Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

[Excidium II]

Hmm is it normal for Duncan's items to disappear?

Please respond

 

[Kem0sabe]

About finished with it and I have to say that it's a worse overall experience than Dragonfall, the story is poorly told, the characters are not interesting, the combat encounters are few and not that interesting.

The game just feels like a graphic novel with some combat tacked on, and with the shit load of bad writing you have to digest I end up bored out of my mind most of the time.

 

[Alfons]

Please respond

Wtd does that mean, "disapear"? He has no gear during a mission?

 

[Gregz]

Is the cyberware 'Ares Dermal Plating (Alpha)' bugged? I'm not seeing the +2 armor added onto my char sheet.

 

[Excidium II]

Wtd does that mean, "disapear"? He has no gear during a mission?

Yes. Right at the beginning, after escaping from cops via sewers and metro tunnels. Bought some medkits and checked inventory then realized his weapon, armor and consumables slots are all empty.

 

[a bear named spigot]

Hmm is it normal for Duncan's items to disappear?

no

glad to help

 

[Gozma]

Finished it.

I think people are getting a negative impression of the writing at the start because everything is obviously designed to get you to the point where you're a shadowrunner doing missions and talking to the companions/shopping in between. Having to weave some dense writing like the Duncan family shit in with really contrived plotting sucks. Once you're actually doing missions and the Walled City story starts getting told it levels out, and I thought the endgame writing was only a couple ticks worse than DF while the missions are better.

Combat was less sloggy than Dragonfall with none of those long combat sections in DF where it wouldn't let you drop out of combat mode for a half-hour of gametime. Difficulty and level of interest is whatever.

Spoiler

The Matrix stuff only got really annoying in the Prosperity Tower section of the endgame because there's way too much of it. You do like 2-3 sections per floor with two minigame walls a piece and then finish off with an incredibly long one during the last fight. The amount of time you spend in Matrix shit in Prosperity Tower is probably more than you spent in all the rest of the game combined. A huge mistake there, and it made the combat in Prosperity Tower annoying by proxy. In the very last section I did a good 20 minutes of boring matrix slogging then because of a minor misunderstanding with a menu I thought I was gonna have to do the whole thing over again, and I would have dropped the game entirely there if I'd really have had to reload and do that plus a floor of the tower over.

I thought the very end endgame was a little off because the writing for Qian Ya was so bitchy and personal it didn't seem very Lovecraftian. I mean, I know they weren't necessarily going for Lovecraft, but how else is some kind of alien demigod supposed to act other than weird and outside human scope, rather than being a high school bully?

Also I'm a little bummed that I got the golden ending in the first try. Would have been a little nudge to help me replay it in a few months.

Overall it's on par with DF and I'll buy another one like it. I think they should just cut to the chase and have the game start in the DF/HK main gameplay loop without an intro next time.

 

[a bear named spigot]

buying new gear and consumables/gear in general seems pointless, as the difficulty does not warrant either. i rarely use medkits even though I don't bring a caster with heal most runs, i've used grenades maybe twice and the only armour I've bought was a +3 coat early on for my dude. you just don't need to get better stuff.

 

[Ninjerk]

Is the cyberware 'Ares Dermal Plating (Alpha)' bugged? I'm not seeing the +2 armor added onto my char sheet.

When I bought an upgraded outfit it didn't immediately show that my armor had improved until a few turns into the next mission I went on.

 

[Alfons]

buying new gear and consumables/gear in general seems pointless, as the difficulty does not warrant either. i rarely use medkits even though I don't bring a caster with heal most runs, i've used grenades maybe twice and the only armour I've bought was a +3 coat early on for my dude. you just don't need to get better stuff.

I think I'm on the last mission and I haven't bought any armor. As far as not needing better stuff I don't know about that, there are some missions which are a clusterfuck. I do use medkits, I just use the ones that my companions have and never used one of my own. Gear does get ridiculously powerful, with haste and aim my guy can shoot 2 almost 99% accuracy full autos across the map, or 5 GL shots per round.

