Shadowrun: Hong Kong Kickstarter is UP!

[Barothmuk]

Finished it today. First RPG in a long time that's held my interest all the way to the end.

 

Definitely flawed but the characters and setting more than made up for it in my eyes.

 

Edit: Also stumbled across this spoilery video-review on RPGCodex. It's quite good.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Barothmuk

[213374U]

Edit: Also stumbled across this spoilery video-review on RPGCodex. It's quite good.

 

The guy with the mesmerizing eastern european accent in the review seemed to like DF better, and I have to say, he does make a compelling case as for why. It's an RPGCodex review though, so it's unsurprising that he focused more on why this game is underwhelming compared to whatever came before. Still, if the takeaway is, if you haven't picked up DF yet, go do it now, I'd be in agreement.

 

Also: new patch. I'd prefer that they had released a game with less bugs to begin with, but all's well that ends well.

Edited September 3, 2015 by 213374U

[Spider]

I haven't finished it yet (am at the point of no return), but I also liked Dragonfall better. I think the story was told better in DF and for me it was more relatable.

 

Also felt there were more options for decking and rigging in DF.

 

Maybe I'll change my mind before the end, we'll see.

[Majek]

Edit: Also stumbled across this spoilery video-review on RPGCodex. It's quite good.

Nope, it's horrible. I just wanted to punch the guy. Now i want to punch you as well for linking this thing.

[majestic]

I liked the point he made about Hong Kong not looking Chinese enough. Because Berlin was totally super German in Dragonfall? Riiiiight.

[Keyrock]

Also: new patch. I'd prefer that they had released a game with less bugs to begin with, but all's well that ends well.

 

Nice, they resolved the one minor problem I had with the game, the lack of a pop up explaining the hacking mini-game the first time it happens.  Now I have nothing left to be pissed off about.

[redneckdevil]

I'm Rdy for them to make another Shadowrun game. For the 4th one, they can keep going the route they going but I do hope they bring back the atmosphere and music from dead mans switch. Dragonfall and Hong Kong have excelled in regards compared to dead mans switch, but dead man switch still has that atmosphere and music that just screams futuristic cyberpunk more so than the latest 2 games.

Just saying they keep making them, I'll keep buying. It's been a long time since I've had as much fun as I had with these games.

[Keyrock]

In a utopia, Microsoft would approach Harebrained Schemes and say "You've done the series proud, in exchange for a cut of the sales, here's 50 million dollars.  Keep the gameplay style the same if you want and you handle all the creative stuff, but go hog wild on the production value."  Of course, in that same utopia I'm living in Japan, following the Joshi scene on my limitless budget, and drinking sake with wrestlers after shows.  I guess I should just be happy Microsoft has let Harebrained schemes use their IP and kept their hands out of creative.

[redneckdevil]

In a utopia, Microsoft would approach Harebrained Schemes and say "You've done the series proud, in exchange for a cut of the sales, here's 50 million dollars. Keep the gameplay style the same if you want and you handle all the creative stuff, but go hog wild on the production value." Of course, in that same utopia I'm living in Japan, following the Joshi scene on my limitless budget, and drinking sake with wrestlers after shows. I guess I should just be happy Microsoft has let Harebrained schemes use their IP and kept their hands out of creative.

Amen

[Keyrock]

I haven't finished the game yet, but I'm into endgame territory now.  One gripe I have, I'm not sure if this is a bug...  it seems like a bug, when I went to see Auntie C she told me flat out "finish any other runs you have before you start this mission".  No problem, right?  Standard stuff.  I had one pending job left at that time.  The problem is that it wouldn't actually let me do that job.  I could accept it from my mission computer and it would show up as an active job, but when I would go to the MTR, the only option I was given was to start the endgame stuff.  It's not that big a deal, I feel I'm plenty powerful enough, so whatever karma and nuyen I missed out on for that last job shouldn't hinder me any in the endgame, but if you tell me "finish any remaining runs you have" it would be cool if the game actually let me do that.  Oh well.  I should be done with the game in the next day or two.

[pmp10]

Not all missions start in MTR.

You should check the docks.

[Keyrock]

That makes sense, I was so used to starting practically every single other mission from the MTR.  Too late now, anyway.

Edited September 7, 2015 by Keyrock

[redneckdevil]

Same thing happened to me and it was at the docks lol.

[Rosveen]

Aren't there orange lines on the compass pointing in the direction of your quest objectives? One should lead you to the docks.

[majestic]

Aren't there orange lines on the compass pointing in the direction of your quest objectives? One should lead you to the docks.

 

Yes, there are. And actually two missions start from the docks, so... missing both kinda means not talking to your companions much I guess.

[Keyrock]

Aren't there orange lines on the compass pointing in the direction of your quest objectives? One should lead you to the docks.

