To note, a review copy was provided for review by the game’s publisher Thunderful Publishing.

A steamy Pokemon and Darkest Dungeon mash up?

Many people will compare Steamworld Quest (SQ) to Slay the Spire. Both have a foundation on card based combat, however both are different in significant ways.

Slay the Spire is based on a roguelike loop. Slowly but steadily building your deck to defeat enemies and bosses over numerous runs. Whereas I like to think of SQ as a mix of Pokemon and Darkest Dungeon, with an interesting, though cliched story.

What a twist!

The story plays out as a history book and starts with two of our plucky protagonists out on a quest to find a Peppermint Puffer- a magical mushroom. Want-to-be hero Armilly (Milly) hopes finding the mushroom will earn her a place in the Heroes Guild- a pretentious club where only the elite are allowed to enter.

Her companion Copernica (Coco), is a budding alchemist. Coco wants to ‘deploy knowledge practically, for the good of the many’, by applying her skills out in the field. Though her ideals are naive, the pair find the Puffer and head back to town.

They return to find the town destroyed by the Void Army. Luckily, their brick wall sized friend Galleo survives the attack and joins them in their attempt to free the captured Heroes Guild. The hope being, that the legendary heroes will fight back against the evil army and save the day.

Here is where the story starts to get jumbled. After finding some new allies and running around from a dungeon, to a college and to an abandoned city, we discover what the real meat behind the plot of the story is.

I don’t what to say too much as there’s a good twist towards the end of the game. However, throughout the majority of the story I was questioning why the characters were taking the actions they were taking. Plus, during the second act, I couldn’t remember why I was in the college, I was too focused on the game’s gameplay.

Knowing your Combos, from your Tag-Teams and Cogs

To put it in the most simplest manner, SQ is a turned based RPG. Though it does include cards, the cards are just used as a means to deliver the actions of the characters. There’s no discard, reshuffling or drawing extra cards (that I’ve found) cards in the game. That’s why it reminds me more of Darkest Dungeon or Pokemon.

Each character can have an active deck of 8 cards in a battle. Cards are split into three categories: an Upgrade, Strike or Skill Card. Upgrade is a buff and Strike is physical attack. What’s important though is that these cards give you a Cog every time you play one. Cogs are this game’s version of Mana.

You need Cogs to play your Skill Cards, which have a cost associated with them between 1-4 Cogs. There are some exceptions to this rule. For example, Galleo’s ‘Guillotine Fist’ stacks damage depending how many Cogs you have stored. Therefore, if you have ten Cogs sat waiting for you, the damage of ‘Guillotine Fist’ will be 40% higher for each Cog you have saved.

During combat the player can play three cards in their turn. However, if you play three cards from the same character (let’s say Milly), it will cause a combo attack to occur. This means Milly gets to play a fourth card that is linked to her weapon. For me, I always used ‘Lacerate’ because it does damage to an enemy and inflicts bleed.

As well as bleed, other staples of RPG’s are included within SQ too. There’s status effects such as poison, burn and confusion. But what’s way cooler I think, is that there’s an elemental damage aspect to the game too.

Therefore, fire enemies are weak to water, and water enemies are weak to electric (you can see why I liken the game to Pokemon). Much like the game’s combat system, this weakness system is very simple and obvious. Nevertheless, it’s a great addition to the game that you can utilise in difficult situations.



My decks at the end of the game



Tag-Team cards can also play a big part of getting you out of sticky situations. If you’re more into the nitty-gritty of deck building and min-maxing your set up, these cards make the gameplay much more interesting. Tag-team cards are more effective if they are played after a specific character shown on the card.

Again, using Galleo as an example, his Gigaton Punch does 100% more strength damage if it’s used after one of Milly’s moves. Though I did’t use the Tag-Team cards that often in the game, I think they are a great addition to it. It forces you to switch up your team because the cards are specific to two characters.

It gives depth to this otherwise straight forward card game, which I think more serious players are going to enjoy. I’m sure there’s a perfect build within the game that creates some sort of loop of Tag-Team cards to do a steamboat load of damage!

A whole new but familiar world

As you’d imagine from an Image & Form game, the world of SQ is stunning and full of history and lore to uncover. However, what’s surprising is that there is no verticality to the world. It’s played as a 2D side scrolling dungeon crawler, where you move from room-to-room. Just imagine a Steamworld Darkest Dungeon.

I was surprised at this as Image & Form are known for their games having some platform elements to them. Personally, I think it’s part of what a ‘Steamworld’ game is, and think it could have worked well in SQ. However, I respect the devs choice for making the game more of a traditional dungeon crawler.

