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Shadowrun Is Shadowrun Hong Kong worth it?

jackofshadows

Magister
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
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After an okay SR (except wtf twist, obviously), suprizingly good DF I went into HK and... dropped it after ~25 hours (I've tried). Pacing was terrible, the writing wasn't good enough, neither the combat.

At the end of the day, I think "worthiness" depends on either one would like specificity of the HK's setting or not. In the latter case it might be boring as hell. There're some interesting companions but it's not like the whole game has been built around them.
 
Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Oct 2, 2018
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大同
Pretty much, jackofshadows. Although from a storyfag perspective, HK has the potential of being something depending on one's personal tastes, while the appeal of Returns is solely for the gameplay if you want some more after having played DF (& +/- HK).
 

normie

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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
Cool story, brah.
guy, I know you're not tone-deaf, you can like the characters or whatever because samurai are cool and Russian dudes are cool, but the message was what it was

Gaichu's personal story culminates with you helping him complete his journey of abandoning fascism by way of helping him kill his metaphorical family, his unit, who he likened to a literal family (the prototypical ingroup, the seed of all fascism per Frankfurt School theory) - the concept of the "one good ghoul" is pretty heavy-handed in itself

Racter was essentially "if people weren't irrational, they'd agree with me, the gaylord who wrote this character" the character, perhaps the least offensive, but an obvious argument against biological essentialism, gender essentialism in specific in the context of the writing overall
 
Vatnik Wumao
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Gaichu's personal story culminates with you helping him complete his journey of abandoning fascism by way of helping him kill his metaphorical family, his unit, who he likened to a literal family (the prototypical ingroup, the seed of all fascism per Frankfurt School theory) - the concept of the "one good ghoul" is pretty heavy-handed in itself

Racter was essentially "if people weren't irrational, they'd agree with me, the gaylord who wrote this character" the character, perhaps the least offensive, but an obvious argument against biological essentialism, gender essentialism in specific in the context of the writing overall
Gaichu's quest does not have an ideological arch with him renouncing his corporation on moral grounds. He is simply reacting to external circumstances which had forced his hand.

As for Racter, he is just espousing your typical transhumanist views. I don't recall any particular focus upon gender in his dialogue (though admittedly some time has passed since I last played HK), but if anything it only serves to reinforce the biological dimension of gender - there can be no objective distinction between the sexes if you simply replace all your innards with synthetic counterparts.
 

Icewater

Artisanal Shitposting™
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Jun 12, 2011
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Freedomland
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2
Normie is just trolling, don't give him any attention.

Dragonfall's combat was pretty easy if you understand the game's systems well enough to create a decent character. It doesn't even require min-maxxing, you just need to not try to make a jack-of-all-trades because those suck hard in the Shadowrun games. Hong Kong is even easier than that but, IMO, the story and characters were a lot more interesting. I'm a huge storyfag so I loved Hong Kong but if the writing doesn't appeal to you I can see why a person would consider it worse than Dragonfall.
 

normie

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Gaichu's personal story culminates with you helping him complete his journey of abandoning fascism by way of helping him kill his metaphorical family, his unit, who he likened to a literal family (the prototypical ingroup, the seed of all fascism per Frankfurt School theory) - the concept of the "one good ghoul" is pretty heavy-handed in itself

Racter was essentially "if people weren't irrational, they'd agree with me, the gaylord who wrote this character" the character, perhaps the least offensive, but an obvious argument against biological essentialism, gender essentialism in specific in the context of the writing overall
Gaichu's quest does not have an ideological arch with him renouncing his corporation on moral grounds. He is simply reacting to external circumstances which had forced his hand.

As for Racter, he is just espousing your typical transhumanist views. I don't recall any particular focus upon gender in his dialogue (though admittedly some time has passed since I last played HK), but if anything it only serves to reinforce the biological dimension of gender - there can be no objective distinction between the sexes if you simply replace all your innards with synthetic counterparts.
it's a metaphorical asspull, doesn't mean it's a good one - beyond the essence of it, which is the meat of it, it's your typical leftoid canard (of the irredeemable fascists), just within the Shadowrun setting

