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Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

gestalt11

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
629
Finally finished and started the review on Expositionrun: Fragant Harbor aka
Forehammering: Yes I get it the Walled city feeds on people and it sends bad dreams.

They didn't fix anything about Dragonfall and managed to make a whole lot worse. Also the pacing is not atrocious but it really needed to be cut down and edited. If you choose the Whampoan Elder mission first you could have the combat in the first hour followed by 3-4 hours of just exposition.

And to hell with the people who say you can just ignore the citizens of the Hub. You get karma points if you talk to them all the way through and unlock the best ending.

Also the atmosphere isn't very...chinese I guess. I think this is a case of snake eating its own tail since the generic cyberpunk imagery is inspired by asian urban centers and I know Shadowrun is heavily globalized but meh, I was expecting more.

It makes me so sad that the music is so forgettable . I was expecting a Synapse level track dammit :rpgcodex:.


I think the real problem from a grabbing people point of view is they seem to rely on the context of the dreams themselves and don't actually progress the cause of the dreams until much later, so its all very thin. I understand want the dreams to be vague and mysterious and open to interpretation. But at some point in the middle they needed to do more than foreshadow. Now if you talk to the magic shop lady a lot you basically get it. But they needed to progressively uncover the nature of the threat into something a bit more solid. It is possible to do so without actually revealing the entire nature. For example some sort of prop of a historical piece saying we have seen this before and the consequences were so and so etc etc.

Instead they seems to have gone for a more horror based idea and keeping things somewhat stuck in amber for too much of the middle story. Overall the story and pacing are mostly fine the real problem is that they are lacking in the breadcrumbs you need to keep people chasing the dragon. Its mostly a problem of exposition I think.
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
Got past the Prosperity Tower mission by drinking so much whisky I was in a drunken stupor and didn't care any more.

It was terrible. Worst moment of the series by a long margin. I think the main reason it was so bad was because of the heavy emphasis on the Matrix - which they've ruined. It wasn't great before, but it was never anything worse than boring. Now it is painful to play - you just can't do fucking stealth gameplay in an isometric engine where you character can only move diagonally.

Commandos did it, but it didn't keep pausing every 10 seconds and enemies didn't move anywhere near as quick.
 
Self-Ejected

Ludo Lense

Self-Ejected
Joined
Nov 28, 2014
Messages
936
Got past the Prosperity Tower mission by drinking so much whisky I was in a drunken stupor and didn't care any more.

It was terrible. Worst moment of the series by a long margin. I think the main reason it was so bad was because of the heavy emphasis on the Matrix - which they've ruined. It wasn't great before, but it was never anything worse than boring. Now it is painful to play - you just can't do fucking stealth gameplay in an isometric engine where you character can only move diagonally.

Commandos did it, but it didn't keep pausing every 10 seconds and enemies didn't move anywhere near as quick.

But it was the purdy matrix! It has cyber eastern dragon statues! Who can argue with that? I think your tastes aren't :obviously: enough.
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,365
Pathfinder: Wrath
Is0bel is just for the sake of being a black person in this game, because her blackness has nothing to tell about the environment of Hong Kong, that she faces. She faces no cultural friction and no racial problems. There is nothing that explains the near environment of Hong Kong and the people living there, that has something to do with her skin color. Nor does here skin color tell the story of a strange in a strange land. And therefore there is no narrative mean in her blackness, it is just for the sake of diversity of races. Fuck even using Somalia for her origin is just plain stupid. She could have been from India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka, where there are also people with very dark skin. The reason for her being there, is just pulled out of the ass.
Her personal attributes are: species(dwarf), race(negroid), gender(female), age(juvenile), job(decker).
Why not dont they use the following attributes constellation? species(dwarf), race(asian), gender(female), age(young adult), job(decker).

really, i really don't know then, what's wrong with her being black? Yeah, it serves no real narrative purpose, but would making her white make her any better as a character? support her overall character arc?

The fact that she is not a good written character has nothing to do with the fact that she is a black dwarf. Her age and race, if changed, but with the same character arc, would still be bad simply because she is not well written.

Could HBS done better with companion? Hell yes, I agree, some of your idea seemed interesting. But IMO, people problems with her being black, is well, stupid.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
Got past the Prosperity Tower mission by drinking so much whisky I was in a drunken stupor and didn't care any more.

It was terrible. Worst moment of the series by a long margin. I think the main reason it was so bad was because of the heavy emphasis on the Matrix - which they've ruined.