There are some very light puzzles to solve in the world. Most of which are just linked to exploring and finding icons that you need to unlock doors- or pulling levers.

Exploring is one of my favourite things to do in the game. It’s by far the best way to find new cards that are scattered around the map like rust on an old steambots backside. In addition, it’s helpful too, that each chapter of the game has a completion percentage on it. Perfect for completionists out there because you can see what you’ve missed.

Characters in the world are likeable but I did find most of them forgettable-especially when you compare them to Dot and Rusty from the other Steamworld games.

All of the characters fall into a tropes, which is fine, but I think it makes them extremely predictable.

Armilly is the wide-eyed optimist, seeing the bright side of everything and offering most of the game’s humour. She’s foolhardy and doesn’t think before she acts, so is therefore the game’s Knight.

Copernica is her more reserved and headstrong friend, guiding Armilly through the story and preventing her from getting into too much trouble. An alchemist, Coco believes in science and reason and is therefore the game’s Wizard.

Galleo is the unwilling but always there for you friend. He complains throughout the entire game about not being home in his Mum’s basement, but whom you know would rather be nowhere else in the world other than with his friend. He’s a big boy and always supports his friends, so is therefore the Healer of the game.

This trend continues into the characters you meet further into the game. I won’t say who they are but you find the ‘wise old man’ of the story next. Then the bad character, who isn’t to blame for why they’re bad.

What isn’t bad however is the designs of each of the characters and NPCs in the game. They all look fantastic. It’s impressive how well the artists at Image & Form mixed in the steambot aesthetics of the Steamworld universe into a medieval setting.

My favourite character design was Orik’s (who you’ll meet pretty early into the game) and Armilly’s. It felt like every time I looked at them I noticed something new about them. Plus, the animations in this game are stunning!

There is a way to speed up the turns in combat (by holding ZR) however, I liked playing the game at the normal speed to see each of the characters moves. The best ones were always Armilly’s fire attacks. She would power up like a Super Saiyan and light her sword on fire- it looked so cool! Furthermore, the game ran perfectly for me on the Switch in both docked and handheld mode.

Rinse and Repeat

Although I loved the combat, some of the game’s scenarios were repetitive. For three boss fights in a row you fight the same dragon with slightly different moves. I don’t mind fighting a similar boss over and over however, I wish the design of the dragon looked different than just a recolouring.

Then towards the end of the game there’s a boss rush sort of area that makes you fight all of the bosses of the game again! It kind of plays into the story, however I wish there was five new bosses instead of five bosses we’d already beat.

Especially since the main characters in the game had such unique designs, I would have been cool to have more bosses with unique designs too.

Overall, I’d say the boss battles were good. They were challenging to the point that it usually took two tries to beat them, but they were never rage inducing. That is until the final boss.

The final boss is neither challenging or well designed, sadly. It’s mostly just a grindy slog where the boss is too weak to do cause any real problem to you (if you play your cards right) but has an annoying heal ability that causes the battle to go on way too long.

It left a bitter taste in my mouth at the end of the game because it felt like the devs just made the final battle long for the sake of it being the final battle. However, the final boss looks cool and is definitely unique! If I’d been fighting another dragon again my face would have been as red as a boiling steambot!

A distinctive Steamworld game, but the best one?

Overall, I’m leaving Steamworld Quest: Hand of Gilamech feeling mixed. Steamworld Dig 2 is one of my favourite indie games, it’s one of only two games I’ve given a perfect score to on Switch Indie Fix, so SQ was one of my most anticipated games of 2019.

Only one of two games I’ve given a perfect score to!

It’s card based combat is great and is simple enough for anyone to get into, but has complexities hidden just beneath the surface for more ‘hardcore’ card game players.

However, it’s meandering story, forgettable, though cool looking characters and repetitive boss battles brings the game below the level of Steamworld Dig 2 for me.

Nevertheless, I think Image & Form should be applauded for taking the Steamworld franchise and shaking it up. Thought SQ lacks any verticality, it’s world, puns and humour make it feel distinctly like a Steamworld game.

Should I buy?

Should you buy the game? Well yes but it comes with a caveat. If you’ve played Steamworld Dig 2 and want more from the Steamworld universe then you should absolutely buy SQ.

However, if you’re totally new to the franchise I would take the $24.99 asking price and buy Steamworld Dig 2 instead. The game genres are different, but for me it is a superior game in every way.

Score

Therefore, I give Steamworld Quest: Hand of Gilamech my rating of

Are you going to be picking up Steamworld Quest? Were you a fan of Steamworld Dig 2? Let me know over on Twitter or come and join the SIF Discord server.

Like this: Like Loading...