Shadowrun: Hong Kong

"Hong Kong looms ahead, pulsing with energy."
Shadowrun: Hong Kong is a turn-based tactical role-playing video game developed and published by Harebrained Schemes.
Story
Hong Kong takes place in science-fantasy universe of Shadowrun tabletop game.
Set in year 2056 your character - once an orphan who together with foster brother Duncan was adopted by a person named Raymond Black, now an adult after rough 8 years of Seattle prison - gets a message from Raymond about urgent matter that requires a meeting in Hong Kong Free Enterprise Zone. After a landing and meeting your brother events quickly go sideaways, forcing you to venture into the shadows to find out what did you step into.
Gameplay
Like previous titles, Hong Kong is an isometric turn based rpg with point-and-click controls, focused on completing shadow runs while progressing through the storyline.
Before you dive into neon riddled city, you have to make your character. Pick a race, gender, and archtype, or if none speak to you, utilize all karma yourself to start with ideal character. Game allows you to be an elf mage harvesting power of nature, human rigger with deadly drones doing heavy lifting for him, a troll eager to give a solid punch or two, and more! Mentioned before karma is what serves as skill points within Shadowrun, as it doesn't feature traditional experience points system. Collect karma from missions and certain side tasks to improve your skills in ability trees. Just keep an eye on race restrictions and your playstyle.
Once your character is all set and ready, you venture into the rain covered streets of Hong Kong. Following same formula as Dragonfall, after introduction missions you have the freedom of selecting what jobs you want to take, and in between runs you have Heoi acting as in-game hub filled with different interesting characters, vendors constantly looking to sell items for nuyens, Shadowruns currency, and your safehouse where you will find a stash with your items and crew members ready to chat.
When you feel ready it's time to pick a mission and select the crew from companions or mercenaries, with latter needing financial inspiration. After selecting the mission you can also alter inventory of your crew, and once you are satisfied, it's time to get to work.
Missions offer you a chance to show off your skills you have invested in your character outside of combat with multiple skill checks, granting you extra money or items like weapons or medkits, paydata, even alternative way to make progress, from jacking into Matrix in order to hack a door or two, to sending out a drone through vent shaft for diversion. Old fashioned bribery is in there too! You will never get stuck during the job as lack of skills necessary for more non-lethal routes means you can pull out the big guns and get messy to carve your path ahead.
In combat goal is pretty simple, eliminate enemies in whatever way possible while keeping everyone from the crew alive. Turn based means each factions perform tasks in order. Once you end the turn, you sit and watch what enemy will do, after they are done ball ends up again on your side, repeat. All actions you perform in combat cost AP- Action Points, it's worth to think about your next move before wasting crucial points. Do you want to move and get behind a cover, flank an enemy, reload your firearm, heal yourself, trigger an effect, or perhaps use an ability of your crewmate? Plenty of choices! Game utilizes percentage based system to count your chances on succesful use of an ability, hit with a weapon, grenade/spell throw landing where you want and so on, with character stats and distance between your target being an important factor. There is also cover/flanking system and good ol' armor absorbing damage.
Because this is an Enchanced Edition of HK, it is worth mentioning what's the difference between it and base game.
For starters, here we have bonus campaign - Shadows of Hong Kong - that wraps up the story of our protagonist.
You get developer commentary audio for those who fancy hearing behind the scenes process, revamped Matrix art and gameplay, enchanced sound design and combat music plus gameplay tweaks, from improved inventory UI to new cyberweapon skill tree and additional weapons.
Playtime, replayability and other modes
Completing whole story with all side missions took me 19 hours, to that you add extra 6 coming from Bonus Campaign making it in total 25 hours spend on a full, singular playthrough.
With usual rpg shenanigans being a factor, I can state you can safely give game another go, by using a different character and making different choices than before.
Like previously, you can download and play community created Shadowrun campaigns for more time spend with its universe!
Pros and cons
Hong Kong keeps the high bar raised by previous titles. Core gameplay being mostly untouched, offering multiple different playstyles and combat being engaging from the start, with solid pacing and freedom of selecting your crew to experiment with approach, makes it easy to get into basics of Shadowrun but still have a nice layer of tactics to peel off as you progress and learn more about the game. While you do so, you can engage with Shadowrun universe and dive into uncommon combination of science and fantasy. It might be a small add-on, but I have to thank for finally giving an option of trading items between your crew during the runs. Small addition, but very appreciated.
Improvements from Dragonfall remain and these are even further polished in few areas, such as hub NPC's offering way more dialogue and personality, making those breaks between runs more enjoyable and further immersing you with a game thanks to hefty lore provided by them. Though be warned this is more lore-heavy focused game than previous, so there is a chance those who were in Shadowrun for fun setting or combat, might be a bit...bored, of all dialogue awaiting them. Cannot forget about Enchanced Edition either, as additional campaign, polished audio design and extra weapons or karma trees it provides are a massive positive.
Now the Matrix, hacking space withing Shadowrun and it's revamp is a very debatable topic within community. It looks way better, but stealth gameplay provided does have issues and can cause frustration, especially when you have to move your character through tight areas. New hacking minigame also has its fans and haters, with myself rather leaning towards positive side, it does a good job at spicing things up and adds security aspect which felt weirdly off in previous titles. Matrix is what I call a "Mixed" element within Enchanced Edition of HK.
And as per usual, I have to mention I am still not satisfied with karma/skill trees. Game plays it way too safe and offers way too much. Cut few levels to make race restriction more intriguing and add another reason for possible replayablity. Pretty much same thing I mentioned in previous two Shadowrun games I reviewed. There are also some smaller nitpicks here and there, mainly coming from games nature of design. So there are few moments where camera mixed with point and click controls makes it tricky to pinpoint precise location. Nothing game ruining, just a mere scratch in the system.
Final words and conclusion
Playing through Harebrained "Shadowrun Trilogy" was an absolute pleasure, and as I love to point out in my conversations surrounding it, I can only hope we will receive a bigger title that attempts science fantasy to same degree as this, instead of another open world fantasy rpg.
Extended Edition of Shadowrun Hong Kong brings extra campaign and gameplay tweaks to overall positive outcome, elevating already solid game even higher, worth playing if you liked previous Shadowruns.
Feel free to check out my curator page for more reviews!

