Shadowrun Returns - Hong Kong & all

[Cikomyr2]

I just finished Shadowrun Hong Kong for the first time, including the expansion campaign "Shadows of Hong Kong". Fun game, mages are so broken when in leylines.

I had a few lore question that had me wondering..

- What was the Jade Cong's importance? Kindly Cheng sounds genuinely pissed off at its destruction, saying that they lost of a lot of money
- How.. Powerful/hard hitters are the crews of each of the main game? Would that sort of heavy hitter warrant a specific dossier by certain megacorp?

Spoiler: Dead Man's Switch

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I suppose the PC of Dead Man's Switch has quite the cozy job as head of security of a A-rated Megacorp

Spoiler: Dragonfall

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This crew is basically hired by Lofwyr at the end of the game to become his special operatives. I suppose you can't say no to Lofwyr and live to tell the tale. And he's got you on his very dangerous **** list if you say no to him, or did something to annoy him during the endgame

Spoiler: Hong Kong

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That one is probably the most interesting. This is a crew that took down interdimensional demons, smashed and grabbed the CEO's son in her center of power, and took down the HKPF's most heavily armed division without backup.

I mean, even if the group was to tie itself to the Yellow Lotus, they still have an impressive track record of just mowing through any secure megacorp facility, including the submarine base where SARS III is being researched.

They have *got * to have a hell of a rap sheet by Ares, Renraku.

Have anyone played Shadows of Hong Kong after you take the 14 years of good luck deal? I wonder how the endings look like.

[druid91]

I honestly didn't think much of magic in Hong Kong. I went for Cyberware instead.

Spoiler: Dead Man's Switch

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I honestly never finished it, due to my first playthrough being as a rigger which let me more or less solo 90% of the game. Then it got to the point where I had to hit things with the special bug gun and just.... died. It really seemed like more of a Nostalgia piece and proof of concept to bring people in.

Spoiler: Dragonfall

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I.... actually had the opposite experience. I was playing a Shaman in this one and so had no datajack and an attitude of 'Not my problem' with regards to Apex, who I let loose on the world without his restrictions. In the end, I put the Dragon Killer under Apex's control, and with Apex in my corner I could basically tell Lofwyr to stick his offers where the sun don't shine.

Spoiler: Hong-Kong

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Easily my favorite of the three. I played a full on razorboy/cyber-sam this time around. Because that was something that had been so lacking in the previous two games. Ran
around with hand razors butchering things, until towards the end where I got the auto-loader arm and an assault cannon to augment my melee.

I'm honestly not certain on the Jade Kong, I don't think I did that Run.

As for how powerful? Well, in Dead Man's switch, probably not very. You're really just riding Harlequin's coat-tails for the ending portion as I recall which will inevitably overshadow you.

In Dragonfall, the Kruezbazar crew is pretty potent, but they also live in the Flux State and don't pull jobs outside of it to my knowledge, which makes them pretty much 'Not our problem' to anyone but Lofwyr, who's probably got a file on literally everyone in the flux state regardless of potential threat.

And Hong-Kong... pretty much yes. You're crew is one of the biggest shadow players in Hong-Kong, so any corp doing business there is going to have files on them. At least as much as they can manage.

[LibraryOgre]

Some of the mechanical limitations of Dead Man's Switch meant I played a decker/rigger.... Decker because you couldn't rely on your team to do any tests that came up in conversation, Rigger to get a ton of hardware on the field. Put just enough points in melee to unlock a new weapon slot (so you can carry your deck and two drones); get some razor fingernails so you're not completely helpless if they get past your screen of murderbots and fellows.

[T.G. Oskar]

I went for PhysAd on all three, with some Sorcery on the side for Mystic Adept feels. All Dwarves. (Paul for DMS, Valky for Dragonfall and Huoyan for HK. I'm a super MysAd fan myself.)

Since none of the games has Phy. Adepts as part of their team (the closest one is Gaichu from Hong Kong, and he's really more of a Ghoul weapons expert with specialization in swords), I covered up a valuable slot on the team - melee with some support. Heal, Aim and Armor coupled with Mystic Armor, Stride and the damage reduction power go a long way, and the 2-hit/3-hit free powers means you can end up being a veritable melee powerhouse. I stand for wielding Katanas and going Cleave, since it can stun-lock so many people by the end game, it's not funny. Sadly, Hong Kong made Armor a Conjuration power, so I suffered because of that.

