Comments on: Thoughts: Shadowrun Returns.

By: Darren

Darren — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 15:46:11 +0000

To be fair, in class-based games there always seems to be at least one that doesn’t work well for some reason or other. And I absolutely LOVE when someone figures out how to make a seemingly crappy class work well. For instance, I could honestly discuss the balance of Final Fantasy Tactics’ classes all day long.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 15:25:28 +0000

I think it can do, yeah. A weird failure of what should be fairly basic progression through the game.

By: Ninja Foodstuff

Ninja Foodstuff — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:00:36 +0000

even worse is that optional segment (if it’s the one I’m thinking of) occurs before the game has shown you any of the decking segments

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 08:14:24 +0000

Bought it, played it, ragequit it after my first battle was against native warriors who could move and shoot twice. I’ll go back to it after the Space School madness has died down a bit.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 08:13:24 +0000

I think that deckers are another thing that fell foul of Shadowrun Returns releasing on time and on budget, since there’s maybe one optional decker segment in the whole game. Everything else was part of the main plotline, and they *have* to give you a good decker if they’re doing that because you might not have one otherwise.

And I don’t know what P&P Shadowrun combat is like, but I was surprised at how heavily they borrowed basic UI stuff like cover markers from XCOM. They could have done a lot worse, mind.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 08:08:01 +0000

I have no doubt the mod community can produce something that’s as technically (un)accomplished as Shadowrun Returns, but any user-created content will live and die on the strength of its writing, just as Shadowrun Returns does — and that’s the one thing mods tend not to be that great at. Still, I at least hear there’s some conversions of old P&P Shadowrun campaigns in the works, so that should be interesting.

By: Aleksei Volchok

Aleksei Volchok — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 09:05:42 +0000

Battle system is not just XCOMesque, it’s almost copypasted from there.

And save system is killing everybody. For several days I don’t return to game’s final boss cause I know I’ll have to go through dialog and 10 minutes of easy part of battle during which everybody will sloooowly raise their hands to cast something and walk from place to place.

Also, decker class is curiously useless, as each time you need to go to Matrix the game gives you a good decker and – most of the time – only 1 jack. And decker battle skill – the one that raises chance to hit specific enemy – is also useless because you can’t hit anybody with it. For that matter, professional soldiers can’t hit a thing from 2 meters with bloody shotgun. Good game with massive frustration features.

By: Ninja Foodstuff

Ninja Foodstuff — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 12:47:57 +0000

Interestingly enough this has been the first game that I’ve personally reviewed, that everything I’ve said about it agrees with what everyone else has said (including Hentzau here).

It seems to be remarkable in getting so many things completely right, whilst getting so many others completely wrong.

My recommendation is to wait for some good mods to come out (assuming they do), unless you’re in need of a cyberpunk hit.

By: Janek

Janek — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 11:48:18 +0000

Been on the fence with this, and you seem to be echoing the mixed sentiments that RPS had. Super tempted, but with my backlog as it is, I think I’ll wait for a price reduction and/or confirmation that some of the quirks have been ironed out.

Out of interest, have you tried Expeditions: Conquistador? Another Kickstarter-funded turn-based RPG with lots of text. I rather enjoyed it, even if it got kind of repetetive.