Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

[Cadmus]

I'm somewhere near the last run. The game's been pretty short and way too easy so far, much easier than DF:DC. Exposition dumps seem way more frequent than in DF but I might be remembering it wrong. I like the companions better. Most of the writing is really good but sometimes the character backstories seem awkwardly told and the conversations with Duncan are a bit cringeworthy.

The runs feel great, there's stuff to do even though it's pretty linear but that's what I expect from this game. Fun, tight, simple with good writing. If only they cut down a tiny bit on the expositions dumps, it would have felt almost perfect.

I don't like the fact that I can't afford any new guns or stuff, I bought 2 armors and 1 gun and consumables and I'm near the end, that's weird.
I found the ratface backer character of Felicia Day and almost puked at my screen.

The graphics are awesome, very detailed environments with pretty lights. They seem to have put a lot of work in them, big detailed spaces you don't actually need to walk through, it helps make the city feel alive. The character models look better, too. I don't get the complaints about the music. I guess it's a bit worse than DF but I still liked it.

I like the skill checks and this time I took the right ones from the start because I actually thought about it and I was right. The acedemic skill seems only to be good for flavour so fuck that, it's not like you need to hear even more backstories.

I don't care for the complaints about the hub size, it takes like 5 seconds to traverse from one end to the other.

 

[Darth Roxor]

i heard you are friends with a certain malvina

 

[Grunker]

Sinking Ship. Possible game-stopping bug?

Spoiler

Cadmus tells me Yasmin will know how to deactivate the trap. This is her dialogue:

Yet trap is still activated?

 

[a bear named spigot]

Sinking Ship. Possible game-stopping bug?

Spoiler

Cadmus tells me Yasmin will know how to deactivate the trap. This is her dialogue:

Yet trap is still activated?

sinking ship seems dopey. she sorted me to get past the trap on my playthrough, but then once I had moved beyond it below there was no way to progress. haven't yet gotten around to redoing the level.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Sinking Ship. Possible game-stopping bug?

Spoiler

Cadmus tells me Yasmin will know how to deactivate the trap. This is her dialogue:

Yet trap is still activated?

Did you talk that sick guy about the trap first? Ooops, I can't read it seems, derp.
Edit: Similar thing happened to me with a puppet vendor at the Heoi and couln't find a way to fix it(not even reloading a way back save worked)

 

[Rake]

Which version do you play?

 

[Grunker]

^ Steam

 

[Darth Roxor]

Sinking Ship is all kinds of b0rked, unfortunately. It's like all the scripts in that place have a chance to break.

At least I was able to finish the mission, but I couldn't do anything with the scuttle charges on the lower deck to blow the ship up, which led to a less than desirable outcome.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Errr you can finish the mission without blowing the ship up, imo saving it is a better outcome, no?

 

[Gozma]

Don't tell Roxor how to feel

One other thing that's borked about SS is that the reward for Goebbels is supposed to be some AOE insanity grenade that gets added to her refreshing per-mission inventory except it never shows up.

Worked fine for me otherwise. I remember I talked to Cadmus once before I triggered the appearance of Gobbet.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Don't tell Roxor how to feel

One other thing that's borked about SS is that the reward for Goebbels is supposed to be some AOE insanity grenade that gets added to her refreshing per-mission inventory except it never shows up.

Worked fine for me otherwise. I remember I talked to Cadmus once before I triggered the appearance of Gobbet.

Goebbels is crazy (shes talking to rats man...) and that grenade is just her imagination!

 

[Darth Roxor]

Errr you can finish the mission without blowing the ship up, imo saving it is a better outcome, no?

Not quite exactly...

Spoiler

I signalled Cadmus & friends to gtfo, thinking that maybe I'll be able to blow the scuttle charges AFTER I'm done with Malvina.

Turns out I couldn't and they all died in the evac attempt \^-^/

 

[Lord Andre]

Aaaargh, my OCD is getting wrecked by all the lost Academic checks. For fuck's sake!

I'm starting over. I'll pick Academic + 1 than another 1 at first opportunity.

What's the best ? socialite ? gang ? shadow runner? Help me BROS, you are my only hope!

 

[Roguey]

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?

A combination of the two most likely. DMS loading times for me were fine, Dragonfall's felt too long, Wasteland 2 and PoE's (for what little I played) are fine.

 

[naossano]

They aren't overly long. They are usually finished a few seconds after you read the text. Sometime, you don't even have time to read the text. (when reloading)

 

[opium fiend]

Who the fuck said that Isobel was the most cool headed of the team? After her nerd con run I wanted to slap the shit out of her. No such option, sadly.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Aaaargh, my OCD is getting wrecked by all the lost Academic checks. For fuck's sake!

I'm starting over. I'll pick Academic + 1 than another 1 at first opportunity.

What's the best ? socialite ? gang ? shadow runner? Help me BROS, you are my only hope!

Actually most academic ones are there for just for lore. Gang helps you avoid some early combats but not much useful after.
After getting academic both shadowrunner and socialite have good opportunities, so I'll say go with one them(or both). There are also some charisma and str checks (5-6) which helps enourmosly if you want to play with out combat.
Corparete has some use too, especially when inflitareting corps.

 

[GarfunkeL]

'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.

Not quite. I was pointing out that few posters went overboard in an misguided attempt to be edgy or whatever. There are certainly weaker links in the writing. But is it objectively shitty in overall that the entire game should be slammed for bad writing? Certainly not.

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.

It's another non-complaint. It might take you 5 seconds more to run around. You still had to run around in DF and DMS as well. That complaint always exists unless the studio goes full Darklands/Pirates! and removes hub/town maps altogether and replaces them with a screen where you just click vendors to interact with them.

 

[V_K]

They aren't overly long. They are usually finished a few seconds after you read the text. Sometime, you don't even have time to read the text. (when reloading)

You either have a very fast HDD or are a very slow reader.

 

[Korgan 2.0]

I took Shadowrunner, Corporate and Academic as etiquettes, in this order.

Have hardly seen any Security options at all, seems like a waste.

By the way, I like Iz0bel the most of the whole team, so blow me. Probably the... least insulting portrayal of an NPC supposed to be autistic that I've seen.

Gobbet is rather annoying, Duncan is ok, Racter is not exactly my type, Gaichu is pretty good. There's no teammate quite as likeable as Dietrich from DF, though. A shame.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Can anyone tell me what the highest Decker skill check was that he came across?

 

[Zetor]

I'm not sure about decker checks specifically, but in general 'high-end' skill checks depend on your difficulty setting: 5 for easy, 6 for normal, 7 for hard.

(of course the scripter can override this if they want)

 

[Jaedar]

I'm not sure about decker checks specifically, but in general 'high-end' skill checks depend on your difficulty setting: 5 for easy, 6 for normal, 7 for hard.

(of course the scripter can override this if they want)

Skill checks scale with difficulity? Interesting.

I saw a decking 7 in the epilogue. Think 5 was the highest before that.

 

[Alfons]

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.

It's not in the stash?

 

[Jason Liang]

Hong Kong wont get a Director's Cut; it'll get an abridged version, like War and Peace.

I'm 7 hours in, so far the two biggest flaws are the poorly designed and tested combat encounters (where, I still feel Dead Man's Hand was the strongest); and buggy dialogues breaking everywhere/ choices not registering. The game feels unfinished and not robust; the game often breaks if you do things out of order.

So far, on hard, I've been able to finish most combats in two rounds, or even one round (Kai Feng).