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Shadowrun Play Order?
- Thread starter Mathaou
- Start date
I was in the same boat several months ago and I decided to play Returns first and then Dragonfall. And, to be honest, they are barely connected so you can easily skip it.
It is much shorter so if you are curious, you can give it a try (it took me around 12 hours and the sequel about 30 hours), but it is also worse in everything. It is great to see how the developer team has evolved, but I would recommend go for Dragonfall if Returns is holding you back. I fell in love with the sequel (or, well, expansion at first).
And no, it is not worth it for the story IMO. The characters are forgettable at best (I hate the one that is mixing English and Japanese) and the story starts promising but it does not keep up.
It is much shorter so if you are curious, you can give it a try (it took me around 12 hours and the sequel about 30 hours), but it is also worse in everything. It is great to see how the developer team has evolved, but I would recommend go for Dragonfall if Returns is holding you back. I fell in love with the sequel (or, well, expansion at first).
And no, it is not worth it for the story IMO. The characters are forgettable at best (I hate the one that is mixing English and Japanese) and the story starts promising but it does not keep up.
chronic_archaic
Member
Play the FPS sometime, it's like CS with magic.
I know nothing else about Shadowrun
I know nothing else about Shadowrun
Fahzgoolin
Banned
and it had a beautiful Halo 1-ish pistol.
Lol, the FPS? It's a phenomenal game, but who in the world is he going to play it with?
(For some reason I decided to install the PC version last Sunday. Aside from the game being bugged to shit on Win10, there were also only 5 other people playing it.)
Bots! I still pop that shit in from time to time
SystemUser
Member
The base game was initially developed using the Halo 1 engine and using the Halo weapons as a starting point for developing some weapons.
LurkerPrime
Member
If you intend to play them all, the only option is Returns > Dragonfall/Hong Kong. Returns is the first game in the series, and mechanically you will notice this. After you play the more refined sequels, you won't be able to go back, so be sure to play Returns first. Though if you don't mind on missing the worst game, just play HK and Dragonfall in whichever order. Dragonfall is the best due to how tight the campaign is, and though HK doesn't match Dragonfall's heights, it is still a fine adventure.
In spite of all I've said, all three have good writing. Returns, as painfully linear and clunky as it is, still manages to suck you into Shadowrun's world. Although Dragonfall and HK are where they really make the companion characters, roleplaying aspects, and story shine, on top of being much better games overall.
And yeah, do note that although they're all set in the Shadowrun world, none of them are directly connected. There will be references, but they are brief.
All wrong. Returns is the worst of the bunch of by a country mile, which makes HK second best by default.
No question that Dragonfall is the best, though. Everything comes together in that game in a really magnificent way. It's one of the best RPGs in years.
In spite of all I've said, all three have good writing. Returns, as painfully linear and clunky as it is, still manages to suck you into Shadowrun's world. Although Dragonfall and HK are where they really make the companion characters, roleplaying aspects, and story shine, on top of being much better games overall.
And yeah, do note that although they're all set in the Shadowrun world, none of them are directly connected. There will be references, but they are brief.
All wrong. Returns is the worst of the bunch of by a country mile, which makes HK second best by default.
No question that Dragonfall is the best, though. Everything comes together in that game in a really magnificent way. It's one of the best RPGs in years.
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
SNES version first
Wow, right, I completely forgot that game had bot support.
It's pretty sad. The FPS was (rightly) maligned when it came out and even I passed on it out of sheer disgust, but ended up buying it years later and loooooooving it. I ended up playing it until I stopped using my xbox 360 altogether and would still play it to this day if there was even a modicum of community left on the PC but it's sadly quite done for AFAIK.
As for the new RPG Trilogy. I actually somehow own them all because I'm a huge Shadowrun fan but I tried playing thru Returns twice now and got to the exact same point in the story and got bored and gave up both times. I hate the structure of it (how it resembles the SNES game more than the masterpiece Genesis game), I felt like the writing was good but the story was bland, and I felt absolutely useless as a decker.
Still have yet to finish Returns or even fire up DF/HK. Maybe they actually do get better, but nothing about that first one met my expectations for what I wanted a Shadowrun game to be.
John Kowalski
Banned
Dragonfall has a stronger story, but Hong Kong has a stronger identity.
I personally think Dragonfall is only a little bit better than HK and HK does some things a bit better such as cyberware and a few other classes maybe.
I think it is worth playing all of them to see the improvements and changes. However that is pretty big time sink so I would leave Returns last so that if you do decide to skip one you have played the best already.
Returns is still a pretty decent game. The setting and writing are still enjoyable though the characters are a bit less developed.
I think it is worth playing all of them to see the improvements and changes. However that is pretty big time sink so I would leave Returns last so that if you do decide to skip one you have played the best already.
Returns is still a pretty decent game. The setting and writing are still enjoyable though the characters are a bit less developed.
This GIF from the Shadowrun Returns kickstarter video seems relevant:
That said the FPS wasn't bad for what it was.
I personally played Dragonfall, then Returns, then Hong Kong. Returns basically felt like a fun user generated module compared to the other two games. I'd say it's worth playing but I don't know if I would have continued on with the others if it was my first game in the series. It's shorter than the others but it still manages to kind of fall apart as things go on. Characters and story are the least memorable of the series and the gameplay wasn't quite to the quality they put out in the sequels.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Heh, that's still the biggest mea culpa I've seen in gaming besides the Microsoft reversal of the Xbone.This GIF from the Shadowrun Returns kickstarter video seems relevant:
That said the FPS wasn't bad for what it was.
I would say play them in order just so you could have an appreciation for the progression of the combat and game mechanics, plus the kind of unrelated but kind of related stories.
Yeah they all feature different characters in different stories in the same world, but you play them all you get to experience more of that world instead of just a corner.
Yeah they all feature different characters in different stories in the same world, but you play them all you get to experience more of that world instead of just a corner.