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

[Doktor Best]

Yeah. There were not enough failstates. Non-combat approach has to be riddled with them, and actually test lore/plot/briefing knowledge and common sense from the player else he will simply fail that approach and be forced to use violence.

Also the game shouldnt be afraid to confront you with overwhelming forces if you really fuck up. On harder difficulties it shouldnt be uncommon to restart a mission from scratch because the savestate you are currently in simply doesnt allow for your team to get out of the mess it has created alive. Man if i could play a game with the story and setting of shadowrun and a more hardcore gameplay approach, i would be so fucking happy.

 

[GarfunkeL]

JA2 1.13 in SR 2nd edition world.

CUMMING BUCKETS

 

[Ninjerk]

JA2 1.13 in SR 2nd edition world.

CUMMING BUCKETS

In any world...

 

[Excidium II]

JA2 1.13 in SR 2nd edition world.

CUMMING BUCKETS

Rather have SR 2nd editon in SR 2nd edition world tbh.

 

[aweigh]

haven't read the thread because it is so easy to answer!

Dragonfall is one of the best story-driven, dialog-heavy RPGs to come out in the last 10 years (perhaps even 15 years), at least on PC. Hong Kong is... an attempt to imitate the success of Dragonfall by hewing closely to its structure but failing to capture any of its creative genius in any area of design.

- SR: Dragonfall is a must-play RPG for anyone, not just SR fans. It is a game whose story and cast of characters and the game play scenarios within will stay with you long after completing it, just like after finishing a great novel or a great RPG/adventure game.

- SR: Hong Kong is completely skippable, and the only way to actually enjoy it is to play it first, without having played DMS or Dragonfall. If you play DMS or Dragonfall, either one, before Hong Kong it will immediately lead to disappointment in Hong Kong due to it being not only the weakest entry in the SR games, but a weak RPG beyond the scope of this franchise.

EDIT: read the thread and as always someone manages to bring politics into it and ruin the level of discourse. Also, Falksi , prepare to be very disappointed with the writing in SR: HK. Steel your heart now so that you don't feel too bad about it... think of it positively: at least we got 2 great SR games!

 

[Fedora Master]

Dragonfall has the better story but Hong Kong is mechanically slightly better.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Hong Kong is waaay better than DMS

DMS i basically a prototype of what the series could be. It is completely barebone in term of story and gameplay. A bit of reference here and there with the eventual apocalypse but thats it.

 

[Delterius]

Yeah, DMS is like the pilot for the series. It is very barebones in both gameplay and the story. You get some crowd pleasers in just as reference. Its not a bad game, but it lacks its own identity when compared to DF and HK. To me its DF > HK > DMS.

 

[Iznaliu]

Yeah, DMS is like the pilot for the series. It is very barebones in both gameplay and the story. You get some crowd pleasers in just as reference. Its not a bad game, but it lacks its own identity when compared to DF and HK. To me its DF > HK > DMS.

I feel I need to say that it actually feels closer in quality to the UGC than DF and HK.

 

[Jason Liang]

Did this thread need to be necro'd? It's embarrassing to have this on the first page in the main rpg thread.

