Shadowrun Shadowrun: Dragonfall vs Hong Kong (No Plot Spoilers!)

[Andhaira]

So, I have the original Dead Man' Switch. I enjoyed the art style and character generation, but the game was minimalist.

I held off getting Dragonfall or Hongkong due to time issues and stuffies, but after hearing good things about both I want to play one. But which one?

I like the name of Dragonfall, and it has kickass cover art plus it got praise for story, but Hong Kong is the latest and I hear they improved character generation and added new options for making characters. Which game does the Codex recommend and why?

If it will help you help me choose here is the character I am considering playing:

An Adept (martial artist) with focus on unarmed combat, a katana and a few points in a pistol. For companions I will go with a Mage, a heavy gun toting Street Samurai and possibly a Shaman. For myself I don't plan on giving my character any magic, just adept/martial art abilities. Though that depends on what the options are; if there is a cool spell that's great for Adepts I might take it.

 

[Doktor Best]

Dragonfall is the better game. It has a great plot with good pacing, it has the more interesting combat encounters (and is also more difficult), i liked the setting a lot more and the cybernet sections didnt have those annoying realtime stealth sections. Ah and the Hub is great, its filled with npcs that all tell those small stories that makes you actually give a shit about them and breathe some life into your neighborhood.

Hong Kong did all those things, just not so good. The pacing is a bit off as you easily spend an hour walking around in the hub talking to npcs, and theyre all not as interesting as in Dragonfall, the combat is not as interesting because they somehow made it even less challenging, the quests were a bit more bland and the plot has alot build up time (which it does quite well) but then it drops the ball a bit. The only thing Hong Kong did better were companions, but not by a large margin.


Both games are better than DMS though, so if you liked the main campaign and if youre into the shadowrun setting then you should be playing both games.

 

[Mozg]

Depends on your tolerance levels for long intervals of mediocre combat. If you can't get enough, play DF. If you like one-fight-per-mission (or less) play HK. The free HK mini-expansion goes back to DF slogs.

Story-wise DF is a little more fun, but they're pretty similar.

 

[Morality Games]

Dragonfall.

 

[Shadowfang]

Unlike DMS the choice of companions in both games is slim. Your party will probably look a lot like everyone else's.

Building characters is better on Hong-Kong, specially adepts, but less meaningful since the game is easier and doesn't have many memorable fights.
The dlc improves upon this but it is somewhat short.

Go for Dragonfall. Your party will be Dietrich, a shaman, Eiger, sniper/shotgun sammy and the Decker Blitz. You will leave glory out, because she stinks.
You will take this companions because they are free. They are also superior to most of the other runners for hire.
The only exception being Lucky Strike. If Nuyen wasn't an issue i would take her instead of Eiger.

 

[pippin]

You will leave glory out, because she stinks.

Don't listen to this faggot and keep Best Girl(tm) in your team.
Eiger is meant to be a sniper, and I found out no matter what you do, her shotgun will always be crap. Ammo with effects, like incineration, is better, but you'll be better if you put some assault rifle/smg points into your own character.

 

[Shadowfang]

She does. Unless you are a shaman or a decker there isn't a worse character to bring a long.
Even if you find her serviceable she is less consistent than the others.

Sure buffing her with haste, adrenal pump, aim and letting her slash her way through might be fun, when she actually hits something, but i rather bring the dog instead.
The only redeeming factor of this emo girl is her side mission, which i found to be the coolest.

 

[pippin]

Glory can stun enemies with her attacks, which can prove useful for AoE attacks or similar stuff. And also for the occasional mission where you have to keep characters from reaching certain points or running away. And I think it also helps to disrupt the summons of enemy shamans. I always find her very useful, and keep Dietrich away.

 

[Ninjerk]

DFall

 

[agris]

Yea, play Dragon Fall and if you like it, continue on to HK.

 

[Andhaira]

Ok, so what exactly is the difference between Dragonfall and HK, aside from story, quests and plot?

From what people here say story in both is similar, quests in DF are better, and DF has more combat (which is a plus to me).

What about character generation and level up options? Does HK add in more adept abilities, more weapons and spells and the like? Are they worth it?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yes, HK adds more stuff. It's all cool but, as others said, the missions are not challenging enough to really warrant all the new stuff. In Dragonfall you play as either a shaman-mage hybrid, a rifle wielding street samurai, rigger or a physical adept. You can play other roles but they aren't really supported or it's a waste of time due to overlap between team members. In Hong Kong, you can play as a pure mage or a pure shaman, ranged weapon dude, melee weapon dude, rigger, decker, or a physical adept. The new items and extended skills offer a lot more freedom in how to customize your character. But as said, it's not really required.

But really, you should play both - they are both good and not that long.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Both are pretty bad (and the combat is easy - and the design is simplistic - in both), but I enjoyed HK's setting more.

