To say this game has minimal plot is an understatement. There is no motivation beyond 'these dungeons are here, Sir Lootsalot wants that treasure' the bosses have no motivation for what they do or why they're even there. Link in the first Legend of Zelda on NES had more personality. That being said, the sliding block puzzles will break your brain in two. The game is short and doesn't overstay its welcome, and isn't charging you more than what you get. The graphics are pretty pixel art. There's a nice little detail that each enemy leaves a unique corpse that remains persistent until you go to a different floor. The difficulty increase is fair. The bosses aren't mindless attacking, you WILL have to learn their patterns and try every trick in your arsenal to bring them down. It's nothing groundbreaking, and isn't trying to be. It know exactly what kinda game it is, and doesn't pretend to be anything different. This is for people who want to play four classic Zelda style dungeons and then be done with it.
The gameplay is simple and straight forward. The voice acting and writing are both witty, and contain some interesting insights all around. The customizing avatar is of course what's expected this days, next. And you do get the mercy of a New Game Plus when you inevitably come to the Bad End first time around. And the precious few characters there are manage to be endearing in spite of their brief interactions. But there's a problem... spoilers. The game is so friggin' MANIPULATIVE! You are presented with some black and white things with some obviously corrupt people with no sense of empathy who's end would make the world a better place... but the game becomes increasingly blurry as anything remotely resembling right-wing politics is treated as a one-way road to the end of the world... and apparently Walt Disney would have helped established a fascist Hell if he'd lived longer (Walt was many things, but being a fascist wasn't one of them) ... And of course slaps you with the 'nothingness after death' halfway through. Oh, and there are some very obvious Terry Pratchett references, of whom I am NOT a fan of his work, but that's a minor beef compared to the rest. The left wing views grow from subtle to outright vicious by the end. I couldn't bring myself to play through the New World Plus knowing I'd have to basically parrot left wing policy... basically like how you'd admonished by one of the other characters for parroting Fate's policies.
WARNING! THIS IS GAME IS NOT DRM FREE!! YOU MUST BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET FOR THE GAME TO LAUNH! This is a severe hindrance for what is effectively an OPTIONAL FEATURE! This game is simple, direct, and the kind of game you play in little chunks by design. Making an internet connection mandatory is a brutal design flaw!
I was in love with Infectonator 2, and played through it twice. And I was eager to get more of the same here... but... the devil is in the details. While there are changes made to make the game more challenging, these changes can come across as tedious and frustrating instead. First is that you can't just happily infect tra la la as reality ensues as territories have people begin carry about pistols, then shoot guns, then machine guns, form an anti-zombie super squad, and labs pop up to form a cure, and if you leave those labs alone, you're screw, game over. So you have to rush to target THOSE lab, basically the game TELLING YOU what to infect next or else (that cure percentage will rise fast!) The addition of optional bosses is a nice touch though. That's just it, I like that they're OPTIONAL, makes them feel like a challenge rather than a chore. As is the OPTION of breeding your own zombies and unlocking more. In the previous game, I did my absolute best NEVER to use any of the lethal weapons (land minds and grenades), but here you HAVE TO use them to take care of the super soldiers who eventually turn up in every mission after a few seconds, and then restock your supply between attacks. The formula ends up being... use virus, plant jar of good where you used virus as all the armed to the teeth citizens, soldiers, and police swarm in to slaughter your zombies, get turned into zombies themselves since they apparent't can't see the goo (which make it worthless item otherwise) then plant land mines in the path of the super soldiers as they march into the screen, then hope you have enough zombies to summon to take care of the humans hiding in closets in the far corners of the map. While the previous game also get repetitive, it never felt a CHORE. Also, where before you could win the game by red zoning everything, and destroying everything was a 'extra mile' ending achievement, here it's MANDATORY! Which turns it all bland. I want my sandbox of doom back.
