After a successful campaign on Kickstarter Shadowrun Returns became one of the most anticipated role -playing games last year. Recreated exactly by the patterns of the cult of the same name “Haste”, she promised a fascinating plot, a detailed role-playing system and step-by-step battles. And all this is in the neon world of a bizarre cyberpunk, where magic and matrix, hackers, dragons and orcs in business suits are adjacent.
Almost all of the promised we eventually received. But still something was missing: the script with all its pluses and chic dialogs turned out to be too short and linear, step-by-step battles-too light. And all Shadowrun Returns – too unfriendly to the player: here, for example, it was impossible to persist anywhere. Work on errors was an addition Dragonfall.
If you do not want to take some partner with you or one for a while has been out of order, you can use the services of mercenaries.
Friends, freedom, rock and roll
First of all Dragonfall – This is a new plot campaign and a new place of action, a futuristic Berlin, which replaced Seatlu. The tie is very reminiscent of the original: our hero, one of the running in the shadows (these are mercenaries who perform “delicate” instructions in this strange world of the future), shortly after the start of the game remains with the corpse of a player in their hands and a mass of questions in the air: who killed, for, forwhat and where to look for him?
However, the rest of the new campaign seems even more interesting and fascinating than the original, from which, we recall, it was very difficult to break away. The first and most importantly: we have full -fledged companions, allies, each of which has its own attitude towards us, its own opinion about what is happening, its own biography and secrets of the past. Now we ourselves decide which of the comrades to take with us on a mission, and in the breaks between the military affairs we can communicate on the base, to sort things out (not everyone agrees with your leadership role!) and learn new details from their lives-for example, that a shaman named Dietrich was once a leader of the Berlin musical punk group.
In general, the new campaign has more nonlinearity and freedom. There are more quests, including side effects: unlike the original, you yourself decide what task to fulfill the next. To do this, our hero was awarded his own workplace, a computer with a powerful database – on it, just like in Mass Effect, Letters and work suggestions come.
However, no one stops from leaving the den of the Berlin Shadouranners to the fresh air to take a walk around the surroundings, see smuggling and exotic goods from local hucksters, visit the clinic, establish a couple of new implants, get an offer to work in the Turkish coffee shop, make a hypnosis victim intattoo salon and chat with the leader of local orcs advocating for the rights of relatives.
The open editor of the levels supplied with the game was also finalized and improved. And we are already waiting for new fan campaigns in futuristic Berlin.
Running on levels and skills
The tasks themselves became more branched and diverse. So, in order to penetrate the lair of local racists, you will first have to contact the smugglers and survive a couple of dangerous adventures https://urbanhomeworks.org/news/breaking-down-fees-for-gambling-transactions-with-neosurf.html with them. And going down to the sewer in order to fix the tap system, you will meet the municipal municipality and, if desired, you can help them.
Almost every task involves several solutions. To get into a well -protected hotel, try to bribe, use your hacker skills (the latter is called decras in the world of Shadowrun) or talk correctly with visitors to the club adjacent to the hotel. Provide smugglers and move to the side of the bandits who arranged an ambush, or try to solve the case with the world;to kill the leader of the cyberrasists or leave him alive, as the representative asks for a mysterious organization;Call to the answer of the doctor who does not fulfill his obligations to local mutants, or it is better not to risk good relations with him-you have to solve something every five minutes!
Variantity depends not only on how you behave in dialogs and what remarks you choose, but also what skills you “pump”. The same thing happened in the original game, but in Dragonfall More situations where you can show off your intellect, wisdom, knowledge of etiquette, strength or the ability to control drones.
The point is that more attention is paid to the study of levels. In the process, you can stumble on the codes from the closed doors and safes (although the burned deer can hack everything himself!), with the help of the power skill, break through the gap in the wall and profit from something in someone else’s room. Or chat with a lady and, having certain knowledge in the field of biotechnology, convince her to begin treatment from drug addiction.
Unfortunately, partners are developing and equipped without your participation – they are allowed to hand only consumables like first -aid kits and stimulants.
Excellent save!
And from the very first minutes it is felt that the game has become more complicated. Designers are more interesting to build missions, love to slip unpleasant surprises for us and regularly put the player in disadvantage before enemies. Therefore, in battles, it is more often necessary to use the special skills of the characters, and various inventory consumables like first -aid kits or stimulants. And the competent development of the hero now now matters – there are practically no useless skills and characteristics.
New types of weapons, such as a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher help to cope with new opponents and threats. But even better helps the long -awaited opportunity to freely save the game anywhere.
It’s a pity, the rest of the “amenities” remained at the same level: the merchants still cannot compare the characteristics of what you are buying, with the fact that the character is already wearing, you can’t open an inventory at any time and equip a hero, you can not read a normal description of the side of the sidequest in the diary. The character is still switching to running only in chosen cases. And three -dimensional models in the menu of equipment and characteristics are still scared by their wretchedness – especially against the background of new and extremely pretty portraits of the same comrades.
The authors slightly finalized graphics, but the characters’ models still look somewhat ridiculous in the surrounding gloomy decorations.
Yes, this is not the perfect cyberpankovskaya RPG. The game would not hurt to add duration, nonlinearity, tactics, and amenities. Nose Dragonfall She takes another step towards the ideal. Despite all the remaining troubles, once starting, to break away from the new campaign is almost impossible. Trying to find out what will happen next, trying different options for solving problems, studying the levels, you are likely to wake up only in the morning, unable to get rid of the feeling that you played all night again Fallout.
Pros: a fascinating plot;long conversations “for life” with partners;increased level of freedom and nonlinearity;more complex and interesting battles;the ability to save the game anywhere;Music and atmosphere in general.
Cons: graphics, diary and interface still leave much to be desired.