 

[DeepOcean]

You should play DFall first, Hong Kong add a bunch of stuff you will miss if you play DFall later unless you plan to never play DFall, on this case, I recommend Hong Kong for just having more stuff.

Hong Kong is superior to DFall on choices, you have more options on missions, you can finish most missions on HK without shooting or just fighting your way through, DFall has more combat because there are less options for avoiding combat. While Hong Kong allow for more choices it is worse than DFall on combat encounters, there are some pretty cool combat encounters and unique situations on on DFall, the missions on HK tend to have samey poorly tought out encounters what is a decline from DFall's Every mission has an unique situation.

DFall has a better villain and an interesting end but HK has some shadowrun supernatural elements that were decently used on the campaign on my opinion, I enjoyed both but DFall is better than HK to me because I'm biased for western culture.

Both shadowrun games are fun but you should take note they are XCOM kind of TB games, I would call them turn based light as they are easy if you know what you are doing. HK suffers more from easy mode gameplay as DFall has certainly more challenging combat encounters and it had Very Hard mode that was removed from HK after some autistic children complained about random hit chances.

 

[Ninjerk]

I was recommending DFall under the assumption that both is not an option. If you're willing to play both, then give them both a try.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Hong Kong (and its epilogue) was my favourite of the series, but Dragonfall is also very good.

 

[DashiDMV]

I liked them both but as others have said, DF is the greater challenge and has a bit better story. HK has more story-altering choices that affect the whole game going forward and require 2-3 plays to get the most of out the experience. Decking in Hong Kong is worse imo so if that is a big deal to you play DF.

 

[orcinator]

HK has more story-altering choices that affect the whole game going forward

what

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Combat wise: HK, they add some nifty stuff like new cyberware, new magic skills, etc. Encounter as a whole is on easier side though. The epilogue campaign is much better, and is on par to DFall.

Narrative wise: DFall. The main antagonist is better, overall companion is better, pacing is better. HK has the advantage of having longer conversation (like, much much longer), BUT the characters (both companion and NPCs in town) sometimes are not interesting enough to warrant such amount of text.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You will leave glory out, because she stinks.

Men she's a bloody good medic.

 

[Shadowfang]

You will leave glory out, because she stinks.

Men she's a bloody good medic.

She was never able to heal the whole in my heart.
I barely used enough medic kits to benefit of her expertise. Specially with the bear totem around =P

 

[Abu Antar]

Ok, so what exactly is the difference between Dragonfall and HK, aside from story, quests and plot?

From what people here say story in both is similar, quests in DF are better, and DF has more combat (which is a plus to me).

What about character generation and level up options? Does HK add in more adept abilities, more weapons and spells and the like? Are they worth it?

I liked more of the companions in HK. I liked story and quest structure better in DF. There wasn't enough "main missions" in HK, I felt, and some supposedly major characters were really underdeveloped. Side characters had so much shit to say. I like reading walls of text, but in HK, most walls of text not related to the story, bored me to tears. In general, the story in DF was better developed. Maybe that's because they had some new writers, I don't know. I like the music in both games. I had more technical issues and annoyances with HK than I did with DF. I hated the Matrix in HK. It was supposed to be fixed from DF, but it was worse, in my opinion. I think that if you like DF, you will appreciate HK, but I can't say for sure.

 

[GarfunkeL]

If you really want to learn everything about all the characters, you have to talk to them after each mission. Yes, even side-missions. If you do 1 main mission and 2-3 side missions in a row, you're going to miss out on some stuff. It's just in-universe stuff, so missing out doesn't really matter but it does make it difficult to estimate the depth of the characters. Duncan, for example, comes across as a somewhat annoying and whiny to begin with and you need to talk to him A LOT to get under that surface. I found all the companions in HK really well written - maybe even better than the companions in DF, but boy do they make you dig out that stuff.

OTOH, you can just ignore all that stuff and keep blasting through missions if you want. That's a valid approach too.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

By the end of the game, whenever I talked with Duncan this played in my mind:



It's entirely possible that Duncan might be the greatest depiction of bro-to-bro male bonding in RPG companions as you reconcile and reconnect with your bro for life.

Overall, I'd say HK has even better companions in terms of writing than DF (even if Eiger is still #1 cyberpunk waifu), and this is something the two latter new Shadowrun games are top-notch at to begin with. There's a great deal of personality and hidden depths to all of them (though it seems you can always guess HBS party members are going to be the anti-trope characters). But there's one thing that irked me... Okay, Blitz was the weakest link in the companion gang on DF, but Racter and Gaichu are awesome. So now you have not one but TWO guys who won't have dialogue on the field, and they're no matter what good characters, so that just burns my asshole.

I'd also say HK has one of the most satisfying dialogue wins for the endboss. It gives you a nice feeling to think of the prep and legwork needed for it and how it makes you feel like your character isn't just making shit up convincingly but has figured out a loophole like a smart motherfucker.

 

[Ninjerk]

I actually liked Blitz more than most of the others. There's a Miltiadean quality to him.