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[QFNS]

Completed the mini-campaign and have some thoughts BIG SPOILERS for the ending:

Spoiler

So there are multiple endings that are possible. They seem to leave your various characters in different places depending on what you choose in the final mission. Krait lives/dies, You side with Qiu/Auntie, etc.

I ended up deciding against regain-ing my SIN and ended up with the Triads running Seattle. Duncan disappeared. I'd love to hear from people who chose the other way and see what they ended up doing.

I also have some thoughts about the final fight(s):

Spoiler

Man that last battle was a complete shit show. I was never able to figure out how to disable the tanks using the pads (pretty sure there is a way to do that), and so I ended up having to destroy all of them. Which took forever and I ended up losing a crew member completely. I was able to talk my way out of the fight with Krait thank goodness. I was almost on empty with my remaining crew.

Other general thoughts:
Overall, it wasn't a bad series of missions. It did eventually provide some wrap-up for my character, but for the bulk of the missions I didn't really feel like I was doing anything novel. It was just another job for my shadowrunner. I am glad HBS made it, and am really looking forward to playing Battletech when they come out with that. I think maybe Dragonfall is still the better game. The overall story flowed together more and had a more natural arc. I still really enjoyed revisiting that world. I hope this isn't the last we've seen of this setting. I really dig the Shadowrun universe.

 

[pahamrick]

Working through a replay now before moving onto the extended ending, but wow I really wish they would have taken the time to re-do the inventory screen when you're gearing up for a run.

I still feel like it's a huge step back and a pain in the ass to use. Drag an item over, window blinks and resets back to the top, rinse and repeat.

 

[Purkake4]

Did they fix/add anything to the main campaign since the november patch?

 

[JC Sera]

Did they fix/add anything to the main campaign since the november patch?

There was some extra dialogue on the yama kings from heoi NPCs I hadn't seen before.
I found a bruiser ESP thats pretty amazing at deck con; melee only but high accuracy and damage. I may have missed it in the first two play throughs though.

A weird glitch/event? happened at deckcon; a waitress approached my character while I was guiding isobel, asking me to beat up the asshole bandana elf guy. I had to reset due to accidentally going loud and it didn't occur again. That was weird.

Gobbets fog has definitely been nerfed, rest in peace you OP piece of shit. :')

crafty is still sorta bugged :T but not as bad as before

Performance wise the game actually feels jankier than the first time I played it, but there are next to no game breaking bugs anymore. Only bad decisions on my part

As for the extended edition:

Spoiler

I chose the Crew & Auntie>Duncan
I wish their was options to flirt with Qui

 

[Purkake4]

Anything new with the

Spoiler

Plastic-Faced Man

dialog? That was the biggest wasted potential I can recall from the main campaign.

 

[His Majesty]

Completed the mini-campaign and have some thoughts BIG SPOILERS for the ending:

Spoiler

So there are multiple endings that are possible. They seem to leave your various characters in different places depending on what you choose in the final mission. Krait lives/dies, You side with Qiu/Auntie, etc.

I ended up deciding against regain-ing my SIN and ended up with the Triads running Seattle. Duncan disappeared. I'd love to hear from people who chose the other way and see what they ended up doing.

I also have some thoughts about the final fight(s):

Spoiler

Man that last battle was a complete shit show. I was never able to figure out how to disable the tanks using the pads (pretty sure there is a way to do that), and so I ended up having to destroy all of them. Which took forever and I ended up losing a crew member completely. I was able to talk my way out of the fight with Krait thank goodness. I was almost on empty with my remaining crew.

Other general thoughts:
Overall, it wasn't a bad series of missions. It did eventually provide some wrap-up for my character, but for the bulk of the missions I didn't really feel like I was doing anything novel. It was just another job for my shadowrunner. I am glad HBS made it, and am really looking forward to playing Battletech when they come out with that. I think maybe Dragonfall is still the better game. The overall story flowed together more and had a more natural arc. I still really enjoyed revisiting that world. I hope this isn't the last we've seen of this setting. I really dig the Shadowrun universe.

Mini-campaign ending spoilers

Spoiler

If you clear the area in the west you can find a sort of USB-stick you can insert in the terminals to auto-destruct the machines.

