I enjoyed my playthrough of Shadowrun Returns. It's a linear tactical rpg. The combat is fun, but not too deep and the story does a decent enough job of pushing things along. Its a solid game through-and-through. I can't wait to play Dragonfall, and see what improvements await.
I was positively surprised. The setting and world are unique, I really love mix DnD with cyberpunk. Writing's decent. Combat's great, and the environment's are gorgeous. Plus it's got plenty of shelf life with its editor.
There are a few problems to it. The main campaign is little bit short and straight forward and I really do not like its checkpoint save system.
Still, I enjoyed it. A good respectable return by the franchise.
The Good: * Atmospheric music that fits perfectly to locations and situations.
The Bad: * NO CHOICE AT ALL - No matter what you do or what you choose, be it stats or conversation option or perks, It will have no effect whatsoever. So just allocate everything in long range weaponry and burst enemies from afar in one go.
* Game is linear as heck - Go from point "a" to "b". Kill all. Repeat. *Yawn*
* Story - It's total garbage that even a "B" movie will not use.
* Claustrophobic - Each place is so small and insignificant, that it truly hurts.
* Lack of animations - Everything is so static. Nothing moves. Makes the word feel dead. Same thing applies to combat animations. God forbid the horrid "Matrix" animations and graphic!
The Ugly: * I will mention how bad the story is again. It mega bad. And for a game that is based 90% on text... It's just unforgivable.
I found SR:R's campaign to be a big disappointment. First: The writing is good and there are some interesting characters. The story itself begins fine - Marlowe-style - but ends in a complete mess for me. What I really disliked is the gameplay itself: The game is extremely linear, there are no real sidequests, there is no interactivity in the gameworld. There is a hub zone, where you'll return after every mission to fill up your inventory, the missions consist generally of shooting everything dead, collect informations or items and get back to the hub. There are not many possibilities to choose your own style and even the good battle system gets extremely tedious after a while, because many fights are uninspired and misplaced. As the story gets worse and the gameplay stays exactly the same for eight hours, I decided to abort my playthrough. Not my cup of tea, but I'll try Dragonfall, as it seems to be a big improvement on every aspect of the original.
I've played my fair share of RPG games and I can say without a doubt that "Shadowrun Returns" is one of the good ones. With an old-school feel to it, it manages, as a whole, to balance everything very well: gameplay, story, art, music, atmosphere, difficulty, etc. The story was really great - at least for me personally. There's lots of mystery and twists and turns to go around. Another thing I welcomed was how this game world manages to mix in fantasy and future in the same setting, and does it successfully; with this, I was thus introduced to the Shadowrun world. Although gameplay-wise it's quite simple, it still managed to be challenging and even frustrating at times. The only fault I can point out is regarding how the game itself is very linear. I think I can understand why the creators would go for such a thing, since the story itself is quite simple. Nonetheless, linearity is a feature one is not used to see in an RPG, even in old ones!
Despite all this, I still highly enjoyed "Shadowruns Returns" and I actually felt that its simplicity was a breath of fresh air in the RPG genre.