Good mornin-afternoo-vening, chummers and welcome to the final episode of Shadowrun
September during which I'll be looking at the final title - as of yet - in the relatively
recent Shadowrun loose trilogy of games from Harebrained Schemes, this is Shadowrun: Hong
Kong Extended Edition.
A big part of the appeal of the Shadowrun games stems from how well they can create
a believable world.
Granted, a solid story and great gameplay will always be considerably more important,
but without a proper setting, the games would just boil down to a few turn-based combat
encounters with a bunch of reading stuffed in between them.
Placing the story and gameplay within a setting that can not only support them, but actually
tie them together, is of critical importance.
All I can say is that Harebrained Schemes managed a wonderful job at it.
You can almost smell the sea air mixed with garbage and hear some gaudily colored neons
buzzing and flickering in the background.
Everything looks as desolate, dingy and dangerous as it should be, an impression that is only
heightened by the very well-written text descriptions.
I have to mention upfront that in order to get the very most enjoyment out of the game's
story, you'll have to do a serious amount of reading, much more-so than during Dragonfall.
Now, I have nothing against it, I actually would love novelizations of both Dragonfall
and Hong Kong stories, maybe with each companion getting their own chapter, or several chapters,
or own books, but some might not have that particular affinity towards the written word
so as to enjoy the game on a purely narrative level as well as the turn-based combat one.
That being said, it is a major part of the game since Shadowrun Hong Kong isn't the
usual free-roaming RPG.
In fact, you're quite limited to the amount of locations that you can visit, NPCs that
you can interact with and in general, the things that you can do.
But as far as I'm concerned, I was so invested and focused on the story and on my companions
that I didn't really feel the need for the free-roaming options of an open world.
I just wanted to see what else I'll get to find out about them after each run, and
how the story would develop further.
That being said, exploring the maps in detail is very satisfactory since it will result
in finding items and NPCs, and sometimes even side quest-givers.
Compared with both its predecessors, the world you have at your disposal in Shadowrun: Hong
Kong seems a bit larger.
If I were to shortly describe the story, I'd have to say it's occasionally intense and
always engrossing.
Each mission, or run, being its own standalone story with unique characters and intrigue.
The way in which you choose to interact with each mission's specific characters will
dictate, to a certain degree, how that run plays out.
This is just as important as your party's make-up and your choices in approaching the
mission to begin with.
As far as general tips go, not being an asshole and trying to help people will usually result
in the most beneficial of results.
The story starts your character off being very, very fucked and requiring the help of
the underworld in order to survive and seek out the person who got you into this mess
to begin with.
It's a solid start, even though a basic, and one might say, a bit trope-ish, but on
the other hand, tropes exist for a reason, they work.
Once you look at all the games in succession - like I just did over the course of this
month - you notice how each one builds upon the accomplishments of the last.
While Dragonfall introduced very compelling companions with interesting individual stories,
Hong Kong goes further and makes the overarcing story the focus and places you at the middle
of it in a very interesting manner.
As opposed to the first two games, where the beginnings of the stories had to do with old
friends and then spun into much larger things, Hong Kong's introduction has a lot more
to do with family, your character's family to be exact, thus placing the player in a
completely different sort of relationship with the events that are taking place, because
as the game goes on, the developers manage to make things seem personal and private.
They manage this also by splicing in some disturbing dream sequences - relevant to the
plotline.
All the characters in the world seem to be having these sort of nightmares, but it was
a stroke of immersive genius to actually illustrate them for the player, as opposed to simply
telling you via a text description that you've just had a nightmare and then describe it.
Shadowrun Hong Kong brings some very interesting people that you can take with you on your
runs.
The great thing is that these are characters that have a story, but more importantly they
have a very personal history that you can choose to look into by talking to them after
each run.
Talking about one's past doesn't gel with the whole personality of being a shadowrunner
so they'll require some coaxing, but trust me when I say that once you start talking
to them, you'll be doubly interested in finishing a run.
On the one hand, there's the money and Karma rewards, and on the other, you get to talk
some more with your party about what happened in their past and as a result find out more
about them.
They're not exactly as interesting as those in Shadowrun Dragonfall were, but they're
pretty close.
Keep in mind though that I might be somewhat biased, since I found it easier to identify
to Dragonfall's characters since they are European, whilst the characters from Hong
Kong come from a completely different cultural background than mine.
But the characters in your party are not the only places where the game's writing excels,
the same can be said about the several NPCs that you'll either have to, or choose to,
interact with.
In the first camp there's your fixer - basically your manager, and a plethora of characters
relevant to each mission in particular, in the second category are all the various merchants
and random NPCs that don't really do anything.
They're just there to add to the overall story and most importantly to the atmosphere.
And saying this I'm referring to the three old men playing GO, but there are many others,
of course.
Going back to the difference in cultural background portrayed in Shadowrun: Hong Kong as opposed
to my own - I read an article after the game's initial release that explained a bit how the
simple introduction of the option to address your fixer with "aunty" - which might
seem a bit odd for most Westerners - showed in fact good knowledge of Chinese customs,
the term for "aunty" being considered both respectful and informal, considering
you're addressing a rather connected underworld actor.
And you'll find a lot of such touches throughout the game-world.
Another quite prominent part of the setting - and of the overall story - is also a specifically
Chinese one, the philosophical system of harmonizing one's environment to one's prosperous
existence, or feng shui.
