SausageInYourFace
Angelic Reinforcement
To be fair, if done somewhat tastefully, I get a kick out of a little reference. I find it kinda cute to play PoE and suddenly run into DU or Jaesun and think 'hey, I know these guys'.
Indeed, my main problem with the way it was done is that not-mind reading served literally no other purpose.To be fair, if done somewhat tastefully, I get a kick out of a little reference. I find it kinda cute to play PoE and suddenly run into DU or Jaesun and think 'hey, I know these guys'.
For me, the biggest letdown was the level design. Dragonfall did a really masterful job out of it, where exploration and non-combat skills could be used to gain tactical advantage for the mandatory combat encounters. It was all very fluid and fine-grained. HK, on the other hand, goes the usual (dumb) way of "either you talk it through, or you fight it through". Plus, Dragonfall did a much better job of translating the mission premises into actual levels and encounters - while the premises of some HK missions are more creative, the actual scripts end up quite meh.
Great premise, so sad that all you were doing was clicking on all interactive objects you found in the office.
possibly never because of ip thingsBut I digress, when are HBS gonna continue, lol?
Story isn't very good, but it has interesting bits. Companions are mostly good. I think the problem of Hong Kong is not that it is inferior per se, but that maximum you could accomplish with Shadowrun Returns engine and systems was already done in Dragonfall, and after that it would be better to make a completely new game.
Returns is basically the gameplay skeleton upon which DF and HK were built. Both of the latter have their flaws, but at least they're fully fleshed out.
Returns is a great little experience, with a great little story paced very well throughout though. Linear? Yep. Small? Yep. But HK is a worse experience for all the bloat IMO
Returns is basically the gameplay skeleton upon which DF and HK were built. Both of the latter have their flaws, but at least they're fully fleshed out.
Returns is a great little experience, with a great little story paced very well throughout though. Linear? Yep. Small? Yep. But HK is a worse experience for all the bloat IMO
This is a great set of games to play during the coronavirus lockdown, I'm really enjoying the rhythm of reading fairly well-written stories with good characterization, and nicely-tuned XCOM-lite combat. But I was just thinking about what you said here - to me, it was instantly obvious that the restrictions on what you can do in terms of exploration, loot, equipping, equipping squad, checking squad stats, and general inventory management, were probably quite deliberate. The restrictions occasionally irritated me, but the better part of me understood their function, to streamline me into being absorbed in the story with less distractions.
I haven't played HK yet (though I definitely will when I've finished Dragonfall), but even just with Dragonfall, even just the small concessions like more loot, slightly better squad equip, etc., functionality, was starting to give me too many options compared to the first game, with a consequent slight degredation of concentration on the story.
Of course I'd love to have a more open-world type of game like this, as the combat is pretty good, and you could easily have a game that was lighter on story, heavier on loot, etc., but it would lose some of the compact charm of these games.
I was also thinking about how this reminds me of the complexification and slight simmification of the combat from the tightly-circumscribed, almost chess-like gameplay of XCOM, to the major dlc for that, to XCOM 2. Still great games, but with the gameplay transitioning from a board-game feel to a more simmy feel.
tl;dr Simplification, restricting player choice, limitation, higher levels of abstraction, etc., are also valid gameplay elements. There's a tendency to want simulation (and I have it strongly myself, I love the simmy aspect of games), but there always has to be a balance between that and the types of abstraction necessary to make a game of whatever it is you're presenting. (Abstraction makes a world's rules easier to understand, so easier to "beat" than the real world.)
Eh, I agree that HK was somewhat of a downgrade from DF (though it still had its better parts, particularly in terms of characters like Racter and Gaichu), but the 'brilliance of Returns' - really? To reiterate my earlier point, Returns was basically a playable test run for the gameplay format offered by SRR as to test the waters before having the team focus on the more robust and chiseled experience that was DF (and later on HK). Really don't understand how anyone could rate it above HK.It really disapointed me after the brilliance of Returns & Dragonfall
Going for the shitposter tag?Questions?
Going for the shitposter tag?Questions?
Why did you think anyone here would care about your random ranking?Questions?
Why did you think anyone here would care about your random ranking?Questions?
Then make a storyfag thread instead of derailing this one.Why did you think anyone here would care about your random ranking?Questions?
I think I have good taste in videogames with a lot of text.
Eh, I somewhat agree that HK was somewhat of a downgrade from DF (though it still had its better parts, particularly in terms of characters like Racter and Gaichu), but the 'brilliance of Returns' - really? To reiterate my earlier point, Returns was basically a playable test run for the gameplay format offered by SRR as to test the waters before having the team focus on the more robust and chiseled experience that was DF (and later on HK). Really don't understand how anyone could rate it above HK.It really disapointed me after the brilliance of Returns & Dragonfall
Pretty much my stance, though I also enjoy HK. It might not be perfect, but it ain't that shabby either. Then again, it's a matter of taste.Eh, I somewhat agree that HK was somewhat of a downgrade from DF (though it still had its better parts, particularly in terms of characters like Racter and Gaichu), but the 'brilliance of Returns' - really? To reiterate my earlier point, Returns was basically a playable test run for the gameplay format offered by SRR as to test the waters before having the team focus on the more robust and chiseled experience that was DF (and later on HK). Really don't understand how anyone could rate it above HK.It really disapointed me after the brilliance of Returns & Dragonfall
I just love Returns story. It's a bitesized, simplistic game, but I saw it as an appetizer for Dragonfall, and in that context it was superb.
HK however feels like a massive pile of cabbage. Just too much filler.
Yeah. There was a mission in HK where you had to sabotage a corporation by destroying Feng Shui in their offices. Great premise, so sad that all you were doing was clicking on all interactive objects you found in the office. Good designer would give player a Feng Shui guide and let them choose among several rearrangement activities, those which were most likely to break the Feng Shui rules.
Cool story, brah.a sackless transhumanist with an emphasis on trans and a sterile ghoul who surpassed his ghoulish condition through abandoning fascism and becoming an ally of intersectionality