Game Review: Shadowrun: Hong Kong
2018-Jun-23, Saturday 19:56![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
Certainly took me a long time to get to this one.
Back when the original Shadowrun Returns kickstarter came out, one of the questions they asked of fans was where the additional campaign should be set. Berlin was the winner and so they made Dragonfall, but I voted for Hong Kong and I was really disappointed when it didn't win. One of the problems with Shadowrun's development as tabletop game is that the evolving metaplot required new supplements and editions to focus on changes to existing areas and only occasionally cover new places. We know more about Sixth World Seattle than anywhere else on the planet, for example, but most other places aren't nearly so well-described. I don't think there's ever been much published about the Confederated American States, for example, much less southern Europe, southeast or south Asia, anywhere in Africa or the Middle East, and so on. Just bits here and there scattered through the books, so a whole game set elsewhere with a companion sourcebook released with it was amazing.
The game's not as good as Dragonfall, but it comes pretty close.
Welcome to the Sixth World, and honestly, also the Fifth World.
After making your character and starting the game, you arrive in Hong Kong to meet up with your foster brother Duncan, both drawn back due to a cryptic message from your mutual foster father Raymond. Obviously this is Shadowrun, so after the double-cross by other parties and having to flee for your lives, you both vanish into the shadows, assemble a team, and and get ready to track down your father and make whoever took him pay while also making a boatload of nuyen on the side.
One of the reasons that Hong Kong comes in under Dragonfall for me is the home base. In Dragonfall, the Flux State really seems like a home. No leadership means there's no one bossing the PC around, and so it's easy to feel like this is my territory, under my protection. That's one of the reasons, besides extra content, why I went and did all the side missions available. In Hong Kong, Heoi is owned by the Yellow Lotus Syndicate and Kindly Cheng certainly never lets you forget it, so there's not that same investment into the surroundings. The NPCs are quirky and fun, even if Ambrose obviously had a greater role in the plot that was later cut, and even if it's not possible to do anything either positive or negative with Reliable Matthew, but talking to them is always worthwhile. The problem is that it's always obvious that Kindly Cheng is the power in Heoi, not the PC, and she makes it absolutely clear that her word is law, the PC works for her, and crossing her is extremely unwise. This is an interesting change of pace from the previous two games, but it grates a bit. Generally, shadowrunners aren't under retainer.
Cyberpunk is just Asian cities.
It's possible to pursue your own contracts during the game, of course, and that's where I found the most interesting content most of the time. That picture is from Whampoa Garden, which in real life is a housing estate but in Shadowrun is an indepedent techno-enclave organized on a tribal basis. They call the PC in to solve a murder, and this mission provides the most interesting set of actions in the game. It's possible to be sloppy and fast, find out who the murderer of the Whampoa Elders is, and then accept their mission to eliminate the criminal. With a bit more care and time, it's possible to learn why the Elders are being killed off, and that results in a moral dilemma and possibly a new member of the team.
Similarly, the mission "Exit, Stage Left" seems like it's about a rivalry between two media producers warring over ratings, but it turns out the true cause of the dispute is much darker. Or not. Without too much spoiling, one thing I like about Shadowrun's from-the-real-world approach to the supernatural is that "undead" monsters like ghouls and vampires and banshees are just people with a disease. Sure, they have to eat flesh or drink blood and that is objectively bad, but they're not all horrible creatures of the night. If Mr. Wang the janitor gets scratched by a ghoul on the way home, he doesn't automatically become a vicious predator. He's a janitor with a particularly damaging illness. More so with vampires and the other derivatives of HMHVV, who don't become lords of the night simply due to being turned. This discrepency is pretty common in fiction now, but it's still rare in RPGs.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the same draw to the main quest. I loved the main storylines in both Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall because they both drew on Shadowrun's metaplot, and I'm a sucker for metaplot. Being there for the Universal Brotherhood starting its insect spirit master plan and having the possibility of starting the Sixth World's Scourge two millennia early were great. The threat in Hong Kong was also mystical in nature--not a surprise after the previous two games--but I didn't have a previous connection to it, so it didn't hook me quite the same way. And since Raymond doesn't appear until much later in the game, I had no real feelings over his absence. I was rescuing him because it was in the mission log.