As for the crews:

Spoiler: Dead Man's Switch

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You really don't have much of a "crew" here. Mostly Coyote and Harlequin by the end, and whoever you hire. That said, you got both Harlequin and Jake Armitage (from the SNES game), so you really have some heavy hitters. However, Harlequin plays it straight by you - you'll be running the shadows, even if you stop another Insect Spirit incursion from blowing up in Seattle as it did on Chicago, and the megacorps won't find this any more important. At least you field-tested Ares weaponry for the battle in Bug City. So it's more of a "nobody saved the world" kinda thing.

Spoiler: Dragonfall

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Your team ends up basically ruling the Kreuzbasar, but it won't be for much because it'll get dismantled anyways. That said, I really liked the crew here - Dietrich is the bomb, Glory grows on you (esp. if you do her companion quest in the Expanded Edition), and even though he's a nuisance, Blitz is a fairly good decker/rigger. The only one that I feel isn't that great is Eiger.

Can you deny Lofwyr's offer? Sure, but it won't amount to anything. You basically stopped the only way to bring the Flux State to your knees, so if he keeps you alive because you saved the dragon, that's basically because you humored him.

Spoiler: Hong Kong

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Duncan >> Eiger, in part because he's your adoptive bro, partly because he's pretty efficient in what he does, and partly because he's really not a shadowrunner by any means, but gets forced to. Gaichu is super awesome. And Racter is definitely one of my favorite characters, that friggin' sociopath. One thing, though, is that of all three crews, you're the one that really speaks loud. I mean - after all, the Police ends up basically focusing all of its efforts on you because of the APB, and you're forced to rely on the Triads, of all groups, to protect you. Kindly Cheng is one of the best fixers (no offense to Paul, but Cheng is definitely hilarious), and I feel the vendors on the Hub are a lot more fun to deal with. But yeah - the threat may be just as big, but you feel like you're a mover and shaker by the end.

Re: Shadows of HK - IIRC, if you get the deal of 14 years of good fortune, you activate some triggers that make things happen that can only be explained by your crazy fortune.

[Anteros]

I played Dragonfall and Hong Kong first, so I wasn't able to get into Dead Man's Switch enough to finish it. It was just too much of a step back. Maybe I'd like it if I went back and replayed now that some time has passed. As for the others

Spoiler: Dragonfall

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I didn't like the way that the ending basically invalidates everything you did.
I would have liked a way to actually go up against Lofwyr in some meaningful way after denying his offer instead of just being told "you don't matter" in a few lines of text during the epilogue. The only thing you can really decide is which evil overlord rules over the area.

Spoiler: Hong Kong

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Probably my favorite game in the series. I've been meaning to re-play it but it's just so front loaded with dialogue trees that it's a bit of a slog to get restarted. It definitely does the best job of making you feel important and that your choices actually matter, at least for the people around you.

There's also a few fan made modules that are fairly decent. At least as good or better than Dead Man's Switch.

[LibraryOgre]

Since none of the games has Phy. Adepts as part of their team (the closest one is Gaichu from Hong Kong, and he's really more of a Ghoul weapons expert with specialization in swords), I covered up a valuable slot on the team - melee with some support. Heal, Aim and Armor coupled with Mystic Armor, Stride and the damage reduction power go a long way, and the 2-hit/3-hit free powers means you can end up being a veritable melee powerhouse. I stand for wielding Katanas and going Cleave, since it can stun-lock so many people by the end game, it's not funny. Sadly, Hong Kong made Armor a Conjuration power, so I suffered because of that.

I'd say Glory, from Dragonfall, comes close, even though she's cyber-based, not magic-based.

[druid91]

I played Dragonfall and Hong Kong first, so I wasn't able to get into Dead Man's Switch enough to finish it. It was just too much of a step back. Maybe I'd like it if I went back and replayed now that some time has passed. As for the others

Spoiler: Dragonfall

Show

I didn't like the way that the ending basically invalidates everything you did.
I would have liked a way to actually go up against Lofwyr in some meaningful way after denying his offer instead of just being told "you don't matter" in a few lines of text during the epilogue. The only thing you can really decide is which evil overlord rules over the area.

Spoiler: Hong Kong

Show

Probably my favorite game in the series. I've been meaning to re-play it but it's just so front loaded with dialogue trees that it's a bit of a slog to get restarted. It definitely does the best job of making you feel important and that your choices actually matter, at least for the people around you.

There's also a few fan made modules that are fairly decent. At least as good or better than Dead Man's Switch.

The thing about Dragonfall is you can drastically change things. You just have to make the right choices.

[Anteros]

The thing about Dragonfall is you can drastically change things. You just have to make the right choices.

Not really though. You can either

Spoiler

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let the evil dragon take over, or you can let the evil AI based on a dragon take over.