewhere taking pot-shots with her pistol until people were damaged, then run her in to kill them in melee. I remember the mage guy dying a lot more because of low health and ranged enemies in tight spaces.

I feel like her armor shred and her chance to cause bleeding make her melee attacks more useful earlier in combat. But yes, despite my concern about here being out of cover a lot I can't recall her dying much either. Probably has high body stat or something.

 

[Haba]

So, I accidentally into buying a key when I already had the damn game.

Spoiler

Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut STEAM;
9MDQL-QYAE5-5MIKB

First come, first served.

 

[Gay-Lussac]

I've decided to give Dragonfall a try since I saw a lot of people saying it's superior do Hong Kong, and honestly it's been the same shit. SO MUCH boring dialogue and the combat is really mediocre too. The Matrix sections suck balls on both games (I guess that's just a consequence of me not liking the combat). Character customization also a pretty big letdown, leveling up the companion special abilities feels more rewarding than leveling your PC, honestly. Honestly can't see why anyone would play this unless they' love the setting and/or are starving for an RPG.

Also, combat sections where enemies are a few screens away and prevent combat from ending. Dragging every character around, one by one, such a fucking chore.

 

[Prime Junta]

boring dialogue

Can you give some examples of not-boring dialogue?

 

[Infinitron]

Honestly can't see why anyone would play this unless they' love the setting and/or are starving for an RPG.

For the people who don't get Dragonfall and why people would play it, Admiral Rimjob POOBUM's review remains a gold standard: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...fall-directors-cut.90165/page-83#post-3743736

 

[Gay-Lussac]

boring dialogue

Can you give some examples of not-boring dialogue?

Bloodlines, Torment, BG 2, Fallout 1 and 2, New Vegas, Underrail. It doesn't have to be shakespeare, the main problem with Shadowrun is just the sheer amount of it. Every talking NPC has a mostly irrelevant 10000 word sob story that they can't wait to share with you for some reason and I'm inclined to trudge through it because there's no way of telling beforehand if there's actually important information buried in there.

Don't even get me started on the companions, once they start they just don't shut the fuck up with their life stories and I have no idea if talking to them will unlock some kind of sidequest or not, so the alternative is to potentially miss out on most of the side content in the game and be left with a bare bones experience which, in itself, is not that satisfying either.

 

[Darth Roxor]

examples of not-boring dialogue

Underrail

my sides

 

[Gay-Lussac]

examples of not-boring dialogue

Underrail

my sides

Underrail isn't particularly well written but it doesn't bury you under walls of text either. If a game has other strengths, the writing can just not get in the way and I'll enjoy the product as a whole; that's how low my standards are and Shadowrun fails to meet even that.

Harebrained either had too many writers with too much extra time or the few they had were suffering from a bad case of verbal diarrhea.

EDIT: Just to be clarify, the problem here relates to the difference between telling a story and making a chronicle.

AOD, for example, has a lot of text in it, some characters tell pretty lengthy stories, but, despite it's volume, the writing is as concise as it should be to not be boring but at the same time not be laconic either; it sticks to the important points and as such is a pleasure to read.

Characters in Shadowrun make chronicles of their lives, they recount events including all sorts of irrelevant minutiae and inane details; I'm interested to know why that chick's body is all decked out in old cyberware, or how Gaichu became a ghoul, but when I try to find out about it they bombard me with the most inane shit ever about their life starting from freaking childhood ("My daddy abused me, I moved from town uisdfasmj to town ejmasm, then I found Simone, who was a really good person to me, she was super fun and protected me and this and that, then let me tell you about how life was as a red samurai, and my first teacher was named jedaijew and she was like this and that and blablablabla").

The worst part is that this isn't even limited to the companions, random NPCs on the streets, whom you have no way of knowing beforehand if they're relevant to a mission, have massive detailed backgrounds that they can't wait to share with you.

 

[Lhynn]

examples of not-boring dialogue

Underrail

my sides

Nonsense, underrail writing is good, it just takes time to get moving. Characters and the story itself is fairly good once you reach core city and all the way to the end, with the exception of a mary sue retarded character that should be cut off from the game, he has six fingers and he ruins it for me.

 

[orcinator]

My biggest gripe with SRR dialogue is how uninteractive it is, since your choices boil down to
1. Frown and nod
2. Nod
3. Smile and nod

and a lot of the time the game doesn't even bother having a a slightly different response based on what you pick so you might as well keep pressing 1 like you're in the Deagle Nation until you get to a stat check or an obvious fite/don't fite choice.


1

 

[Konjad]

Quite a decent story-driven RPG. Rather interesting storyline, mostly well-written characters and dialogues, albeit sometimes overly dramaticized. Mediocre turn-based combat system with annoyances, such as characters covering tiles behind them, so you can't send another squadmate there as there is no way to click there. Skill checks in dialogues, albeit I'd say there is not enough of them, and a very nice audiovisuals. Overall, for a discounted price it's a must-buy for cRPG fans who like story-driven games, but not for anyone else. The game, however, is quite short, and not really replayable.

 

[Severian Silk]

What is a good user campaign for this game? I played Nightmare Harvest for DMS and it was aight.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

What is a good user campaign for this game? I played Nightmare Harvest for DMS and it was aight.

Having played through all highest rated campaings last year, I can honestly tell there isn't any. It's all formulaic at best, or filled with typical modder retardery at worst. The engine isn't really all that flexible to allow for unique and/or different experiences. So it all boils down to storyfaggotry which is mostly fine but nothing more substantial than that. You won't see anything better than Nightmare Harvest in any field

 

[Severian Silk]

What is a good user campaign for this game? I played Nightmare Harvest for DMS and it was aight.

Having played through all highest rated campaings last year, I can honestly tell there isn't any. It's all formulaic at best, or filled with typical modder retardery at worst. The engine isn't really all that flexible to allow for unique and/or different experiences. So it all boils down to storyfaggotry which is mostly fine but nothing more substantial than that. You won't see anything better than Nightmare Harvest in any field

 

[Severian Silk]

I haven't looked into SRR modding. Are the map files in a human readable format? It might be neat to try and create a roguelike.