An RPG in a unique scifi setting about a man struggling to survive. The characters and stories are interesting and the dice game mechanics work great. Various endings depending on your choices.
Hacking is something I've seen people complain about but I never had any problem with it, it's pretty straightforward. The story is good with a bit of twist but it's not like you can't see it coming. The gameplay is overall decent with good characters and I got far into the game when I discovered that the game saves in the registry and I lost it when I reinstalled windows. Seriously, in the registry!? Who does that !?
It's a visual novel, and it plays like pretty much any other visual novel. There's only one, linear ending unless you count the bad ends. You have choices, but they're limited to who you befriend and how you solve problems, even if you don't the story goes on. But the setting is atmospheric, the music, images and animations fitting, the characters are all interesting, and the story is decent, if short. It's an artistic piece, not so much a game. Bought on sale and I'm fine with that.
Shadowrun: Hong Kong uses almost the same mechanics as Dragonfall, with the exception of the new Matrix, which is not for everybody. Let's just say that isometric perspective never lended itself well to sneaking. Graphically it's pretty much the same except for the Matrix which is arguably improved. The storyline is weaker than Dragonfall, albeit better than Shadowrun Returns. The extended edition mini-campaign is a half-assed slopjob with nerfs, grammatical errors, spelling errors, bugs, three sidequests, three main quests, and some new gear. In my opinion the worst mechanical problem about it is that you can no longer initiate combat when you want to, which makes the whole point of introducing an icon for that specific purpose pointless. The next one is that there's zero use of intelligence or wisdom. It makes sense that you can have Is0bel do the non-decking hacking and computer stuff if she's tagging along, but there's zero reason to have any intelligence above 1 unless you're a decker or want some BioTech. Likewise, there's zero story options for mages of any sort. I could forgive this sort of thing if it was just constrained to Shadows of Hong Kong, but if you install the Extended Edition, it also gives you the new mechanical crap in the main campaign. I'd rather play the non-extended edition.
An enjoyable, story-driven game with complex characters and a story that you feel you only get to touch on the surface. It's short and currently, this only feels like half a game at best (more like 1/4 to 1/3, but I'm being generous here). Supposedly the story continues in Consortium II, but if I'll need to buy that separately, I'm ripped off. If not, this is (probably) a game well worth its money. It's unique and interesting. You are intentionally thrown into this universe without a clue, but most of the things aren't hard to figure out. Getting your equipment in order is probably the hardest. Don't pick up too many bullets or grenades, because then you can't carry anything else, including energy(!?) for your energy gun and heal/repair nanites. Once you figure it out you can recycle bullets or vent energy as needed. The many bugs people speak of are mostly gone by the time I played the game - version 1.2 just after its release on gog.com - but there's a big one near the end of the game. You need to go to the hangar bay level 2 and open the CCU (which is a storage just above the entrance. R25 was working there earlier), pick up your gear and wait for the hangar ramp to open up so you can jump out. R25 is not in the right place during this, but you can still activate talking to her at a point right next to the CCU.
