Shadowrun: Hong Kong Review

Shadowrun: Hong Kong

Developed by: Harebrained Schemes

Published by: Harebrained Holdings

Available for:  PC (reviewed)

Price: $20

How much of an obligation does a sequel have to improve and iterate upon its predecessors? When a new game is released, is it responsible for making great strides over the last title in the series, or is ‘more of the same’ okay? Does price or time of release factor in? These are questions I had to ask myself while reviewing Shadowrun: Hong Kong, the newest game in Harebrained Schemes’ resurrection of the venerable Shadowrun franchise. While certainly a fun game in its own right, it’s hard to find many meaningful differences between it and Shadowrun: Dragonfall, the studio’s 2014 effort. Considering Dragonfall‘s pedigree, however, that might not be such a bad thing.

The game’s humor is on-point, and helps break up the depressing atmosphere.

Taking place some time after the events of Dragonfall, Shadowrun: Hong Kong is only peripherally related in narrative terms to the previous game. While references are made to the what happened in Germany, they don’t have any effect on things this time around. As one might guess from the title, the story takes place in Hong Kong, where the protagonist – a customized human, ork, troll, dwarf, or elf as usual – who left for the States some years back, returns at the behest of their adopted father; a man named Raymond. Before they know it, the main character winds up with an APB on their head, under the protection of a Triad boss, and scrambling to find out who’s getting between them and their family reunion.

Hong Kong’s writing is stellar, and that’s a good thing, because there’s a LOT of it. This is probably the most densely verbose game I’ve ever played. It’s no exaggeration to say that approximately two-thirds of the game is spent reading through character dialogue, details about the environment, and graphic depictions of violence. While I understand that the Unity engine and the isometric viewpoint can both be a little restrictive, it’s still  disappointing to see so much of a video game reduced to telling, not showing. That said, the approach of course has its strengths: vivid descriptions give weight to personal moments, and help to flesh out the already likable cast of Shadowrunners you wind up leading. The central hub, something of a gang-controlled shantytown that serves to house the typical assortment of shopkeepers, also benefits from this emphasis on writing. Even secondary characters are better-developed than the protagonists of many games, and I wound up feeling very attached to my neophyte Runner’s new home as a result.

When not pursuing the mystery of your adopted father, you’ll take your team on an assortment of missions to do everything from investigating serial killers to destroying a museum at the behest of a rival. For the most part, Hong Kong’s structure is fairly non-linear; many of the jobs that you can accept can be tackled in any order, with main plot events occurring after a certain number are completed. For those unfamiliar with the Shadowrun games, the gameplay of these missions is typically quite varied, primarily made up of exploring, conversation, and turn-based tactical combat. While a few of the jobs are fundamentally fighting-heavy, there’s an impressive number in which bloodshed can be entirely or almost entirely avoided, depending on how heavily you invest in the game’s varied skill trees and stats. Thanks to XP gain being fairly static and rewarded mostly on mission completion, I never felt like any particular gameplay style was being punished.

These guys weren’t ready to pay the Troll Toll.

Sadly, just like in previous entries, it was when a battle did break out that my enjoyment took a hit. As a huge XCOM fan, I feel like I should love Shadowrun‘s combat system, but it just doesn’t click for me. With plenty of weapon and skill options and an emphasis on using powerful special abilities and buffs to compensate for frequently being outnumbered, there’s no lack of variety, but a fundamental imbalance between many of the options available makes some playstyles feel simply worse than others. After being extremely strong in Shadowrun Returns, the shotgun was heavily diminished in Dragonfall to the point that it was nearly useless compared to the assault rifle and pistol. That hasn’t changed. There’s little meaningful distinction between unarmed and melee combat, and the new ‘cyberware’ option, while aesthetically awesome, doesn’t differentiate itself much from either. While a few of the other choices – such as controlling remote drones and using shamanism to buff allies and debuff enemies are very effective, it just emphasizes the rift between powerful and underwhelming combat styles. This would be less egregious of a flaw if it wasn’t the same exact problem that Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall both had. After three games, it’s just plain frustrating to find that Harebrained Schemes still hasn’t made much, if any, progress in terms of gameplay balance. Fortunately, the combat is still functional and decently fun. Enemy types are varied, there’s rarely a lack of tactical options to get through an encounter, and the new feature of choosing your teammates’ upgrades on level-up provides a degree of customization to let your whole squad accommodate your chosen playstyle.

While the combat hasn’t made any big strides, there’s at least one facet of the series that’s gotten an overhaul: the Matrix, the digital world that ‘deckers’, professional hackers, can jack into to sabotage enemy facilities, find crucial information, or just make a few extra credits. Seemingly intent on addressing criticisms of these segments being forced and bland in previous entries, the developers at Harebrained Schemes went out of their way to mix it up this time around, for better and for worse. The generic grey backdrops have been replaced with gorgeous digital landscapes that serve as an exaggerated mirror of their real-world counterpart, hacking has become more elaborate in the form of a code-entering mini-game, and the strictly turn-based movement system has been suspended in favor of a real-time attempt at stealth in evading patrolling security programs. While I’m a big supporter of the first two features, the last one simply felt clunky and unwelcome. Neither Shadowrun‘s movement system nor its camera are built for the kind of precision that stealth requires, and I usually just took the detection hit and rushed through each area [which honestly worked better than it probably should have].

Regardless of my criticisms, I loved Shadowrun: Hong Kong. The combat is enjoyable, if imbalanced, the plot is stellar, and the amount of choices offered to the player means that avoiding parts you don’t enjoy is typically pretty easy. That said, the problem lies in the fact that I loved it for the exact same reasons as I loved the last game. It brought very little new to the table, and what it did introduce I have mixed feelings about.  For now, I’m definitely still on board with this resurrection of one of gaming’s most venerable franchises. But if Harebrained Schemes decides to release another title, I really hope that they find a way to evolve the gameplay while keeping the narrative core intact.