Shadowrun: Hong Kong

What and amazing game! Great story set in a supernatural version of hong kong, with big corporations playing side to side with magic and orks and elves and stuff. Great tactical combat with emphasis in cover shooting and party management.
This game is definitely an improvement over Dragon Fall, with better written story and a better cast of side characters. A must play for isometric RPG fans
10/10

Fantastic game, I wish Shadowrun could get more traction in today's gaming lexicon. Such a unique and enthralling setting with loads of lore, and a great representation of the unique "leveling" (karma) system, this game does very well to stay reminiscent of the TTRPG that made it what it is today. I loved everything harebrained has made for SR; Returns, Dragonfall, Hong Kong... I only hope one day they make another one. This would be the perfect setting to design around a first person RPG; it'd blow Cyberpunk 2077 out of the water.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong is a great game. I consider it to be an improvement in almost every way over Dragonfall. The story, characters, gameplay, and setting are all much more compelling, and I'll explain why.
The characters are much more expressive this time around: they talk, act, and feel like actual people. This is not to say that Eiger and co. were robotic, but when reading dialogue by the Hong Kong cast, you can practically hear them talking to you in real life. The dialogue is firmly rooted in how people actually talk in real life, and I really felt immersed in every conversation that went on this game. They're also a lot more diverse and interesting than the Dragonfall cast. Eiger and Glory won't even give you the time of day for the first 60% of the game, but Gobbet and Duncan are instantly familiar and likable. Racter and Gaichu provide better conversation material than both Dietrich and Blitz combined. I haven't even touched on the backstories for each of these characters yet. Point is, the characters really carry the Hong Kong experience.
Second is the story. Hong Kong instantly grabs you within the first 30 minutes. Things happen FAST. Suddenly, you're plunged headfirst into the dark world of shadowrunning and are forced to fight to survive. The story felt like it revolved a lot more around your playable character. You have personal stakes in everything that is going on here, and it was instantly compelling. The story doesn't drop the ball after this either; it keeps its momentum to the very end. The places the story takes you and the way the world of Hong Kong keeps unfolding before you is magical. This game truly is just a great piece of fiction in every way.
Third is the setting. The Flux State was cool and all, but corpo-run Hong Kong was simply much closer to my heart and also to the heart of the cyberpunk genre. Walking through the streets of Hong Kong or fighting through giant corporate buildings truly was an amazing experience. The atmospheric lighting was much more moody and colorful this time around, and everything just looks less drab than the streets of Berlin. Maybe this is all just a matter of preference, but in the end, I enjoyed every moment I spent in Hong Kong, whereas the same cannot be said for Berlin.
Fourth is the gameplay. Everything felt faster, more polished, and more consistent this time around. Dragonfall was notorious for misrepresenting the hit chances of your attacks, so an attack with 90% chance to hit actually only had like 70% chance to hit or something. By the end, I was absolutely sick of the combat in Dragonfall, and simply wanted to see the story to its conclusion. In Hong Kong, however, I was engaged with the combat til the end. Maybe it's because I've learned a lot since playing Dragonfall and am now a pro at Shadowrun combat, but combat in this game was simply more enjoyable to me than Dragonfall.
TLDR: I'll give Shadowrun Hong Kong a 9/10. I didn't mean for this review to sound like a constant comparison to Dragonfall, but if Dragonfall was a 7/10 for me, I had to list out the ways in which this game is better than Dragonfall to justify its 9/10 score. It's a great game. The world, setting, characters, and story will keep you engaged for hours on end, and if you play your cards right, you will be left with a very satisfying ending and an all-around pleasant role-playing experience. Get this game if you're looking for a well-made, well-written, and extremely unique isometric 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!

Fun title in the series. Not as good as Dragonfall, but some great music and graphics makes up for it. It's the most gorgeous title in the series.

I'm playing this game, back-to-back after finishing the 1st and 2nd games in the series (Shadowrun Returns & Shadowrun Dragonfall).
So my review will be in comparison to the first 2 games
MISSIONS
Similary to Shadowrun Dragonfall you have a starting "neighborhood". This time around it's a ship dock. Where you can find all the vendors and characters/places that give you missions/assignments.
Once you go on a mission, you are transferred to a different location, and you can't leave until you finish it (or fail it).
And continuing the Shadowrun Dragonfall tradition, each mission has several ways to finish it.

However, one change for the worse in this game, is that side-missions are not optional anymore.
Unlike Shadowrun Dragonfall, where you could not do any side missions, and just go for the main game plot.
Here the game plot simply does not progress until you finish any pending side missions you have. (You're allowed to not finish 1 or 2 IIRC)
COMBAT
Yet again, the combat has improved slightly since the previous game.
The User Interface/User Experience has been improved somewhat. It's still not up-to-speed with modern games (of that time). But better than the previous game.
You have more info about the enemies you attack (especially if you invest in appropriate skills).
And you have a much better variety of weapons, and weapon abilities - which makes using them more fun.
In general combat is more fun with each subsequent game. Including this one.
END GAME
End game was significantly improved from Shadowrun Dragonfall's tedious, hours-long, end-game combat sequence.
And you have "normal" very difficult fights, until you win at the end, and need to make a significant moral choice.
STORY/PLOT
As in the previous games, the story/plot is "supposedly" the crown jewel of this game.
The problem is, while every other element in the game, has been improving gradually since the first game. The story/plot/dialogs unfortunately suffered the opposite fate.
That's true both the the game, and for the post-game DLC.
Which is a huge problem, as this IS the strong point of every game in the series.
SHADOWRUN SERIES
I've now finished the series, and feel confident enough to comment on it as a whole.
The 3 games were released between 2013 - 2015, which is a very difficult timeline for computer games, releasing a new game every year.
Obviously there could not have been major graphical changes between the game, only gradual improvements.
The series started from a successful Kickstarter campaign, and was able to grow and continue, which is a commendable feat on it's own.
And every game improved gradually on UI/UX of the game, on the RPG gameplay and world size.
The only thing that did not improve (especially in the 3rd game) was the story.
It started from a very high point, and dropped down in the 3d installment.
I can completely understand why no 4th installment was ever made.
In 2015, when it was release, is the year when games like Witcher 3 or Fallout 4 were released, and Shadowrun can't come close to competing with them.
Even other indie/kickstarter games, like Wasteland 2, have incomparably better graphics, combat and UX/UI.
So the only string point, having people to play this game, over other much more fun and good looking games, was the story/plot of the game.
Which unfortunately wasn't true anymore by the 3rd game :(

Fighting a god with a thousand teeth, with a Ghoul samurai, a troll hacker and my gun hungry troll step brother?
You SOB, I'm in.