Shadowrun Review: An Old PNP Player's View

[Dr. B. Banzai]

So I've played Shadowrun fully, I made it to the end, I enjoyed the single player campaign. I look forward to the community doing what it can with what's provided and I plan to play this title off and on in the future.

That having been said, there's a lot of concerns. Most anyone if you're perusing this board are familiar with the concerns. The save system is terrible. The game is missing content and is unfinished such as there's a system for running random shadowruns in there but forgotten/ignored in the finished project. Some abilities are sort of in the game but don't work. The campaign is insanely short. Smartlink weapons do nothing. Cyberware is a hodgepodge and implemented primarily as just stat buffs and a few triggerable abilities that make little sense. The AI is artificial but not intelligent. Your decisions don't matter in the game.

Forgiving all of that... it's impossible to see where the money went, save perhaps directly into the company and held just to further fund other titles or growth. But the worst issue in my opinion is the utter dumbing down of the systems in the game, even when compared to some aspects of the SNES and Genesis game. When they pitched turn based combat, I had hopes for phase-based initiative, levels of wounds as opposed to just the ubiquitous hit points/med pack system, drain on spellcasting.

We were looking at the possibility of a resurgence and return of an 'old school' rpg with depth... you know as was mentioned repeatedly in interviews and the kickstarter. What did we get?
Baby's First Shadowrun with a combat system stolen from X-Com and 1/4 of a campaign.

I really hope the community can come to the rescue of this title. Because if it's left purely to the devs we're going to get a slipshod Berlin campaign that costs another 5-10 dollars and then more shovelware. The only hope is for someone to do a full system restructuring using the art and assets. The construction set is nice. The game is, unfortunately, not.

[wayweary]

^^ I agree with everything you said.

[123]

Thank you for the information.
I was hoping for a much improved version of the Sega game (which was far from perfect), but apparently this is not that.

[SiN]

Thank you. At least we can always play the SEGA or SNES versions... Sadly I had a feeling this wouldn't come close to either of them..

[bytestream]

I sadly have to agree.

SR:R has the Shadowrun lore in it but the especially the combat system doesn't feel like Shadowrun at all. I almost hate that stupid HP bars and turn based action system, it doesn't make the game bad but it just feels wrong.

[Gremlov]

On first sight you´re completly right but i´d give the community a couple of months worth of time and see if we, as gamers can come up with proper solutions for these issues. I simply don´t want to throw the whole thing overboard just yet.
There are already gadgets to create customized new weapons and I personally have the feeling that there are people out there willing to invest much of their time, knowledge and ressources to put the game on back on the reels. Especially old P&P Vets who, I think and hope, have a good understanding of how a turn-based Shadowrun RPG should look like.
And finally a big thank you to you for not completley flaming and trolling the game as so many others did, and keeping it fair and calm.

[Warlord-616x]

i agree with the above complaints, andi really think the total lack of skills and small memory sizes and maps really effect your ability to do alot.

I remember map makers back in the 90's that had better tools that you could pump out content very quickly, but this becomes very tedius very quickly, you dont get what you want, and you've got a mess of triggers overlapping everything because you have to do everything manually.

almost all our grand schemes are being mothballed due to one limitation or another. Hopefully berlin will add more genesis like features to the game, but i cant find much info about that anywhere and ive watched all kinds of vids and stupid blogs etc.

i also really wish these guys had a dedicated board of their own and that there was more then just combat and dialogue.

[Dr. B. Banzai]

I really do hold out hope that the community can take the framework that's been given and create something extraordinary. I would love if it was possible for someone to implement all the depth that it seems a lot of people want.

[takashi_K]

Q is for Qadim님이 먼저 게시:

What did we get?
Baby's First Shadowrun with a combat system stolen from X-Com and 1/4 of a campaign.

This sentence alone makes me doubt your claim that you're actually an old PnP gamer.

If you were, you'd know that it was X-COM that borrowed most of it's combat mechanics from earlier PnP games (including PnP SR), not the other way around. I'm talking about both the original X-Com and the recent remake of it.

Only somebody who's knowledge of PnP games, and gaming history in general, was utterly superficial would fail to make that realization.

[Dr. B. Banzai]

This current system of combat is stolen from the new X-Com, as in the whole everyone gets two actions and the main decider on to hit chance being range/cover. (Yes, I know you get more APs down the line, but that was kinda... goofy. Here have more AP just cuz, Enjoy!)

I was meaning I'd like the old Shadowrun system of people having initiative derived from a reflex stat that is based on a mix of quickness and intelligence, with a few extra dice thrown in there based on how insane your augmented reflexes are. They basically stole the Street Samurai's thunder since their whole thing was going the fastest with the mostest, Wired Reflexes III was great! Though it made you a one trick pony really. The chance to have 12+4d6 initiative over people, amazing!

;)

[Dutch and the Cohiba]

Q is for Qadim님이 먼저 게시:

The game is missing content and is unfinished such as there's a system for running random shadowruns in there but forgotten/ignored in the finished project.

This. Huge, glaring shortcoming with this game.

[Dr. B. Banzai]

"when compared to some aspects of the SNES and Genesis game."

Perhaps you'd like the words 'some aspects' explained to you?

[gmVASID]

Q is for Qadim님이 먼저 게시:

"when compared to some aspects of the SNES and Genesis game."

Perhaps you'd like the words 'some aspects' explained to you?

Is this directed at me?

Learn to reply, bro.

And I've recently beaten the SNES Shadowrun and there is not a SINGLE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ aspect of it which is deeper, the combat is shallow as a kiddie pool, the plot, while fun, certainly isn't better, the matrix is litterally nothing, and spell casting is a joke.

You are SIMPLY WRONG.

That said, I've heard good things about the genesis version so maybe you're right on that one.

[Dr. B. Banzai]

The SNES has a better save system?

Oh dang.

[Seerow]

Q is for Qadim님이 먼저 게시:

The SNES has a better save system?

Oh dang.

Really stretching here

[Dr. B. Banzai]

Well it also had more types of weapons, heavy weapons/assault cannons. It had a few more variations of cyberware which included skillsofts which was neat. It also had a longer campaign and more NPCs, though the quality of which is really subjective. Also, to be fair, you could speedrun it faster than the 6 hours or so of Shadowrun return's campaign. Then again I'm curious if anyone's done a speed run of this game.

But I think the gist of my statement is true.