Gaichu's conveniently features another anti-racism classic - he lost his vision, esoterically meaning he's not superficial anymore because he doesn't judge by sight, an elaboration on the classic "race is just a skin colour, bro" burn
-

when I said Racter is sackless, I meant it literally - he was "enlightened" because he lost his dicknballs, no? :bigthink:

it's not a coincidence all the "good ones", the male companions in the game, are non-reproductive, sterile or castrated
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
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Aug 3, 2019
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London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
an exercise in clicking on objects in the environment to unlock the next text dump on queer intersectionality

and there's your companions to help take in the lessons - a quirky woman with poor hygiene who has animal babies, a Somali STEM refugee who has the ability to take revenge on people she disagrees with on the internet, your gay step-brother who, like all men should, subordinates himself to the women in his life to control his toxic masculinity lest it be used for harm to reinforce heteronormativity, 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

lol, yeah, these games are quite "preachy," but (as with Pathfinder:Kingmaker), for the most part the preaching doesn't seem to be the primary concern, and it's handled well enough that it's not too intrusive, not so bad as to break immersion. It's there if you think about it, but otherwise it's a jolly adventure. The preaching is subtler than in many other games, sugar-coated (with decent story, etc.) - more like the old fashioned type of indoctrination of Hollywood movies up to about the mid Noughties.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
No.

Just tried to playthrough it again, and fuck me is it DULL.

The text is just SO bad. Tons of world-specific speak, WAY too much descriptive content, and fairly poor interactivity. I don't get how folk can be arsed with it. It's another game which you can play on patterns without paying any real attention.
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
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Strap Yourselves In
No.

Just tried to playthrough it again, and fuck me is it DULL.

The text is just SO bad. Tons of world-specific speak, WAY too much descriptive content, and fairly poor interactivity. I don't get how folk can be arsed with it. It's another game which you can play on patterns without paying any real attention.

There are some games that you can get quite into, get into a flow with, and then if you give them a break for a while you have absolutely no interest in them and wonder what you saw in them. POE was like that for me, and the Shadowrun games too. I was playing both the more recent ones concurrently for a while and quite enjoying them, then i took a break. Tried recently to pick up where I'd left off, couldn't do it, had lost the sense of immersion in the world.

Whereas with other games (e.g I remember with the XCOMs, or recently with PF:K) I can drop them for a while and get right back into them very easily after a break.
 

ValeVelKal

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
1,604
In my opinion the weakest of the 3, though I could see how people could put it above the first one (SR). The main story is dull and cliché, the companions talk and talk and talk ; they are not necessarily badly designed but the amount of dialogue just drown any will to read what they have to say, and most missions are nothing exceptional.
IIRC, the only good thing with HK versus DF is those battle situations where you need to work in the cyberspace to help with a physical combat - and the other way around - in a way better designed than in DF.

SR has the advantage of being very focused with few dialogues, though the combat situation and especially the cyberespace were more primitive than in HK/DF. Also, I ironmaned SR at my first play of the game, and that's very games where I did that, so it counts for something. My attempt to do so at DF ended quickly.
 
Joined
Dec 12, 2013
Messages
4,229
Don't remember much about HK cyberspace battles with the exception that they were so bad that I was raging. Also: Gaichu and Racter are great companions, I don't underrated you problem with that aspect of a game
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
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Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
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New Vegas
SR has the advantage of being very focused with few dialogues, though the combat situation and especially the cyberespace were more primitive than in HK/DF. Also, I ironmaned SR at my first play of the game, and that's very games where I did that, so it counts for something. My attempt to do so at DF ended quickly.

I prefer HK to SR just because the main reason to play these is atmosphere and writing, and HK had more of it.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Dragonfall is the best, HK the second and SR the last but the three are really playable especially if you are a shadowrun fan, unfortunately, it seems there is zero chance for a SR 2.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
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Dragonfall is the best, HK the second and SR the last but the three are really playable especially if you are a shadowrun fan, unfortunately, it seems there is zero chance for a SR 2.

Because of sales or the license? I'd assume sales fell off after the first one but I bet a real sequel would generate more interest.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
Because of sales or the license? I'd assume sales fell off after the first one but I bet a real sequel would generate more interest.

Harebrained belongs to Paradox and Shadowrun to Microsoft. They'd sooner give it to inXile or Obsidian than the competition.
 

Nano

Arcane
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Joined
Mar 6, 2016
Messages
4,647
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
Harebrained is busy working on an Orpheus CRPG anyway, so not a big loss.
 

Xeon

Augur
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,858
Why is Paradox Microsoft's competition? can't they probably reach a deal of making timed deal or something of only having the game on GamePass and XBox or something if they want maybe. or something.

I hope more Shadowrun RPGs come out soon from any decent developer even if its not Harebrained.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Because of sales or the license? I'd assume sales fell off after the first one but I bet a real sequel would generate more interest.

Harebrained belongs to Paradox and Shadowrun to Microsoft. They'd sooner give it to inXile or Obsidian than the competition.
Harebrained will never produce anything anywhere near as good as Dragonfall again so it's not really a loss.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
Why is Paradox Microsoft's competition?

It's like when Obsidian approached EA to do a licensed Ultima game and were replied with "Uh, we have Bioware for RPGs."
 

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