While in our world, the concept is pretty much akin to and as real as magic, or belief
in deities in general; in the Awakened world of Shadowrun: Honk Kong, feng shui is actual
magic and its tenets are very real things that influence going ons in the world.
Lurking through the BBS forums is both interesting and entertaining and offers a quick glimpse
at an alternate version of the Internet.
Fuck bitching about movies or starting flame wars about which one is better: Marvel or
DC, poetry slams are the rebel outlet of the dystopian cyberpunk future.
There are also at least two, very funny, side-stories that you can follow through the BBS forums,
one of them having to do with a piece of software and the other with quite possibly the unluckiest
shadowrunning team ever.
The Matrix got seriously revamped, things look largely the same but everything is much
more detailed, brighter and considerably more dynamic.
The patrolling programs now have a cone of sight - which you can thankfully see, and
move on some very criss-crossing and intersecting routes.
You need to carefully navigate through the patrols, timing and positioning being key
to either not getting detected, or to getting detected as late in the hack as possible.
They made hacking somewhat challenging and even a bit nerve wracking, it's nothing
more complicated than remembering the correct order of a series of increasing numbers of
digits, but the fact that it all takes place on a timer makes the entire thing much more
involving.
Shadowrun: Hong Kong piles on loads of replay value, especially if we compare it to Shadowrun
Returns.
The main difference being that in Return's case, its replay value was all based on game
system and mechanics, whilst Hong Kong is worth a replay from a story standpoint as
well.
There are various places where you can make different decisions, especially when it comes
to your party make-up, which in turn will influence your play-style, so suffice to say
that Shadowrun Hong Kong has a metric fucktonne of replay value.
As far as the combat system and the classes go, what I said in my Shadowrun: Dragonfall
review is pretty much still valid, although I must say that Shadowrun Hong Kong seems
to be a bit better balanced, either because it increased the amount of HP or of abilities,
or both.
Regardless, when combined with the Matrix overhaul, the combat mechanics in Shadowrun:
Hong Kong are the best of all the three Shadowrun titles.
I like to consider myself one of the view video game reviewers who put particular accent
on a game's soundtrack.
Music and sounds are always an important part of atmosphere, especially when you have such
a thematic setting.
Shadowrun Hong Kong's soundtrack manages to blend the basics of the Shadowrun Returns
soundtrack with a completely different influence, one that is very Chinese in nature.
However, due to this influence, while it makes it work great when supporting the game, it
doesn't work as well when you listen to it on its own.
Whilst the Returns and Dragonfall soundtracks are still very much present on my phone and
I listen to them every now and then.
And since I'm reviewing the Extended Edition, I should also mention what makes it Extended.
You get a few more runs tacked on, after the end of the main storyline and I can say that
in general these runs are characterized by rather long combat encounters.
A couple of them are optional but I would suggest against skipping them since taking
them will only increases your play-time and also gives you access to more Karma points
and money to further upgrade your character.
Granted, only your character can continue growing, your companions will be stuck at
their last level of development, but you can still give them new weapons and whatnot.
There is also a developers commentary option available in the menu now as well, which you
can turn on and listen to that while you play.
I could go on for a bit longer going a bit more in depth with the game, story and characters
but i hope that my point has been made fairly well till now.
Shadowrun Hong Kong is a great RPG, it has an engrossing story, interesting characters
and comes with inherent replay value.
The gameplay mechanics have been fine tuned and polished, so much so, that I would actually
like to play the Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun Dragonfall campaigns within Hong Kong's
engine.
I am curious what you gals and guys thought of Shadowrun Hong Kong, how does it stack
up in your opinion?
Also let me know of some other cyberpunk titles that you might want me to take a look at,
be they video games or tabletop ones.
Also open for suggestions in terms of books and comic books as well, just drop 'em down
in the comments.
And it's about time for some final thoughts on Shadowrun September and the Shadowrun series.
I started this look at the Shadowrun titles spurred on by the results of the Larian survey
which showed that many of the respondents have never played Shadowrun: Hong Kong nor
the first two Fallouts.
And while my friends from GamingHD have been talking about the Fallout series - and you'll
find links to their videos in the description, consider those companion videos to mine - I
focused on revisiting the Shadowrun series, to do my part in trying to convince as many
of you of how solid these games truly are.
And I also hope that the titles' steady increase in level of gameplay and story is
reflected in my videos as well.
Keep in mind that we start with a relatively simple murder mystery in Seattle, we then
switch over to Europe where we deal with some interesting philosophical and political subjects
- not to mention the most compelling characters in the entire series - to then end in Hong
Kong, where we're plunged into a more personal type of story, with arguably higher stakes
than the previous ones.
It's a trip around the Awakened world that could've been just for show, as long as
it stayed true to the basics of Shadowrun cyberpunk dystopia: megacorporations trying
to screw each other, magic, cybernetic implants, underworld power struggles and solid turn-based
combat.
But the settings in the Shadowrun games aren't there just to offer a splash of local colour,
they're an integral part of each game's story and characters, and that's one thing
that is very difficult to keep consistent, or double and triple down on, when making
a video game franchise.
But this is one major difference when said video game franchise is supported by its dedicated
community - through crowdfunding projects - instead of the subsequent games becoming
diluted or streamlined - or multiplayer being shoehorned in at a publisher's demand - so
as to make the games more mainstream palatable.
So make sure you support your favorite indie projects, that's where we're getting the
most amount of innovation and interesting gameplay and stories anyway.
Keep it Shadowrun chummers, null sheen.
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