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I don't know whether to gush about this or bitch about it.
Aesthetically, narratively, and design-wise, Shadowrun Hong Kong is a marked upgrade in every way to Dragonfall, which itself was a huge upgrade to the original Returns/Dead Man's Switch. The stat system is a little more in-depth, every build has its upsides and downsides, and the game showers you in Karma the way the original DMS showered you in nuyen. You can reliably see these builds come to fruition, which you rarely could in the first two games.
In addition, there's actual skill-check options for just about every potential build, meaning you can talk/finesse your way out of a huge chunk of problems instead of having to constantly gun down everything you see. Helping out someone can come back later on and help you in ways you wouldn't expect. There's more of an in-depth, interconnected world here than even Dragonfall had.
There's also a few quality of life features that the series desperately needed, like the ability to toggle in and out of "battle mode" instead of having to wait for your opponent to strike first. You can press down the ALT key to highlight hotspots in the Baldur's Gate/Diablo 2 style instead of waiting for them to pop back into view. Melee characters aren't intrinsically worse than ranged builds any more. That sort of thing.
But on the flipside of the scale: god fucking damn this game is as buggy as a stagnant pond in skeeter season.
There are frequent times where trying to click on a skill or item to use it caused characters to move instead, wasting the AP they were about to use FOR said skill or item. Targeting individual characters in a cluster can be confusing and awkward as the cursor jumps around like a flea on meth. There's inventory bugs that I triggered without even trying that duped cyberdecks and matrix programs into my inventory. (Let me tell you: if you ever worry about the game difficulty, ending up with a glitched cyberdeck Blaster program in your meatspace weapon slots is a great way to break the difficulty curve over your knee. Not very many enemies in the physical world can handle getting 75 damage to the face in a single attack.) There are several infinite dialogue loops you can get stuck in if you fumble at the wrong spot. There was at least one instance where I loaded a game and my animationless shadowrunner floated around the world in a T-pose.
In addition, one thing that was more an oversight than a bug, sneaking around in battle mode lets you bypass any triggers that pop up dialogue boxes, meaning the easiest way to escape detection is to just go into combat and walk past anyone that could see you. It doesn't work every time (characters who just initiate combat without a text box popup can still do that) but it gets you past a lot of the game's security checkpoints and similar with absolutely no interaction whatsoever. I used it a little in endgame, and I felt kinda shameful for doing so.
This is not a well-programmed game, but it is probably the best written and most playable of the Shadowrun Returns trilogy. I'd consider recommending it, at the end of the day...but maybe not for $20, if you're trying to be frugal with your game spending. Wait for it to go on sale.
Aesthetically, narratively, and design-wise, Shadowrun Hong Kong is a marked upgrade in every way to Dragonfall, which itself was a huge upgrade to the original Returns/Dead Man's Switch. The stat system is a little more in-depth, every build has its upsides and downsides, and the game showers you in Karma the way the original DMS showered you in nuyen. You can reliably see these builds come to fruition, which you rarely could in the first two games.
In addition, there's actual skill-check options for just about every potential build, meaning you can talk/finesse your way out of a huge chunk of problems instead of having to constantly gun down everything you see. Helping out someone can come back later on and help you in ways you wouldn't expect. There's more of an in-depth, interconnected world here than even Dragonfall had.
There's also a few quality of life features that the series desperately needed, like the ability to toggle in and out of "battle mode" instead of having to wait for your opponent to strike first. You can press down the ALT key to highlight hotspots in the Baldur's Gate/Diablo 2 style instead of waiting for them to pop back into view. Melee characters aren't intrinsically worse than ranged builds any more. That sort of thing.
But on the flipside of the scale: god fucking damn this game is as buggy as a stagnant pond in skeeter season.
There are frequent times where trying to click on a skill or item to use it caused characters to move instead, wasting the AP they were about to use FOR said skill or item. Targeting individual characters in a cluster can be confusing and awkward as the cursor jumps around like a flea on meth. There's inventory bugs that I triggered without even trying that duped cyberdecks and matrix programs into my inventory. (Let me tell you: if you ever worry about the game difficulty, ending up with a glitched cyberdeck Blaster program in your meatspace weapon slots is a great way to break the difficulty curve over your knee. Not very many enemies in the physical world can handle getting 75 damage to the face in a single attack.) There are several infinite dialogue loops you can get stuck in if you fumble at the wrong spot. There was at least one instance where I loaded a game and my animationless shadowrunner floated around the world in a T-pose.
In addition, one thing that was more an oversight than a bug, sneaking around in battle mode lets you bypass any triggers that pop up dialogue boxes, meaning the easiest way to escape detection is to just go into combat and walk past anyone that could see you. It doesn't work every time (characters who just initiate combat without a text box popup can still do that) but it gets you past a lot of the game's security checkpoints and similar with absolutely no interaction whatsoever. I used it a little in endgame, and I felt kinda shameful for doing so.
This is not a well-programmed game, but it is probably the best written and most playable of the Shadowrun Returns trilogy. I'd consider recommending it, at the end of the day...but maybe not for $20, if you're trying to be frugal with your game spending. Wait for it to go on sale.
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