Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

[Lacrymas]

I love conflict and people questioning my decisions and person, even in real life, so more of that, please.

 

[Zombra]

I love conflict and people questioning my decisions and person, even in real life, so more of that, please.

Keep presenting your opinions as facts and you'll be assured a steady diet!

 

[Lacrymas]

You'd be surprised at the lack of conflict and criticism in my life. It's very hard to find anyone willing to criticize whatever it is you do, even if you are actively seeking such. Also, "keep presenting your opinions as facts" is such a meaningless statement I can't even, do I have to put a disclaimer under all my posts to kindly remind people they aren't forced to accept my posts as an ultimate truth? They usually are that, but you are free to believe they aren't.

 

[Sykar]

I love conflict and people questioning my decisions and person, even in real life, so more of that, please.

Keep presenting your opinions as facts and you'll be assured a steady diet!

But that is what most of us do anyway which is why this is a fun forum. That and the fact that I can call all of you fucking raging faggots without fear of some mod on a power trip wanting to perma ban my (literally) fat ass.

This game was awesome and everyone who didn't like it is a faggot

I can think plenty of reasons for not liking these games.
Combat, while a huge step up from its predecesors, is still repetitive as fuck. You always end up doing the fucking same thanks to the retarded character system and the inane cooldowns.
Hong kong has too many words, most of that shit doesnt even matter either, they should have kept shit brief and given us more interactions instead of making the ones we got so verbose.
The lack of content is a blessing and a curse. A curse because you want more shadowrun, a blessing because its about as much as you can take from the gameplay before it gets stale as fuck and you start dreading another encounter.
There is no real player agency. While i get this isnt that sort of game they could have given you a bit more control over your team. Maybe it should have been you going out there and getting these missions instead of them being handed to you by some prick.

Dragonfall and hong kong are overrall the best shadowrun games outthere, but they are still not good enough. This is one of the reasons im glad HB left the IP resting for a while. When they come back to it, and they will. Theyll have new technology and more experience under their belt and the games they will make will surely be better. (Inb4 :fabulously optimistic: ratings).

I forgot to comment on this earlier so I will do it now. My gripes with the SRR game franchise are far more wide reaching and unviersal.

First and foremost is the fact that they are not very faithful to the P&P variant. The biggest affront for me as an avid mage/shaman/adept player comes in the forms of CDs on spells instead of a proper drain mechanic which is not that difficult if they would have just assigned a drain variable for each spell and let Willpower and spellcasting reduce it. This would also force mages to use mundane methods alongside their magic.
Then of course the idiocy of not making traditions exclusive which ties in with mages not being able to properly summon their elementals which again would not have been difficult. Seeing people recommending shamanistic spirit summoning and equipping adept abilities make me cringe to no end. This could have been easily by avoided by simply making these skills exclusive once you spend the very first point into it.
To add insult to injury your spells behave like mere equipment. It should not have been a big problem to have base versions of spells and then upgrade them instead of just replacing them. It really feels weird, outright wrong in fact, to sell your old and useless spells and even that would not have been faithful to the P&P version but still better than this.
To top it all off you are restricted to 6 spell slots and a "weapon" spell. All if my beginner characters in P&P had more than that and easily twice to triple amount if they managed to survive for a while.
On top of all of that no astral space or real aura reading outside of a bit of mostly flavor texts in dialogue.

Tied in with the limited spell slots of 6 is also the fact that the inventory is idiotically restrictive as well. It has 6 slots only and treats all items equally big. You can tell me what you want but you should have been able to carry dozens of combat drugs with you without much of a fuss. They weight almost nothing and take very little space. At the very least they could have made drugs stackable and small consumables stackable.
Oh and since we are with drugs, no real long term negative consequences for abusing combat meds aka addictions.
The inventory restrictions naturally lead to the lack of an ammo system. It should have been a real concern to run out of ammo during a run and properly stocking up or being able to scavenge corpses or scour for ammo at the risk of more combat would have made things more interesting but alas this is not so here.
On top of that no repercussions if you run around with heavy ordnance and no hidden weapons or the like nor a proper noise system going alongside for stealthy approaches.

There is also no sense of time whatsoever in the game nor a day/night cycle nor any real weather cycle or changes.
On top of that no betrayal or real conflicts in the teams, all are mostly just a happy family. At most they might show disapproval through a comment but there are no consequences whatsoever. Even BG 1+2 handled that better.