I noticed that HBS listened to the feedback of the original campaign and added more mandatory combat encounters. Still nothing too difficult, playing on hard and was still breezing through everything, even without buying better gear. I really liked the story and set-up of the campaign, simple yet relevant to concluding the Hong Kong arc. But you're right, nothing that really stands out from the main campaign.

I also chose my team over SIN, Duncan was pissed so he left. If you choose your SIN you will get on a plane back to Seattle to reunite with Raymond and Duncan. Your team stays in Hong Kong with Auntie Cheng.

Minor annoyances: a lot of typo's and the final fight bugged out for me so I had to redo it.

 

[QFNS]

Mini-campaign ending spoilers

Spoiler

If you clear the area in the west you can find a sort of USB-stick you can insert in the terminals to auto-destruct the machines.

I noticed that HBS listened to the feedback of the original campaign and added more mandatory combat encounters. Still nothing too difficult, playing on hard and was still breezing through everything, even without buying better gear. I really liked the story and set-up of the campaign, simple yet relevant to concluding the Hong Kong arc. But you're right, nothing that really stands out from the main campaign.

I also chose my team over SIN, Duncan was pissed so he left. If you choose your SIN you will get on a plane back to Seattle to reunite with Raymond and Duncan. Your team stays in Hong Kong with Auntie Cheng.

Minor annoyances: a lot of typo's and the final fight bugged out for me so I had to redo it.

More mini-campaign ending spoilers:

Spoiler

I really feel like the choice at the end is kinda one sided. Who is going to choose to go legit and take back their SIN? I can't imagine many players want that. I'm glad the option was there, but it only took me about 1second to decide against it. I wasn't even that interested when Qiu gave the offer, though obviously Duncan was. I didn't much like his character though, so it didn't feel like a huge loss overall.

 

[Dr.Acula]

Anyone had this happen to them and know how to fix it apart from reloading save? I just scraped by a really tough fight I'd rather not do again.

I was on a run and my MC died, and after completing the mission I came back to the hub controlling Gobbet.

Holy crap, how is that even possible? That's amazing!

 

[Vlodril]

The last fight with the robots is a real bitch. i have the device that destroys them but it only destroyed one. Not sure if that was a bug or not i could not get a highlight on the other consoles. So that was 20+ people with the robots. Didn't go well.

Ill try again later today.

Edited to add i retried the battle and taking control of one of the robots with the hacker helped a ton. apparently whatever you do with the module you can only use it once.

 

[EndcatOmega]

Finished the expansion a little later than everyone else- without going too much into details, does anyone feel like it would've worked better if it had gone before the ending of the main campaign (even if a lot of things involving Duncan would've had to be changed)? Even the characters mention the mini-campaign's stuff was a little bit of a step down...

 

[harriet the spy]

Finished the mini-campaign. Great fun! I liked the lillian mission the most. Siding with her was perhaps the toughest fight of the game (in medium, the only fight where I couldn't just have my rifle 10 - autoreload arm - sniper/machine gun/ares alpha wearing killing machine just stand in the middle of it and kill everything that moves).

 

[Viridian6]

Finished the mini-campaign. Great fun! I liked the lillian mission the most. Siding with her was perhaps the toughest fight of the game (in medium, the only fight where I couldn't just have my rifle 10 - autoreload arm - sniper/machine gun/ares alpha wearing killing machine just stand in the middle of it and kill everything that moves).

Heh, by letting the two sides fight each other my team had a hilariously easy time.

 

[Gurgelhals]

Finished the mini-campaign as well. It has some great moments and a nice balance of combat and non-combat situations, but it really is more a nice to have bonus / epilogue than a grand finale. Story-wise it would probably have made more of an impact, if they'd went with the Dragonfall Director's Cut approach and integrated the new missions into the main campaign. But I'm not complaining; it's fine as it is and writing and atmosphere are still top-notch.

Still, I can see why HBS want to leave the Shadowrun setting behind for a bit and focus on Battletech for the moment. It seems they've more or less exhausted the gameplay possibilities of their current toolset. Any additional campaign would probably be just more of the same and while I'd be fine with that, it would probably get repetitive rather quickly. So I'm fine with them taking a break for now and maybe return to the Shadowrun setting in a few years with a new engine and a new toolset. I'd back it in a heartbeat.

