[1] I tend to agree.
Although it looks prettier, the mechanics are fundamentally different.
[2] It does impel the player to invest a lot of cognitive resources into the game, though! ;P The countdown timer (thus, RTS and not TBS) makes the minigame harder imbueing it with tension it would otherwise lack.
That said, it also changes the game.
Some people have limitations that are contra-indicated to twitch gaming (e.g., disabled, frail, injured and ill would all find RTS inherently more difficult than TBS). Inserting (set-piece) RTS into an ostensibly TBS milieu could be a game-ending decision.
I can see what the HBS has done, and I understand the choices.
Part of the aesthetic, methinks, is the frenetic setting of the virtual milieu—a tachyphrenic cyberscape. I get that.
But I would like to see the description on the game page warn potential buyers that this TBS game has a chunk of RTS on the critical path.
Quick reflexes are a barrier for a significant fraction of people, hence also of the gaming community (because, ultimately, games must be trying to reach as many as possible).
Revamped Matrix art and gameplay! is obfuscated MarketingSpeak.
Gripping, Turn-Based Tactical Combat: When you’re running the shadows, every turn matters. Choose your actions wisely … either means that "every turn" doesn't matter in the matrix sections (because failure-triggered interdiction by a matrix defence systems is easier than stealthy espionage), or it just never occurred to them that people choose different game modes sometimes for compelling reasons.
[3] One advantage to the new combat system is that every battle in the matrix allows the user to deploy (another copy) of their software, so programs can be respawned. In the earlier games once a program was spawned it existed until it was destroyed.
[4] Yeah, the irony of this new design.
I agree it's crying out for a puzzle to solve, and your methodology (higher skill grants easier solution) & examples are solid.
Mathematics would work; it utilizes a different cognitive schema than (left-hemisphere) language and (right-hemisphere) hand-eye coördination.
I don't dislike the memory concept per se, but I would eliminate the timer (make the memory recall more difficult, to balance it, as required).
Like Mahjong itself, for instance, where there are many similar pictograms; the cool mental adaptation of a non-Chinese reader is blunt image-matching, i.e., without any inkling of the (semantic) value correlate of the (semeiotic) images.
Riddles are always good, but difficult to write effectively. Basically they are cryptic-clue poetry, and poetry is non-trivial to write.
[5] I agree.
In HongKong, the new ability to commence turn-based interaction with the scenario is a great improvement (if imperfectly implemented). I agree that it should have been impelemented in the matrix as well.
In DragonFall, the stealthy approach to, say, the Aztechnology building required a "switch" (team members had to don disguises) before for the encounter with the watchman. Secondly, Blitz had the security codes for his clandestine entry into the bank, obviating any need for conflict (until the vault is breached much later).
Similarly, anyone who has dealt with (contemporary) cyberspace will know that, for success, it is better to have all your tools prior to entering.
It's no different to, say, the use of an etiquette in a conversation.
It may seem too pedestrian to twitch-gamers, but there is certain satisfaction when a plan which anticipates security measures takes care of them as they occur, like a back-row piece eliminating the attacker after an aggressive play in chess.


Another >minor< point is that—unlike DragonFall—when changing resolutions from 9:16 to 3:4 ratios the screen retains the vertical residues of the last image either side of the new 3:4 projection. (Previously, the 3:4 image was stretched across the 9:16 display.) A blank of the areas after the resolution change would fix this.

I think the only thing they needed to do to improve the Matrix gameplay from Dragonfall was add more unique/boss monsters into it. For example, when I played all the way through Dragonfall, I think I only encountered an enemy decker inside the Matrix one single time. And I was especially expecting to fight a vicious gigantic beast in the Matrix as the avatar of the APEX AI, since that seemed to be what the dialogues strongly implied was coming...but sadly no such thing was included, and the APEX did not even have any kind of avatar in the Matrix IIRC. I felt very unfulfilled by its absence.

On a different note, I've now beaten all of Hong Kong and its bonus campaign too.

Dragonfall was better in many ways IMO. Dragonfall's story was at least interesting, and I cared about avenging my friend as a motivation to keep making progress through the campaign.

On the other hand, with Hong Kong, I didn't care at all about the bad dreams/bad qi/main storyline. I hated how the NPCs kept harping on about bad dreams over and over and over and over and over! For those reasons, instead of wanting the story to progress, I longed to experience side missions that completely ignored those boring main themes.

I also didn't like how I didn't receive any karma or rewards for helping the Orc family who owns the club. I spent tons of time talking to each one of them and guiding them through all their problems, and I got nothing in return.

I did find Hong Kong's Whampoan/Gaichu mission to be exceptionally well-done.

But nothing tops the Cyberzombie mission from Dragonfall. That guy is my favorite character! I love him so much! When I was playing the submarine mission in Hong Kong, I expected to see a new variation on the Cyberzombie...but no, all I got was the same run-of-the-mill generic humanoids as in the rest of the game...even though the game kept hyping up the NPCs in that area as mysterious dangerous forbidden cyborg experiments. I felt very deflated when it never delivered on that hype.

