Shadowrun Returns

Fantastic cyberpunk experience and a very pleasant surprise demonstrating that even on low budget you can create a wonderful game. Sure, there are some budget shortcomings such as no voice overs, not only dialog, but there is actually not a single voice in the entire game, but I grew up on 90's RPGs, so I got used to extensive reading quickly and the game rewarded me with superb story from the Shadowrun universe. A lot of the criticism is about the linearity of the game, which is true, but it didn't really bother me as it helped the storytelling pace to be more focused and without any weak points. I was enjoying the atmosphere and was intrigued by the story, expecting what will happen next. Descriptions of the world, the characters, dialogs, it's all written very well. Don't expect a typical RPG with huge world where you can do anything, loot and so on (there isn't even proper inventory management and looting is mostly absent here), this is more of a story driven experience with some RPG elements and tactical turn-based combat ala X-Com which is very nicely done and there is a right amount of challenge. I like the variations of classes, different weapons, magic worked nicely, I played as a Decker and the infiltration where you hack into the matrix to achieve the security breach and you must be quick as the other party members are protecting you from the threats in the real world, experiences like this are what made this game unique and why I love it so much. Also, after a recent disappointment with ugly visuals of Wasteland 2, another Kickstarter project using the same engine, I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised by all the beautiful hand-drawn visuals here, locations and environments are just gorgeous, most characters have their own hand-drawn pictures and the overall art style is very impressive. Sometimes I just stopped for a moment and appreciated the beauty. The whole thing oozes cyberpunk atmosphere which is supported by a fitting electronic soundtrack. There is a minor gripe here, ambient tracks are fine, but the combat music is too short and repetitive and because turn-based battles here can last quite some time it repeats on loop over and over and it gets annoying. Another criticism I read in reviews is the absence of manual save and some bugs, but I played already the patched version, where not only you could save and quick save at your own leisure, but I haven't found a single bug in the entire game, completely bug-free (if I don't count the actually bug creatures in the story of course) and that deserves a big thumbs up, especially since this game runs on Unity engine and up to this point, my experience with Unity was extremely bad as all Unity games I played were completely infested with technical glitches, bad optimization and tons of other problems, be it Wasteland 2 or Might & Magic X, so I was afraid Shadowrun will suffer the same symptoms, but obviously when your developers are not completely incompetent, you can create 100% smooth ride even in Unity. I didn't expect it, but to my surprise Shadowrun Returns is a cyberpunk masterpiece, I loved every minute of it and can strongly recommend it. Looking forward to play Dragonfall expansion. 10/10

A short game, nice noir story, not complex, nice old school isometric graphics.

Люблю жанр киберпанк, поэтому заинтерсовался серией Shadowrun. Прошел с удовольствием. Опишу плюсы и минусы. Плюсы: +Интересный, проработанный мир (созданный еще для карточной игры Shadowrun), в которой сосуществуют киберпанк и магия. Много отсылок к классическим произведениям Уильяма Гибсона (кто читал, поймет). +Красиво нарисованные локации +Интуитивно понятная ролевая система, +Возможность создания межклассового персонажа с логичными ограничениями. Например, магу или шаману нежелательно вставлять киберимплантанты, так как они уменьшают его "эссенцию", ухудшая связь с миром магии. +Интересный , закрученный сюжет (для меня главный плюс) +Проработанные персонажи, (хоть они и в 2D), как положительные , так и отрицательные. Не в пример вылизанным в 3D "болванчикам" из многих современных игр с прмитивной мотивацией "хочу всех убить, не спрашивайте почему" Минусы: - Линейность игры. Вас водят по сюжету от задания к заданию, почти не давая возможностей самостоятельного исследования. Некоторые задания можно выполнить разными путями, но изменений в игровом мире от этого не будет. - Большинство локаций небольшие, с буквально парой "точек интереса" вроде контейнера или компьютера для взлома - Мало дополнительных заданий -Невысокая сложность боев (играл на Харде) Это не идал, конечно, но всем любителям киберпанка и пошаговых стратегий рекомендую к ознакомлению

A fairly flawed game that I wanted to like, but the controls are so clunky and slow, and the game so 1-dimensional that I can't give it better than a 4.

Good: Though I didn't finish the game, the plot seemed pretty well written. Bad: Tactics and saving. It's turn-based combat, but flanking or other combat tactics are not supported. Strat is, try to hide behind something, and blast away. The result is that the frustration of the random number generator builds with every enemy turn. Worse though, is the restricted saves that ruin the experience. I don't want to spend an hour getting 80% through a level only to die and have to start over. Sorry, fail. I put up with it for quite a while, 17 hours according to Steam, but in the end, too much frustration to "restart level" once more.