Also, they've never really managed to get rid of the more annoying quirks and limitations of their engine. Even after three games, manual saves still tend to produce unexpected bugs, the interface still has its irritating quirks, loading times are still horrible, and the game still tends to glitch and bug out quite often. I had to restart one of the longer and more challenging battles because of the game suddenly hanging at an enemy turn; and I had to repeat an entire side-mission due to a bug that made it impossible to proceed past a certain scene.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Just about to start the mini campaign.

Any word on length/number of quests?

 

[Gurgelhals]

It's not that long; it is a mini campaign, after all: one short intro run and then two main runs and two optional runs.

They're all pretty good though with quite a bit of variety (except for those obligatory "easy milk run mission goes to shit in a heartbeat" moments; every run has to have at least one of those).

 

[TheChaos]

More mini-campaign ending spoilers:

Spoiler

I really feel like the choice at the end is kinda one sided. Who is going to choose to go legit and take back their SIN? I can't imagine many players want that. I'm glad the option was there, but it only took me about 1second to decide against it. I wasn't even that interested when Qiu gave the offer, though obviously Duncan was. I didn't much like his character though, so it didn't feel like a huge loss overall.

Spoiler

I did not tust Kindly Cheng and didn't feel like being her lapdog, so the choice to leave back to Seattle with my family was an easy one.

I also didn't feel any particular loyalty towards my team either. In Dragonfall, by the end of the game I felt like my crew were with me until the end, no matter what. In HK, my companions felt more like colleagues more than anything. Their backstories were interesting, no doubt, but they didn't feel very likable (except for Gobbet). I had no trouble saying Goodbye to them and let them do their own thing.

 

[Viridian6]

Finished Shadows of Hong Kong. Story was certainly not what I expected, but fairly well-executed.

Spoiler

Was expecting it to be about the rise of Kindly Cheng. And I thought Raymond wanted to stay in Hong Kong to help the victims?

Encountered less bugs and conversation mistakes as compared to my experience with the main game, but they were still there. Load times have become atrocious - had to grab a book or my Vita during loading screens.

 

[Dick Justice]

Spoiler

I did not tust Kindly Cheng and didn't feel like being her lapdog, so the choice to leave back to Seattle with my family was an easy one.

I also didn't feel any particular loyalty towards my team either. In Dragonfall, by the end of the game I felt like my crew were with me until the end, no matter what. In HK, my companions felt more like colleagues more than anything. Their backstories were interesting, no doubt, but they didn't feel very likable (except for Gobbet). I had no trouble saying Goodbye to them and let them do their own thing.

Yeah, Gobbet was likeable, Isobel was anything but (starts off as an anti-social ass, ends as an anti-social ass), and Gaichu/Racter don't really get that much character development (made more obvious by the fact that they were stretch goals). The team dynamic was done better in Dragonfall.

 

[szaromir]

I'm approaching the end of the bonus campaign, it's bigger than I'd anticipated. Also enjoying it more than the base game, no overexposure this time around.

 

[HK-47]

Rachter and Gaichu are plenty deep characters, they just have such strong beliefs that they dont change them over the course of the adventure.

 

[E_Darkness]

I realised that the mini campaign came out, but I haven't got round to it as my HDD in my laptop broke not too long ago. I'm going to have to replay the game at some point. At least my 2nd playthrough will be in a much less buggy game (I hope).

 

[Psychoward]

Man I really hate the new Matrix, love Duncan and Gobbet though, Is0bel not so much.

 

[Psychoward]

Wow I hated the Matrix just for the real time dodging, I REALLY hate the new minigame. Ugh, already prefer Dragonfall just due to this.

 

[LurkerPrime]

The new Matrix sounds better in theory, but I didn't like it much either.

It should really just be a text adventure segment, I think. It would bypass all of the mediocre game-y stuff. I get that they want hacker-types to be novahot in there, but it just isn't fun... at all; at best its an inconvenience, and at worst its annoying.

 

[Nikodemos]

Wow I hated the Matrix just for the real time dodging, I REALLY hate the new minigame. Ugh, already prefer Dragonfall just due to this.

Something makes me think the new Matrix is the reason why Hong Kong wasn't ported to mobile. The really fiddly controls of the new hacking minigame, while annoying enough on PC, would be maddening on mobile.

Which is a shame since the new Matrix adds absolutely nothing apart from frustration to the experience.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Man I really hate the new Matrix, love Duncan and Gobbet though, Is0bel not so much.

