Shadowrun Returns

Kickstarted this game, although I've never played any Shadowrun game before, and didn't know anything about the setting. I wasn't disappointed. I see some reviews have mentioned the checkpoint saves, but this has now been fixed, and the game can be saved anywhere. The art is beautiful, and the game got me really interested in the way the world setting works. It is quite short, I think I finished it in 8 hours or so.

The only positive I can really say is that the setting is awesome and the artwork is very well done. The game however is an incredibly linear corridor runner. The story is silly and most of the characters are either forgettable or annoying. The choice and consequence aspect is entirely superficial and the turn based combat is lackluster even compared to games with a decade of age on it. The game throws "quests" at you that are mostly glorified fetch quests and can be completed in the same area you were just in. The skill checks don't ever really bring anything interesting to the tables and feel like they are just there so the devs could tick a box. There are a lot of better games out there, sadly not many are in the *punk genre. Still, my advise is to step away from this game.

Pros: - Unique cyberpunk, fantasy mix setting. - Variety of playable and viable builds and party composition - Story, dialogue and characters are good, though also bit cheesy in a likable way (you're character has plenty of action movie one liners and jokes as conversation options) Cons: - Not many choices in the game seem to actually matter. Not much difference in possible endings. - Tactical turn-based combat is weak, missing a lot of what makes other turn-based games like X-com good. For example misclicking is easy, sometimes characters block a field and you can't rotate the view, so moving behind a character is sometimes impossible. - Hard to tell who you can aim at, when moving somewhere and where you can take cover. (also never explains what cover does: it significantly lowers oponents' chance to hit) - Barely an explanation of how combat works, tricky to make a good character, when you have no idea of the game yet. - Hacking is just reskinned regular combat, could be better, I'd prefer if it was more of a puzzle - The ehthnic "diversity" aspect of the game is a bit overdone... might make you roll your eyes a bit. - Mostly too easy even on hard, except for some few parts which just feel annoying. TLDR: Play the game for the story and uinique setting. The tactical turn-based gameplay could be better. The game can be completed in 10-20 hours depending on whether you take your time or rush through it. One last big hint: If you get Shadowrun: Returns and Shadowrun: Dragonfall, you can copy some files around and play Shadowrun Returns (Dead man's trigger quest) in the better and updated Dragonfall game engine. I only saw this after I played the game (why doesn't the game tell you this -_-), anyway here's a guide how to do it: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=343908392 (just use the install locations where you installed the games with gog)

Shadowrun for the SNES is one of my favourite games of all time, and I was extremely excited to hear that they were doing a new Shadowrun game with old-school values. Unfortunately the old-school "values" of Shadowrun returns are not the exploration, difficulty and balancing, but instead are low-grade graphics, minimal music/sound and a distinct lack of polish. The writing is, whilst not offensive, very mediocre. The multiple response options in dialogue suggest that dialogue trees were once considered, but ultimately the standard 'good/neutral/bad' responses all take you on to the same npc response. The combat is taken almost verbatim from X-com: Enemy Unknown, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, the frequency with which Karma points (exp) are given means you are constantly several steps ahead of your enemies. I played through on normal and, barring the first out-of-tutorial combat (in which my minimal hp character had to survive two hits before they could act) I have never had to reload and have never looked in danger at any moment. Shadowrun returns is an isometric, turn-based, party-based rpg - my favourite genre of game. Yet it feels very disappointing and the fact that it is outclassed in almost every department by a SNES game produced some 20 years previously is desperately sad.

The plot is very Shadowrun: science, cyberpunk, magic. Well written enjoyable stuff. 14 hours is how long I spent on my first run and I don't think there's much more to it, nor much replayability. Some things can be done in multiple ways, but you're still going a very narrow path. Like a super simple point and click adventure with combat scenes. It didn't feel overly short though, there's no random encounters or any usual fetch and carry missions or unerthly long mob fights to artificially lengthen the experience, so the main plot is comparable in length to most "normal" rpg's. Atmosphere, potential, pretty decent combat system. This cries out for a bunch of extra adventures, could become the Neverwinter Nights of cyberpunk.