This game is not without flaw. You are given a huge star system to explore, and no time to explore as you are constantly saving your colonies or saving neighbor worlds from destruction, and you need your precious officers to man those ships, and you need them AT HOME too to actually upgrade equipment and clear our unexplored rooms of your space station. And the 'ground combat' aspect feels kinda underused, you'll get plenty of space battles, but not nearly as many adventures with your crew beamed down to the planet's surface. And you've got an ever mounting enemy force at your back. For the record, be polite and helpful to your intergalactic neighbors whenever possible, they MIGHT, just MIGHT return the favor... maybe. BUT! This game is INSANELY addictive! I started in the evening then played till dawn, fell asleep, woke up in the afternoon, and began playing again almost right away! There is always just ONE. MORE. MISSION. And JUST. ONE. MORE. MISSION. to complete will keep you hook to the finale. HEAL EFFECTS ARE FINITE AND YOU NEED TO RETURN TO BASE TO RESTORE THEM! So be sure to have as many as you can, as this game pulls no punches! If I have one true regret, is that I wish there were more options to resolve situations without blowing up a trio of alien starships with living crews on board and resolve things peacefully.
Is Steam World Dig 2 an improvement gameplay wise over the first game? Yes. Yes it is. There is MUCH MORE to explore, and you will be rewarded for it. More NPCs to interact with. Getting to and from the mine has been streamlined, along with some options to give yourself a bigger challenge if you want. And the humor from the first game is still here. Do we get more character interaction? Yes, yes we do. Sadly, it's in that very narrative that causes my only problems. The final twist will leave you wondering what the heck was up with the sequel hook from the first game. Some of the NPCs remarks and item description may come across as religious-phobic. And the 'character who has done everything to help you was always going to betray you' cliche that is all the rage in video game and major name animated moive rears its ugly head. But if you're one of those people who doesn't give a darn about the narrative, or the characters, or about any message that may or may not intended or not by the game designers, then you WILL enjoy this game for the addictive but immersive gameplay. And game play is something SteamWorld Dig 2 excels at. You will NOT be able to put down this game! 'Just a little bit further' will be on your mind. Just a little bit more to see what comes next.
The game play is what others say is, simple and repetitive, and that isn't always a bad thing, some of us WANT a simple engine with simple gameplay, we're given a concert goal (get to the bottom of the hotel) with bits of narrative and mystery thrown in... but... The game has three endings, one is confusing and befuddling, another is scary and horrible implications, but at least it's a conclusion, the 'True ending' that requires you to look up a password on-line in real life ... turns the experience into a grand mockery of your spent time and energy, and makes all the detective work and narrative stitching together you've been doing a joke.
Okay, this is a grinding game, and doesn't pretend to be anything else, you need to grind for your three stats as they lessen each day you don't work on them (like in real life) and you need to balance your training with work and sleeping (like in real life). And you won't get far if you try to eat your cake and have it too. The game is not without a few tiny bugs here and there, but thankfully nothing that make it unplayable or is too distracting. The game's pixel art is beautiful. It knows who its audience is and has some nice parody moments. And the game's plot twists are strange, but aren't self contradicting. This game takes a good WHILE to beat! ... And that's the problem. After hours and hours and hours of grinding, building up your character, after through so many plot twists and surprises... being knocked down and grinding again and refusing to give up... what you think is the penultimate boss turns out to be the final boss, and after one final classic twist with the main villain... that's it. The entire story, the ENTIRE GAME, ends on that plot twist. It just goes straight to the credits. And that's it. That by itself would be forgivable since it ends with 'to be continued'. EXCEPT!!!... All that hard work you put into your character? ... Goodbye. Poof. That's it. You CAN'T play with your character AFTER the final boss! AGAIN, this wouldn't be TOO BAD, except you AUTOMATICALLY face the final boss as soon as you meet the criteria instead of being asked 'are you ready?' Basically, this game is about hard work and the mindless routine we must endure for success... but the ends on a sudden twist that explains the opening, and we aren't even allowed to play our character afterwards. If you open up your save file, the characters just stand there doing nothing and not responding to the controls. So yeah, long hard adventure, cheap ending.