Prosperity Tower at least offered some challenge, esp. in the last part.
Trying to keep your Decker safe while fighting a countdown probably made it the most difficult part of the game so far. But since most of it involved combat, the sneaking was actually easier since it would be done in turn-based mode.
I do think that they went a bit overboard with the enemies in the matrix, though. That or the RNG-gods where out to get me.
The earlier, pre-labratory Matrix parts in PT where pretty straight forward.
 

Immortal

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Sep 13, 2014
Messages
5,062
Location
Safe Space - Don't Bulli
would making her white make her any better as a character? support her overall character arc?

No.. But making her Chinese would make a whole lot more fucking sense. There are literally no Chinese people in fucking Hong Kong.

Is0bel is black, Racter is Russian, Duncan is black American?.. The only Fucking Asian is Gaichu and he's fucking Japanese.. And ALL of you speak Cantonese fluently?
It's pretty fucking retarded but mah minorities.

SocialJusticeRunners: Nobody Is Chinese In Hong Kong
 

Alfons

Prophet
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
1,031
Is0bel is black, Racter is Russian, Duncan is black..
Isn't Iso a dwarf and Duncan an orc? They have subspecies for those? what about the blue, green, red etc. skin colors wtf are they?

The story is about a ragtag team of assholes that come from unlikely backgrounds so who gives a shit?
 

Immortal

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Sep 13, 2014
Messages
5,062
Location
Safe Space - Don't Bulli
Isn't Iso a dwarf and Duncan an orc? They have subspecies for those? what about the blue, green, red etc. skin colors wtf are they?
The story is about a ragtag team of assholes that come from unlikely backgrounds so who gives a shit?

If you don't know anything about Shadow Run Lore, you should probably not contribute to the discussion or you just sound like a fucking idiot.

All Subraces or Meta Races (Dwarves / Elves) are / were Humans, they were exposed UGE but are born from human parents and generally have their ethnic backgrounds (Same with Goblinoids I believe). There are Asian orcs and White dwarves and Japanese Elves..

It's fucking stupid to have a game that is set in Hong Kong and not have a single Chinese person around you except Gobble or whatever her name is.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
When i played cyberpunk i was playing as a french, some other dude was from a martian colony, we had people from south america and asia and were playing on some kwan city and we all spoke in perfect spanish (or english in make believe). my point being, who even gives a crap?
You are all being so god damn retarded for absolutely no good reason.
 

Immortal

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Sep 13, 2014
Messages
5,062
Location
Safe Space - Don't Bulli
When i played cyberpunk i was playing as a french, some other dude was from a martian colony, we had people from south america and asia and were playing on some kwan city and we all spoke in perfect spanish (or english in make believe). my point being, who even gives a crap?
You are all being so god damn retarded for absolutely no good reason.

No.. The game has to be realistic or I can't enjoy it.

Duncan is sino-american dude. His surname is Wu lolz

That was just what Grandpa called him.
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium II

Self-Ejected
Joined
Jun 21, 2015
Messages
1,866,227
Location
Third World
Well that ain't very realistic. Getting really mild goblinization or going through extensive cosmetic surgery is ok but in HBS games monstrous orks and trolls are the exception rather than the rule.
 

dukeofwhales

Cipher
Joined
Nov 13, 2013
Messages
423
New matrix is >> old matrix.

About half-2/3 through I think. Game is good so far. Didn't rate having to murder absolutely everything in the "steal the laser" mission because I didn't have any of the prerequs of being allowed in - which is my fault of course but it's frustrating that I can't leave and prepare for a mission - once I'm there I'm committed to murdering my way through about 25 blokes.
 

Dookins

Educated
Joined
May 23, 2015
Messages
77
That was just what Grandpa called him.

Maybe, but Duncan's still Chinese. He bitches Raymond out near the end, accusing him of taking him in only because he was an asian kid living walled city style.
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
Unbelievable. I can't leave the MTR station because the other team of Shadowrunners are blocking the transition.
 

Alfons

Prophet
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
1,031
It's fucking stupid to have a game that is set in Hong Kong and not have a single Chinese person around you except Gobble or whatever her name is.
No.. The game has to be realistic or I can't enjoy it.
FFS, the whole point is that they're a motley crew, it works fine. As far as realistic goes isn't the whole plot unrealistic in the Shadowrun universe, the one in a million job type shit. Why do you only bitch about the ethnicity?
 

Animal

Savant
Shitposter
Joined
Jun 26, 2015
Messages
384
So much talk about SJW everywhere and then the main concern is the number of chinese or black characters in the game...

That's really important when compared to the ridiculously easy boss fight and forgetful missions...
 

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