Playing Shadowrun Hong Kong: Wow. I forgot what it’s like to play a game with actual writing in it.

So, as an addendum to what I said about Shadowrun Returns, the last “dungeon” was crap, mechanically. Still avoiding spoilers, there was nothing I could use my deck on, so that was a wasted weapon slot. And on top of that you have to carry around this gimmick gun to kill these gimmick enemies once you’ve weakened them (which you have to kill in one turn or they get their power back). So my main character only had one real weapon.

At first I thought the final boss was going to be all Deus Ex-style, where there’s things set up for you to take advantage of depending on how you built your character. But nope. Can’t debuff the last boss at all. Nothing to hack. More and more gimmick enemies spawn the longer the fight goes. And they spawn faster and faster. I couldn’t keep them under control because of how many shots it takes with the gimmick guns to bring them down. Only reason I won on my third attempt was because of a lot of lucky rolls letting me just drop her quickly (and my S rank rig was really accurate).

BUT! The story was still really cool. And the campaign the game comes with is less of “this is it” and more of “this is an example.” Because it’s not really a standalone game so much as a level editor. And to that end, it’s great! I’m positive that other players are going to make some awesome content!

Just, you know, don’t forget about deckers in your last dungeon.