Matrix is befuddling. They had good system they could have more or less copied or be inspired from by the old Genesis system which handled the matrix well. Instead it worked almost exactly like meat space in the first two games and a slightly improved though somewhat annoying system in HK.

Rigging is also severely limited to be alternative summoners in competition to shamans due to the fact that there are no vehicles or vehicle systems in the game one way or the other.

There also some minor things like not being able to crouch and lay down like in Jagged Alliance for example or being able to use at least some altitude to your advantage during the game.
Also flanking is far too easy in this game.

 

[Iznaliu]

Also flanking is far too easy in this game.

It's far too easy in many games; in many RPGs it just requires two characters, which is kind of ridiculous.

 

[Sykar]

Also flanking is far too easy in this game.

It's far too easy in many games; in many RPGs it just requires two characters, which is kind of ridiculous.

You do not even need that. All you need is a about a 45 degree angle and you completely ignore cover somehow.

 

[Lacrymas]

Just beat the fight with the two mercenary groups that you can turn on. It was quite fun I must say, had to reload a couple of times. You kinda cheat a little, though, for some reason the game gives you an extra turn at the start of combat.

 

[Iznaliu]

You kinda cheat a little, though, for some reason the game gives you an extra turn at the start of combat.

A lot of the game has this kind of stuff, so it's not like this is noteworthy, to be honest.

 

[Falksi]

Loved Returns, just started Dragonfall and enjoying it so far, then will be on to Hong Kong. Only problem is every time I read "Dragonfall" I get the "Cannonball Run" theme in my head.

Dragonfall.........Dragonfall..........It's not what you do it's how you do it................

 

[frajaq]

Am I the only one that really liked Duncan? His whining was annoying sometimes sure, but I liked his ex-cop attitude in missions, and he was a pretty good character mechanically too, his Magnetic Arm/Throw Grenades Back talent was pretty broken, since after that it allowed my party to bunker down without fear of getting fucked by stun grenades.

Also yes I did choose the "Return to Society with SIN" ending on the bonus campaign

 

[Vorark]

Couple of spoilers ahead, don't read if you didn't play DF or HK.

I liked how Dragonfall didn't force a background on your character. What was Monika to you? Acquaintence, friend, former lover? Are you trying to solve the mystery just to save your hide or in some way to avenge her? It was all open to player interpretation and did make for a better PC-centric arc. Take HK instead, you necessarily were taken in by the old man, Duncan was you friend, only thing you can choose is why you were put in jail. The game forces the PC to care about the old man, otherwise why travel all the way to Hong Kong? I remember this pissed my alot during my first playthrough.

It was like the New Vegas Lonesome Road dlc, which tried to tie a backstory to the Courier. At least there you could tell Ulysses he was full of shit and kill him.

 

[Vorark]

Even if the past is mostly set in stone, you can choose what to think of it.

Yes and it was a nice touch, but in a way it was still forced upon the player. No matter the game, I prefer when the PC backstory is left vague; a couple of tidbits here and there and it's more than enough. New Vegas did this up until Lonesome Road.

 

[Iznaliu]

Couple of spoilers ahead, don't read if you didn't play DF or HK.

I liked how Dragonfall didn't force a background on your character. What was Monika to you? Acquaintence, friend, former lover? Are you trying to solve the mystery just to save your hide or in some way to avenge her? It was all open to player interpretation and did make for a better PC-centric arc. Take HK instead, you necessarily were taken in by the old man, Duncan was you friend, only thing you can choose is why you were put in jail. The game forces the PC to care about the old man, otherwise why travel all the way to Hong Kong? I remember this pissed my alot during my first playthrough.

It was like the New Vegas Lonesome Road dlc, which tried to tie a backstory to the Courier. At least there you could tell Ulysses he was full of shit and kill him.

The fact of the matter is offering DF-style options with HK-style detail would've been prohibitive given HBS's limited resources.

 

[Vorark]

Was browsing the Nexus and found out this campaign, which reworks DMS into the Hong Kong engine.

Dead Man Switch: Vox Populi

In the urban sprawl of the Seattle metroplex, the search for a mysterious killer sets you on a trail that leads from the darkest slums to the city’s most powerful megacorps. You will need to tread carefully, enlist the aid of other runners, and master powerful forces of technology and magic in order to emerge from the shadows of Seattle unscathed.

An adaptation of the Original H.B.S. Dead Mans Switch Campaign.

This adaptation contains a persistant crew, reworked Matrix, loyalty-based side runs for your crew, and some story tweaks to the orignal campaign.

