Dragonfall has the best main story, hong kong got the best characters.

[HoboForEternity]

not saying HK has bad story, it's still awesome, but the main story isn't where this game shines, it's the characters.

everyone in this game is so likeable, from party members to the vendors. my favorite are probably ambrose, and the fa kai family. i like all the party members all equally, though gaichu and racter stand out the most for me.

[Kain]

For me so far DMS has the best story, HK being a second, DG was great, but HK improves upon everything. But I agree that HK has the best characters of the bunch I just love them all, the brotherhood with Duncan, the weirdness of Ractor, how badass the ghoul is and they all talk a lot, I'm not sure how people could be complainng about dialogue in an RPG.

[Cypris Melaenis]

Originally posted by Fenrir:

For me so far DMS has the best story, HK being a second, DG was great, but HK improves upon everything. But I agree that HK has the best characters of the bunch I just love them all, the brotherhood with Duncan, the weirdness of Ractor, how badass the ghoul is and they all talk a lot, I'm not sure how people could be complainng about dialogue in an RPG.

Thank you, despite certain flaws (mostly brotherhood related) I enjoyed DMS too, probably on par for me with HK.

I think from all 3 games DF had worst main story, but best side/companion missions.

[ExorcistAzul]

When it came to dragonfall i say that yea story maynot be its strong point however it did deliver the story better compared to hong kong.

Now if We had a sort of swap, having dragonfall's story and swaping out a few things like some characters (dietrich for gobbet, As the doctor Ambrose ect) Then that would be golden.

Rank wise overall for me Dragonfall>Hong Kong> Deadman

[ClosetDancer]

Shadownrun Returns/Dead Man's Switch definitely had a really great story; I'll always remember the final line in that game, and the way that the camera pans out from your character and the credits roll. That moment made me feel like I just finished watching a scifi movie with really funny dialogue and a really fun story.

I liked the stories in Dragonfall and Hong Kong, but the pacing and character progression dialogue in Hong Kong felt too long in my opinion, while Dragonfall's pacing and character progression felt "just right", like they never over-stayed their welcome (with the exception of the overly long final mission). Going through character dialogue between missions felt like a huge chore in Hong Kong, while I don't remember it feeling that way in Dragonfall.

While I liked the companions in Hong Kong and their back-stories, I don't feel like they were significantly better than those of the companions in Dragonfall. If anything, I think Glory (from Dragonfall) had the best backstory and character progression/side-plot out of all the companions in either Dragonfall and Hong Kong.

Glory SPOILERS
What especially impressed me with Glory's subplot was the way that it tied so deeply into and meshed so well with her loyalty mission rewards, where redeeming the nature spirit reconnects her positively to her lost magical powers, while failure to redeem it makes her claw attacks more powerful, but also adds a VERY CREEPY subplot of her harboring this new evil within her.

[JackArmstrong]

All three are great, but DF and DMS tie for story, HK wins for characters and DF was hands-down best for missions.

[HoboForEternity]

i like the interconnectedness of DMS and DF.

you don't have to play DMS to understand DF, but if you know DMS, you'll see threads and connections thats otherwise invisible in DF. great storytelling.

[ClosetDancer]

I forgot to mention the number of different endings you could get in Dragonfall, and how diverse they could be, which I thought was fantastic.

Possible ENDING SPOILERS for Dragonfall and Hong Kong

So far I've only found 3 different endings for Hong Kong, and they didn't seem to result in endings that were as different from each other as the endings in Dragonfall were. There are the two endings where you banish Qian Ya, either by convincing her to leave or by forcing her, and then there's the ending where you side with her and kill Gobbet, Is0bel, and Duncan. And the decision point for all of these occur right at the very end of the final mission.

Contrast that with Dragonfall, where you could either release or destroy APEX. If you release APEX, you could either accept or reject its request to hand over Firewing to it. Then there are all the options of what you end up doing with Firewing, either freeing her, keeping her imprisoned, or killing her. Finally, there's the semi-secret ending of just going through with the plan to unleash Firewing on Berlin...WOW, that's a ton of endings, and they all significantly change the final outcome of the story.

