Wherein I Play a Dwarven Mage Who Hacks Computers For Fun and Profit
So I recently finished Shadowrun: Dragonfall and really enjoyed it. Harkening back to old-school videogame RPGs is a thing lately, most notably with titles like Pillars of Eternity, and this is a really great exploration of the Shadowrun game universe. I only ever bought the rulebook for the game when it first came out (am I dating myself?!?), but I never managed to get enough friends interested enough to play it. It did help inspire me to create a similar campaign base on the HERO System that allowed you to combine multiple genres.
But back to Shadowrun. I liked the story. There were a plot twists I didn’t see coming. There are a variety of endings although most of these are largely based off of the final choices you made at the end of the game versus the accumulation of choices made throughout. The characters were also well written with detailed histories and gave a much deeper sense of personal interaction than you normally find. By the end I loved my team (well, except one of them – guess who?) and wanted to go on more runs with them. I wish I could take them with me to Hong Kong.
My character (if you couldn’t guess from post title) was a Dwarven Mage. My backup skill set was Decking.
The game is not perfect, however. Several glitches posted to the forums when the devs were still pushing out patches never got fixed. None of them are show-stoppers. Additionally it’s a good idea to save-quit and exit the game every few hours because the memory footprint keeps growing. I have 32GB RAM on my machine and there were times after several long sessions when re-loading from a save point or transitioning to a new location took 4-5 minutes.
My biggest complaint is that other team members can’t pick up loot items except during combat. Outside of combat only the player is allowed to do so, and if you didn’t have room you could only send items to your stash (your storage locker back at your HQ that can only be accessed by team members prior to the start of a mission). This setup meant team members would have space free up in their inventory as they used items but no means to replace them with items found during a mission.
But these issues shouldn’t discourage anyone from playing if this kind of game appeals to you. It’s definitely worth the time if you like this genre! :)
Edit: I should mention that I did not play Shadowrun Returns based solely on its reviews and comparisons to this title and the common opinion that this game is where you should start.
The endings for the game are quite nice although a lot of them would be out of question for me normally. But the achievements are tempting (without achievements I would have completely skipped the Lobby Sidestory, freaking bastards!) to go another route once in a while. And while most of them are decided on the spur of two conversations there is one dependent on a prior choice: Apex rising which is at it seems even a canon event .
I can understand the contempt for Blitz as he is somehow annoying but I did like Eiger less. Couldnt relate to her at all. But I really like Glory and her horrible past and the nice companion quest. And I liked Dietrich as he was the most reasonable and calming point of the group. I think my major criticism for the Shadowrun Games is that you have to either be a Decker yourself or take one with you unless you want to skip a large part of options for the missions. So as I didnt want to play a Decker Blitz was always there.
Also didnt play the Shadowrun returns and dont think I missed out on much. Dragonfall is for me the best of the three anyway.
I’ve (somewhat recently) played Shadowrun Returns and enjoyed it, but I’ve heard that Dragonfall is better, so I’d probably recommend skipping Returns altogether at this point as it might feel like taking a step backwards. I appreciate the tip about the memory leak, and hope I remember that when I delve into the cyberpunk underground again. ;)
It’s a great game indeed. I played a Decker as well with a heavy focus on Pistols for attacking. I am guessing the one character you didn’t like must be Eiger (unless you hate Blitz, but why would you :’( ). I disliked her early on but she’s not that bad once you get her respect. Glory was the best out of the whole team though. Also, i think you’ll be glad to know that your main complaint was fixed in Hong Kong. The team’s and runners inventory isn’t locked anymore so you can move items between members. And you can choose who picks an item from the ground. I dunno which one i prefer from the two but Hong Kong is certainly the more improved version of Shadowrun.
It was Blitz. He didn’t seem to add much to the team that I couldn’t handle once I started putting points into my Decking skills at about halfway through the game. Plus his talent for screwing up on my runs and with his ex didn’t make him terribly endearing. I loved Eiger! Dietrich grew on me. Glory was quite awesome as well, and I loved the Harrow backstory and mission! :D
Great news to hear about Hong Kong. Sweet!
I guess it might depend on which responses in dialogue you go with but i thought Blitz was a pretty funny and interesting guy. He was a screwup yes but how can you have the true Shadowrun experience without a run going totally to shit? :P Eiger on the other hand, pretty much hated me before doing her loyalty mission. She always called me rookie and got angry at me lots of times. I wanted to punch her in the face a few times. Just goes to show though that the characters are well written if they can invoke feeling like this :P Hong Kong has good story and characters too as far as i played so you should enjoy it as much as Dragonfall.