In the fourteen years that Image & Form, now Thunderful Development, have been creating the SteamWorld universe of games, they have experimented in a litany of different genres. Now, after almost nine years since the release of the first game, the developers are returning one of their earliest genre adventures with SteamWorld Heist II. The reason? The developers wanted to go back and expand on ideas that they had almost a decade ago, and so, let’s see what they’ve got.
SteamWorld Heist II follows the Steambot Captain Quincy Leeway as he forms as crew to gain fame outside of being the son of a great hero and to solve the mystery of who or what is tainting the water supply that the Steambots need to function. While the story revolves around Captain Leeway, you recruit up to ten new characters to join his crew and join along in the adventure. Unfortunately, the crew members don’t add much storywise nor are they the most fleshed out characters, and you can forego even recruiting the vast majority of them. This does put a lot of the onus of carrying the story in Leeway’s arms, well arm, and luckily the game succeeds on that front with how he likeable he is, how he reacts to trying to break out of his mother’s shadow, and how the characters around him interact and start to gain respect and admiration for him as the game progresses.
My favorite thing about SteamWorld Heist II is the visuals and style the game has. Characters have so much detail to them that it kept drawing my eye to their designs each time I met someone new. The environments pop or fade with color visually depending on where you are on the map or within the level. Then, there’s the music. While exploring the overworld or doing missions your treated to the game’s soundtrack, when you enter a bar (the game’s version of safe houses), you are treated to some delightful original songs that I would sometimes just leave the game running to listen to while I did other things.
Where SteamWorld Heist II really shines is the combat. The game is a 2D turn based tactics game which is a genre that is seldom explore. Thus, the game really stands out from your typical tactical strategy game affair. Combat sees you using members of your crew to tackle different missions with a goal of taking out a boss or collecting loot. Missions involve turn based strategy combat where you move your characters to different positions as you go through a level to deal and avoid damage from enemies. Each mission will have a certain maximum number of crew members you can bring, so you always need to decide which ones will be best for the given mission. Crew members also can’t be used in consecutive missions as they’ll need to rest until the next day after finishing one, so you’ll need to divvy up which missions you take which members into. The game also lets you fully control how difficult missions are as there five difficulty settings you can choose from at the start of each mission or you can choose a custom difficulty and control individual mission settings to mix things up exactly as you want.
The crew each are a member of one of the game’s six classes which focus on a different type of combat. Snipers, which use snipers of course, are focused on long ranged combat. Flankers, which use shotguns, are more based on quickly getting around the level with enhanced movement ability. Brawlers are tanky and get up close and personal with hammers. Boomers use explosives and are good at taking out groups of enemies and impacting the environment of levels. Engineers use pistols and are more support based and can heal the crew or build cover. Then, Reapers use SMGs and are more all out attackers than any other class. Each class has abilities you can unlock for a variety of different effects and boosts such as dealing more damage or an extra attack. Classes are tied to the weapons you equip to the crewmates, so you can switch which class each character is at any time outside of a mission or at the start of a mission.
Outside of main combat in missions, you’ll be traversing the overworld in your ship and this section is the only time where there is real time combat as you can engage in naval battles against enemy ships when you’re spotted. Your ship can be equipped with a few different weapon types such as machine guns, torpedoes, or lasers to cut through enemies. The ship can also be upgraded as the game progress to have a shield, booster, or the ability to dive underwater to make traversal and ship combat more engaging.
SteamWorld Heist II is a pleasant return to one of the developer’s early entries in the SteamWorld universe. It is great to see what they were capable of doing now and expand on ideas nearly a decade ago. While the story may not be the strongest or most original concept, the combat keeps you thinking and drawing you in the entire time and the visuals and style are top notch. In a genre that’s not often explored, Thunderful has made a game that’ll have you craving for more of these types of game.
Score: 8 out of 10
Reviewed on PC