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Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

orcinator

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
1,704
Location
Republic of Kongou
Might have to bring Racter instead of Gaichu's useless ass, and summon a spirit a bit earlier.


I did beat it quite easily on my first try but I now realize I only edited the gumbos in the HongKong folder so only some of the enemies were able to shoot twice, but it's endgame and I'm sitting on a pile of medkits and pocket ambulances so that wouldn't have made it all that harder.
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,764
You might be surprised. I wish I had done this AI mod before I began playing HK.
 
Joined
Feb 19, 2005
Messages
4,567
Strap Yourselves In Codex+ Now Streaming!
So I loved Dragonfall, mainly for its very varied missions and interesting combat set pieces, and naturally I was full of hope for HK but seeing how the initial reactions were pretty 'meh' I lost interest.
How is this game, worth a go?
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,367
Pathfinder: Wrath
So I loved Dragonfall, mainly for its very varied missions and interesting combat set pieces, and naturally I was full of hope for HK but seeing how the initial reactions were pretty 'meh' I lost interest.
How is this game, worth a go?
The original campaign has worse combat encounter design. There are some new items and spells you could use to build character though.
Overall experience is slightly worse than Dragonfall but if you can tolerate wall texts then the game is good enough to play, and especially challenging with the enemy attack twice mod.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
They did add more non-violent approaches and the different runs are relatively varied in principle. A bit more C&C, too. Nothing that will blow you away, however.
Pacing is a bit wonky at times and most runs are relatively short and simple. The combat encounters (in the HK OC) overall are (on average) worse than in DF.
I did like the different characters (both NPCs and companions) and the story isn't bad either. While you get to fight a big bad in the end, it's at least not the world-ending category.
While I did appreciate their goal of delivering the campaign in time (and setting modest Kickstarter goals for it, too) it's obvious that in the end the game could have used a month or three of additional polish.
Anyway, if you liked the previous games (or at least DF), you should get some fun out of SR:HK as well.
 
Self-Ejected

supervoid

Self-Ejected
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
Messages
1,076
Nobody managed to make DF works in HK yet. Only thing are content packs subsets that somebody uploaded on steam workshop, those are files that restores cyber and magic from Berlin content pack (iirc those aren't copied from DF, you need to rescript everything or it doesn't works). Everybody has been waiting for extended edition to see if it restores old models and music. HBS haven't restored it, due to some problems with Unity. So somebody need to do it (some 3d's like Insect spirits and Dante are in HK engine, but aren't scripted and it's possible to restore it. Other like some old spirits and troll models are replaced by new and lost) or use HK music and models, also modding Dragonfall into HK reqiuires building maps and scripting everything from scrath, beacause old scripts are incompatibile with HK, items, magic and models have different id numbers etc. Also there's no very hard mode in HK, you probably want to rebalance encounters so it won't be too easy.
I see no reason for porting DF to HK- no very hard mode, different models, no music (HBS are ok with porting it if somebody figure out how. There is even work in progress version on their Shadowrun forum, they doesn't care.), editor is still bugged. Only imprvement could be merging some individual maps into big one for less loading screens. Porting user generated campaigns from DF looks like better idea but most of the modders want to stick with DF editor untill HBS patch HK one (which probably not gonna happen).
 

Septaryeth

Augur
Joined
Jun 24, 2013
Messages
298
I see no reason for porting DF to HK- no very hard mode, different models, no music (HBS are ok with porting it if somebody figure out how. There is even work in progress version on their Shadowrun forum, they doesn't care.), editor is still bugged. Only imprvement could be merging some individual maps into big one for less loading screens. Porting user generated campaigns from DF looks like better idea but most of the modders want to stick with DF editor untill HBS patch HK one (which probably not gonna happen).

And now there's a possibility they won't patch the main campaign either. :rpgcodex:
The extended edition broke the prosperity tower mission for both new and old players alike.
How can people progress onto the mini campaign if they can't even finish the old one?