When I bought an upgraded outfit it didn't immediately show that my armor had improved until a few turns into the next mission I went on.

Difference being that it's cyber. My auto reloader arm doesn't give me the +1 quickness either.

 

[34scell]

Also the perk that allows you to exceed racial limitations doesn't show the difference on the character sheet either.

 

[Alfons]

Also the perk that allows you to exceed racial limitations doesn't show the difference on the character sheet either.

What does it actually do? Does it allow you to have 12 quickness on an elf or do you need it to go up to 11 quickness with everyone else? I had a human char that had a natural 9 and +4 from cyber, with or without the perk it showed me quickness 11.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Anyone know how to get

Yes. Right at the beginning, after escaping from cops via sewers and metro tunnels. Bought some medkits and checked inventory then realized his weapon, armor and consumables slots are all empty.

I believe that's just a bug (not game ending), they will appear back when you start your 'first' mission. I saw this happen.

 

[slymer]

Yes. Right at the beginning, after escaping from cops via sewers and metro tunnels. Bought some medkits and checked inventory then realized his weapon, armor and consumables slots are all empty.

His gear will be back when you start the next mission. I thought the same thing. I went to the smuggler to buy some gear and Duncan didn't have any items. I bought him a rifle that ended up being a waste of money.

 

[Zetor]

Actually I've given a tazer to Duncan (it's hilariously OP when combined with beanbag and his "subdue instant kill stunned enemies" move), and it disappeared from the inventory entirely after the run... so I suspect that's a bug.

 

[Shadenuat]

I'ma going to shoot plasticman with a taser. My thoughts so far:

Main plot: From the prologue, I still have no idea what is happening and what is the main twist. I have same amount of information on main plot after finishing all misions as I did after prologue. Sure, there's some foreshadowing and ominous signs, dreams & foster father (

Spoiler

), cursed city, but nothing in particular I can cling to. So I had to focus on characters instead to enjoy reading at least something.

Characters: Racter > Duncan > Is0 > Gobbet. Ghouls vampires whatever, I didn't feel like I trust that shit and killed everything.
Racter is stereotypical, but well thought out. He has life long and interesting enough that he needs the amount of text game supplies it's characters with. It is interesting to have such a complicated psycho and talking with him gave me these nice walking on the gray razor feelings. PC's replies were nice and different, allowing you to put good impression on comrade, while some of them made me laugh ("YEAH LIKE STALIN DUH"). I can imagine Racter as one of the crew for Alpha Centauri ship side to side with his bro Zakharov. "The most interesting person on the ship". Very useful in combat too with his super droid.
Duncan, what can I say, I feel it was just nice to have your own Imoen again in pants and with assault rifle. It hurts player's roleplaying agency a bit but I think it's fine since whole story ties closely with player's own story. Somewhat KOTOR2ish but I can live with that. It also felt that Duncan's walls of text weren't as long as others, I'd edited out some of good old times TM, but overall, he had that sort of reactive writing that complemented PCs own feelings about things. Not to mention Duncan-bro one-shots most things with his assault rifle bursts provided right buffs.
Is0bel, she's funnier than others and has cool mission. She plays introvert well, a lot of awkward moments, especially during the mission. However, what is it to her, it takes too much text. It doesn't seem like there is any choice at how she acts after her mission, and the potential of a character with her secret did not come out. She could have become two different personas of your chosing, for example, depending on how you acted with her during game. Her grenade launcher is p. good.
Gobbet - lot's of text that didn't work for me. I tried listening to her stories, but in the end I skipped too many of them. Her mission did not impress me either. I played Shaman myself anyway.

Other characters - don't have any particular opinion. Auntie is not bad fixer, previous ones were more generic. Other characters could have used "more with less" approach.

