First, there were the novels of William Gibson. They created a dark world of the future, where the megacorporations rule everything, where deckers scout cyberspace to retrieve information for anyone willing to pay. Then came Shadowrun, a pen-and-paper RPG that added creatures from Tolkien's books to this world. Suddenly the deckers might be half-elves or orcs, and the megacorporations might be ruled by dragons.
During the 90s, three video games have spawned from Shadowrun, one for the SNES in 1993, one for Sega Genesis in 1994, and one for Sega Mega CD in 1996. This last one was a Japanese-style adventure like Snatchers, not a RPG, and was released only in Japan.
Of the two RPGs, it is said that the Sega game is closer to the original. I cannot judge this. I downloaded an emulator just to play this one game, but the battle system confused me, the graphics, though of higher resolution, were less atmospherical, and the whole thing could hold my attention only for seconds.
The SNES version, on the other hand, is a remarkable game that suffers mostly under the two facts that it was written (a) for the SNES and (b) a few years to early. It's isometric graphics remind me of Fallout, the Crusader games, Cybermercs, a bit of Diablo. They would have looked great at 640×480, the SNES isn't up to it. And the action combat system, which isn't all that bad, really cries for a mouse. The SNES mouse had been released the previous year, but the game didn't support it, very few games did in fact, the only one I know for sure is Populous 2.
This said, Shadowrun is an interesting game and I recommend it. I enjoyed the urban setting, and its karma system is a welcome digression from the usual experience points and levels. This might have been done more radical, but by omitting levels completely the designers still went one step further than Daggerfall. And I liked the system of shadowrunners, which are temporary NPCs you can hire.
You might want to employ a walkthrough for some of the puzzles I considered more an obstacle than a challenge. The face graphics from the dialog screens can give you an idea of the game art. And I have HTMLized the part of the manual that explains combat in the Matrix.
There are three types of stats: attributes, skills, and spells. They are raised by spending karma points, the cost is equivalent to the current level of the stat. Karma is gained by defeating enemies. Early in the game, random enemies will gain you one karma point every five or six kills. Later enemies, of course, will gain you more.
There are only four attributes. You start out with body, strength and charisma, each on level 3. Body determines hitpoints, ten hitpoints per level, strength determines the equipment you can use, and charisma the number of shadowrunners you can hire. Later on you get a fourth attribute, magic. Body and magic can be raised to level 20, the other two to level 6.
There are four skills. You start with firearms and computer. Later on you can buy negotiation and leadership. Negotiation lowers the prices you have to pay, leadership determines how long shadowrunners stay with you, computer is related to matrix runs, and firearms basically determines your to-hit rate. Firearms can be raised to level 16, the other skills to level 6.
Finally there are six spells. You gain them through rather complicated quests you first have to figure out, adventure-style. All of them can be raised to level 6.
There is no character creation of any kind, nor are there classes as in the Sega game. If you wish to, you can max out your character; if I've calculated correctly, you'd need 656 karma points for that.
You can save every time you rest. There is a place to rest in each of the three main locations, Jake's apartment in Tenth Street, the bed in the caryards in Oldtown, and a hotel in Daley. Resting is also the time when you can spend karma for character advancement, and of course, as in every console RPG, it heals the HP and MP of your character. This system works far better than the usual savepoints, and Shadowrun is the only SNES RPG where I never felt a need for emulator savestates.
I don't know if this promo was used as a poster, or a magazine ad, or both, but a couple of things are odd about it. First, the art doesn't really match the game, which is far more grungy and less heroic. I guess it was just some stock pic from the PnP Shadowrun RPG.
But what's really strange is the prominent slogan, download or die. This would aptly describe the situation of the protagonist of the 1995 movie Johnny Mnemonic (but we're in 1993 here), though not the situation of the protagonist of Gibson's original story, and definitely not the situation of the protagonist of the game. There is a part in the game where Jake is under a similar pressure, but what he needs is surgery, not download the data from his head computer.
So the question is, where did they get it from?
You'll spend months trying to beat this one, but once you do you'll be sending it to pawn shops in no time. The ability to hire mercenaries gives the game a lot of potential, the interesting concept of floating are in cyberspace and the combination of science fiction and magic makes the game all the better. However, both these factors are misused. The only things that makes this game great is it's novelty and storyline, and once you've played through it once they become nonexistent, leaving only a magic and guns killing spree with short breaks to solve puzzles that, once you've figured them out, only become annoying.
Instead of using the idiotic experience points that you find in most RPGs, which allow you to move up levels, Shadowrun uses karma points, which you earn one at a time. These Karma points are used to make your character more powerful. "What's the difference?", you ask? YOU get to choose to spend those points on whatever character aspects you want! Should you make Jake stronger, or increase his charisma? Would a higher firearms skill be better than increasing your hit points by ten? The wrong decisions wouldn't be disasterous, but they could make your quest more difficult.
But even though this game severely bends the rules of traditional Shadowrun, to the point where they break completely, it is a very good game. Both in regards to story and atmosphere, it's a good game, especially considering some of the other RPG's out on the market for the SNES at that time.
Unless you're a fan of insanely tough puzzles, don't even try to play it without one at hand.
Actually, Shadowrun is the only PnP RPG I ever was a part of - though only for one evening.
Undoubtedly the closest a console game ever gets to capturing the feel of traditional PC RPGs, Shadowrun for the SEGA Genesis is an excellent and faithful adaptation of FASA’s famous Shadowrun cyberpunk P&P RPG system. Unlike its Super Nintendo counterpart (also reviewed on this site) that is basically a fun action game with some RPG elements sprinkled in, this Genesis version of the game is a true RPG that will please anyone who likes Shadowrun or PC-style RPGs in general.—Home of the Underdogs
Well, as I said, it was not meant for me. But there are numerous fans who prefer it over the SNES version, so you might want to try it out.
