Shadowrun

"Definitely one of the most underrated SNES games out there..."

Story: 10

They storyline for this game is extremely intense. You play Jake Armitage. You wake up in a morgue with no memory of who you are and why you're there. You don't remember anything. Slowly but surely, you eventually find out all that info by talking to different people.

Graphics: 8

They're ok, nothing special. Some items look blurry and sometimes you can't really tell what they're supposed to be, but for the most part, the graphics are decent.

Controls: 7

I think there are 2 different type of controls you can use here, I'm not exactly sure, it's been a while since I've last played. I just chose the normal one.

Gameplay: 10

The characters never speak in this fun action packed game. The more you talk to people, the more list of words you acquire and it's from that list you choose what kind of info you want out of them. Certain words work on certain people, other words have no effect at all, and they'll just say a random phrase that has no meaning to you.

If you want to pick up an item, you have to be EXACTLY on it in order to do so. Like in some games, they'll allow you to be in that near vicinity of the item, but in this game, you have to be right on target. That's one of the drawbacks I found to be quite annoying at times. Like if I was in a gangfight and I wanted to pick up an item left behind one of the enemies, I just couldn't hurriedly take it and be done with it. I had to act fast because others were trying to kill me.

It's recommended to save often, as you can die just as much. If you don't save right before a major fight, then you'll start up from your last save point.

You don't gain experience points after a fight, only karma, which you can spend at any time. However, you must have the correct number of karma in order to upgrade your skills, attributes, body, magic spells...etc.

The money you gain from fights comes in handy when you want to buy bigger and better weapons. However, certain weapons will only be available at certain points of the game.

The coolest thing about this game is the shadowrun aspect. You can have up to 3 at one time. It all depends on how well you negotiate. If you have this skill, you can hire just about any shadowrunner for extremely cheap, some as low as 500 nuyen and most of them are ridiculously expensive!

WARNING! The last level, Maximum Security, is definitely THE hardest part out of the whole game. It helps to have the 3 shadworunners at this point, especially when you're fighting the very last boss, Drake. You should also have all of your magic spells leveled up, as they will come in VERY handy.

Overall: 10

If I could give it a higher score, I would. Shadowrun is one of my all time favorite SNES games ever! Definitely more challenging than fun, but fun nonetheless. I heard they were coming out with Shadowrun 2, I don't know what happened to that promise. I was looking forward to it! Oh well.

Definitely try this game out.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/06