DMS - I'm a little baffled by the criticism this gets, since the best encounter here (you gnoll which one) is WAY better than ANY encounter in HK and I found the last mission really satisfying, unlike HK. I also like that you have to go out of pocket to hire a full team; part of me wishes the two sequels didn't go in the other direction. Wouldn't DF and HK have been way better had there been a real pool of interesting but anonymous runners (instead of backer rewards) to choose from, and side agendas where for whatever reason you couldn't take your whole team? They built this entire recruit mechanic into the game structure and ended up not using it for the two later games. Anyway I like the balance between hiring extra members and saving some cash that this one had.
DFDC - Not much to say, it is really the epitome of what a Shadowrun computer game should and could be, the way Bloodlines is for WoD and BG2:EE is for AD&D 2nd Edition. My only, ONLY knock against it is that your PC is really trivialized. You get the feeling that Eiger and Dietrich are doing all the work and along with the 3rd member can clear most of the fights by themselves. But pretty much everything is just right. Obviously we all wish this game was just a little longer, but over all even the length is sort of perfect.
HK - It's good for the first playthrough, but really disappoints 2nd time through when the novelty of the OP cyberware and weapons have worn off. The Ambush mechanic introduced is great in principle, but in practice is completely impossible to balance. The last mission of the original game is deeply disappointing, and really the whole game is unfinished and half baked. HBS should be ashamed they didn't go back to fix this up. The free DLC was ok but didn't completely redeem the game for me. iirc you get five extra missions, including the prelude, two of which fall flat (the prelude and the sea lab), one decent mission (Tiger's Den, nice end fight) and only one really good one, but is uneven (the exfiltration but that last fight is retarded and tedious rather than awesome). The companions really save this one, but I think even non-combat fags will find it disappointing that probably the 2nd or 3rd coolest mission involves no combat at all (Is0bel's special mission). What is the point of a combat oriented rpg system in a module with hardly any combat to use it? The number of disappointing missions in HK is staggering.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

DMS - I'm a little baffled by the criticism this gets, since the best encounter here (you gnoll which one) is WAY better than ANY encounter in HK and I found the last mission really satisfying, unlike HK. I also like that you have to go out of pocket to hire a full team; part of me wishes the two sequels didn't go in the other direction. Wouldn't DF and HK have been way better had there been a real pool of interesting but anonymous runners (instead of backer rewards) to choose from, and side agendas where for whatever reason you couldn't take your whole team? They built this entire recruit mechanic into the game structure and ended up not using it for the two later games. Anyway I like the balance between hiring extra members and saving some cash that this one had.

The encounter in DMS pretty much amounted to "here is some enemy, smash their face." The last mission, besides some gimmick with the last boss is laughably easy too. You just need to use the shotgun to finish the bugs off.

In general money never been amount too much in DF and HK either. Buying the latest equipment for you main character usually cost what amount of money you had anyway. Maybe if you did all the missions you would have several spare nuyens, not much for anything. Adding a dimension of having to hire a runner would just require the dev to add more nuyen as mission reward anyway.

I do agree that the recruit mechanic is a bit wasted. All companion in DF and HK are arguably much better than the hired counterpart that it made no sense to hire them. It would be great that the hired runner would have some sort speciality otherwise unavailable just like how story companions have their own. Of course this requires mission design in which those specialty might come into play. And in DF:DC, in the newly added bar, you have one such hired shadowrunner hanging around. There is also this guy in HK post story campaign that had vendetta against one of the corp in one of the mission. It would be nice that those shadowrunner, if you so choose to bring them to relevant mission, would kick a mini-sub plot for them.

 

[Kalin]

Save yourself the trouble and play Shadowrun Genesis instead.

 

[Jason Liang]

Save yourself the trouble and play GTAV instead.

Fixed.

I never know for sure but you guys are aware that the Genesis Shadowrun inspired the original GTA games? If you've ever played GTA 1 or GTA 2 the lineage is pretty clear.

Also, speaking of Battletech, Genesis Battletech gets very little love but it's a cool little game as well.

 

[aweigh]

BOM BOM BOM BOM

CHECK IT OUT!

Genesis Shadowrun is the fucking bee's knees! I'd rather play that 100 times over SR: Hong Kong, maybe even over DMS.

EDIT: Though I admit my nostalgia goggled are firmly in place here.

 

[almondblight]

Even if it did sell well, HBS probably wanted to move on to something else for a while.

Gitelman was talking about what he wanted to do with the next one before HK came out. If HK sold like Returns, we'd probably get a sequel.

Anyway, it's hard for me to understand the love Genesis Shadowrun. You're grinding the exact same simplistic missions over and over again, and the gun combat is literally just holding down the attack button until something dies. Yeah it has good ideas, but that doesn't make up for the incredibly shallow and mindless gameplay.

 

[Jason Liang]

First you don't need to grind. You get enough karma and nuyen to beat the game just by completing the main quest line. "Grinding" in Shadowrun Genesis is just for fun.

