Post by WickedCrustacean on Feb 8, 2021 15:12:51 GMT -5
Shadowrun: Dragonfall is an isometric turn-based role playing game set in the Shadowrun universe. This setting combines the fantasy aspects of Dungeons and Dragons with the futuristic Cyberpunk setting of Germany in the 21st century. So imagine something like elves hacking their way through the matrix, orcs wielding machine guns, and dragons running mega-corporations, and you will be right on target. In the Shadowrun world, all the action revolves around Shadowrunners, a sort of mercenary who does jobs for corporations or other powerful entities. In the game, you play a rookie who has just joined a team of shadowrunners, and in the no-nonsense, tight-design way that the rest of the game is constructed in, right off the bat, you find yourself going off on a mission with your new comrades in arms. The mission, of course, goes terribly wrong, some of the team die, and you spend the rest of the game unraveling the mysteries behind why it happened that way.
The game is constructed around the notion of a hub, a trade district in futuristic Berlin which houses the quarters of your main fixer (someone who finds you missions) as well as your team overall, and also various stores and merchants which you can visit for weapon upgrades, cybernetics, medical supplies, or other, more exotic stuff. So in between missions, you will hang out here, and upgrade your character (and his teammates), stock up on consumables, and chat with NPCs to get relevant info. Then, once your fixer finds you missions, you take the train (loading screen) to get to those action maps, where all the havoc takes place.
The graphics are clean but look somewhat like a mobile game, and the sound and music are functional. The UI is also a bit lacking, as sometimes it's not very clear what to press or where to go to do something, and it has a very simplistic layout, similar to a mobile game.
Where the game absolutely shines though are the writing and combat. Even though the setting is kind of silly, the game takes itself rather seriously, and slowly unrolls a very interesting story, as well as presenting memorable characters along the way. The dialogue is sharp and precise, conveying what's required but never becoming overly verbose, while at the same time, often touching. Over the course of the game, which can take you anywhere around 35 hours to finish, you will likely grow to care about your shadowrunner teammates, both living and dead, and some of the other parties involved in the plot. Moreover, you have a lot of choice when it comes to how to tackle the missions, and this choice results in branching narratives and completely different conclusions to the game. Moreover, the choices are deep and nuanced, not the usual good/evil stuff we are used to in RPGs.
The combat is also excellent. The underlying system is rather complex for an RPG, and it works very well. Each combat participant gets 2 action points at the start of the game, which can be used for movement or attacking. Anyone can take cover behind the gameworld's many objects (e.g. desks, chairs, walls, etc), which reduces their chances of being hit, but it depends on precise positioning. So for example, you have to hide behind a table in such a way that the table is actually between you and the enemy, or it will provide no cover. Given that most enemies will use cover quite effectively, this makes flanking a viable battle tactic. Enemy AI in general is quite good. They will often attack your weak backline, throw grenades whenever any of your team cluster together in one place, and behave intelligently.
There are a lot of combat options available to you. You can go for standard weaponry, and specialize in anything from pistols to shotguns to machine guns to sniper rifles. You can even have multiple weapons equipped and switch between them, e.g. a sniper rifle for distance shooting, and a pistol or shotgun for up close defense. You can also use melee weapons, from your fists and feet to katanas to metal claws. Finally, this being Shadowrun, there are also options to play as a mage/shaman, and cast spells. My character specialized in pistols, and by the end of the game, armed with a Smartlink Ruger heavy revolver (linked directly to a chip in the brain for extra accuracy) and topped out in skills and cybernatics, I was putting stuff down with extreme prejudice, Dirty Harry style. Cybernatics are another aspect of character development, with your character having a lot of extra slots for which you could purchase various options, to enhance your fighting ability or diplomacy or whatever else. The primary character development is not super deep in Dragonfall, but works well, with you earning Karma Points from successfully completing missions, and then being able to invest them into primary stats (strength, quickness, stamina, etc) and then skills under that. The cool thing about this is that by reward XP points for completing missions and not combat (as is often done), the game enables non-aggressive gameplay as well, for those people who want it.
Hacking is another gameplay element present in Dragonfall. Before going on missions, you can bring along a "Decker", which is a Shadowrun hacker. Or you can specialize in Decking on your main character. This is entirely optional in most of this game, but it does bring massive benefits. Basically, every mission map will contain stuff that can be hacked, be it security terminals, doors, turrets and robots, or more complex stuff. You don't have to hack it, in most cases, but not doing so will likely result in a larger challenge. For example, there is one mission where your team is hired to take out a shadowrunner who messed up a mission, and is now being interrogated by the target. The interested party who contacted you is afraid he will implicate them, so they want you to end his life. That story gets more complicated later on, but when you make it to the final room before finding this guy, that room is manned by several very capable security forces. You can just jump into combat with them, but then in a few rounds, another team of similar size will join them. But if you have a Decker with you, you can hack a computer in that room, and doing so within 1-2 rounds can stop the reinforcements. You can also use a nearby computer to release some mutated animals onto the security team, but that doesn't require a hacker.
Hacking is done in an interesting way. Once plugged into the matrix, the Decker becomes helpless in the real world, where his body can still be attacked. So the rest of your team has to protect him there. But in between their regular turns, the Decker gets his own turns in a wireframe looking world representing cyber-space. There, he has a completely different set of skills and abilities, allowing him to traverse the cyber-space and fight with special programs, called ICs, which are designed to destroy cyber-intruders. So it presents a good change of pace from the main game.
