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Most English speaking Shadowrun fans are pretty familiar with the SNES and Genesis versions, but there was a Mega CD installment released only in Japan that's completely different from the others. Created by Compile in conjunction with Group SNE, the role playing company that published the Shadowrun game books in Japan, the Mega CD version is part digital novel, part RPG. The game is broken up into several chapters, and focuses on a group of four Shadowrunners in Tokyo, a long ways from the Seattle setting of the previous games. The investigation scenes are much like Snatcher, with a single still picture representing the location and little portraits of the people you can talk to. Everything is menu-based, but is all incredibly simple. Most of the time is spent interrogating people, but you can't choose what to ask about - all you do is select the "talk" icon over and over and over, until more options open up. There are no items to use or puzzles to solve - these scenes are even less of a game than Snatcher was.
Eventually, the view will switch from the first person scenes to overhead exploration segments, which controls like your typical Japanese RPG. These look and feel a lot like Phantasy Star 2, what with the blue-haired hero leading the way and your three compatriots following behind. However, much like the investigation scenes, all you really do is stumble around until you find the next event trigger.
At some point you'll get into a fight. These are similar to strategy RPGs like Shining Force, where you move each character around the field, and can attack with distance weapon like firearms, melee weapons like swords, or magic spells. Much like the Genesis game, each character has two energy meters, Physical and Mental - damage caused by guns or spells will drain the Mental meter, while physical attacks will drain the Physical one. Casting magic also depletes power from the Mental gauge. When either of them drop to zero, that character dies. In order to give the game more of a tabletop role playing feel, every time you attack or defend, you see dice rolling at the top of the screen. When you hit the button, the dice will stop, which will determine the strength of your attack, if it hits at all. The whole game feels really, really unbalanced, as there's very little actual strategy to these battles - the outcome is usually dependent on what weapons you've equipped or your luck with the dice.
At least there's a lot of ways to customize your characters. There are tons of weapons to buy, ranging from several different classes of guns, with the ability to customize almost any of them. You can also buy cyberware to enhance other abilities, or visit a shaman to power-up or buy new magic. If you find your character not doing enough to damage or taking too many hits, you can adjust their die pool to stack the odds in favor of different attributes. Unfortunately, since all of the battles are pre-determined, there's no way to gain extra cash if you need it, making it easy to get yourself stuck in a rut if you're underequipped.
Unfortunately, the biggest draw of the Mega CD Shadowrun is the story, which is going to be completely lost on anyone who doesn't speak Japanese. Most of the characteristics of the Shadowrun universe are here, like Orcs, Troll, Elves, and the like. There's a whole of dialogue, most of which you'll be clicking through if you want to get anywhere. Some chapters have branching scenarios, which is kind of cool, but just make sure to save often or you'll have to sit through the same plot scenes over and over.
There's barely any advantage for this being on the CD format. Most of the graphics are simply still pictures, and they're roughly the same level as Snatcher. The rest of the graphics look substandard even compared to cartridge games. The music is generated from the Mega Drive sound chip, and while some of the tracks sound cool, they loop too quickly, and get quite tedious. There are no voice overs, only a handful of grainy FMV scenes. Most of them take place in cyberspace, which has laughably bad computer graphics representing the innards of the Matrix. Occasionally you'll need to "hack" into computer or "fight" enemies, although this just involves picking programs from a menu.
Since Shadowrun was one of the last games released on the Mega CD, it means it's also fairly expensive, usually approaching the triple digit range. It's not worth the effort to slog through the plot if you don't understand it, as the underlying systems are too mired in games of chance to really be much fun.
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Shadowrun (Mega CD)
Shadowrun (Mega CD)
Shadowrun (Mega CD)
Shadowrun (Mega CD)
Shadowrun (Mega CD)
Shadowrun (Mega CD)
Shadowrun (Mega CD)
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