Last year saw the introduction of developer Harebrained Scheme’s Kickstarter darling Shadowrun Returns. The game’s original campaign ‘Dead Man’s Switch’ has you playing as a ‘Runner’ central to the investigation of a noir murder mystery. Though it had a lot going for it the game felt as though it fell short of its true potential, more of a cursory introduction to the Shadowrun universe with easter eggs for long time fans.
Shadowrun Returns didn’t so much feel like a complete game as it did a demo for the content creation system. “Go forth player and create your own runs” the game seemed to say. Dragonfall however looked like it promised to be the campaign Dead Man’s Switch wasn’t. A new storyline full of magic, might and monsters, a dedicated team of runners more akin to your partners in tabletop games or your party in other RPGs, new assets to muck about with in the creator, and greater mileage out of any class that wasn’t a Decker.
Right away you’re asked to roll up a new Runner, so you can dash any hopes of importing your old Seattle based champion. In fact Dragonfall runs parallel to the Dead Man’s Switch campaign, with a few casual references to the other’s storyline throughout the plot.
Your new Runner finds themselves heading a team of surly sorts who initially don’t trust or respect you based mostly upon the fact you’re not their old leader. In fact, you have a mighty big shadow to step out of (pun intended), keeping the great reputation of your team and becoming the new un-elected leader of Berlin’s Flux State. The message is clear; your old mentor held a lot of responsibility and you’re the lucky person who gets to fill in for them by default.
Your hood, The Kreuzbasar is a big place with a lot of stories to tell. At times too big, not all stories seem to pan out.
It’s understandable from a mechanics standpoint why you’d have to roll anew, any imported Runner would be much too strong for the campaign, but on the other side of the coin is the fact Dragonfall at times feels like it overcompensates for the easier difficulty of Dead Man’s Switch. I’ve run into several instances where missions ended up being battles of attrition for my runners, making sure I exhausted every resource I had as I battled through one too many waves of enemies and trotted through needlessly large maps. At times I was fine with it, at other times it felt tedious. It never felt “good” unfortunately.
You do get a few new abilities. Playing a Shaman I was treated to some new totems, doubling up on Dragonslayer along with fellow runner Dietrich to dampen the effects of damage. Where Dead Man’s Switch treated my Shaman like she’d been hit on the head one too many times and forgot all her basic shamanistic training, Dragonfall is more aware of class based lore, allowing me to slip into the astral plane, speak to spirits and generally use my skills to solve a lot more puzzles. It’s a nice treat, addressing a major complaint I had with DMS. From casual observation it seems other classes such as the much maligned Rigger also see a lot more mileage.
It was nice that being a shaman actually panned out in a story sense.
Your own little slice of Berlin, the Kreuzbasar is big, and it seems to go for more of an “open world” feel. I can choose what missions I want to do, find side missions, talk with the various citizens and glean their life stories. It feels like a free anarchist society with much the same culture you might find in a real world caravan or ghetto where everyone knows everyone else, but adheres to a secret code of survival and honor. While this is nice from a flavor standpoint the Kreuzbasar is sometimes a bit annoying to navigate. The game’s fog of war constantly covering up the map combined with long load times thanks to the sheer size of the neighborhood and related areas makes for a somewhat unpleasant travel experience. The stories of the folks in the Kreuzbasar also end rather abruptly, squandering some of the area’s richness.
There are pitfalls, and they’re pretty big. While it feels like Harebrained Schemes made a very real effort to address criticisms of Dead Man’s Switch, Dragonfall at times overcompensates. The difficulty is just one of these things. The more open ended feel in my opinion worked against the story. You find yourself facing off against a couple of immense big bads, your very lives on the line with a gruesome death awaiting, just as you’re ready to take on this terrifying baddie you… Need to take a break to gain enough money to get the next step of the main mission. It was very mood breaking.
The missions themselves were varying degrees of interesting. Some I found myself doing because I got into the story, others I just did because I needed the nguyen. Where the UGC showed us a variety of mission types and styles over the past several months, Dragonfall just kind of feels all the same: learn a lot of security codes, fight a lot of enemies, go home and get the payday. A few areas were genuinely interesting and gave varied approaches to completion, I’d say it was a mixed bag between the mission offerings that felt like they had a bit of energy behind them and the ones that felt like copy and paste jobs.
Choices never really felt like that had true weight or consequence, but they did enrich the story.
Sadly I don’t think the core mechanics of the game allow for too insanely different experiences. Characters are forced to open up to you simply because the campaign requires them to, team medic Glory and soldier Eieger initially cold and mistrustful came around to me not necessarily because of anything I did, but because I’d finished a mission. The seams of the game just show a bit too frequently, take for example when the town doctor threatens to hike up prices in my medical care because he didn’t like a decision I made on his behalf, then turns around and sells me medicine at the same price he always did, or team decker Blitz whose entire life story I forgot to pursue but managed to catch up on all in one shot before the endgame.
Same goes for the imbalanced difficulty, because of the relatively simple mechanics working at Shadowrun’s core it feels like the game can only ever be too easy or too hard, and not in a fun, clever way. Having to buff your way through every encounter doesn’t so much feel like strategy as it does pointless setup. Your team doesn’t seem to properly scale either, and you have no way of manipulating their loadout. In the later missions I chose to hire some of the optional runners instead of bringing along my loyal party members simply because it was more efficient.
Dragonfall is a really nice offering, it shows an honest attempt at fixing Dead Man’s Switch core problems, but accidentally creates a few new problems as a result. If you want something closer to a more free flowing, slightly less restrictive Shadowrun experience, Dragonfall attempts to get you close. Technically the title is DLC and it’s asking for $14.99, so keep in mind if you’re new and want to play Dragonfall you also have to purchase the core Shadowrun Returns, which can jack the price up. I do think there’s at least a bit of mileage to be had out of Dragonfall, grievances aside, it’s just unfortunate they couldn’t quite nail the formula with this one.