What really makes Dragonfall shine though is the way it integrates the good parts, the excellent writing and combat, the supporting systems, into the tightly designed hub system, and keeps everything flowing smoothly and in a fun way. There are no weak parts to this game, because they were simply not included, whatever is there is not super long, but all high quality. After 35 hours, I've reached a satisfying conclusion, felt touched by the story and characters, and enjoyed building up my character from an absolute weakling to a gunslinger powerhouse, more than capable of engaging in the game's brutal but interesting combat. And what more could I ask for?
The game is constructed around the notion of a hub, a trade district in futuristic Berlin which houses the quarters of your main fixer (someone who finds you missions) as well as your team overall, and also various stores and merchants which you can visit for weapon upgrades, cybernetics, medical supplies, or other, more exotic stuff. So in between missions, you will hang out here, and upgrade your character (and his teammates), stock up on consumables, and chat with NPCs to get relevant info. Then, once your fixer finds you missions, you take the train (loading screen) to get to those action maps, where all the havoc takes place.
The graphics are clean but look somewhat like a mobile game, and the sound and music are functional. The UI is also a bit lacking, as sometimes it's not very clear what to press or where to go to do something, and it has a very simplistic layout, similar to a mobile game.
Where the game absolutely shines though are the writing and combat. Even though the setting is kind of silly, the game takes itself rather seriously, and slowly unrolls a very interesting story, as well as presenting memorable characters along the way. The dialogue is sharp and precise, conveying what's required but never becoming overly verbose, while at the same time, often touching. Over the course of the game, which can take you anywhere around 35 hours to finish, you will likely grow to care about your shadowrunner teammates, both living and dead, and some of the other parties involved in the plot. Moreover, you have a lot of choice when it comes to how to tackle the missions, and this choice results in branching narratives and completely different conclusions to the game. Moreover, the choices are deep and nuanced, not the usual good/evil stuff we are used to in RPGs.
The combat is also excellent. The underlying system is rather complex for an RPG, and it works very well. Each combat participant gets 2 action points at the start of the game, which can be used for movement or attacking. Anyone can take cover behind the gameworld's many objects (e.g. desks, chairs, walls, etc), which reduces their chances of being hit, but it depends on precise positioning. So for example, you have to hide behind a table in such a way that the table is actually between you and the enemy, or it will provide no cover. Given that most enemies will use cover quite effectively, this makes flanking a viable battle tactic. Enemy AI in general is quite good. They will often attack your weak backline, throw grenades whenever any of your team cluster together in one place, and behave intelligently.
There are a lot of combat options available to you. You can go for standard weaponry, and specialize in anything from pistols to shotguns to machine guns to sniper rifles. You can even have multiple weapons equipped and switch between them, e.g. a sniper rifle for distance shooting, and a pistol or shotgun for up close defense. You can also use melee weapons, from your fists and feet to katanas to metal claws. Finally, this being Shadowrun, there are also options to play as a mage/shaman, and cast spells. My character specialized in pistols, and by the end of the game, armed with a Smartlink Ruger heavy revolver (linked directly to a chip in the brain for extra accuracy) and topped out in skills and cybernatics, I was putting stuff down with extreme prejudice, Dirty Harry style. Cybernatics are another aspect of character development, with your character having a lot of extra slots for which you could purchase various options, to enhance your fighting ability or diplomacy or whatever else. The primary character development is not super deep in Dragonfall, but works well, with you earning Karma Points from successfully completing missions, and then being able to invest them into primary stats (strength, quickness, stamina, etc) and then skills under that. The cool thing about this is that by reward XP points for completing missions and not combat (as is often done), the game enables non-aggressive gameplay as well, for those people who want it.
Hacking is another gameplay element present in Dragonfall. Before going on missions, you can bring along a "Decker", which is a Shadowrun hacker. Or you can specialize in Decking on your main character. This is entirely optional in most of this game, but it does bring massive benefits. Basically, every mission map will contain stuff that can be hacked, be it security terminals, doors, turrets and robots, or more complex stuff. You don't have to hack it, in most cases, but not doing so will likely result in a larger challenge. For example, there is one mission where your team is hired to take out a shadowrunner who messed up a mission, and is now being interrogated by the target. The interested party who contacted you is afraid he will implicate them, so they want you to end his life. That story gets more complicated later on, but when you make it to the final room before finding this guy, that room is manned by several very capable security forces. You can just jump into combat with them, but then in a few rounds, another team of similar size will join them. But if you have a Decker with you, you can hack a computer in that room, and doing so within 1-2 rounds can stop the reinforcements. You can also use a nearby computer to release some mutated animals onto the security team, but that doesn't require a hacker.
Hacking is done in an interesting way. Once plugged into the matrix, the Decker becomes helpless in the real world, where his body can still be attacked. So the rest of your team has to protect him there. But in between their regular turns, the Decker gets his own turns in a wireframe looking world representing cyber-space. There, he has a completely different set of skills and abilities, allowing him to traverse the cyber-space and fight with special programs, called ICs, which are designed to destroy cyber-intruders. So it presents a good change of pace from the main game.
What really makes Dragonfall shine though is the way it integrates the good parts, the excellent writing and combat, the supporting systems, into the tightly designed hub system, and keeps everything flowing smoothly and in a fun way. There are no weak parts to this game, because they were simply not included, whatever is there is not super long, but all high quality. After 35 hours, I've reached a satisfying conclusion, felt touched by the story and characters, and enjoyed building up my character from an absolute weakling to a gunslinger powerhouse, more than capable of engaging in the game's brutal but interesting combat. And what more could I ask for?
