RPG Progress Report

[noiseredux]

yeah I meant the '97 P&C.

[MrPopo]

The first Shadowrun Returns game is definitely the weakest. Dragonfall and Hong Kong give you a party with backstories (and still the option of hiring others if you want) and more agency. There's still a general railroading, but they both have a period of "do a bunch of side missions until the plot is ready to move forward".

You're still pretty early in the game Ack. And in terms of decking, I don't think it ever is a requirement (or if it is, they make it clear so you can hire a decker). For the most part it tends to be a way to get around obstacles or gain bonuses. There are definitely missions that require a decker in the other two games, but the games are very clear about it and force one on your team for those parts.

[noiseredux]

hey, Dragon's Dogma is finally coming to PC!

[Ack]

Shadowrun Returns

I got to play a little bit more last night and did my first round of decking. I struggled with it a bit, but once I realized it was basically like using a Mage but one where I had to spawn my own soldiers beforehand, things got a bit smoother. I kind of wish I had built a Decker now instead of a Street Samurai. I think I'll do that next time.

Currently I'm sitting in the basement of a mental hospital about to confront a psycho elf posing as a shrink. This guy might be the Ripper. Even if he isn't, I'm going to put a bullet in his face the hard way. I have a team consisting of that Native American Shaman lady from earlier, my favorite tattooed elf Mage, and a big ass mother fucking troll Street Samurai with a shotgun. I've made it through two levels so far and plan to clean out this basement with righteous gunfire.

In the meantime, my little dwarf Street Samurai named Meat is doing ok. She has a pair of pistols equipped that I can switch between as necessary to avoid reloading. I basically use her to snipe from cover. It's worked out so far. Let's see if I can keep this up.

[Ack]

Eh, double post.

Shadowrun Returns

I ended up wiping the floor with the doctor in the hospital and made it to my buddy's funeral, only to end up facing off against ghouls and a wicked security detail for the real culprit behind everything. Now I have to take on the Universal Brotherhood, because the evil mastermind happens to run the Seattle branch. Fun fun! To deal with this, I've brought along Coyote as another Street Samurai, as well as a Mage(my tattooed buddy) and a Decker. Unfortunately they are currently stuck outside while I run around dressed like a janitor and try to get the back door open.

Meat is doing well though. I have now maxed out her Quickness, and her Range Combat and Pistol stats are pretty high(with augments and armor to push it higher!). She is fiercely accurate, which has proven to help immensely. Every turn, she can pop off three rounds into just about anything she wants, even stuff at the edge of her vision, and she automatically reloads. Everybody else struggled against that security detail with some nasty hit chances, but she was dropping bodies like bass beats at a dubstep convention. By the time the ghouls showed up, I had basically killed all but one of the security squadmembers. I wish I could build up the other Shadowrunners how I like too.

Anyway, next time I want to run a Decker, but I'm still having a lot of fun as a little powerhouse cannon.

[MrPopo]

You're getting into the real meat of the storyline now. And yeah, you'll find that non-dedicated combat characters are very hit and miss in their shooting; they hopefully make up for it with their other skills. I've found myself rolling a Street Samurai character every game to ensure I'd always have a highly efficient killing machine and then build the party around me.

One nice thing about the other games is that your base party covers decking, magic, and combat, so you're 100% free to go with the character you want. You aren't forced into a particular build to have a balanced team.

[Ack]

Ah, if the rest of the series handles that kind of thing, then I guess I'll be sticking with Street Samurai to ensure I have a heavy hitter. I'm guessing this is one of the things that the rest of the series is considered better at, eh?

[MrPopo]

Well, you get a good street samurai in your main party in the other games, so if you want to do decking or rigging or shaman stuff then go for it. It's just that mages, deckers, etc will always be terrible at weapons when they are your party members.

One thing you might consider doing is building a combat adept; it's like a street samurai that tends to focus on melee attacks and doesn't get chrome, since the adept uses a variety of magic spells to self buff. Things like enhanced movement range, always being in cover, and a damage boost on unarmed attacks. So far neither party in the other games has had an adept on the team, though one has been available for hire.

[MrPopo]

Instead of ranting about Septerra Core, I thought I might spend some time talking about what it does well. The game does have some redeeming features, after all.

First off is the world. The game has a unique world that gives them a lot of freedom to have a wide variety of environments and cultures, even though the cultures don't quite make sense if you start to think about it (but that's a common issue across all RPGs). The nature of the seven world shells is what makes this possible. It seems that travel between shells is not done en masse; think of air travel in the 50's, where it's possible but not something done enough to generate real amounts of mixing between destinations. You start in a desert junkyard, then go to a medieval land, followed by high tech land and giant marketplace land. There's a primal jungle shell, a pirate waystation shell, and finally the advanced shell where the antagonists come from.

Secondly, the game has the most useful airship ever created. Rather than having to land it, get out, and enter your destination (which means there are several places you can't get to because your airship can't land there), instead you transition directly from the airship into wherever you're going. Essentially your overworld sprite gets replaced by the airship.

The characters have some interpersonal relationships beyond "we are all fighting together!" There's a couple sets who hate each other for good reasons, and one set that could turn into a couple. Doing sidequests can resolve those conflicts or hook those two up; in the latter case they get some new attacks that are like dual techs but they don't take up the turn of the partner. The characters that hate each other will sometimes attack each other in battle. It's a level of party development that wouldn't be out of place in a WRPG.

The conversation system is very reminiscent of WRPGs and adds some unique flare to the game. When you talk to an NPC you get access to a variety of topics as well as the option to have one of your party members talk about something. The latter can be used to gain additional clues or to unlock a new interaction. Now, not every party member has something to say in every conversation, but it's relevant enough times to be interesting.

There's also some minor convenience features. Your party has one experience total, so you don't have to worry about members falling behind, including if they're dead during the end of combat. You also get a free out of combat res back to 1 HP.

Wow, I've run out of good things and none of them were related to the core gameplay experience...

[Daria]

I picked Septerra Core up again like last year but it got away from me again. I originally bought it when it was a new title, and although I liked it, never got too far with it back in the day. Sadly my recent play through didn't fare much better. I did set it up for control through xpadder and found that it really looked and played like something that belonged on the original PlayStation. Kind of surprised it was never ported.