This release gives us a solid foundation for awesome future adventures. This first adventure is a little shallow, though

User Rating: 8 | Shadowrun Returns PC
Shadowrun Returns had a bit of an uphill battle to climb: as another Kickstarter'ed remake/rebirth of a cult classic (like Wasteland, Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded, etc.) it had to deliver a combo of nostalgia that cherishes the original, while still being new and fresh. I think it almost accomplishes both. It's lovingly created, looks great but still holds to the look and feel of the original, retains a lot of the personality of the original, but the unfortunate side of this first adventure is that it's shallow.

But to its credit: the game came out pretty much on time (a rarity for Kickstarter), and it delivers a solid core game. Also, it's a budget game -- you're not paying $50 or $60 for this title (it's $20 on Steam as of this writing).

The game world looks rich and interesting -- the art is fantastic, hand-drawn with amazing detail. To its detriment, it almost looks TOO good -- you desperately want to wander, discover, and interact with everything. However, to get a game done on time and to market to get the developers paid, the main quest line is very linear, pretty short, and doesn't provide much chance for exploration. There aren't many objects with which you can interact, no major undertones or sub-plots, and not a lot of NPCs.

However, what is there is pretty fantastic -- so I can easily see new story modules being really good when time is taken to populate the world with people and 'stuff' more thoroughly.

The good:
* Excellent, detailed, hand drawn graphics give the game a lot of richness and visual style
* Music is generally very well done (by the composers of the SNES version)
* Combat is solid, a little easy in this first module, but does the turn-based/cover-based combat thing very well
* Characters in the game are interesting and have some depth even with the limited dialog/interaction in this module

The not-so-good:
* Short
* Lacks much to do in the game world other than the primary quest line

Overall, if you like turn-based sci-fi RPGs, it really is a must-play in my opinion.