Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter Review: Thanks to generous donations Kickstarter Harebrained Schemes could implement the tabletop template as bleak tactics RPG. How well the finished work proposes a retro style, and with what expectations you should approach the game, which explains our products and more.
The spring of 2012 brought great changes for game developers. In the wake of Double Fine tens of large and small teams began to collect donations through Kickstarter to implement their projects without desire Publisher influences. One of the first games of this type was Shadowrun returns, for which the developer Harebrained schemes could bring together impressive 1.8 million U.S. dollars in Kickstarter donations. Now, some 15 months later, the promising retro RPG is finally ready.
Shadowrun returns based on the famous pen & paper template Shadowrun. The remarkable thing is his idiosyncratic, still original concept, the vermixt a crazy cyberpunk vision of the future with classic fantasy elements. More about the brand, the background and the predecessors, visit our Retro Special to Shadowrun universe .
Manhunt in dystopian Seattle
Shadowrun Returns playing in Seattle the year 2054th A pessimistic vision of the future à la Blade Runner, have returned to the mythical creatures and magic on the earth. Consequently, humans, orcs, elves and other peoples now share their habitat, which makes for an exciting mix: Hacker scour the cyberspace, magicians conjure magical elements, mercenaries wire with its futuristic body implants, shamans call spirits and demons cause. Against this background Shadowrun Returns tells a well-written detective story, which is titled "The Dead Man's Switch". After the free Character Creation (you may of sex as well as five races and six classes select) the game begins with an unusual video message: We are to solve the murder of an old fellow - ironically it is the murdered man himself, who asks us. What follows is a neatly constructed, about 12 hours of play extensive plot, where we are on the heels of the so-called Ripper - a serial killer who removes his victims with surgical precision organs and body parts.
More Adventure than RPG - well-written sci-fi noir story, but only in English
Our search for the Ripper is fairly linear and is told only in rigid text windows, but is still surprisingly captivating. This is due to the class-written texts: With credible, often cynical dialogues and interesting, memorable characters, the game is more like a retro adventure as a role-play, and that's a good thing. Can (and must) be the cleverly written texts can work properly without speech, without video sequences, without distraction, otherwise go context and atmosphere flutes. This makes for a playability that is more reminiscent of the early 90s than modern RPG. Anyone doing a text monster à la Planescape: Torment fears may, however, be reassured: Since the texts are never too sprawling or strenuous, you also do not spend too much time in dialog boxes. However, anyone who does not have solid English skills, you should think buying the game twice. So far, namely no German version available, although the developers are working on it, but a date is not yet in sight.
Hardly decisions
Although Shadowrun Returns is a role playing game in the core, we can seldom make decisions. Although many dialogues offer multiple options, but most of it still amounts to the same result also. Only now and then we can make our life easier when we have geskillt our hero accordingly - a character with a high charisma value has, for example, in some cases, additional dialogue options to convince about a bouncer or a dealer wheedle a better deal. However, alternative solutions are rare and a really "bad" game, there are simply not - the moral choice of Mass Effect, Dragon Age or Vampire: Bloodlines One looks in vain.
Linear gameplay in favor of the story
if you do not just chatting with doctors, bouncers, investigators and agents, directs your figure from the isometric perspective drawn by handsome streets, bars, mortuaries, backyards, creepy laboratories and much more. However, an open world does not get offered: Always specifies a target marking where they have to go, and there is almost never possible to return to former places. Since the levels also very small and manageable fail (if you like, the camera can zoom out far), it is impossible to stray from the straight path. Rarely one may instead of the main missions sometimes start a lucrative side bet, but that's basically been the only choice that you have in the game.Within the levels, there is little to discover, as the developers are pretty stingy to deal with hotspots: Only rarely displayed times a circular symbol that we can click on to examine an object. Even more rarely do we find also something useful, such as a health pack or a grenade that we can store in our inventory. Better weapons or armor, but we do not find that there's only the merchants - Shadowrun Returns is not a role-playing game for hunters and gatherers, the story is clearly in the foreground. Precisely why you spend so little time doing other things - the developers want the player as possible afloat by a target point to the next and the story does not lose sight of. That's okay, just as long as you expect nothing.
Cyber Trolls, techno-wizards and elves shotgun - the character development
sometimes determines put together the game, which accompany our hero temporarily comrades, and sometimes we may also even our four-person team. Each of the five races bring different basic values, but the choice has no impact on the story and how other characters react to us. All breeds can be combined with any class. Here, a distinction roughly between melee, firearms expert, combat and support mages, shamans (the demons can call for support) and so-called deckers. The latter are technically savvy classes that rely on either their mechanical or combat drone can hack on certain computers in the so-called matrix. In this virtual space bluish we must wrangle similar to those in the real world with enemies, just here in the form of aggressive computer programs. Playful, the battle in cyberspace but differs little from normal conflict. Outside the tactical battles Decker can now and then manipulate computer to obtain information for a quest or uncomplicated to open a locked door.
Experience points are not in Shadowrun's returns, not for defeating enemies. Instead of bringing dissolved quests and progress in the story a so-called karma points. With which we can develop an impressive range of passive and active talent in a confusing list. Since you can distribute his points regardless of class free (also mixed classes are available), there is here, although the risk of getting verskillen also times, however, the normal difficulty is so forgiving that you as a beginner individual not eternal about every karma point brood needs. A respec-function, we have therefore also not be missed. Would much rather us, however, if the character sheet values somewhat clearer about our strengths and weaknesses would spit - but Shadowrun Returns is not a game of precise figures, why you spend much time in the character sheet.