It's new and still in the works but looks promising.

 

[Sykar]

Just beat the fight with the two mercenary groups that you can turn on. It was quite fun I must say, had to reload a couple of times. You kinda cheat a little, though, for some reason the game gives you an extra turn at the start of combat.

Yeah I read somewhere that both groups are "surprised" about you trying to fight them both at once and that is why they are hesitating. Makes as much sense as "derp"...

Loved Returns, just started Dragonfall and enjoying it so far, then will be on to Hong Kong. Only problem is every time I read "Dragonfall" I get the "Cannonball Run" theme in my head.

Dragonfall.........Dragonfall..........It's not what you do it's how you do it................

Color change!

 

[Iznaliu]

It's new and still in the works but looks promising.

I've played it; it's good enough, but it's nothing amazing and you start to get a bit sick of the same basic mechanics after a while.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Right, I made it to the bonus campaign in Hong Kong. I took the mission with the kid and was pleasantly surprised with the ensuing fight. It's like they realized players liked a similar fight in the main campaign, so they just cranked it up to 11, with what felt like 40 to 50 enemies armed with top tier equipment coming from both directions.

I soon realized that trying to play this fairly only ends with my team torn to pieces. In the end I parked my mage, Gobbet and a summoned caster spirit on the heavy layline in the middle of the street and nuts. Heavy laylines turn mages into gods in this game, with a single disabling spell (blind, confusion, petrify, ...) hitting entire groups at once. It was a massacre, I don't remember laylines being that powerful in Dragonfall.

It's still not as good as Dragonfall, but when compared to what we get these days it's bloody great. Time to finish this.

 

[the_shadow]

Yeah, ley-lines are even more powerful in HK than they were in Dragonfall. That was probably an unnecessary boost considering that medium/strong ley-lines gave a solid buff to begin with, and HK is far less combat oriented.

 

[Iznaliu]

Yeah, ley-lines are even more powerful in HK than they were in Dragonfall. That was probably an unnecessary boost considering that medium/strong ley-lines gave a solid buff to begin with, and HK is far less combat oriented.

I believe that people were complaining that they were too weak in DF; of course, what they really meant was that they didn't have enough flashy effects.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Aaaand done. Well, the bonus campaign was disappointing, but at least it provided an ending that got my character out of Hong Kong. I really disliked how you get stuck with "auntie" no matter what at the end of main campaign.

Overall, while not as great as Dragonfall - story is not as tight, mission are not as interesting and diverse, npcs are too talkative and the crew members too dysfunctional - I must say this is still one of the better recent rpgs and well worth the play.

 

[Background Character]

The ending of the bonus campaign was such a dissapointment, either one. A better ending would be to still be a shadowrunner but independant from Cheng.

Overall bonus campaign or not Dragonfall is better than Hong Kong.

 

[Falksi]

Crikey, whilst they seemed to have nailed a lot more of the combat elements in Hong Kong boy does the dialogue fucking drag. Witcher 3 syndrome very present where I start to switch off, because even the illusion of choice is done poorly.

Still only a few hours into it so far, like the initial setup, but it's definitely more of a slog than the previous 2.

Will persist, still got elements I am enjoying, but there's a real lack of rythm & engagement compared to Returns & Dragonfall, both of which I thought were mint.

 

[Zero Credibility]

The structure of the story is another problem, on the surface it is the same concept as in Dragonfall. You have a problem you need to get info on, you work various missions until you find that info. In Dragonfall you did missions to raise the cash for you to buy the info. But in Hong Kong you do the missions... because you are told so? And then someone else just finds this info for you? It may appear a small difference, but you can feel it in the game, and it makes most of the missions feel badly disconnected from the actual story line.

 

[Iznaliu]

The ending of the bonus campaign was such a dissapointment, either one. A better ending would be to still be a shadowrunner but independant from Cheng.

I would be annoyed if you were offered that option; it wouldn't work with the game's themes tonally, which implied that you were a mere pawn in the game.

 

[Vorark]

Crikey, whilst they seemed to have nailed a lot more of the combat elements in Hong Kong boy does the dialogue fucking drag. Witcher 3 syndrome very present where I start to switch off, because even the illusion of choice is done poorly.

Still only a few hours into it so far, like the initial setup, but it's definitely more of a slog than the previous 2.

Will persist, still got elements I am enjoying, but there's a real lack of rythm & engagement compared to Returns & Dragonfall, both of which I thought were mint.

Welcome to the club.