Shadowrun Shadowrun Returns - Dead Man's Switch Original Campaign

[Haplo]

Yeah, I generally liked DMS.

That said, I liked Dragonfall more.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I agree with that sentiment.

 

[pippin]

DMS's biggest virtue was how lowkey it was. It's just you helping a bro. You might end up fighting eldritch bug cults, but that's a given when you're a shadowrunner.

 

[Ninjerk]

I hated the bug thing, but the rest of it was great.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

It never ruined me entirely because I went with shotguns the first time I played thru it all. But I definitely noticed that on later playthroughs that unless you were prepped for that, it was a lot more difficult than other parts of DMS.

In addition, it definitely throws off the feel of the game, from an investigation and noir to action.

 

[Jarpie]

Should I do the trick and play DMS with Dragonfall engine or should I play DMS as vanilla?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Never played it with Dragonfall engine. Go for it.

 

[Morality Games]

I have to admit, of all the revisionist interpretations and re-interpretations of past releases, I never expected a positive one on behalf of the SRR:OC.

 

[adddeed]

I have to admit, of all the revisionist interpretations and re-interpretations of past releases, I never expected a positive one on behalf of the SRR:OC.

Game is solid good fun bro. Dragonfall or Hong Hong may be bigger and more refined, but that doesnt make SRR a bad game all of a sudden.

 

[Ninjerk]

As a game, it wasn't very good, tbh.

 

[Severian Silk]

DMS progressed pretty smoothly and quickly from beginning to end. DF sorta dragged for a while.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The only module of the three that has any noir feel to it though, at least for a bit. Don't know of any usermade modules with a noir feel either.

 

[Ninjerk]

The only module of the three that has any noir feel to it though, at least for a bit. Don't know of any usermade modules with a noir feel either.

Nightmare Harvest, IIRC, was directly lifted equally from two novels and at least one of them was one of the classic pulp authors.

 

[roshan]

I played the OC after Dragonfall and was pleasantly surprised. It's pretty barebones, I think you Matrix only twice in the whole campaign, but the plot was great until the bugs and it was solid fun and good characters/storytelling and great graphics/music all throughout.

 

[Jinn]

My main problems with the OC revolved mainly around gameplay concerns. The storyline was fine enough and was not the reason I wanted to stop playing at all. It was the ridiculously simplistic gameplay, the UI that is clearly aimed at mobile devices, the complete lack of any real exploration, or freedom in general as the player. Many of these problems were improved upon for Dragonfall, but not enough to redeem that game for me either. I didn't want to feel like I was playing a simple game made for short game sessions on a tablet. I wanted to play a fucking Shadowrun adventure. In the end, I felt it was a huge waste of potential for the setting and it's extremely unfortunately that HBS holds the reigns for Shadowrun RPGs.

Also, the character models are absolutely horrendous and lack variety. For shame, HBS.

 

[Severian Silk]

I am playing SRHK right now, and there are walls of text that are interesting, but only separated by very short battles. I wish there was more to do than reading a lot and short battles. I suppose I could just ignore everybody and not talk to them...

DMS did not suffer from this as much IIRC. It was more tightly focused.

 

[adddeed]

My main problems with the OC revolved mainly around gameplay concerns. The storyline was fine enough and was not the reason I wanted to stop playing at all. It was the ridiculously simplistic gameplay, the UI that is clearly aimed at mobile devices, the complete lack of any real exploration, or freedom in general as the player. Many of these problems were improved upon for Dragonfall, but not enough to redeem that game for me either. I didn't want to feel like I was playing a simple game made for short game sessions on a tablet. I wanted to play a fucking Shadowrun adventure. In the end, I felt it was a huge waste of potential for the setting and it's extremely unfortunately that HBS holds the reigns for Shadowrun RPGs.

Also, the character models are absolutely horrendous and lack variety. For shame, HBS.

My original concern as well, but then i realized this isnt a ful fledged RPG. Its made the way it is for a reason, be it because of tablets originally, or whatever, but the important thing is that I had fun. Not every game is or has to be complex or epic to be enjoyable. Most of the time its the simplest games that are the most fun.

 

[Delterius]

I have to admit, of all the revisionist interpretations and re-interpretations of past releases, I never expected a positive one on behalf of the SRR:OC.

Game is solid good fun bro. Dragonfall or Hong Hong may be bigger and more refined, but that doesnt make SRR a bad game all of a sudden.

Yes, but there's a long standing tradition of regarding it as meh that dates it back to its release day.

 

[Suicidal]

I'm almost done with Dragonfall right now and played DMS before that. Dragonfall is definitely something I would consider a good game, and DMS was pretty decent, although not as good.

It's funny that even though these games look a lot like tactical combat games (when I looked at the screenshots they immediately reminded me of the new X-COM) they work much better as storyfag RPGs - they have pretty interesting stories, well-written dialogue and I just find it fun to play through them to find out what's gonna happen next. As tactical combat games they're pretty shitty - the combat takes long to resolve because of all the animations and running around and people having difficulty hitting each other and at the same time it's very simplistic and completely devoid of challenge. Even on the hardest difficulty these were some of the easiest games I've played recently. All you do is drain the enemies of their action points or keep them blinded/paralyzed and etc. and you win every fight because ammo is endless and skills (including healing) are only limited by cooldowns so you have nothing to worry about. I had the same problem with the combat of Divinity: Original Sin - when you have no resource to worry about when using skills except for cooldowns, the combat just becomes a joke.