Two, the missions aren't simplistic. High level Matrix runs and corporate extractions are fun and tense up until your PC becomes OP.

There's also a few easter eggs to discover if you are especially deligent.

Combat can be simple, but there are several other strategies as well such as the two Wall spells, and also some underrated spells like Sleep, Stink and Chaotic World.

You have a lot of freedom to set your own goals. For example, try doing high level extractions without Magic.

 

[almondblight]

First you don't need to grind. You get enough karma and nuyen to beat the game just by completing the main quest line. "Grinding" in Shadowrun Genesis is just for fun

You can glitch your way through Ocarina of Time in 17 minutes, but that's not exactly a typical play through. Whenever I hear someone say, "Hey, you don't need to do [thing everyone does when playing the game] to win, you could always do [some extremely unorthodox play style that probably only makes sense after beating the game several times]," I check the FAQs over at Gamefaqs to see what they say. It's easier than just arguing "Look, that's not how people play the game" -> "It is, people do it all the time," and it's an easy way to see how people generally play the game.

Anyway, the main FAQ on the Shadowruns (the extremely repetitive missions you say are unnecessary and only done for fun):

Shadowrun's the name of the game, so to speak, and it's pretty much impossible to get through the game without going on a fair number of shadowruns. They are by far the best way to pick up Karma, which is essential to the advancement of your characters.

Later:

At this point, ANY bodyguard or courier run is acceptable, but NO ghoul bounty run is acceptable (see Section IV for definitions). The pay will be bad, but you don't really have much of a choice at this point...Anyway, you'll have to go on runs that are essentially walking from one building to another. This can get pretty monotonous and can actually waste a lot of time if you don't know where the buildings are.

Two, the missions aren't simplistic. High level Matrix runs and corporate extractions are fun and tense up until your PC becomes OP.

So there's something like 8-14 different missions (depending on how you count them) in the game that get repeated over and over again. The three you get at first are:

- Walk from random point on the map to another random point on the map (that's literally it).

- Walk from random point on the map to another random point on the map while someone is following you.

- Got to an abandoned building (only one on the first map) and hold down the attack button until some ghouls are dead.

If you progress in the game, you get other missions, like going into a room with a bunch of gang enemies and holding down attack until their dead.

 

[Jason Liang]

1. Start the game
2. Walk to the hotel, you need cash to pick up your brother's stash
3. Walk into a store, sell your stuff. Now you have cash
4. Walk back to the hotel, get your brother's stash. Look,he had some cash too!

There ya go, you didn't need to do any courier runs at all. Thats not exploiting a glitch; that's called playing smart.

The only karma needed to beat the game is ~10 karma to raise Joshua's Reputation to 4 to get into Club Penumbra.

 

[Silva]

Genesis Shadowrun is better than both.

 

[almondblight]

1. Start the game
2. Walk to the hotel, you need cash to pick up your brother's stash
3. Walk into a store, sell your stuff. Now you have cash
4. Walk back to the hotel, get your brother's stash. Look,he had some cash too!

There ya go, you didn't need to do any courier runs at all. Thats not exploiting a glitch; that's called playing smart.

I mean, you're proving my point. If you're playing the game for the first time, you don't know that there's cash in your brothers stuff and that it is enough to offset the cost. Selling off all of your equipment as soon as you start a game and using that money to buy a mystery box isn't "smart"; if you're playing for the first time, you have no idea if this is going to screw you over or not (just like you have no idea if you should take all your money and buy grenades or anything else).

It's like saying the "smart" way to play Fallout 2 is to Navarro base and get power armor at the beginning. Yeah, if you're exploiting knowledge from previous playthroughs and you know where to go and what you'll get you can do that, but it's not like it's a smart idea for a new player to randomly start walking through the desert hoping they'll stumble upon free power armor.

I mean, speedruns for the game that are less than 2 hours exist, so it's possible to do it, but it involves a lot of exploits and using knowledge from previous runs. Check out FAQs or LPs to see how people actually play the game, or check out the discussion on speedruns to see what kind of planning and exploits are necessary to avoid the grind. And if you do avoid it, you're left with an extremely short game (that, again, has mindless ranged combat).