I'd love to talk about the setting and how it's different from the other Shadowrun games, but the structure of the game doesn't really allow it to be. Sure, the signs are in hanzi and there's more neon, but this is a party-focused, mission-based game. In a first-person RPG, I'm sure there would have been more focus on Hong Kong as a place. In Shadowrun: Hong Kong, it mostly just comes out in the soundtrack and the decor of the corporate offices you end up raiding.
The Panther Assault Cannon--when "non-lethal" isn't in your vocabulary.
If you've played either of the previous two games, the combat will be familiar. There are no changes at all I could see between this game and Dragonfall. Each mission has four participants, the main character and three others chosen from either the default team or hireable mercenaries, with occasional guest NPCs tagging along. Battles are turn-based and use an AP system, with the party having two AP for the early part of the game and three AP later, and actions generally taking one AP except for certain particularly-taxing actions like firing full auto or using particularly powerful spells.
It's still fun, and I like the emphasis on cover and positioning even if I'm still not clear on what exactly counts as flanking and how some attacks were blocked completely while others did 1.5 damage without being criticals. If I played on a higher difficulty I'd have to learn all of that, but I just played through on normal and I didn't have much trouble.
Something else I really appreciate, though, is that it's possible to do quite a few missions without firing a shot. Ever since I played Fallout and talked the Master to death, I've loved CRPGs that allow non-lethal options, because frankly, I would say that most problems in the real world are solved without violence (albeit not necessarily without the threat of violence). Investing in Charisma allowed my elf mage to talk his way into secure corporate installations, private parties, swanky restaurants, all kinds of places, to a much greater degree than the previous two games. Obviously I still got in a lot of fights, but this is the first Shadowrun computer game where I've really felt like the face was a viable option and that there were options for resolving conflicts that didn't involve a firefight.
The joke is that every shadowrun starts out like National Treasure and ends like The Blues Brothers, and that is often true, but I'm glad it's not always true here. All those points in Charisma were worth it.
The engine still doesn't allow for sneaking, but I'm glad, honestly. Mandatory stealth sequences would have been awful.
Team composition is very important.
Shadowrun: Hong Kong also came with a bonus campaign that takes place after the main one, but I honestly wouldn't recommend it. It's not bad, necessarily, and it's shorter at only four missions, two of which are optional. However, the structure of the scenario means that enemy variety is pretty limited. It's almost always just a bunch of people with guns, and since they wanted to make it more challenging than the main campaign but didn't have the option of tougher enemies, a lot of people with guns. Usually in waves, where after two or three turns doors open and more security forces spew out right when I thought I was on the verge of winning.
Sure, this is realistic. It's easy to argue that the new waves represent security forces that heard the sound of gunfire or alarms going off and responded, which is why it took them some time to show up. But it's not really that fun to play through. Battles that take forever, when it's impossible to know if any particular place is safe from guards spawning behind you, and with healing items scarcer than both previous games due to the lower amount of money available to the player, are not a highlight of the game for me. Even finding that Panther Assault Cannon, fun as it was, didn't help. As we all know from playing X-Com, an 80% chance to hit is 50% under battlefield conditions, and the Panther Assault Cannon takes two AP to reload. Cue a bunch of casting haste on Duncan so he could move his hands fast enough to use his gun.
Okay. I admit, that is the kind of thing players in the tabletop Shadowrun would do.
Welcome to the information superhighway.
This isn't the first Shadowrun game I'd recommend to people. That's still Dragonfall, which is easier to invest in and has a more compelling storyline. But Shadowrun: Hong Kong is prettier even if it is always night, because cities in East Asia are filled with neon skyscrapers even now and the designers added an incoming typhoon to provide an excuse for it to always be raining. The atmosphere is top-notch, beyond even Dragonfall, but the plot falls just a bit short.
If this is the last Shadowrun computer game that Harebrained Schemes plans to do, I'm glad they went out on such a high note. And now that I've finished it, maybe I can get that tabletop game off the ground...
