Shadowrun is an action role-playing game.It was adapted from the cyberpunk role-playing game Shadowrun.The game is the second video game adapted from Shadowrun, and has a more open ended style of gameplay than its 1993 Super NES counterpart, Shadowrun by Beam Software. The game is set in the Shadowrun universe, in the 2050s. A time where the blending of technology and human flesh is common; it is around the time the Matrix, a huge computer network, came online, with the ability to jack into its cyberspace directly. It was also a time of magic renewal: a phenomenon known as The Awakening occurred, where magic returned into the world. Sorcery was once again possible, and slowly and seemingly at random humans began to mutate into orcs, dwarves, elves or trolls. This time of upheaval was not without political conflicts: mega-corporations began to control the world. But with their magic, native shamans threatened them and the world geography came to a complete change. The Amerindians and Elves reclaimed an area called Salish-Shidhe, close to the free city of Seattle, a major city in the newly formed United Canadian and American States.
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As I mentioned in my log for the SNES Shadowrun game, I've always been attracted to the Shadowrun premise but I've also never been a fan of pen and paper RPGs. I'm not creative enough to roleplay off the top of my head and my social anxiety would make it practically impossible even in situations where I was among friends. I've been relegated to novels set in the Shadowrun universe and the few video games produced to get my fix. I hold the Genesis and SNES games in equal regard despite not being able to finish either game as they were difficult and obtuse in a lot of ways. I do miss the fact that loads of games in the 90s would be completely different in story and gameplay depending on which console you purchased them for. I need to play the more recent trilogy of Shadowrun games, but I fear their gameplay may be a barrier to entry for me when what I really want is a good story.
Cleared on August 14th, 2023 (SEGA Genesis Challenge: 34/160)
Damn, this game took quite awhile to get done, and a good while to get going because when I got started with the game, I was left confused, bored, and impatient with the mechanics. Does it ever get good? What do I need to do? What's the point of hiring mercenaries or doing the Matrix? But once you understand the mechanics of the game and decide to just use a walkthrough, the game actually gets good.
The game is based on the Shadowrun tabletop RPG and takes a page from the book to make an urban fantasy with a mix of gang violence, guns, demons, and magic. You take the role of Joshua, who had arrived at Seattle where his brother Michael was ambushed and killed along with his squad, and you must scour the world for clues for information about the one's behind it all and the rabbit hole gets quite deep.
At the start of the game, you really aren't in much position to do stronger jobs. You don't even have the money to collect Michael's things from the motel, and the most you can do is just act as mailman and escort going from point A to point B. However, you build up Karma from doing all of that which will let you upgrade a skill upon visiting a motel, and will make you stronger in a variety of things like strength, movement speed, gun specialty, and many more.
The gameplay isn't that special, though. It really amounts up to kiting and top down shooting or casting spells. You have three classes you can play as which are Samurai, Decker, and Shaman. Samurais specialize in taking damage and dealing damage back with guns, Deckers specialize in taking on Matrix runs (more on that later), and Shamans specialize in magic and is pretty much the only class that can even use it. Don't know what class you want? That's fine. Just hire a mercenary and you can control them to use their skills. In fact, later on in the game, you are going to find them especially valuable. If you aren't a magic user, you will find spells like Invisibility and Heal valuable for survivability and avoiding combat. If you are a magic user like me, you will find hiring a decker valuable for delving into the Matrix to hack the system and extract data for money.
The Matrix has a different gameplay style with an impressive for its time 3D perspective where you just attack or (preferably) deceive the nodes in order to bypass them. The details aren't that important, you just need to be wary of the CPU which is the brains that will reveal you all of the nodes but is usually the most dangerous of the nodes, and the DS which is the square that holds the data. The more secure it is, the more valuable they tend to be. The gameplay starts out rather tedious as you'll find yourself missing constantly, but there is a trick to bypass that, but we'll talk about that later.