City and mission design: It's poor. Dragonfall felt tighter when it came to designing the hub. I feel third game is good time as any to add some new sprites, like people sitting, cars moving; work on interiors, appartments and side quests of the world player is in, so the world wouldn't feel so flat and empty.
Missions are easy and I can't remember even one that could match a mission from Dragonfall about getting your own terminator. There's a surprising amount of socialite stuff, dialogue and "find that hotspot where you could use your chosen skill to win the mission". I'm surprised they didn't translate stealth system from Matrix into meatworld. Maybe because you can't control your party members.

Combat: Companion skills is nice addition. Everything else is pretty much same. I think there is only so much you could do on that engine and with the setting before it becomes boring.

Matrix: Hate it with passion. Dislike minigames. And design is thery samy. Wherever you go you begin in a room with two sentry bots. Then go into a more difficult room. Sometimes you must fight and can't avoid the fights. It also doesn't matter much. Decker is not obligatory for anything, best you could do is get a bit more credits.

P.S. Hurrah for minor and game breaking bugs

 

[bertram_tung]

i'm cyberpunk bruce lee and im here to kick butt

(not as blurry in game)

 

[Zarniwoop]

I never bothered with cyberwarez in the previous games, mostly because I wanted to get my magic on.

But thank you Codex for bringing that MAJESTIC grenade chucker-back arm to my attention. Good times 10/10 would again.

With the ridiculous amount of grenades the bad guys throw at you, this thing is a no-brainer. I wonder how long before the Sawyerists unleash a butthurtstorm on HBS due to it being "unbalanced".

 

[SwiftCrack]

The whip is even more OP if you ask me. It seems to crit every other strike for 30+ damage in the first third of the game.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Is the combat any more challenging? Did someone really say Hard is gone? Does the AI still stop itself from attacking more than once a per turn?

Not really, actually it felt easier than DF. AI is still the same most of the time. I cornered the last boss with my 1 melee and 1 cyberwhiper and all it did was hitting one of them for once and wasting its AP by moving 1 step back&forth.
Only melee attackers use their all AP to attack (not always though)

The whip is even more OP if you ask me. It seems to crit every other strike for 30+ damage in the first third of the game.

Yup, my sissy elven decker started to hit for +35-40 after getting the whip, making most of the fights trivial. Whip has a good AoE attack and and 2 good armor pierce attacks. Normal attakcs drain AP too. I'm sure Gaichu was jelly all the time after that upgrade

 

[Rostere]

I'm actually positively surprised by the quality of the writing. The game does appear to have a very linear structure, however.

 

[Darth Roxor]

It's not shit. Get out of here with this hipster poser crap. If you don't personally like it, that's fine, but this isn't AND RUN HE DID "quality" of DGaider.

'You can't criticise it until you've liked it or if it was written by Gaider'.

I see we have another aficionado of shadownannies here.

I like that the map are more "authentic" and not as crowded/small as they were before.

I would say they are only bigger in size, not in scope. And I see you agree with me anyway considering your "it takes longer to walk everywhere" comment.

 

[Zetor]

In general they seemed to go for much bigger maps (most runs are on a single map now instead of sub-maps like previously)... incidentally, this also made loading times pretty bad unless you're using an SSD. Is it because of Unity5 being terrible, or lack of optimization from HBS' side?

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Reloader arm + grenade launcher. OP

 

[naossano]

Actually I've given a tazer to Duncan (it's hilariously OP when combined with beanbag and his "subdue instant kill stunned enemies" move), and it disappeared from the inventory entirely after the run... so I suspect that's a bug.

When i give items to companions in H:K, i usually find the unused items in my stash, after the mission, rather that in the guy's inventory.

Anyway, i am still shocked by the complains about writting, especially after having seen so many games greatly lacking in the writting area. So far, i am pretty immersed in the thing, still suffering for being SINless and having to sink with Duncan in the Walled City way of life.

Although, still disapointed by the lack of choices and the removal of higher difficulty, spirit control backlash, or opponement limited AI...