Back when the original Shadowrun Returns kickstarter came out, one of the questions they asked of fans was where the additional campaign should be set. Berlin was the winner and so they made Dragonfall, but I voted for Hong Kong and I was really disappointed when it didn't win. One of the problems with Shadowrun's development as tabletop game is that the evolving metaplot required new supplements and editions to focus on changes to existing areas and only occasionally cover new places. We know more about Sixth World Seattle than anywhere else on the planet, for example, but most other places aren't nearly so well-described. I don't think there's ever been much published about the Confederated American States, for example, much less southern Europe, southeast or south Asia, anywhere in Africa or the Middle East, and so on. Just bits here and there scattered through the books, so a whole game set elsewhere with a companion sourcebook released with it was amazing.
The game's not as good as Dragonfall, but it comes pretty close.
Welcome to the Sixth World, and honestly, also the Fifth World.
After making your character and starting the game, you arrive in Hong Kong to meet up with your foster brother Duncan, both drawn back due to a cryptic message from your mutual foster father Raymond. Obviously this is Shadowrun, so after the double-cross by other parties and having to flee for your lives, you both vanish into the shadows, assemble a team, and and get ready to track down your father and make whoever took him pay while also making a boatload of nuyen on the side.
One of the reasons that Hong Kong comes in under Dragonfall for me is the home base. In Dragonfall, the Flux State really seems like a home. No leadership means there's no one bossing the PC around, and so it's easy to feel like this is my territory, under my protection. That's one of the reasons, besides extra content, why I went and did all the side missions available. In Hong Kong, Heoi is owned by the Yellow Lotus Syndicate and Kindly Cheng certainly never lets you forget it, so there's not that same investment into the surroundings. The NPCs are quirky and fun, even if Ambrose obviously had a greater role in the plot that was later cut, and even if it's not possible to do anything either positive or negative with Reliable Matthew, but talking to them is always worthwhile. The problem is that it's always obvious that Kindly Cheng is the power in Heoi, not the PC, and she makes it absolutely clear that her word is law, the PC works for her, and crossing her is extremely unwise. This is an interesting change of pace from the previous two games, but it grates a bit. Generally, shadowrunners aren't under retainer.
Cyberpunk is just Asian cities.
It's possible to pursue your own contracts during the game, of course, and that's where I found the most interesting content most of the time. That picture is from Whampoa Garden, which in real life is a housing estate but in Shadowrun is an indepedent techno-enclave organized on a tribal basis. They call the PC in to solve a murder, and this mission provides the most interesting set of actions in the game. It's possible to be sloppy and fast, find out who the murderer of the Whampoa Elders is, and then accept their mission to eliminate the criminal. With a bit more care and time, it's possible to learn why the Elders are being killed off, and that results in a moral dilemma and possibly a new member of the team.
Similarly, the mission "Exit, Stage Left" seems like it's about a rivalry between two media producers warring over ratings, but it turns out the true cause of the dispute is much darker. Or not. Without too much spoiling, one thing I like about Shadowrun's from-the-real-world approach to the supernatural is that "undead" monsters like ghouls and vampires and banshees are just people with a disease. Sure, they have to eat flesh or drink blood and that is objectively bad, but they're not all horrible creatures of the night. If Mr. Wang the janitor gets scratched by a ghoul on the way home, he doesn't automatically become a vicious predator. He's a janitor with a particularly damaging illness. More so with vampires and the other derivatives of HMHVV, who don't become lords of the night simply due to being turned. This discrepency is pretty common in fiction now, but it's still rare in RPGs.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the same draw to the main quest. I loved the main storylines in both Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall because they both drew on Shadowrun's metaplot, and I'm a sucker for metaplot. Being there for the Universal Brotherhood starting its insect spirit master plan and having the possibility of starting the Sixth World's Scourge two millennia early were great. The threat in Hong Kong was also mystical in nature--not a surprise after the previous two games--but I didn't have a previous connection to it, so it didn't hook me quite the same way. And since Raymond doesn't appear until much later in the game, I had no real feelings over his absence. I was rescuing him because it was in the mission log.
