Review RPG Codex Review: Shadowrun: Dragonfall

[GarfunkeL]

Finished Dragonfall few days ago, and then replayed DMS as well. DMS is also improved thanks to all the bug-fixing and the new features. Not bad, not bad at all. True, even more reactivity, and more legwork, would have been appreciated, but what HBS has done is good enough, for sure.

Except, I'm constantly hoping that this was in JA2 1.13 instead. That would be HEAVAN!

 

[Whisper]

One is a generic mook AI, and this forces the enemies to never perform more than 1 type of action. Shootaz will run and shoot, but never shoot twice. Mages will run, cast a fireball and cast an aim buff, but never cast 2 aim buffs or 2 fireballs.

Mages cant cast 2 fireballs or 2 aim buffs in same turn.

 

[Whisper]

Great game by the way.

Ending is 9 out 10 (original game ending was 10 out 10). Very, very impressed in the end.

 

[Whisper]

I spent 16 hours on dragonfall, which includes re-doing large parts of the last dungeon. (edit: on very hard of course)

Anyways the end game is pretty shit, and really highlights the games flaws. Dungeon crawling goes poorly with this games system is reason #1, and the forced conversation options gets jarring because the villain is pretty obviously right, whereas all you get to say are [snarky]"you're wrong" [blunt]"you're wrong" [angry]"you're wrong"[etiquette:academic]"I believe that you may be mistaken". Then there is a debriefing where everyone feels good about themselves in the typical clicheed fashion ("i'd want it no other way"), and an epilogue which illustrates why the "villain" was right after all.

As a whole the game is kinda unfocused. You do random missions that are not really related to the end, and the ending was bad as well. Plot fails like that. The best part of the game is the middle probably. Also their writing is getting... Tiring. All the pseudoedgy companions, the troll librulism dispensers, general writing style, and so on.

Far as RPGs go, it's not bad, not good, just ok.

Here

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrawmanHasAPoint


Also, i am still not sure what choice was right in the end.

 

[Darth Roxor]

One is a generic mook AI, and this forces the enemies to never perform more than 1 type of action. Shootaz will run and shoot, but never shoot twice. Mages will run, cast a fireball and cast an aim buff, but never cast 2 aim buffs or 2 fireballs.

Mages cant cast 2 fireballs or 2 aim buffs in same turn.

They can. You just need to stand on a ley line and you can spam Aim with no drain like there's no tomorrow. Fireball would 'cause you to take damage, though. Nevertheless, 'fireball' was just a mental shortcut for 'offensive spell' here anyway.

 

[Whisper]

Well, if enemies could act 3 times in row, this is probably would be certain death for most non-tank characters. 9-10 body would be a must same as best armor and constant shield buff. I.e. you would be completely railroaded in one build.

Enemies already miss *much* less then your characters with your attacks. Having 50% chance to hit for example means that almost always all 3 your attacks will miss, and in quite rare that you will manage to hit 1 time out of 3 with 50% hit chance.


This is obvious even with Confusion when confused ork-boss in final battle in shadow-run missed like 70% of total shots in point-blank shooting mage. While in normal state he hit your char standing behind cover almost always.


So in short, enemies attack less, but they hit much more often. Your chars hit much more often, but they miss more often too. Yes, you can cheese your main character (max stat responsible for attack, focus on it asap) but this means you have only 1 character with high chance to hit enemy. Since companions are not cheesed with stats.