As with most RPGs, the spotlight is on the worldbuilding and the story. It takes place in a fantasy rendition of Seattle and it is filled with criminals and people looking to screw with you, but it's not to say everyone is an enemy. You have "Johnson's" who act as a link for a client which they hire Shadowrunners to do the job who sometimes give out information some for worldbuilding purposes, some that can actually advance the main plot, and some contacts that can assist you to make things much easier for you. And of course, each of the mercenaries you hire have their own backstories although beyond that, they don't have that much character expression. Once they get hired, they don't really say anything and go along with anything you do. Just don't leave them to die or have a party wipe, and you should be good. Upon getting Michael's equipment from the motel, the world begins to open up and you can just go wherever for a cheap price. The only place that isn't cheap is the Salish-Shade island which will cost 500 nuyen (the game's credit) for a pass and another 100 for the cab itself. Other than that and the Council Islands, the rest of the locations tend to look pretty samey being within the cities. You have motels for resting, you have bars where Johnsons and mercenaries hang out looking for work, abandoned buildings where ghouls reside, and highly secure places which tend to be a point of interest for shadowrunners and criminals.
It's a long game for what you'd expect out of the Sega Genesis, but the main story itself isn't that long as in theory I'd imagine you'd be able to get it done in maybe 5 hours or so, but the reason it takes so long is because you need to grind the hell out of karma, equipment, and money in order to get anywhere. You need reputation to get into high-end bars, you need money for a Level 5 Maglock Card, and you need equipment in order to stand your ground and especially against the final boss.
But when you aren't just grinding, the game is not too bad and I can definitely see why people hold it in high regards. At the same time, I'd understand someone dropping the game before they could even unlock the three main plotlines. If you want an easier time with the game, here are some tips and tricks to help you along.
1. Mercenaries in this game can be hired Short Term for a Shadowrun or Long Term. Long Term is very expensive, costing 10x the amount it would be for Short Term and thus, I would highly advise against it because you can actually keep the mercenaries around for a very long time as long as they don't die. You can have them as an ally for the main plot or just hire a decker (if you aren't one yourself) for going into the matrix to farm currency. If you need to get rid of them without worsening your reputation with them, just kill a few ghouls in Redmond Barrens and return to the Johnson there.
2. Believe it or not, doing delivery and escort runs for the Redmond Johnson is probably the fastest way of farming karma since each run gets you 1 karma and if you can hire allies, you can take them along and get them some karma for them as well, and best of all, these missions do not count towards a run. It's made even faster if running on emulation with the fast forward feature.
3. The best way to make money is to run the Matrix. Early game, as soon as you have the money and the means to travel, you can hire a guy named Phantom in Renraku to go into the Matrix as many times you like. Go to the computer near where you sell data to and just go at it.
4. When optimizing for the matrix, as soon as you are able to upgrade stats through getting a better deck, prioritize getting Evasion above all else because not only does it reduce your chances of getting hit, it actually increases your chance to hit which makes the sequence much less frustrating.
5. On the note of Matrix, make sure you save before actually going into any Matrix run because you have a small chance of running into a program that can fry your deck and force you to repair, or the tar pit which could remove one program that you used last and if it just so happens to be the Attack button, you'll be forced to Jack Out and buy the Attack equipment.
6. Early game, you are going to want to prioritize Quickness stat regardless of the class you started with because getting into an encounter with enemies will slow you down which could be really annoying and this will give you an easier time in order to kite them or just flee for any reason.
7. Usually, abandoned buildings contain ghouls which are points of interest for Shadowruns, but there are a select few buildings in the game that contain demons like hellhounds, Wendigos, of the like. Other than being a potential oversight, it could have its practical uses, namely allowing you to collect a hellhound pelt in order to advance a main plot quest without having to fork over so much money to return to Salish-Shade. Another potential use is waiting for someone to offer to take you to Salish-Shade while in the building since the encounters there are the same as those of the Salish-Shade caverns, but that's very RNG dependent and may be far too risky even mid-game.
8. Invisibility is a great means of infiltrating security and funny enough, if you are running with more than one person, you only need the one person you are controlling to be invisible as the game will treat as if your allies aren't there.
9. Set your allies to full defense if you do not want to engage in hostility which may be useful for conserving weapons, but if you need them to assist you in combat, set them to full offense.
