Shadowrun Hong Kong Extended Edition

Shadowrun Hong Kong. It’s isometric rpg in a dystopian nearby future known as “Cyberpunk” with its big book of rules and lore. First thing first who’s a shadow runner? Those are people completely off of the government records who perform dirty and shady jobs. Do you need someone to do something illegal for you? Hire a couple of shadow runners. Need to eradicate someone without any traces that lead to you? Hire a shadow runner. Need corporate espionage? Shadow runners. Need someone to jump into matrix to steal some valuable data? Shadow runner with a good cyber deck is your answer. You get the picture. 

There are 3 games on the same engine in the Shadowrun universe available on Steam. In this story a couple of dudes need to solve of their foster father's death. First one is a male orc named Duncan Wu, the other one is you and up to you to customize. Personally I always make unarmed dwarfs, because it’s funny to see a 3 feet tall dwarf running to an 8 feet tall troll and send him flying with a punch. Anyway our duo used to be urchins on the harsh streets of Seattle. Then one rich man named Raymond Black took our duo under his wing to make proper men out of them. He did with some success till MC decides to take one last “run” and ends up in corporate jail for several years. 

After that due to some company buying another and some “Pardon” program our MC gets out of jail. Another couple of years later MC receives a letter from his foster father. In this letter Mr. Black asks you to escort him in the walled Kowloon city in Hong Kong. You arrive on a small boat to a lone pier. There you meet your old buddy Duncan but he’s not alone. He’s with an elf woman named Carter. Duncan now works as Lone Star those are police force in Shadowrun and Carter is his partner. Duncan received the same letter as you. Some small talk late and by saying small talk I mean it very lightly, people talk a lot in Shadowrun, trio moves forward.

But as I learned through one and half game “nothing ever goes right in Shadowrun”. First we accidentally bump into some Hong Kong smugglers who without any second thought started to shoot at us. After that blunder was over another one rolls in. Smuggler’s buddies waited for them right at the exit. At least here we are given an opportunity to slip by them. But holy trinity is holy trinity because it comes in three. As soon as we arrive to our destination where to meet out foster father we are hit with another WHAM! First of all Raymond is not there instead we are greeted with a quartet of rough looking runners. A troll, an elf, an orc shaman girl and a dwarf decker girl. Things are starting to get hot, barrels pointed at each other. But looks like it’s a misunderstanding and they are here to escort Raymond as well. We couldn’t even breathe a sigh of relieve as Troll, elf and Carter gets their head blown off by a high caliber sniper rifle. We are in a deep shite. Hong Kong police officers are flooding in, snipers are trying to get us out of our covers. 

We got out of this mess only because shaman girl composes herself and points us to direction to run. We fled into the sewers where we actually took a break. We learned that Orc girl is named Gobbet and dwarf goes by the name Is0bele. Those two are still in big shock and cannot comprehend the death of their friends. Anyway the offer us protection of one of Hong Kong’s many triads.  Their one called Yellow Lotus governed by local boss an old lady named Kindly Cheng. We need to erase our personal data from the government database and Miss Cheng can do that for us. She also has her interest in the Raymond’s business. So we now need to work for her to figure the whole mess out. And this is only the prelude there is so much more.

Anyway, let’s talk about gameplay and RPG systems. As I said in the beginning it is an isometric turn based tactical RPG. Your fighter has 2 action points both can be used for abilities or movement. There are 6 categories of characteristics you can upgrade with skill points called in Shadowrun “karma”. Each point of a stat requires increased karma point to spend on to upgrade from 1 to 2 it would cost 1 karma point to upgrade but from 2 to 3, 2 points of karma.  Each characteristic has several sub categories and those sub categories can have “sub sub” categories to upgrade but cannot be upgraded further than your basic stat is. That means if you have 3 quickness you can’t upgrade your pistol skill to 4 until you get 4 in quickness and 4 in ranged combat. But first thing first I name those categories. They are also needed for dialog checks.

Body: That is your HP. Maximum number for every stat is 12 but it depends on the race you pick.

Strength: How hard you hit with a melee or unarmed or thrown weapons.

Quickness: Combines dexterity and agility, governs the ranged combat and dodging.

Willpower: That stat is for spell casters and for some reason unarmed combatants. The bigger the number the higher your essence is. The higher the essence is the more number of spells you can have and more bio-robotic mods you can install on your body.  

Intelligence: That one is for deckers and riggers and improves healing with med kits. The higher INT, the better deck and droid you can use. It is especially good for deckers since it improves their matrix stats.

Charisma: Stat that I never raise in any other RPG. But here it is important for shamans and diplomats. It helps you get better control on spirit summoning and knowledge of etiquette of certain groups (gangs, academics, shadowrunners, corporates, socialites, security).

Now a little about weapons you have all sorts of them: pistols, rifles, shotguns, grenade launchers, swords, machetes, knuckles etc. All firearms have their matrix equivalent, bladed weapons can cause bleeding on your enemies. Firearms need to be reloaded when they are empty but ammo is unlimited. And a little bit about armors. At first they are just for fashion and the bigger the number the better is the armor. But later you’ll get armor that adds additional stats and resistances.  Anyway I do not know how far I’m in the game, not sure due to how long dialogs are but prepare your reading glasses you’ll need them the most. Also this games suffers from X-com curse of accuracy so beware.