Fun in short bursts, but if you're playing by yourself, it gets old quickly. Like others here, your success will depend upon who you're playing as. Some characters are melee only which can make boss fights far more difficult. You need to learn how to play with a variety of different loadouts because every time you rescue someone you will be playing as someone else. Frankly, a lot of the difficulty of the game felt like it came from cheap shots and after a you've done it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, the charm of the game wears off and you're just asking yourself why you're bothering.
I don't have any real complaints about the game, I just wanted an experience closer to the original Steamworld games. Perhaps if there were a way to go into a level knowing where enemies were placed, the stragic element of the game would be more successful and it wouldn't be so frustrating. Didn't feel like grinding for equipment -- and didn't understand that not every character could use the equipment I purchased, which added an extra layer of frustration. Nothing like grinding to buy that sweet weapon to help you with the next level only to discover none of your characters can use it! Story wasn't compelling as it was in the first two games but had I played longer I might have discovered something interesting later on.
I love platforming and environmental puzzles so I figured I would love this game. The atmosphere reminds me of Inside or Limbo, both of which I loved. But this game is SO frustrating to play. Like others have said, it's hard to know what elements you can interact with. There's a lack of consistency in this regard as well, since there are some platforms the game allows you to interact with and others it doesn't even when they look the same. The controls are also frustrating. Figuring out what to do isn't a challenge, but figuring out how to make your character do them IS. Every time I play this game, I quit in frustration. What a waste.
Things I liked: Combat system let me play it like a CRPG. The character's abilities have a crazy amount of flexibility: you can use them as active abilities, passive abilities, or upgrades for active abilities. You have a lot of choice for how to spec your character's combat abilities. Things I didn't like: I had no reason to care about the story or the characters. I had no sense of the world nor of the stakes. I spent most of my play-time trying to figure out whether anyone was actually dead. While I loved the combat system, I didn't enjoy the game-play loop very much and there wasn't enough lore, characters, or story to keep me interested. I realized as I played that I wasn't really enjoying what I was doing.
From the first moment I started playing, it was just so fun to play. Even when the game become incredibly challenging for me (you may not find it as difficult but I found some of the rooms very very difficult) I wanted to keep playing. About 40% of my way through the game I thought it was finished -- then it added a new mechanic and suddenly there was so much more to do. Then it added something else and there was more to do. Every time something new was added the game was enriched -- rather than feeling like filler to pad the gameplay, it just made it a more profound experience.
