“Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut” is a classic cyberpunk world of megacorps with standing armies, robot limbs and everything microchipped — but it takes things a step further.
In 2012, magic is reintroduced to the world. North America splits into smaller countries as super-powered Native Americans take back their homeland from the U.S. People mutate into elves, dwarves, orks and trolls, sparking the greatest and largest race riot called “The Night of Rage.”
This is where “Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut” comes in. It’s the stand-alone of an expansion pack for Kickstarter-funded turn-based RPG videogame “Shadowrun Returns,” and an encore for the “Dragonfall” expansion.
The core game was a mess, to say the least. It had controls more suited for an Android or iPad than PC, an overly linear story and unbalanced gameplay. The archaic save system didn’t do it any favors either.
You play a Shadowrunner invited by a veteran Shadowrunner to do a “milk run” in anarchist–controlled Berlin known as “The Flux State,” where you run into a conspiracy involving a dragon that set all of Germany ablaze for months before it was brought down by the military.
The UI’s improved across all platforms. You can save anywhere instead of a checkpoint system, and you have new toys to play with like smartlink guns, long range sniper rifles, a high-damaging grenade launcher and throwing stars.
You now have more of a hand in how your squad operates. One inclusion is the ability to improve the cyborg medic’s attack speed or style. Character creation is still the same; you pick a class to play like the trigger-happy street samurai, spirit-controlling shaman and the computer-hacking decker or make your own class by spending experience points. Also improved is flanking in combat.
The A.I. isn’t anything to brag about. Opponents either group together or gang up on your character as soon as combat starts. If you don’t have enough hit points, you’re going to spend most of your playtime getting revived or spending costly med-packs before the end of turn one. Despite this flaw, this expansion is an improvement to the core game, and the lore remains as rich as ever.
