Shadowrun

1001 Video Games

Shadowrun appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Genesis version

Sega sub-licenced the Shadowrun IP from Data East. Due to a number of factors, the Genesis version was completely different from Data East's SNES version.

Inspiration

Be aware that this trivia section contains spoilers!

The plot of the game is heavily based on the first Shadowrun novel by Robert N. Charrette, Never Deal with a Dragon, first published in 1990. The similarities include: * a protagonist who starts as a decker but discovers he has shaman powers and is attuned to the totem Dog. * Aneki's corporation trying to launch an AI to take over the Matrix (in the pen-and-paper Shadowrun RPG, Aneki is the CEO of a megacorporation named Renraku with similar goals.) * A dragon villain called Drake ("Mr." Drake in the novel)

It's also interesting to notice that the plot about the AI was only resolved in the third edition of the pen-and-paper game (published in 1998, several years after the SNES game).

Kitsune

One of the game's characters (in the SNES version), a charming human/fox shapeshifter girl, is called Kitsune. "Kitsune" is Japanese for "fox".

Information also contributed by Pirou Julien