I found the shaman class in both games to be very gimped and almost useless. I left the shamans at home every time, except when it was mandatory to take one for story reasons. Maybe I don't understand those classes properly (I never played my main character as one).

I think in this thread is where I recall other posters saying they hate Duncan...I do too. I really can't stand that guy. He's so annoying. He never felt like my brother, either. He just felt like a random pest who I have no connection with. Dragonfall did a much better job of making me believe that I had a real relationship with the other character who I was avenging.

Same thing with my father in Hong Kong. He didn't feel like he was ever my character's father. To me, he just felt like another random ally.

One thing I did like more about Hong Kong than Dragonfall was that Dragonfall shamed me for choosing the "bad" ending, and made me feel like it was the "wrong" choice and I should have been smart/good instead and chose the "good ending." Hong Kong did not do that to me, except insomuch as Duncan had a hissy fit...which was very annoying, but as mentioned, that's not unusual for him.

TL;DR
keep the TBS, just make the puzzles more complex.

To clarify my matrix mini-game critique, instead of a real-time milieu (where reflexes are significant), I would prefer a continuation of the turn-based mechanic. Sure, the matrix is a super-fast environment, when compared to meatspace, but that doesn't require the abandonment of TBS to imply and implement it.

For example, instead of a timer counting down to failure for the hacking process the turn-based alternative would be to have a longer string of pictograms to choose. (Making this interesting is the challenge.) As has been pointed out* the interface isn't designed for twitch gaming.
A linear relationship between the difficulty of node and the number of mahjong tiles (or whatever) is a simple mechanic to use. The monochrome conceit of the matrix is a nice theme but variegation would create additional difficulties (a red widget is different to a blue one, for instance). Suprasegmental syntax would also add complexity; if a puzzle required some type of "passphrase" that consisted of a bunch of (noun) widgets with a verb, the permutations create a useful mechanism. (Just like the puzzle to extract the character's father from the memory machine, only with graphics. :)



* vide supra:

I like Dragonfall the best by far. Best story, best balance of game features, most engaging characters. Replayed DF at least five times from begining to end, put hundreds more hours into community mods for DF. It was great before they remastered it and only made it better afterwards. The best implementation of the matrix in the series can be found in mods for DF but even in the vanilla game it is just fine. 5/5

The first release in the series, Shadowrun Returns (Dead Man's Switch) was very good overall, second best in my opinion. There were some minor flaws and areas of weakness but these did not detract much at all from the fun. Played through several times. 4/5

The third release Hong Kong, wasn't bad but they took some risks and these were hit and miss. The most serious flaw was the new matrix system which tried some new things but was less fun and less balanced and broke with the turn based nature of the rest of the game. Some of the story was interesting, some was not. Some flavor felt authentic, some felt cheesy. Some of the written story panels were needlessly long winded while not being engaging to read and this was a change from the other two where there was never an urge to skip parts of the story. Still a pretty good game overall but the flaws are irritating enough that I only played it through twice - once on release and once after a lot of patches. 3/5

Purely in terms of story/character-wise etc (the only reason i actually play games)

1)Shadowrun Returns

2)Shadowrun Hong-Kong

3)Shadowrun Dragonfall

I've only just got up to the second mission in Dragonfall so far but have completed the rest of the official Shadowrun games and one thing that stuck out for me in SRHK as too good was the reloader cyber arm. Maybe it was just that my character used assault rifles autofiring regularly or the Panther heavy rifle but it basically equated to me having an additional action point every couple of turns, two if using the Panther.

The SRR matrix wasn't much more than a slightly different tactical combat sequence with it's own tileset. The SRHK matrix however asked me to figure out a way through watcher IC without being detected, which was quite fun, if not platformery, only because I have patience and could save my game and fail as many times as I liked though.

Th matrix is best in Hong Kong, wish it was the same in the previous two games.

Well, if you created the backstory of a romance with Monika, then there would need to be a reason that your PC was not with her in Berlin (until the story begins). But, if you were both Deckers, then the limited usefulness of doubled-up roles would explain this, since there is almost no reason to have two deckers (unless you want a back-up for the critical path, say).

Secondly, if you are attracted to cybernetics (generally) and our contemporaneous equivalents — computers — then you would naturally be drawn to play a nerd in the game, and choose to play a decker (as Blitz notes in the preliminary endgame, before deckers there were hackers). Certainly less so nowadays but, originally, gamers were computer nerds by default, and would play in character (or alternatively against type, as a samurai, or as a "special" magical shaman or mage).

Hence, there is a draw towards the decker profession. I felt it, and my first character was a decker. As you say, there is no *need* to play a decker, but there is an undercurrent of attraction.