Had it gifted to me, so I'm playing it now rather than waiting a few months before buying a game, like I usually do. I did two missions (Gaichu and The Dig), but I ran into some bugs related to the dialogue so I'll wait until they fix those and restart.
Impressions so far:
- I like the hook better than in Dragonfall, but it's not as good as the one DMS. The difference with using a father-figure instead of Monica is that you don't meet him and only Duncan is invested in finding out what happened to him, so the amount of character-worship you hear is limited and not supposed to be as major a driving-force for the plot.
- Matrix-revamp is an improvement, but controls are too imprecise to make it enjoyable.
- Long loading times.
- Quite a few minor bugs. Stuff like meeting a new character, reloading an earlier save and the game then treating the scene as if you'd already met them, meaning you get the standard dialogue options. Another being coming back from your first run without killing anyone, asking Isabel for her opinion on it and her then talking as if you'd massacred the place and pissed off Kindly. This is why I'm waiting for a few patches to comes out.
- Combat speed is still aggravatingly slow. This was one of the major problems I had with the previous games, as the way combat played out ruined any sense of tension they'd built up. People casually jog into position, raise their guns, take a good look, aim, fire and then watch the projectile saunter over to its target. I was hoping they'd do something like set a max number of seconds for each turn to take, with animations being adjusted accordingly, or just a higher pace in general.
- Writing needs an editor. I don't mind that there's a lot to read, but it's unevenly paced and there's an overload of people trying to sound hardcore - a bit more humanity to contrast it with would be nice. Also, the descriptions can get pretty ridiculous, with the narrative telling you how Duncan cracks his back so hard that it sounds like a firecracker.
- Isabel is a good decker and comes with two great guns, but does nothing but complain and is boring to talk to. This is especially aggravating since I play as a Shaman-Mage and need a decker on my team. Duncan is a murder-machine and it's interesting to have a character that you share a background with. Goddet feels like she'd only be useful if you don't have a shaman or mage and is the 'wacky' runner, but they fortunately refrained from making her totally manic. Racter seems interesting, but I haven't had the opportunity to use him yet. Gaichu was an instant favourite. The most interesting personality and backstory, plus useful in combat.
- AI does not pose much of a challenge.
- Cyberware still feels underwhelming, as does magic.
- Story so far seems to be of a smaller scale than in Dragonfall and I'd say that this is much more appropriate for a Shadowrun game, though I haven't finished it yet and don't know if this changes along the way.
- Hong Kong looks nice.
- Sound effects are better done than in Dragonfall, though the soundtrack does not feel very memorable.
- Hard to say how high the mission quality is. Gaichu was fun, but The Dig didn't feel as impactful as I was expecting unearthing eldritch relics to be.
- Backer portraits look extremely out of place.
Overall, I'm enjoying it. It doesn't improve on Dragonfall the way Dragonfall improved on DMS, but it doesn't feel like the series is getting stale, either. I'm still hoping that we'll eventually get more in-depth combat, more gameplay related to being an actual Shadowrunner (scouting the client, meticulously planning heists, getting the right gear, etc) and other such improvements, but I definitely don't regret playing it so far.
Am I the only one who really can't stand IsZerobel's constant stupid whining about the same old thing?
How about I apply some trial and error to your face with my fists
I don't like her at all. She doesn't add an interesting dynamic to the party and her complaining is grating. I'm tempted to play a Shaman-Decker so that I can full-on ignore her and field a Duncan/Racter/Gaichu bro-team.