I really hope HBS would continually patching the game and didn't simply dump out the mini campaign purely out of obligation.
It's almost infuriating seeing them letting Shadowrun go...
Sure Battletech could be interesting but it's Shadowrun goddamn it, the setting is practically a gold mine.
 

The Great Deceiver

Trickster
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2012
Messages
249
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
*The Great Deceiver cocks his head and begins to write*

Just finished this and it was an enjoyable experience. I felt that they've taken the criticism to heart and tried to improve pacing, which was one of HK's biggest problems. Runs have a good mix of non-violent and violent gameplay (speaking of the latter, there's a great fight during one of the side missions, it's been mentioned by Darth Roxor a few posts up), punctuated by much less verbose dialogue segments.

Which brings us to writing - it's much more to the point this time around and the story (while not groundbreaking) is presented well. NPCs and companions are generally less chatty (there's even one guy that basically tells you that he's not here to give you his life story, which seems like a wink to the audience, with HBS acknowledging that HK went a bit too far in that departament). Second hub saw the return of the infamous chatterboxes swapping (largely mundane) life stories, however. Don't get me wrong, it's commendable that HBS tried to flesh out some minor NPCs, but the problem is that it's hard to get invested in their stories - mostly because these characters are just a background and serve no role in the story. We're obviously not forced to read those, but I reckon that writers' time could be better spent elsewhere (i.e. companion interjections during runs).

Extended Edtion is fairly light on C&C. The game acknowledges some of the choices you've made during the course of the original run, but other than the obvious ones (admitting certain runners into your group) it didn't seem to amount to much.

Soundtrack was largely reused (I think there's a couple of remixes thrown in) and the backgrounds are great looking as usual.

All in all, a very decent take on the Shadowrun and some improvement over largely disappointing Hong Kong. Not quite on par with Dragonfall (which was one my favourite recent cRPGs), but perhaps it shows that HBS was on its last legs and needed a break from the franchise. What's encouraging is that they've attempted to address some of faults of HK.

That said, I'm glad that they've announced that another installment of Shadowrun will be made on a new engine. After Dragonfall (which was a monumental step forward from Returns) I was very much looking forward to Hong Kong and believed that HBS could sustain this with even more adventures released on the same engine. But by now it looks like HBS needs a fresh perspective as they've seem to have exhausted the previous formula.

They're already talking about a sequel in 3D (hopefully without a rotatable camera). They've ditched tablet support with Hong Kong already. I think they should also forgo the editor and instead focus on delivering a fully fleshed out singleplayer cRPG experience. I can see the appeal of an editor, but it proved to be rather unpopular. I don't think Shadowrun has big enough appeal, to be honest - and it's the hugely popular games that typically have a big enough modder scene for it to work.

Other than that - more in depth character advancement, more options in combat (I'd ditch the 2AP system), improved inventory and last but not least, some actual C&C and it could be a hit. Easy, right? ;)
 

Septaryeth

Augur
Joined
Jun 24, 2013
Messages
298
The extended edition broke the prosperity tower mission for both new and old players alike.

What did it supposedly break? I just played through that mission without any issues.

Steam's thread.

I take back what I said about HBS not giving a crap though, there's no update patch yet but at least they responded.

V_K There's some discussion in there about turning on hd textures will solve the issue.
 
Joined
Feb 19, 2005
Messages
4,567
Strap Yourselves In Codex+ Now Streaming!
Ok I decided to buy this because I'm a sucker for cyberpunk, Hong -Kong and Harebrain's writing (the themes may be biowarian at times but the writing itself is really snappy and smooth when it's at its best), but easier than DMS AND boring mission design? Seems like something that should kill this game, is it really that bad? :(

Edit: Im talking about the original HK campaign, my post was moved from Roxxors review thread
 
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Shadowfang

Arcane
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
2,002
Location
Road to Arnika
Shadorwun: Hong Kong BattleTech
For some reason i have a huge blind spot for this Shadowrun series.
Even though, the game is heavily flawed, bugged and poorly optimized, i manage to enjoy it, to the point of, playing it several times just, to check different builds.

