Shadowrun was an interesting title for the Super Nintendo (Sega’s version is COMPLETELY different).  Partly because it predated the “Play it Loud” campaign by a full year. This game also had quite a few mature elements to it. For starters your guy just got axed/murdered/is dead.  Shadowrun is also unique in that it was a cyber punk adventure. No, not something like, well there aren’t a lot of references on console for this genre.

There is Snatcher but that was a completely different game.  This was an action/role playing game that did its best to bring the FASA tabletop game to the Super Nintendo.  The industry gave Shadowrun rave reviews and multiple awards. Unfortunately, the fans simply did not show up to support it at retail.  That is a shame because it is truly an interesting action role playing game. Maybe this game was just too far over the heads of the average SNES gamer at the time.

Shadowrun starts you out dead

Starting out in Shadowrun you are, well for all intents and purposes, dead.  You actually wake up in the morgue and scare the morticians tasked with handling your remains.  This is a good introduction to the controls and how things work in Shadowrun. This is also probably one reason not many gamers showed up to support it. Shadowrun was quite different than the usual SNES releases.

Connecting SNES to NES

The main man behind Nightshade helped bring the atmosphere of Shadowrun to the forefront. For those that don’t know, Nightshade was also a film noire style game. It does look spooky, dirty and gritty, that is for sure.  The style, the story, the setting, it was all there but it was just not arranged quite right. Shadowrun was unable to get attention from tabletop fans or console gamers.  Had this been released on personal computers it would probably have sold like hotcakes in a lumberjack diner.

There were multiple problems behind the scenes as a new generation of game development was taking hold.  I won’t go into detail on that because I wasn’t there.  I can safely say, fans of film noir gaming should check this one out. Another title that is very film noire in style is Heavy Rain for PlayStation 3. Shadowrun is interesting but does have a learning curve that may turn most off.

Shadowrun rerelease blocked by licensing

Due to licensing issues we will probably never see a re-release of Shadowrun. Not on the Virtual Console, Steam or any other platform, at least not the SNES version.  There have been recent releases on iOS, Android and Steam though they are quite different beasts.

Shadowrun is available from these stores:

Amazon

Can’t get enough film noire? Neither can we.

Carl Williams

It is time gaming journalism takes its rightful place as proper sources and not fanboys giving free advertising. If you wish to support writers like Carl please use the links below. https://www.paypal.me/WCW https://www.patreon.com/CarlWilliams