Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

This game seems to fix just about every issue I had with Shadowrun Returns. Instead of a short story, we get a decently long quest. Instead of hiring generic mercenaries as partners, we get a team full of interesting people with backstories and skills of their own, plenty of interactions and even personal missions full of hard choices (and if for some reason you're nuts and don't want that, the mercs are even still an option). You can now actually use a decker in your partner that isn't the player character to jack into the Matrix. The game runs properly on a modern high resolution monitor, the graphics seem a little nicer, and the combat seems to be streamlined a little. More care has been taken with the writing, with very few typos compared to the first game. All in all, this is the refined end result of mastering the first game's toolbox, with all the flaws filtered out and a more engaging plot with deeper characters and higher stakes, making full use of the game's format. The only reason I'm not giving a full five stars is because of a really annoying bug (possibly the same one other reviews refer to as game-breaking, though I was able to get past it) that came up several times, where after ending an action in cyberspace, the game just locks up and won't let you take any more actions. I have no idea what causes this or exactly how I managed to break free of it- sometimes after waiting a long time (like, seriously, four straight minutes) I'd find that I could suddenly act again, and other times even waiting wouldn't fix it and I'd have to wait just to get to where I could manually end my entire turn and waste those actions to progress to the next round. Just terrible, and an unfortunate flaw in an otherwise great game. Still, if you're prepared to deal with that, it's a very engaging story and the combat is fun and has decent variety. If you like Shadowrun's setting but found the first game lacking, this might be what you were hoping for.

I own all three shadowrun games & this is the best. The shadowrun games are not perfect - the combat is a bit too straightforward/easy, the hacking mini-games are a bit too much arcade - but the world is nicely designed, the stories engaging, the choices fun. Really, the only thing I would prefer, if there were more choices, more moral gray zones, more storyline. It's perfect for people who like games with lots of RPG & story elements & a little of combat thrown in.

A clusterfuck of game mechanics. Camera cant be turned. At one point i wanted to walk behind a guy and melee him but his body model was so big it was impossible to select the square i wanted to move to no matter how much i tried. Large miss chances. All the time. Melee attacks are at like 75% to hit. FUCKING MELEE ATTACKS. Ranged is better in every imaginable way. Flanking and line of sight make no sense. I have played all XCOM games and a ridiculous number of rpgs but half the time i dont have line of sight when i clearly should have and the other half i dont get flanking attacks when im clearly flanking people while the AI has perfect game sense and gets flanking attacks while being in cover in front of me. WAT? Decking is an annoying tacked on mechanic. Speech checks are ridiculously specific.

This is an excellent value with hours of immersive and entertaining game-play. The size and scope of the adventure, and the variety of tactical options available in most missions, makes for a strong game that never lags or gets too redundant/repetitive. The characters of your teammates are clearly drawn and provide for some excellent dialogues and side-missions that lead you to making genuine choices about who you are and what you value. I love that the final climactic missions present several very different options for resolving the main story, all of which have impact on how the adventure resolves and on your identity as the protagonist of the story. Overall, an excellent value for the money and strongly recommended.

This is a good game. Maybe good-plus. Sure, it's not a Witcher 3 or something else that will keep you going for days and weekds - but then that is not what it sets out to be. In my opinion, what really sets Dragonfall apart is the writing. Sure, the tactical combat is fluid, easy to learn and hard to master, but the game isn't that hard or deep overall. But the characters, the atmosphere, and the story are there in spades, making this a perfect little gem in its own right. I just read a review calling this game's story and writing average... and I couldn't disagree more. Dragonfall has a story that is certainly above average, and branching storylines at that, depending on decisions you yourself take, stuff you made happen yourself. This is still not a given in most CRPGs. Moreover, Dragonfall has characters that are quite a bit deeper and more interesting than those in most other games of the genre you will have played. The writing is, in my view, simply exceptional. Many CRPGs make it immediately obvious which NPCs will be playing a larger role and which are just one-off quest givers. In Dragonfall, every little NPC is lovingly crafted and given a unique and interesting persona. They have little quirks, they use individual language, they have agendas that are not immediately clear. They're human. And while the game is heavy on text overall, you're not drowned in it or anything - the writing is strong and self-assured enough to convey character and atmosphere in succinct phrasing, often just hinting at stuff that you might pick up on... or not. One final note: if you love your pen&paper Shadowrun lore, and would hate to see it butchered by a different medium - rest easy. Dragonfall delivers on the lore, and in style. There were some real gems in here, from the Horrors to Winternight to 2XS - very nice for a SR grognard like me!