Maybe Hong Kong will also have a lot of different endings, I haven't finished playing enough of it to know yet though, I've only completed one playthrough so far.

[ClosetDancer]

Originally posted by HoboForEternity:

i like the interconnectedness of DMS and DF.

you don't have to play DMS to understand DF, but if you know DMS, you'll see threads and connections thats otherwise invisible in DF. great storytelling.

Hong Kong has references to both Dead Man's Switch and Dragonfall (more DF references than DMS though).

[HoboForEternity]

yeah, i noticed. haven't completed HK yet, i'm about to meet dreamland, and still doing the remainng side stuff before it. 25 hours in, pretty great

[meiam]

Yeah I agree, part of the reason is that none of the mission are even remotly connected to the main plot until the very end.

Part of it is that "save a slum" isn't as interesting as "fight a dragon".

I think another is that Raymond was supposed to be your motivation, but we don't even know the guy, so its kinda hard to get invested in this. In DF you had to save the city, the same one we were always in.

DF character were decent, but none of them stand out to me as much as Recter, Raichou or reliable Mathew. I also like the dialogue choice we had in HK far more than in DF, so often in DF I felt like none of the option given were what I'd say. Often getting something like:

1- Tell me your backstory cause I'm your boss now!
2- Tell me your backstory or I'm gonna get really pissed at you!
3- Don't tell me anything, I don't care.

[ClosetDancer]

I thought the change to your relationship with your fixer in Hong Kong vs SR:R and Dragonfall was pretty interesting and refreshing as well. Like in Dragonfall, your Berlin fixer (forgot his name) was someone who worked with you, and was very much someone who you could trust. It felt like an equal partnership, or perhaps even a relationship where your fixer worked for you, like an employee.

In Hong Kong, on the other hand, your fixer Kindly Cheng is more like your boss (or slave owner). I never felt safe with Kindly Cheng, she wasn't someone that I trusted like I did with the Berlin fixer in Dragonfall. Like, what if she got angry at me and decided I wasn't worth having around anymore, and she decides to just have me shot? She is a mafia boss after all (of a sort)...

Your relationship with her seems to change somewhat after the final mission, where she mentions that you two are in a "partnership", but I have my doubts about whether she really considers our relationship a true "partnership" or if I'm still just another disposable lacky for her.

I wouldn't want to work with another fixer like that in a future Shadowrun game though, one mafia boss is plenty enough for me, lol.

[Ludi Burek]

Originally posted by CasualCupcake:

... the pacing and character progression dialogue in Hong Kong felt too long in my opinion, while Dragonfall's pacing and character progression felt "just right", like they never over-stayed their welcome... Going through character dialogue between missions felt like a huge chore in Hong Kong, while I don't remember it feeling that way in Dragonfall...

Exactly how I would describe it.

In addition, I would have loved if that effort invested into fluff from irrelevant NPCs, was diverted to main story to build up to a crescendo. Or at least made those conversations lead to something. Hong King felt disappointingly flat to me.

[[UA] Duckstep]

DF had the best replayability value because theres so many missions and your bound to forget a few before going through it again.
I dread replaying HK simply because i know im just going to ignore all the jackpoints. there's the same combat music for nearly every mission. but the companion characters are actually worthwhile taking into missions this time too.

[Kain]

I think the missions in HK are much more well developed, how many of them you can complete without firing a single bullet, all the skills mattered, they're much more well done than in Dragon Fall, not to mention more well written. Yes, the story is not as 'epic' as finding a dragon, but then again it doesn't have to be. my favorite game is Planescape Torment where the world isn't even in danger.

[Kayeka]

Wait, people find the story of Hong Kong unsufficiently epic? I thought that saving tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people by fighting off a lovecraftian goddess was plenty epic. Perhaps not in sheer "numbers of lives saved" when compared to either Dead Men's Switch or Dragonfall, but it's not like they don't make up for it in other areas.