There are, but I never pay attention to the compass, I'd rather find my objectives by searching around the level when out on a run and in Heoi I just got so used to constantly heading toward the MTR that it became instinctual, plus I read the full mission briefing much earlier, when I first got the message for the mission, then wound up doing every other mission and didn't bother reading through the whole message again when it came time to actually do the mission since I had already read it once before and remembered "oh right, that's the mission on the boat" and my brain didn't make the rather logical leap that a mission on a boat wouldn't start from the MTR because I'm a dumbass.  

 

Anyway, doesn't matter now, I'm halfway (?) through what I can only assume is the final mission.  On the bright side, I'll at least have 1 run that will be totally fresh when I inevitably replay the game sometime in the future.

[Keyrock]

I finished the game.  Great game overall, though I wasn't a fan of the final mission.  It wasn't bad, but the game fell into the tired old RPG trope of having the final stretch be basically a crapton of combat.  The combat wasn't bad, or hard, it's just...  it was such a paint by numbers way to end a game that in many ways did things at least a little differently from the tired worn out RPG formula.  They even did the tired trope of

Kill the final boss...  Surprise!  Not really dead.  Kill the final boss again.  Surprise!  Not really dead again.

 

 

Anyway, I'll almost certainly play the game again at some point, especially since there is that one run I never did, so at least something will be brand new for me.  That's for the future, though.  For now, I'm a bit RPG'd out.  I need at least a week of break from RPGs.  The next one up will likely be either Sword Coast Legends or Wasteland 2 Director's Cut.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Keyrock

[Cantousent]

I finished Shadowrun returns just now.  I don't have time to start the next one, but I was quite happy with what I played.  I did my first run on hard and I would be tempted to increase the difficulty and do another run, but I have other games to play.  <.<  I probably can't start for a while, but I'm sure it will be a lot of fun.  One thing I think I'll do for the next game is invest in my usual magic build, but also diverge into decking.  Don't get me wrong, I'll go full mage, but I should have plenty of points to divert some to decking and I think that will be an advantage in some spots, at least according to experience.  Time will tell.

[ShadySands]

Decking will make your mage less effective as magic and tech don't mix well. Ideally you want to keep your essence (as magic is determined by essence) at 6 but I know in HK if you pump body(?) you get extra essence to mitigate the loss but not sure if that was present in earlier games as I never tried.

Edited September 14, 2015 by ShadySands

[Cantousent]

The only reason I thought that is that I maxed out my mage abilities and put points in other places, but I think I might have been better off using some of those excess points in int/deck.  Of course, I'll probably read advice/responses for the next while before I start my Hong Kong run, so I'll see.  :Cant's one raised eyebrow grin:

[213374U]

I know in HK if you pump body(?) you get extra essence to mitigate the loss but not sure if that was present in earlier games as I never tried.

 

Cyberware Affinity (new secondary stat in HK, Body dependent) grants you one extra Essence point at level 3 or so and another one at 7 IIRC. It's too much karma to dump on a stat if you aren't actually going full Jensen, though. Generally it is a very bad idea to install any cyberware on magic users. For each point your Essence is < 6, your spells cooldowns are increased by 1. Problem is, the game rounds down, so even if a datajack is just 0.5 Essence, that means you have an effective Essence of 5. Putting 6 karma into Cyberware Affinity would let you get away with the datajack as a caster, but it's only an option in HK.

 

Decker/Rigger is the obvious combo if you want to spread out a bit, as there is no real advantage in any of the 3 campaigns to becoming an uber decker, sadly.

[Barothmuk]

Decker/Rigger is the obvious combo if you want to spread out a bit

Yeah that's what I rolled. Going to give Adept a whirl for my Dragonfall playthrough.

[Keyrock]

I mean, you can make Mage/Decker work, if you're not worried about min-maxing.  

[Rosveen]

I started off as a shotgun mage, but in the later part of the game I didn't need to use weapons at all. I should have put those spare points into Dodge and Body instead or become a master diplomat with multiple etiquettes.

[213374U]

 

Decker/Rigger is the obvious combo if you want to spread out a bit

Yeah that's what I rolled. Going to give Adept a whirl for my Dragonfall playthrough.

 

 

IIRC melee builds were rather weak compared to ranged in DMS and DF, but they rebalanced it for HK. I tried making a chromed street sam-troll abomination, and while effective (let's face it, combat isn't hard), it was never as effective as a certain melee companion you get. Maybe they've changed it since, been a while since I've fired up DF.

 

 

 

I started off as a shotgun mage, but in the later part of the game I didn't need to use weapons at all. I should have put those spare points into Dodge and Body instead or become a master diplomat with multiple etiquettes.

 

That's what I did in HK. The advantage of pumping Charisma, other than obviously etiquettes, is that you can put extra karma you don't know what to do with into Conjuring, allowing you to cast Haste as a mage, for instance.