 

[Kalin]

Jason being a dumbfuck is business as usual. Finishing the main questline without investing karma or doing side missions? Yeah man, good luck completing the required runs and beating those mandatory fights. I guess the retard routine is an attempt at humour like Severian Silk's worthless shitposting career but it really only comes off as inane spam.

 

[Jason Liang]

Jason being a dumbfuck is business as usual. Finishing the main questline without investing karma or doing side missions? Yeah man, good luck completing the required runs and beating those mandatory fights. I guess the retard routine is an attempt at humour like Severian Silk's worthless shitposting career but it really only comes off as inane spam.

It's called Shadowrun; you can hire top shadowrunners to fight for you. For cheap too.

You even get

for free. The game even scoots you on the Stark quest line ASAP since you get the doctor's ID as soon as you pick up your brother's stash.

It even makes much more sense from a role playing perspective. Let's see, should I avenge by brother by going on suicide runs for months and blow hundreds of thousands of nuyen on gear, or do I find my brother's best friend who is a fully chromed steet samurai and have him do the fighting for me? Which would make more sense?

It's an open world rpg; you don't have to follow a walkthrough, there are different ways to advance.

And BULLSHIT about playing RPGs the "correct" way. No one EVER plays RPGs the correct way. You are always trying to outsmart and exploit the game. The more open world the system is, the more true this is.

Fuck, it always comes back to Westworld.

You're NOT supposed to max out your gun skills, have a maxed out Farlight Excalibur with lvl 9 programs, heavy combat armor and fully modified AK-47's to beat the game, yet I bet most of you grinded until you had that before you even found Salish Sidhe, since the game lets you do that. So don't bullshit about the "correct" way.

 

[Silva]

First you don't need to grind. You get enough karma and nuyen to beat the game just by completing the main quest line. "Grinding" in Shadowrun Genesis is just for fun

You can glitch your way through Ocarina of Time in 17 minutes, but that's not exactly a typical play through. Whenever I hear someone say, "Hey, you don't need to do [thing everyone does when playing the game] to win, you could always do [some extremely unorthodox play style that probably only makes sense after beating the game several times]," I check the FAQs over at Gamefaqs to see what they say. It's easier than just arguing "Look, that's not how people play the game" -> "It is, people do it all the time," and it's an easy way to see how people generally play the game.

Anyway, the main FAQ on the Shadowruns (the extremely repetitive missions you say are unnecessary and only done for fun):

Shadowrun's the name of the game, so to speak, and it's pretty much impossible to get through the game without going on a fair number of shadowruns. They are by far the best way to pick up Karma, which is essential to the advancement of your characters.

Later:

At this point, ANY bodyguard or courier run is acceptable, but NO ghoul bounty run is acceptable (see Section IV for definitions). The pay will be bad, but you don't really have much of a choice at this point...Anyway, you'll have to go on runs that are essentially walking from one building to another. This can get pretty monotonous and can actually waste a lot of time if you don't know where the buildings are.

Two, the missions aren't simplistic. High level Matrix runs and corporate extractions are fun and tense up until your PC becomes OP.

So there's something like 8-14 different missions (depending on how you count them) in the game that get repeated over and over again. The three you get at first are:

- Walk from random point on the map to another random point on the map (that's literally it).

- Walk from random point on the map to another random point on the map while someone is following you.

- Got to an abandoned building (only one on the first map) and hold down the attack button until some ghouls are dead.

If you progress in the game, you get other missions, like going into a room with a bunch of gang enemies and holding down attack until their dead.

Either you're being ignorant or disingenuous. The high level missions in Genesis SR combine every facet of the game into a whole: matrix invasions, combat, stealth, magic support, social skills, you name it. And these are much more interesting than the "pretty stories with combat" missions of NU Shadowrun.

 

[Delterius]

Can't we just like every Shadowrun game.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Can't we just like every Shadowrun game.

This is the Codex, everything is shit except for games from the 80s/90s with simple systems.

My favourite Shadowrun game is Hong Kong and it seems like most Codexers dislike it.