Shadowrun: Hong Kong Extended Edition Review | Cyberpunk Isometric Turn-Based RPG

Good mornin-afternoo-vening, chummers and welcome to the final episode of Shadowrun September during which I’ll be looking at the final title - as of yet - in the relatively recent Shadowrun loose trilogy of games from Harebrained Schemes, this is Shadowrun: Hong Kong Extended Edition.

Shadowrun Hong Kong’s World

A big part of the appeal of the Shadowrun games stems from how well they can create a believable world. Granted, a solid story and great gameplay will always be considerably more important, but without a proper setting, the games would just boil down to a few turn-based combat encounters with a bunch of reading stuffed in between them.

Placing the story and gameplay within a setting that can not only support them, but actually tie them together, is of critical importance.

All I can say is that Harebrained Schemes managed a wonderful job at it. You can almost smell the sea air mixed with garbage and hear some gaudily colored neons buzzing and flickering in the background. Everything looks as desolate, dingy and dangerous as it should be, an impression that is only heightened by the very well-written text descriptions.

Shadowrun Hong Kong is for those who love to read

I have to mention upfront that in order to get the very most enjoyment out of the game’s story, you’ll have to do a serious amount of reading, much more-so than during Dragonfall. Now, I have nothing against it, I actually would love novelizations of both Dragonfall and Hong Kong stories, maybe with each companion getting their own chapter, or several chapters, or own books, but some might not have that particular affinity towards the written word so as to enjoy the game on a purely narrative level as well as the turn-based combat one.

That being said, it is a major part of the game since Shadowrun Hong Kong isn’t the usual free-roaming RPG. In fact, you’re quite limited to the amount of locations that you can visit, NPCs that you can interact with and in general, the things that you can do.

But as far as I’m concerned, I was so invested and focused on the story and on my companions that I didn’t really feel the need for the free-roaming options of an open world. I just wanted to see what else I’ll get to find out about them after each run, and how the story would develop further. That being said, exploring the maps in detail is very satisfactory since it will result in finding items and NPCs, and sometimes even side quest-givers. Compared with both its predecessors, the world you have at your disposal in Shadowrun: Hong Kong seems a bit larger.

The story

If I were to shortly describe the story, I’d have to say it’s occasionally intense and always engrossing. Each mission, or run, being its own standalone story with unique characters and intrigue.

The way in which you choose to interact with each mission’s specific characters will dictate, to a certain degree, how that run plays out. This is just as important as your party’s make-up and your choices in approaching the mission to begin with. As far as general tips go, not being an asshole and trying to help people will usually result in the most beneficial of results.

The story starts your character off being very, very fucked and requiring the help of the underworld in order to survive and seek out the person who got you into this mess to begin with. It’s a solid start, even though a basic, and one might say, a bit trope-ish, but on the other hand, tropes exist for a reason, they work.

Once you look at all the games in succession - like I just did over the course of this month - you notice how each one builds upon the accomplishments of the last. While Dragonfall introduced very compelling companions with interesting individual stories, Hong Kong goes further and makes the overarcing story the focus and places you at the middle of it in a very interesting manner.

As opposed to the first two games, where the beginnings of the stories had to do with old friends and then spun into much larger things, Hong Kong’s introduction has a lot more to do with family, your character’s family to be exact, thus placing the player in a completely different sort of relationship with the events that are taking place, because as the game goes on, the developers manage to make things seem personal and private.

They manage this also by splicing in some disturbing dream sequences - relevant to the plotline. All the characters in the world seem to be having these sort of nightmares, but it was a stroke of immersive genius to actually illustrate them for the player, as opposed to simply telling you via a text description that you’ve just had a nightmare and then describe it.

(Player) Characters

Shadowrun Hong Kong brings some very interesting people that you can take with you on your runs. The great thing is that these are characters that have a story, but more importantly they have a very personal history that you can choose to look into by talking to them after each run. Talking about one’s past doesn’t gel with the whole personality of being a shadowrunner so they’ll require some coaxing, but trust me when I say that once you start talking to them, you’ll be doubly interested in finishing a run. On the one hand, there’s the money and Karma rewards, and on the other, you get to talk some more with your party about what happened in their past and as a result find out more about them.

They’re not exactly as interesting as those in Shadowrun Dragonfall were, but they’re pretty close. Keep in mind though that I might be somewhat biased, since I found it easier to identify to Dragonfall’s characters since they are European, whilst the characters from Hong Kong come from a completely different cultural background than mine.

(Non-Player) Characters

But the characters in your party are not the only places where the game’s writing excels, the same can be said about the several NPCs that you’ll either have to, or choose to, interact with. In the first camp there’s your fixer - basically your manager, and a plethora of characters relevant to each mission in particular, in the second category are all the various merchants and random NPCs that don’t really do anything. They’re just there to add to the overall story and most importantly to the atmosphere. And saying this I’m referring to the three old men playing GO, but there are many others, of course.

Going back to the difference in cultural background portrayed in Shadowrun: Hong Kong as opposed to my own - I read an article after the game’s initial release that explained a bit how the simple introduction of the option to address your fixer with “aunty” - which might seem a bit odd for most Westerners - showed in fact good knowledge of Chinese customs, the term for “aunty” being considered both respectful and informal, considering you’re addressing a rather connected underworld actor. And you’ll find a lot of such touches throughout the game-world.

