Shadowrun (Super Nintendo Entertainment System Video Game) - Reception

Reception

The game was met with a positive critical reception and good reviews. Shadowrun was given a number of awards from various publications, including the title of the Best RPG of the Year by VideoGames, Electronic Games and Game Informer, and was a runner-up for it in GamePro. The game was given the second place Nintendo Power Award in the category "Most Innovative (Super NES)" (it was also nominated in the category "For Challenge"), Nintendo Power describing it as "one of the best sci-fi games ever". However, the game sold poorly, partly because of low shipping numbers.

Shadowrun has been positively recounted in many restrospective lists and articles. It was listed it as the 34th best SNES game by Super Play in 1996, as well as the 48th best game on any Nintendo platform by Nintendo Power in 1997. Ranking it as the 77th top SNES game in 2011, IGN commented that while Shadowrun "didn't quite get away from all the common RPG stereotypes" it was still "a milestone for the introduction of film noir style into the gaming industry, though, so we can forgive the game for only being 90% groundbreaking." The game was also cited as an important milestone in the use of film noir style in video games by Game Informer, according to which "Shadowrun's moody music and dark streets set the somber tone for this RPG's prying conversations and self-reflective narrative." The magazine also ranked Shadowrun as 125th place on the list of best video games of all time in 2009. IGN Australia listed Shadowrun among their favourite Australian video games in 2010, writing it was "without question, one of the best underexposed classics of the SNES era" because it presented players with "a mature narrative, strong characters and a dystopian backdrop" blended with traditional RPG elements in an "irresistible" way. That same year, 1UP.com included Shadowrun on the list of 15 games "ahead of their time" for its use of a keyword dialogue system, common to PC games but foreign to console games of the time.

In 2002, GameSpot included it on the list of video games that should be remade and compared this "groundbreaking RPG" that was "truly ahead of its time" to more recent Planescape: Torment. A remake of the game was also requested by Sam Bandah of X360, who called it a "rather excellent", "little-known classic" and "a cyberpunk RPG classic begging to return", and stated: "Shadowrun would be a perfect game to remake as a Mass Effect-style RPG – perhaps with the conversation system of the sadly much-maligned Alpha Protocol." In 2012, GamesRadar ranked this "one incredibly unique, noir-style story" as the third top "cult-classic franchise" that should be rebooted similar to how X-COM was.