The final mission of DMS was particularly painful in that regard. Encounter bugs, incapacitate one and kill the other. Bug turns into a spirit. Shoot it with 3 of my characters who are equipped with anti bug weapons at 70% accuracy, 2 times each. Only 1 shot hits, naturally. Spirit turns back into bug on the following turn. Rince, repeat.

I find Dragonfall to be much better, because it often lets you use your stats or skills to avoid the horrible combat at least partially. In some missions, like The Lodge and Aztechnology it's possible to win without killing a single dude. The final mission made me a little but butthurt though. After plowing through an entire battalion of enemy soldiers and gargoyles while taking almost no damage I reach the main villain and convince him that his evil plan is shit and he should cut it out and just as he agrees his henchman comes in, busts a cap in he ass and the evil plan continues regardless. I can already smell the long boring boss fight that's gonna happen at the end. Well, better go finish it now.

One thing that sucks about Dragonfall are the bugs. Holy shit, this has got to be the buggiest game I've played since Arcanum. I had to replay certain missions 2-3 times in order for the game to let me continue and in the penultimate mission where you fight against the AI (a surprisingly good combat encounter because there were ways you could lose other than your characters dying, which is impossible to achieve in Shadowrun games unless you let the enemies kill you on purpose) after I won I lost the ability to control my characters and save the game and the only things I could click on were doors and crates and I had to press escape afterwards for my characters to start moving so I kept clicking on doors until my characters were in a position to see the exit and I clicked on it and thankfully it let me exit and complete the mission.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I have to admit, of all the revisionist interpretations and re-interpretations of past releases, I never expected a positive one on behalf of the SRR:OC.

Game is solid good fun bro. Dragonfall or Hong Hong may be bigger and more refined, but that doesnt make SRR a bad game all of a sudden.

Yes, but there's a long standing tradition of regarding it as meh that dates it back to its release day.

Back then we used to call it- good for what it is.

 

[Delterius]

Encounter bugs

hehehe

 

[Ninjerk]

I'm almost done with Dragonfall right now and played DMS before that. Dragonfall is definitely something I would consider a good game, and DMS was pretty decent, although not as good.

It's funny that even though these games look a lot like tactical combat games (when I looked at the screenshots they immediately reminded me of the new X-COM) they work much better as storyfag RPGs - they have pretty interesting stories, well-written dialogue and I just find it fun to play through them to find out what's gonna happen next. As tactical combat games they're pretty shitty - the combat takes long to resolve because of all the animations and running around and people having difficulty hitting each other and at the same time it's very simplistic and completely devoid of challenge. Even on the hardest difficulty these were some of the easiest games I've played recently. All you do is drain the enemies of their action points or keep them blinded/paralyzed and etc. and you win every fight because ammo is endless and skills (including healing) are only limited by cooldowns so you have nothing to worry about. I had the same problem with the combat of Divinity: Original Sin - when you have no resource to worry about when using skills except for cooldowns, the combat just becomes a joke.

The final mission of DMS was particularly painful in that regard. Encounter bugs, incapacitate one and kill the other. Bug turns into a spirit. Shoot it with 3 of my characters who are equipped with anti bug weapons at 70% accuracy, 2 times each. Only 1 shot hits, naturally. Spirit turns back into bug on the following turn. Rince, repeat.

I find Dragonfall to be much better, because it often lets you use your stats or skills to avoid the horrible combat at least partially. In some missions, like The Lodge and Aztechnology it's possible to win without killing a single dude. The final mission made me a little but butthurt though. After plowing through an entire battalion of enemy soldiers and gargoyles while taking almost no damage I reach the main villain and convince him that his evil plan is shit and he should cut it out and just as he agrees his henchman comes in, busts a cap in he ass and the evil plan continues regardless. I can already smell the long boring boss fight that's gonna happen at the end. Well, better go finish it now.

One thing that sucks about Dragonfall are the bugs. Holy shit, this has got to be the buggiest game I've played since Arcanum. I had to replay certain missions 2-3 times in order for the game to let me continue and in the penultimate mission where you fight against the AI (a surprisingly good combat encounter because there were ways you could lose other than your characters dying, which is impossible to achieve in Shadowrun games unless you let the enemies kill you on purpose) after I won I lost the ability to control my characters and save the game and the only things I could click on were doors and crates and I had to press escape afterwards for my characters to start moving so I kept clicking on doors until my characters were in a position to see the exit and I clicked on it and thankfully it let me exit and complete the mission.

Just wait, Hong Kong is going to let you avoid almost all the combat in the game.

 

[Delterius]

I have to admit, of all the revisionist interpretations and re-interpretations of past releases, I never expected a positive one on behalf of the SRR:OC.

Game is solid good fun bro. Dragonfall or Hong Hong may be bigger and more refined, but that doesnt make SRR a bad game all of a sudden.

Yes, but there's a long standing tradition of regarding it as meh that dates it back to its release day.

Back then we used to call it- good for what it is.

Good for what it is means its part of an unfavored genre and good nonetheless. It was mainly pushed by the polish lobby as defense for the witcher series. As well as the guilty pleasure lobby that buys every bethesda game. It doesn't fit the bill here.

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

Notice they amped the difficulty after Dead Man's Switch.

 

[adddeed]

avoid the horrible combat at least partially..

Hilarious. Is there even a game that the codex doesnt label as horrible combat? SRR combat is very enjoyable. I dont understand how you ccan call it horrible