I'd love to talk about the setting and how it's different from the other Shadowrun games, but the structure of the game doesn't really allow it to be. Sure, the signs are in hanzi and there's more neon, but this is a party-focused, mission-based game. In a first-person RPG, I'm sure there would have been more focus on Hong Kong as a place. In Shadowrun: Hong Kong, it mostly just comes out in the soundtrack and the decor of the corporate offices you end up raiding.
The Panther Assault Cannon--when "non-lethal" isn't in your vocabulary.
If you've played either of the previous two games, the combat will be familiar. There are no changes at all I could see between this game and Dragonfall. Each mission has four participants, the main character and three others chosen from either the default team or hireable mercenaries, with occasional guest NPCs tagging along. Battles are turn-based and use an AP system, with the party having two AP for the early part of the game and three AP later, and actions generally taking one AP except for certain particularly-taxing actions like firing full auto or using particularly powerful spells.
It's still fun, and I like the emphasis on cover and positioning even if I'm still not clear on what exactly counts as flanking and how some attacks were blocked completely while others did 1.5 damage without being criticals. If I played on a higher difficulty I'd have to learn all of that, but I just played through on normal and I didn't have much trouble.
Something else I really appreciate, though, is that it's possible to do quite a few missions without firing a shot. Ever since I played Fallout and talked the Master to death, I've loved CRPGs that allow non-lethal options, because frankly, I would say that most problems in the real world are solved without violence (albeit not necessarily without the threat of violence). Investing in Charisma allowed my elf mage to talk his way into secure corporate installations, private parties, swanky restaurants, all kinds of places, to a much greater degree than the previous two games. Obviously I still got in a lot of fights, but this is the first Shadowrun computer game where I've really felt like the face was a viable option and that there were options for resolving conflicts that didn't involve a firefight.
The joke is that every shadowrun starts out like National Treasure and ends like The Blues Brothers, and that is often true, but I'm glad it's not always true here. All those points in Charisma were worth it.
The engine still doesn't allow for sneaking, but I'm glad, honestly. Mandatory stealth sequences would have been awful.
Team composition is very important.
Shadowrun: Hong Kong also came with a bonus campaign that takes place after the main one, but I honestly wouldn't recommend it. It's not bad, necessarily, and it's shorter at only four missions, two of which are optional. However, the structure of the scenario means that enemy variety is pretty limited. It's almost always just a bunch of people with guns, and since they wanted to make it more challenging than the main campaign but didn't have the option of tougher enemies, a lot of people with guns. Usually in waves, where after two or three turns doors open and more security forces spew out right when I thought I was on the verge of winning.
Sure, this is realistic. It's easy to argue that the new waves represent security forces that heard the sound of gunfire or alarms going off and responded, which is why it took them some time to show up. But it's not really that fun to play through. Battles that take forever, when it's impossible to know if any particular place is safe from guards spawning behind you, and with healing items scarcer than both previous games due to the lower amount of money available to the player, are not a highlight of the game for me. Even finding that Panther Assault Cannon, fun as it was, didn't help. As we all know from playing X-Com, an 80% chance to hit is 50% under battlefield conditions, and the Panther Assault Cannon takes two AP to reload. Cue a bunch of casting haste on Duncan so he could move his hands fast enough to use his gun.
Okay. I admit, that is the kind of thing players in the tabletop Shadowrun would do.
Welcome to the information superhighway.
This isn't the first Shadowrun game I'd recommend to people. That's still Dragonfall, which is easier to invest in and has a more compelling storyline. But Shadowrun: Hong Kong is prettier even if it is always night, because cities in East Asia are filled with neon skyscrapers even now and the designers added an incoming typhoon to provide an excuse for it to always be raining. The atmosphere is top-notch, beyond even Dragonfall, but the plot falls just a bit short.
If this is the last Shadowrun computer game that Harebrained Schemes plans to do, I'm glad they went out on such a high note. And now that I've finished it, maybe I can get that tabletop game off the ground...
