At it's core Steamworld Dig 2 is a metroidvania. You've got upgrades, platforming and secrets. Lots of secrets. The artstyle has become a staple of the series and is visually pleasing. Personally I found the soundtrack a bit underwhelming after Steamworld Heist's amazing OST by Steam Powered Giraffe. The pacing is great throughout the whole game and while it did feel a bit too easy even with a couple difficulty settings turned on it was still fun. One major problem I have is with one optional endgame challenge that feels just too ridiculously hard. It's like biting into a rock when chewing a tasty piece of pie. Why is this here? Who thought that this is fun? The challenge is optional but is required for 100% completion and is so much harder than the rest of the game that it feels alien compared to the rest of the game. As someone who likes to be a completionist this really left a sour taste in my mouth, even if I enjoyed the rest of the game immensely.
Despite the tag, this is not a metroidvania game. Map progression is only tied to the story, and the abilities like double jump and hovering are not required to get into different areas and can be completely skipped due to the skill system.On that note; most of the skills are underwhelming and besides stat point increase seem almost useless. The worst parts of the game are boss fights that are much harder than what you've experienced up to that point. Not much to say about music. Can't say I would listen to it standalone, but it fits the game. Nice artstyle, with some room for improvement. Sometimes in cutscenes the mouths of characters would just stop moving while audio kept playing. Voice acting is amateur, but it's not too bad. Story and humour are pretty cheesy, and nothing outstanding, although it's noticeable it wasn't a healfhearted attempt. Overall it's a decent game, with weird difficulty spikes in the form of boss fights. Mission mode is a nice addition, although I haven't played much of it. I would highly reccomend to check out the Mini Ghost game included. I played it before the main game, and honestly enjoyed it through and through.
After finishing 5 missions, I have no wish to play any more of this game. So let's start with the story, in short you're a vengeful spirit summoned by another spirit of a girl whose body is guarded by the "bad guys", so go do stuff and save the world. While not the most intriguing premise, it's not a bad one. Sometimes you'll hear enemies talk about lore of the world, and that's about the only good thing I have to say. Gameplay. You have a small assortment of skills, most of which are almost useless for two reasons: 1)They require charges that you can only get from one time use shrines, of which there are usually about two per zone. 2)Most of them are kill-oriented so if you want to play full ghost, you won't have to bother with getting scrolls. The AI is just plain bad compared to a game that came out 18 years before Aragami, which to this day is still one of the best stealth games out there. Enemies will see you in the shadows even if you're crouching, which begs the question why even tell the palyer to keep to the shadows if it makes almost no difference whether you are hiding in a shadow or standing in plain view. Despite having great eyesight they have awful memory and will blame the wind or mind playing tricks after 5 seconds of searching. Level design is mediocre, most of the time you follow a linear route and there are no options for divergence or any kind of side objectives. Can't in good faith recommend this game to anyone who likes stealth games.