Wasn't a fan either. Well, of the Matrix. I like all the new cast.

 

[Psychoward]

It doesn't help I have no idea what to do in the hacking minigame

 

[Purkake4]

It doesn't help I have no idea what to do in the hacking minigame

Check the tutorial section in the menu/journal thing, it's actually pretty fun.

 

[Xeteh]

Needs some Dragon Age: Origins "Skip the Fade" mod for the decking stuff. I really hate having to do all that crap.

 

[Psychoward]

How do I get Gaichu? Is it part of the main story? Have everyone else but him.


edit: nvm, just got him

 

[Psychoward]

So I have like 5 runs right now and the option to meet with Kindly Cheng's friend as well, does it matter what order I do these in?

 

[cj_iwakura]

So I have like 5 runs right now and the option to meet with Kindly Cheng's friend as well, does it matter what order I do these in?

Nope, but I'd do the non-story ones first just to be sure.

 

[Psychoward]

This game seems to have a looooot more backstory than Dragonfall did, pacing is a bit worse because of it but I love the amount of non-combat options for missions.

 

[OKK]

Is this a bug or am I missing something?

I just finished

Spoiler

Prosperity Tower

mission and afterwards when the team is traveling back to the base via train my playable character is

Spoiler

replaced by is0bel

.

Spoiler

After this train scene I'm back in Heio and now I'm controlling is0bel. If I check my character stats -> it shows is0bel. If I check my last saved game -> it shows picture of is0bel. If I talked to other people - they respond to my as is0bel.

Spoiler

I find it hard to believe this a bug but I still don't get it why my character suddenly disappeared from game.

Can someone explain whats going on?

 

[LurkerPrime]

Is this a bug or am I missing something?

I just finished

Spoiler

Prosperity Tower

mission and afterwards when the team is traveling back to the base via train my playable character is

Spoiler

replaced by is0bel

.

Spoiler

After this train scene I'm back in Heio and now I'm controlling is0bel. If I check my character stats -> it shows is0bel. If I check my last saved game -> it shows picture of is0bel. If I talked to other people - they respond to my as is0bel.

Spoiler

I find it hard to believe this a bug but I still don't get it why my character suddenly disappeared from game.

Can someone explain whats going on?

Pretty sure that's a bug. Happened to this dude a page back under different circumstances.

There are no solutions aside from reloading or maybe trying to use the chapter reset thing (which may lose a lot of progress, so be careful with it).

 

[Air Holland]

I had to wait several months to start the Shadows of Hong Kong expansion - I moved into a new apartment just before I intended to start, and then somehow managed to fry the motherboard on my gaming PC when I tried to start it back up, and because I needed to buy almost all new furniture as part of this move (the perils of moving from one tiny asymmetrical NYC apartment to another) I had no short-term budget room for new PC parts. But Shadowrun: Dragonfall was a GOTY contender for me the year it came out, and I may hold HK in even higher esteem (I like Gobbet and Gaichu more than any Dragonfall characters, and I like my rigger build in HK more than any build I tried out in DF). So I'm really excited to finally get to dive into Shadows of HK.

Early thoughts - I like the premise. Both of the side quests available before the first mandatory story quest (excluding the intro) were quite fun. Using the (early side quest spoiler)

Spoiler

Rat simsense to escape the lobby was super fun - I really like the dedication to enabling non-violent solutions, either through dialogue or creating a diversion. On that particular mission I managed to avoid fighting (except for the drone response on the rooftop) until I was all the way outside, which was -so- satisfying.

 

[water_wendi]

Made my way through Returns (good game) and Dragonfall (an instant classic) in the last couple weeks. Been going though Hong Kong and while there was the initial rough patch its starting to come together. While i was slow to adjust to the new characters, several hours in i am appreciating that there has been no character (PC or NPC) that i felt i have seen before. Thinking about it now, this is a trend that has persisted from Returns.

A question.. i see there are mods on the Nexus for these games. Does each game have its own worthwhile mods to play through? i mean.. are the good content mods that were made for Returns also available/ported for Dragonfall and/or Hong Kong? If so is it on a case by case basis?

 

[cj_iwakura]

Whistleblower Run...

Spoiler

Talk about a shit show, indeed. I stuck with the job, but I feel like that was the wrong call.

Sheesh, that was not a pincer battle I was looking forward to fighting, though.