@ Max:

No, it doesn’t really give you the math unfortunately. You can kinda see the effects by how the % to hit meter behaves in combat. For example, at the end of the game my main would usually have 98-99% chance to hit any enemy in the field of vision, even if they were behind cover. There was usually no point of me even using the “aimed shot” skill at all. For comparison a decker/shaman behind the same cover, shooting at the same enemy with the same pistol had 34% to hit.

The game could really use more descriptive prompts. As I mentioned the weapons are not very well described (eg. the revolvers) and sometimes it is not clear how cyberware affects your skill (ie. you don’t see the attribute/skill bonuses from it on the level-up screen). I think everything caps out at 11 but they don’t tell you that. I think I ended up with quickness at 9 and +4 from cyberware, but game claimed it was 11 total, but I still could level it up once. I have no clue if it would actually make any difference mechanic wise.

So yeah, if you think too much about mechanics they start to get shaky. They are murky at best.

And yeah, Morrowind never dies. IMHO it had the best setting and story out of the Elder Scroll games.

Hmmm…I’m not really a fan of cyberpunk, although I like science fiction in general but this looks quite interesting. But about the “Crunch Factor”: Does the game tell you what exactly the stats, skills, etc. do? I think crunching is more fun when the game tells you exactly what the stats do (e.g., “A strength of M increases your melee damage by N”), rather than some vague description (“The stronger you are, the more melee damage you do”). That’s one reason I like CRPGs that adapt Pen&Paper rules, because other games normally don’t give as much detail. Shadowrun is a pen&paper-game, but I couldn’t find out if Shadowrun Returns actually follows the rules.

Also, I prefer not to buy games on Steam, but I just read on their homepage that they’re preparing to launch it on GOG.com (DRM-free, like all the games there). So I guess my games-I-have-to-play list is about to become longer.

By the way, regarding games with editors: I dug up Morrowind again recently and I found that people are still releasing new mods for that game!

karthik wrote:

A far bigger problem is that the engine does not have “persistence”, meaning it does not store item metadata along with locations. If you leave a location and come back, everything will have reset. This means every time you visited the Seamstresses Union, it was a new location. (This lack of internal state also explains the broken save system.)

That’s what I figured was going on, but I didn’t really mess with the editor to confirm the suspicion. I did notice the Seamstress Union was always a new location, but that was mostly due to the fact that they usually moved the characters around which I thought was a nice touch.

From their blog it seems that they have added some sort of persistence in order to allow save anywhere mechanic in the upcoming expansion and that they are trying to retro-fit it into the original campaign.

karthik wrote:

Finally, every user made campaign I’ve tried has had awful writing, from typos/spelling mistakes and terrible grammar to nonsense plotting and inconsistent (or absent) characterization. Basically, modders can’t write. The talented GMs, DMs and storytellers who would be perfectly suited to making Shadowrun Returns campaigns are conspicuously absent from the modding scene.

This is pretty much true for almost every moding scene. Although I suspect part of it is that modding is frequently a solitary activity. The modding tools usually have pretty big learning curve, and require a lot of time investment. I’m guessing that people who choose to allocate their XP into these sort of proprietary editor skills often do not have a lot of writing experience. Similarly, if you’re a good storyteller it is likely that your time is better spent writing actual pen and paper campaigns, or NaNoWriMo-ing rather than pushing around tiles, or trying to make textures align for hours on end. It doesn’t mean that people who are good at both don’t exist – it’s that I suspect they are just uncommon.

I don’t really have anything to add since my view of the game aligns with yours on every point you make, including the complaints. But I must mention the writing again, because it is top notch. I can’t even fault it for being linear, because it kept me thoroughly engrossed the whole way through. I haven’t seen this style of writing since the infinity engine games, and I’m glad it’s back.

Some messing around in the editor reveals that there is a loot drop system in the game, but no item transfer interface. So the best you can do is click on corpses to automatically get whatever they’ve dropped, which creates a problem if your inventory is full.

A far bigger problem is that the engine does not have “persistence”, meaning it does not store item metadata along with locations. If you leave a location and come back, everything will have reset. This means every time you visited the Seamstresses Union, it was a new location. (This lack of internal state also explains the broken save system.)

Finally, every user made campaign I’ve tried has had awful writing, from typos/spelling mistakes and terrible grammar to nonsense plotting and inconsistent (or absent) characterization. Basically, modders can’t write. The talented GMs, DMs and storytellers who would be perfectly suited to making Shadowrun Returns campaigns are conspicuously absent from the modding scene.

Also, since you were wondering: The events in the campaign are pretty consistent with Shadowrun lore, including some of the major characters.