10. While at Salish-Shade, go to Wilderness Area 3 where you will find a house with someone of high interest to Joshua. It will initiate a side-quest chain that upon success will net you what is quite possibly the best mercenary in the game and best of all, free of charge. From there, all you need is a magic caster like Freya, decent equipment, a lot of medkits, and you should be all set to take on the final boss of the game.
Damn, this game took quite awhile to get done, and a good while to get going because when I got started with the game, I was left confused, bored, and impatient with the mechanics. Does it ever get good? What do I need to do? What's the point of hiring mercenaries or doing the Matrix? But once you understand the mechanics of the game and decide to just use a walkthrough, the game actually gets good.
The game is based on the Shadowrun tabletop RPG and takes a page from the book to make an urban fantasy with a mix of gang violence, guns, demons, and magic. You take the role of Joshua, who had arrived at Seattle where his brother Michael was ambushed and killed along with his squad, and you must scour the world for clues for information about the one's behind it all and the rabbit hole gets quite deep.
At the start of the game, you really aren't in much position to do stronger jobs. You don't even have the money to collect Michael's things from the motel, and the most you can do is just act as mailman and escort going from point A to point B. However, you build up Karma from doing all of that which will let you upgrade a skill upon visiting a motel, and will make you stronger in a variety of things like strength, movement speed, gun specialty, and many more.
The gameplay isn't that special, though. It really amounts up to kiting and top down shooting or casting spells. You have three classes you can play as which are Samurai, Decker, and Shaman. Samurais specialize in taking damage and dealing damage back with guns, Deckers specialize in taking on Matrix runs (more on that later), and Shamans specialize in magic and is pretty much the only class that can even use it. Don't know what class you want? That's fine. Just hire a mercenary and you can control them to use their skills. In fact, later on in the game, you are going to find them especially valuable. If you aren't a magic user, you will find spells like Invisibility and Heal valuable for survivability and avoiding combat. If you are a magic user like me, you will find hiring a decker valuable for delving into the Matrix to hack the system and extract data for money.
The Matrix has a different gameplay style with an impressive for its time 3D perspective where you just attack or (preferably) deceive the nodes in order to bypass them. The details aren't that important, you just need to be wary of the CPU which is the brains that will reveal you all of the nodes but is usually the most dangerous of the nodes, and the DS which is the square that holds the data. The more secure it is, the more valuable they tend to be. The gameplay starts out rather tedious as you'll find yourself missing constantly, but there is a trick to bypass that, but we'll talk about that later.
As with most RPGs, the spotlight is on the worldbuilding and the story. It takes place in a fantasy rendition of Seattle and it is filled with criminals and people looking to screw with you, but it's not to say everyone is an enemy. You have "Johnson's" who act as a link for a client which they hire Shadowrunners to do the job who sometimes give out information some for worldbuilding purposes, some that can actually advance the main plot, and some contacts that can assist you to make things much easier for you. And of course, each of the mercenaries you hire have their own backstories although beyond that, they don't have that much character expression. Once they get hired, they don't really say anything and go along with anything you do. Just don't leave them to die or have a party wipe, and you should be good. Upon getting Michael's equipment from the motel, the world begins to open up and you can just go wherever for a cheap price. The only place that isn't cheap is the Salish-Shade island which will cost 500 nuyen (the game's credit) for a pass and another 100 for the cab itself. Other than that and the Council Islands, the rest of the locations tend to look pretty samey being within the cities. You have motels for resting, you have bars where Johnsons and mercenaries hang out looking for work, abandoned buildings where ghouls reside, and highly secure places which tend to be a point of interest for shadowrunners and criminals.
It's a long game for what you'd expect out of the Sega Genesis, but the main story itself isn't that long as in theory I'd imagine you'd be able to get it done in maybe 5 hours or so, but the reason it takes so long is because you need to grind the hell out of karma, equipment, and money in order to get anywhere. You need reputation to get into high-end bars, you need money for a Level 5 Maglock Card, and you need equipment in order to stand your ground and especially against the final boss.
