The first game was a great tactical, side-scrolling RPG. Everything about it made me want to keep playing and not put it down. This game, however, despite sharing the same underlying mechanics, made me want to uninstall it within a couple of hours. The graphics look a lot nicer, I'll give it that. But the gameplay and world map traversal just felt like a boring chore to keep rehashing. I'll recommend the first installment any day of the week, though.
I quite enjoyed Steamworld Heist 1 back then, so I were stoked to play the sequel.
And what does the sequel deliver? More of the same nice side-on tactics turn based gameplay.
Taking a leaf from the modern X-Com, you guide your squad through various encounters with 2-action point turns. Inspired by the likes of Future Tactics and Valkyria Chronicles, whether you actually hit something is based on how well you yourself do at aiming.
So far, so great. That goes for both games.
Where my experience with the sequel feels like a slight letdown is the new overworld map. It's nice they try to include new gameplay with a sub and naval battles, but it makes re-visiting levels and keeping track of where there are levels more time consuming.
Furthermore, when the levels start filling up with enemies, it quickly becomes tedious to wait for all of them, or skip their move/action one at a time. A "2x/3x" speed option for when you're not really too interested in their turn would have been preferred over the rapid repeated hitting of the C key.
Gameplay wise, this is still a good, unique and fun turn based tactics game which is revised from the first entry. There's just a bit too much tedium and too little actually changed to make this a clear recommendation over the former game.
This game feels like an evolution of the first game. However, it spread it in every direction so at times it feels a lot less focused.
On the positive side there is the combat. It is still so much fun. I also felt like developing the characters with classes felt very satisfying.Mixing different classes is just plain fun.
There is one thing that has been expanded but that I don't care about. And that is the open world exploration. It is serviceable but I think the game would be better without it. But that is just an opinion.
Sadly there are also a few things that I really do not like:
- The game is way too long. Cutting about a third would have saved the game from feeling like a chore.
- I really disliked the last world. It looks so bleak and is difficult to navigate at times. Mission difficulty varies a lot. It does not really feel as if the developers had any ideas left and resorted to spawning more enemies
- I would really like to change the zoom level. In my opinion it's too close.
- Why does the game insist on moving the viewport after each shot? This makes targeting follow up shots difficult
- If you care about a good story skip this game. It is there but that's about it. I started reading everything but gave up about halfway into the game. It's boring and completely predictable.
I stopped playing about halfway through the last world. In the end it was just too much of a chore but I had lots of fun getting there.
After a day of work, when my brain is fried and I want to relax with a fun but not very demanding game, playing this is a breath of fresh air.
It does become quite repetitive at some point, but it's also not long enough to overstay its welcome.
Had a great experience playing it with a controller (I did not try mouse and keyboard, so can't say if it's better or worse)
