I thought this story was going to be a generic murder mystery, but it turned into something else that was very interesting. It seems like the dialogue choices are flavour-text, or grants access to some more items but doesn't change the overall game outcome. That's totally fine for a game that wants to tell this story.
Character creation is based solely around combat, and whatever classes or skills you don't take on, you can fill with teammates and mercenaries. The combat is fine for a turn-based strategy game. It can force you to diversify your team between the cyberdeck, magic, or weapon user, and the random-number game actually makes sense. I've played other TBS games that are frustrating and encourage save-scumming by having an unfair RNG, where everything hits you but you can't hit anything. This one makes sense because you can have supports buff/debuff combatants, take cover, and flank appropriately, while your enemies are trying to do the same.
A couple of pieces of advice on combat to make the game more fun: use items liberally, because you'll always find more. Focus on what you want to fight as and spend money to fill in the gaps you need. I found myself at the end of the game with way too many consumables and cash, while playing conservatively in fights which deprived me of having a lot more fun in this game.
The artwork looks great, between portraits and 3D models. It really sets the mood for a dystopia, and the NPC text really fills out the world to give an accurate picture of the huge world Shadowrun is. The writers really did a lot of work to make you feel like you're within one story in a large universe that has a history and has been lived in - without a prologue or unrealistic text-dump from an NPC.
Character creation is based solely around combat, and whatever classes or skills you don't take on, you can fill with teammates and mercenaries. The combat is fine for a turn-based strategy game. It can force you to diversify your team between the cyberdeck, magic, or weapon user, and the random-number game actually makes sense. I've played other TBS games that are frustrating and encourage save-scumming by having an unfair RNG, where everything hits you but you can't hit anything. This one makes sense because you can have supports buff/debuff combatants, take cover, and flank appropriately, while your enemies are trying to do the same.
A couple of pieces of advice on combat to make the game more fun: use items liberally, because you'll always find more. Focus on what you want to fight as and spend money to fill in the gaps you need. I found myself at the end of the game with way too many consumables and cash, while playing conservatively in fights which deprived me of having a lot more fun in this game.
The artwork looks great, between portraits and 3D models. It really sets the mood for a dystopia, and the NPC text really fills out the world to give an accurate picture of the huge world Shadowrun is. The writers really did a lot of work to make you feel like you're within one story in a large universe that has a history and has been lived in - without a prologue or unrealistic text-dump from an NPC.