Shadowrun Returns (2013) by Harebrained Schemes

I was excited to play Shadowrun Returns simply because I'm a big fan of both tactical RPGs and cyberpunk. I've read William Gibson's work and liked him, and Final Fantasy Tactics is one of my favorite games of all-time.

This game is obviously influenced on the combat side by XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which I loved. But I found it to be a bit light as far as tactical RPG depth. The robustness of the different systems in play in XCOM, including the greatly varying types of enemies and huge differences in classes and abilities, is just not present in this game. Now, a game that relies on a very basic combat system is certainly not always at fault for doing so, but it's got to be a strong enough core mechanic to carry the weight of the entire combat system, otherwise is just gets boring. This game is nearly there, but I just don't feel that the tactical combat in this game is solid enough at its base to accomplish that. It requires a more robust, deeper experience.

RPGs will always grapple with their pacing. It's easy to leave a player a bit too long in a hub world, and make them feel bored with some of the more tedious tasks they're assigned there. The pacing in this game suffers from that problem. You're spending too much time running around aimlessly, chatting people up, and doing other miscellaneous things. Again, there's just not enough depth here. I don't feel like too many of the things I'm doing actually matter. They don't interest me. I'd be itching to get into more combat, but then I'd actually get into and get bored of that, too.

The writing is there, but I didn't find any of the characters particularly compelling save for Sam Watts, who doesn't get much screentime.

Shadowrun Returns is not an offensively bad game by any means. It's actually a very promising one. It's a portent of what's to come from Hairbrained Schemes. This title is one of those examples of a developer getting their feet under them with some nice basic design and then releasing an initial effort. The obvious emphasis is on core systems: The building blocks are here, and they've got a lot of potential. But the combat system, the characters, and the pacing leave a lot to be desired.

The emphasis on community developed content is a strong one as well, so there's a lot to do here outside the main game. But as a standalone game, I can't recommend Shadowrun Returns simply because I highly recommend its standalone successor, Shadowrun Dragonfall. Dragonfall succeeds in every category of Returns that I found wanting. I'd recommend to anybody considering Shadowrun Returns to skip this title and play Dragonfall instead. It's really a fantastic game.

⭐⭐

Playtime: 18 hours