Shadowrun Returns Review (PEDRO_HBA)
A bare bone CRPG.
You have almost all the elements you expect from the genre, but in a very simplified way. A rigid, self-contained structure and story instead of a great and liberating adventure, full of choices.
In other words: The game is a canned and on rails experience.
But it doesn't drag on for more hours than necessary. Which is good.
The only "new thing" here may be the turn-based combat inspired by X-COM, but without half the dynamism and customization.
You have a serviceable variety of builds to explore, but nothing that is very noteworthy or replayable.
The music is cool, though.
The writing is reasonable and the story is passable, without many complex characters or crazy twists or dramatic and thematic density, but it serves as a solid introduction to the Shadowrun universe, which is more than reasonable to expect for such a short title.
When it comes to mediocre stories told in a cyberpunk universe, a murder mystery with dystopian touches is actually quite interesting.
Just don't expect a very memorable execution. The game presents flaccid technical competence and production values, without much personality or aesthetic value and deep mechanics, letting almost all of its charms appear through the text and some sporadically used concept art (Which is no big deal).
Sure, at the time, it seemed more acceptable, but today, it seems like some kind of old cell phone game.
I never thought I'd use that term to refer to an indie game, but Shadowrun Returns has aged a little poorly. It seems like a game that is too simple and shallow for its own good.
It feels like a solid and versatile base for building more complex games (Which is exactly the case, given that Dragonfall and Chinatown are much better games). A techdemo if you will.
If it were released today, perhaps its reception wouldn't be the best.
But I think it's still worth it, even if it's just to play once. For better or worse, at least it's short and it's simple enough to function as a gateway to the genre, even if it's a somewhat crooked and unpainted gateway.
And the interface is at least good and readable...
Better than nothing, I guess.