But when you aren't just grinding, the game is not too bad and I can definitely see why people hold it in high regards. At the same time, I'd understand someone dropping the game before they could even unlock the three main plotlines. If you want an easier time with the game, here are some tips and tricks to help you along.
1. Mercenaries in this game can be hired Short Term for a Shadowrun or Long Term. Long Term is very expensive, costing 10x the amount it would be for Short Term and thus, I would highly advise against it because you can actually keep the mercenaries around for a very long time as long as they don't die. You can have them as an ally for the main plot or just hire a decker (if you aren't one yourself) for going into the matrix to farm currency. If you need to get rid of them without worsening your reputation with them, just kill a few ghouls in Redmond Barrens and return to the Johnson there.
2. Believe it or not, doing delivery and escort runs for the Redmond Johnson is probably the fastest way of farming karma since each run gets you 1 karma and if you can hire allies, you can take them along and get them some karma for them as well, and best of all, these missions do not count towards a run. It's made even faster if running on emulation with the fast forward feature.
3. The best way to make money is to run the Matrix. Early game, as soon as you have the money and the means to travel, you can hire a guy named Phantom in Renraku to go into the Matrix as many times you like. Go to the computer near where you sell data to and just go at it.
4. When optimizing for the matrix, as soon as you are able to upgrade stats through getting a better deck, prioritize getting Evasion above all else because not only does it reduce your chances of getting hit, it actually increases your chance to hit which makes the sequence much less frustrating.
5. On the note of Matrix, make sure you save before actually going into any Matrix run because you have a small chance of running into a program that can fry your deck and force you to repair, or the tar pit which could remove one program that you used last and if it just so happens to be the Attack button, you'll be forced to Jack Out and buy the Attack equipment.
6. Early game, you are going to want to prioritize Quickness stat regardless of the class you started with because getting into an encounter with enemies will slow you down which could be really annoying and this will give you an easier time in order to kite them or just flee for any reason.
7. Usually, abandoned buildings contain ghouls which are points of interest for Shadowruns, but there are a select few buildings in the game that contain demons like hellhounds, Wendigos, of the like. Other than being a potential oversight, it could have its practical uses, namely allowing you to collect a hellhound pelt in order to advance a main plot quest without having to fork over so much money to return to Salish-Shade. Another potential use is waiting for someone to offer to take you to Salish-Shade while in the building since the encounters there are the same as those of the Salish-Shade caverns, but that's very RNG dependent and may be far too risky even mid-game.
8. Invisibility is a great means of infiltrating security and funny enough, if you are running with more than one person, you only need the one person you are controlling to be invisible as the game will treat as if your allies aren't there.
9. Set your allies to full defense if you do not want to engage in hostility which may be useful for conserving weapons, but if you need them to assist you in combat, set them to full offense.
10. While at Salish-Shade, go to Wilderness Area 3 where you will find a house with someone of high interest to Joshua. It will initiate a side-quest chain that upon success will net you what is quite possibly the best mercenary in the game and best of all, free of charge. From there, all you need is a magic caster like Freya, decent equipment, a lot of medkits, and you should be all set to take on the final boss of the game.
Being a child finding roleplaying games is an experience I kind of miss. Not in the sense of like discovering that I like them, but more like finding this game and playing it, being CONVINCED the cool part is around the corner, and just never getting there. Somewhat impenetrable for me as a kid, and I feel like if I ever tried to go back and see what's actually happening in this game I might disappoint my memories.
Apparently I forgot to log this game when I joined the site. It's primitive as f-ck but I loved being able to play an western RPG on the good old Genny. The first hours of the game are brutal but once you have enough cash and can recruit a companion the whole experience gets really fun.
Once you have a whole party you can go in all sort of cool side missions like infiltrating corporations or going on matrix runs. Might be a bit too ambitious for its time but I really wish there was another Shadowrun game in this style of gameplay.
Once you have a whole party you can go in all sort of cool side missions like infiltrating corporations or going on matrix runs. Might be a bit too ambitious for its time but I really wish there was another Shadowrun game in this style of gameplay.