Another quite prominent part of the setting - and of the overall story - is also a specifically Chinese one, the philosophical system of harmonizing one’s environment to one’s prosperous existence, or feng shui. While in our world, the concept is pretty much akin to and as real as magic, or belief in deities in general; in the Awakened world of Shadowrun: Honk Kong, feng shui is actual magic and its tenets are very real things that influence going ons in the world.

Poetry slams

Lurking through the BBS forums is both interesting and entertaining and offers a quick glimpse at an alternate version of the Internet.

Fuck bitching about movies or starting flame wars about which one is better: Marvel or DC, poetry slams are the rebel outlet of the dystopian cyberpunk future.

There are also at least two, very funny, side-stories that you can follow through the BBS forums, one of them having to do with a piece of software and the other with quite possibly the unluckiest shadowrunning team ever.

The Matrix

The Matrix got seriously revamped, things look largely the same but everything is much more detailed, brighter and considerably more dynamic. The patrolling programs now have a cone of sight - which you can thankfully see, and move on some very criss-crossing and intersecting routes. You need to carefully navigate through the patrols, timing and positioning being key to either not getting detected, or to getting detected as late in the hack as possible.

Hacking

They made hacking somewhat challenging and even a bit nerve wracking, it’s nothing more complicated than remembering the correct order of a series of increasing numbers of digits, but the fact that it all takes place on a timer makes the entire thing much more involving.

Replay value

Shadowrun: Hong Kong piles on loads of replay value, especially if we compare it to Shadowrun Returns. The main difference being that in Return’s case, its replay value was all based on game system and mechanics, whilst Hong Kong is worth a replay from a story standpoint as well. There are various places where you can make different decisions, especially when it comes to your party make-up, which in turn will influence your play-style, so suffice to say that Shadowrun Hong Kong has a metric fucktonne of replay value.

As far as the combat system and the classes go, what I said in my Shadowrun: Dragonfall review is pretty much still valid, although I must say that Shadowrun Hong Kong seems to be a bit better balanced, either because it increased the amount of HP or of abilities, or both. Regardless, when combined with the Matrix overhaul, the combat mechanics in Shadowrun: Hong Kong are the best of all the three Shadowrun titles.

Soundtrack

I like to consider myself one of the view video game reviewers who put particular accent on a game’s soundtrack. Music and sounds are always an important part of atmosphere, especially when you have such a thematic setting. Shadowrun Hong Kong’s soundtrack manages to blend the basics of the Shadowrun Returns soundtrack with a completely different influence, one that is very Chinese in nature.

However, due to this influence, while it makes it work great when supporting the game, it doesn’t work as well when you listen to it on its own. Whilst the Returns and Dragonfall soundtracks are still very much present on my phone and I listen to them every now and then.

The Extended Edition

And since I’m reviewing the Extended Edition, I should also mention what makes it Extended. You get a few more runs tacked on, after the end of the main storyline and I can say that in general these runs are characterized by rather long combat encounters.

A couple of them are optional but I would suggest against skipping them since taking them will only increases your play-time and also gives you access to more Karma points and money to further upgrade your character. Granted, only your character can continue growing, your companions will be stuck at their last level of development, but you can still give them new weapons and whatnot.

There is also a developers commentary option available in the menu now as well, which you can turn on and listen to that while you play.

Null sheen chummers

I could go on for a bit longer going a bit more in depth with the game, story and characters but i hope that my point has been made fairly well till now.

Shadowrun Hong Kong is a great RPG, it has an engrossing story, interesting characters and comes with inherent replay value. The gameplay mechanics have been fine tuned and polished, so much so, that I would actually like to play the Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun Dragonfall campaigns within Hong Kong’s engine.

I am curious what you gals and guys thought of Shadowrun Hong Kong, how does it stack up in your opinion? Also let me know of some other cyberpunk titles that you might want me to take a look at, be they video games or tabletop ones. Also open for suggestions in terms of books and comic books as well, just drop ‘em down in the comments.

Final thoughts on the Shadowrun series

And it’s about time for some final thoughts on Shadowrun September and the Shadowrun series.

I started this look at the Shadowrun titles spurred on by the results of the Larian survey which showed that many of the respondents have never played Shadowrun: Hong Kong nor the first two Fallouts. And while my friend @free999enigma has been talking about the Fallout series - and you’ll find links to their videos in the description, consider those companion videos to mine - I focused on revisiting the Shadowrun series, to do my part in trying to convince as many of you of how solid these games truly are.

And I also hope that the titles’ steady increase in level of gameplay and story is reflected in my videos as well. Keep in mind that we start with a relatively simple murder mystery in Seattle, we then switch over to Europe where we deal with some interesting philosophical and political subjects - not to mention the most compelling characters in the entire series - to then end in Hong Kong, where we’re plunged into a more personal type of story, with arguably higher stakes than the previous ones.

It’s a trip around the Awakened world that could’ve been just for show, as long as it stayed true to the basics of Shadowrun cyberpunk dystopia: megacorporations trying to screw each other, magic, cybernetic implants, underworld power struggles and solid turn-based combat. But the settings in the Shadowrun games aren’t there just to offer a splash of local colour, they’re an integral part of each game’s story and characters, and that’s one thing that is very difficult to keep consistent, or double and triple down on, when making a video game franchise. But this is one major difference when said video game franchise is supported by its dedicated community - through crowdfunding projects - instead of the subsequent games becoming diluted or streamlined - or multiplayer being shoehorned in at a publisher’s demand - so as to make the games more mainstream palatable.

So make sure you support your favorite indie projects, that’s where we’re getting the most amount of innovation and interesting gameplay and stories anyway.

Keep it Shadowrun chummers, null sheen.

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