Btw, it seems bringing El Ducé to the Shiawase makes no difference to how the run plays out.
Still it was nice to bring a fresh runner along.

If there is one thing where i find Shadowrun Returns to its sequels, it has to be the companions.
I prefer hiring my team for each mission from a considerable rooster than being stuck with the same people for the whole game.
More variety and one more thing to do with nuyen.
Yes, you can hire other runners in both the expansions but why do it? You can have a better runner for free why would you pay for less?

It is true that the path they took with Dragonfall and HongKong allows to have more in depth companions, but i didn't find that to be a plus.
I know i rather bring Lucky Strike with me than anyone else. Cool interesting skill combo, here is your nuyen and keep your boo hoo sixth world problems to yourself.
Keep it professional.

From Hong Kong i liked Gaichu and Racter. This seems to be shared around here. Not only they were interesting characters, they were professionals.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,406
Location
Djibouti
Also, one more thing that is greatly improved in mini-campaign: the nu-matrix. It's considerably less fucking rage-inducing now that you actually have to move from cover to cover to evade the watchers, instead of dashing at THAT ONE AND ONLY POSSIBLE 1/2 SEC WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY to get past a cluster of 5 of them. Was it really that hard to implement this? Ffs.

I've gone through Fuchi/Shiawase/most of Tiger's Den so far, and really, this is how Hong Kong should have looked like from the get-go. The spike in overall quality is just insane.
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,367
Pathfinder: Wrath
I somehow suspect that the writer for the epilogue campaign is Indonesian/Malaysian. So many reference to both, even a traditional song sung by that pirate captain.

even the last hub is in Melayu/Indonesian. For SR loremasters, is South East Asia fleshed out in original/pnp SR?
 

fastjack

Augur
Joined
Mar 31, 2004
Messages
347
Location
the south bay
I know the old Cyberpirates book dealt with SE asia, and I'm sure it is touched on in Shadows of Asia but I don't remember if that was just a rehash of the stuff from Cyberpirates. All I really remember is that nagas took over burma or thereabouts.
 

Lambach

Arcane
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
12,730
Location
Belgrade, Removekebabland
Is it worth running through the entire base HK campaign for this? Any noticeable changes in gameplay mechanics that would make the base HK run feel like a fresher experience? :obviously: replies only.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
Is it worth running through the entire base HK campaign for this? Any noticeable changes in gameplay mechanics that would make the base HK run feel like a fresher experience? :obviously: replies only.

The extended edition bonus campaign itself has improved pacing, better combat/non-violent ratio and less wordy writing.
Combat encounters are better and the runs are competently done.
However, as far as I can tell, the Extended edition doesn't feature any* (notable) additions to the OC, so if you didn't like that before, the better option might be to get hold of a save from someone else and just use that.

* of the OC, I've played only Gaichu's mission, prosperity tower and the final Walled City mission since release of the Extended Edition but didn't notice any major changes in those parts at least.
 
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Lambach

Arcane
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
12,730
Location
Belgrade, Removekebabland
However, as far as I can tell, the Extended edition doesn't feature any* (notable) additions to the OC, so if you didn't like that before, the better option might be to get hold of a save from someone else and just use that.

I like the OC plenty, I wouldn't mind another playthrough even if it were completely unchanged. I'm just wondering whether I should get on it right now or after I'm done with my exams.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
My 2ct:
Focus on your exams, obviously.
But if you've got an old save from the end of the SR:HK OC and a few hours of free time, jump directly into the bonus campaign and enjoy.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
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Location
Djibouti
Remember when I said I'd prefer HBS's Shadowrun series to go out with a bang?

Shadows of Hong Kong is that bang. It's only 4 (and a half) missions, but it's absolutely fucking kickass. Only the Shiawase underwater lab is meh-ish. But the rest are better than pretty much anything found in base Hong Kong because they fix just about every single one of the flaws that plagued the OC.

qosTSf.jpg

;__________;7
 

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