Recent reviews by Deckmeschik

tl;dr: 暗影狂奔香港是他妈的激进的，买它.

Shadowrun Hong Kong is the latest (and, hopefully, not last) entry in the Harebrained Schemes' TRPG franchise. It features a familiar "fish out of water" scenario, a cast of colorful characters and a long-awaited setting - the mysterious, energetic city of Hong Kong.

If you've ever come across this series before, then you know how boring the slums, sterile office spaces and warehouses can get. Hong Kong lets you visit the more pleasant locales too - restaurants, pirate ships, underwater laboratories, and that's not everything this game has to offer. Sadly, what you get to see has little to do with the actual city, but it does grow on you faster than, say, the gray and brown streets of the Flux State.

If it is optional content you're looking for, then you're in for a ride... or should I say "in for a read"? There is a lot of extra dialogue trees that you don't really have to delve into, but if you do, you get to immerse yourself in one of the more lore-rich universes. As usual, if you bond with certain characters, you get several side missions. Yet again, they don't offer much in terms of stpry consequences, aside from some more dialogue stuff and a few stat gains here and there.

In terms of player freedom, Hong Kong is on par with Dragonfall. You have a clear goal and a final showdown to look up to, but it's up to you how far in the world of crime you'll go to get there. Quite often the player is presented with more choices than the standard "cause trouble" and "talk your way out of trouble", however morally gray they may be. You get to choose the order in which to do the runs (and which runs not to do at all, if they don't sit right with you). This prevents the difficulty from spiking, but doesn't offer much challenge in return. Only two routes have managed to cause me anal pains, both of them in the bonus campaign.

As for the aesthetics it's 👌👌👌 top-shelf stuff. Hong Kong is grittier than Returns, leave your chummers and drek at the door. Since it's the first PC-only installment, the game feels much more lively and content-rich than it's predecessors. However, despite being consistently good, themes from the OST don't manage to stand out, unlike, say, Dragonfall's end-boss theme and No Overkill.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that I definitely recommend the ♥♥♥♥ out of this game for you. It was worth every ruble I paid for it, and possibly more. It is more of an RPG than most of modern titles are, in fact, it is one of the better games I've played in my life.

I'm a big guy.

a true masterpiece of neo-surrealism