liked it more than dragonfall due to the characters, good story-heavy rpg

I recommend this game as it is entertaining, but there are 3 major things you should be prepared for which potentially can challenge your patience:
1. The game is VERY wordy, in the sense that sometimes it feels like the developers reason for setting it in Hong Kong was so they could promote the culture and history of the east. I can't remember ever played a game in which so much story and info was centered about the background of the setting, which essentially could be cut as most of it dosn't make a different story wise.
2. Somehow the combat phrase "Line of sight blocked" comes to be equal "you are blind" ind some combats. You'll find your charactes "line of sight blocked" because your gigantic troll enemy is crouched behind the smallest box in the world or - you'll find your characters "line of sight" blocked because you take 1 step forward, which apparently moves you beyond some invisible barrier, so your eyesight suddenly returns. Also be prepared for a random combat mechanism where your enemies will do nothing but give you critacals from miles away, while you can have a 96% chance and somehow miss even though you are shooting with a granade launcher ....
3. The decinking or matrix system is the worst in all of the shadowrun games. It's simply so very, very bad that words can not describe it and especially here the combat equation of enemy = critacal or hits every time, while you = miss, apparently blind and never critical really stands out in a bad way.
As critical as all this sounds, I recommend the game because it IS entertaining and if you know the 3 above mentioned you'll probably be even more entertained, but overall - if you want to play shadowrun and never have tried it: Go for Dragonfall. It is superior in all aspects and the best of the shadowrun games there are!

A great addition to the Shadowrun series. It improves on the existing systems, adds new weapons and cyberware and has an interresting story.
The story is more personal this time around. You have a semi-set backstory and relationship to some of the characters. The added bonus campaign continues after the main story and wraps up a few loose ends.
The matrix system has been changed. You are no longer in combat the moment enemy IC shows up. Instead it works as a real time stealth game until you get spotted and have to kill all IC in the area. Getting spotted enough will raise the alarm, which happens a lot faster and is a lot harsher than in the previous system. It can feel kind of wonky since the isometric view and movement was not originally meant for this kind of gameplay.
If you are unfamilliar with the series
Be warned that it involves a lot of reading. The story is mainly told through conversations and descriptive text. Rather than an animated cutscene, you will often read stuff like "he looks at you menacingly and steps closer". There is no voice acting.
The upside to this is it allows for a lot more "fluff" answers, where you decide how your character responds to stuff and sometimes what happened in the past. There are also a lot of conversation skill checks, meaning a straight up combat character build is not necessarily the best option. You level by completing objectives rather than killing enemies, so there really is no downside to avoiding a fight by passing these skill checks.
Combat is turn based and works well. You need to manage your cover, buffs, healing and so on. If you bring a diverse team it's not too difficult.

I thoroughly enjoyed grinding for 100% achievements. This game is fantastic. I didn't encounter any bugs that prevented me from completing the game. It's a steal at 75% off. Don't hesitate! I wish I could Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind myself and play this again afresh. Savour that first playthrough!

Well now I've completed the game for the third time (I also own it on the other gaming platform). Actually, I've now completed EACH of 3 Shadowrun games thrice XD

It's a wonderful mix of the great turn-based combat, cool role-playing system, one of the greatest RPG universes out there and great writing. By now I know each game by heart, but I keep coming for more. I've played almost every race and archetype and enjoyed it tremendously every time. Because all three games are really cool, each one in its own right.

I really hope that one day the developers will get back to their roots and make another one, using all their experience accumulated over the years.

Really envious of all turn-based RPG players who didn't play this one yet!

This felt like the opposite of Wasteland 2 to me. I was very invested in the plot and the character sub-arcs, but I thought the combat was aggravating in the beginning to only OK at the end. I thought the aesthetic feel of the background looked vibrant, and the city felt lived in. I also really enjoyed the climax and that you can win the main campaign by being a clever rules lawyer against the big bad. This game felt like it had higher highs but also lower lows than Shadowrun: Dragonfall.

The bonus campaign suffers from the high of the main campaign's endgame. It goes from fighting a Yama King and its demonic forces to corrupt police. It also focused heavily on fighting, which is not, for me, the strong point of this game. I also wasn't fond of the ending, which broke the team either way. After the potentially unambiguous win of the main campaign, it's just disappointing.