TL;DR – SteamWorld: Heist is a charming little turn based strategy game, that doesn’t do many things that are new but does execute everything pretty well. It’s a small scale tactical game where you take between 1 and 4 of your crew, which maxes out at 9 pre-baked characters, through a variety of modestly sized combat arenas. The difficulty curve is generally well optimised, although I must confess that there were one or two sudden spikes that seemed to have nothing to do with the boss battles. The game takes it’s steampunk theme straight from it’s predecessor in the form of SteamWorld: Dig and while the soundtrack and OST are sparing, they did get a few faux-retro sounding tracks to commemorate the boss fights. The game has around a dozen levels per area and three areas in total, with an imitation of the transatlantic accent being used by the narrator of our plucky band of good hearted pirates. Overall it’s an enjoyable game, clocking in around 10 hours before you get offered the chance to do it all again! in NG+ which only carries over unlocked characters and… hats. Really it’s just an excuse to play through it again on a higher difficulty.
Over the past week my fat arse has been struggling with a pretty nasty cold and so I’ve been keeping it relatively light on the GAMING front. In spite of this I sat through the entirety of SteamWorld: Heist as I keep occasionally hearing good things about it, and thought it was finally time to see if this was actually a good game or just babbies first TBS. Fortunately it’s the former and SteamWorld: Heist has a solid amount of stages which it fills with a varied assortment of enemies, across the game’s three separate acts. Before diving fully into the game’s mechanics though, there are a few things to note. Firstly your crew members can never permanently die, although if they die on a mission they get 0 XP from it while if everyone dies you lose a big chunk of your existing currency (H20 in the case of this game). Secondly these crew members are pre-baked from an existing roster of 9 potential characters split across a handful of classes, each of which can only utilise certain weapons which are again split into multiple types. Finally missions give you a certain amount of stars, with stars being lost for having team mates die or failing to collect the (occasionally hidden) “epic loot” within a stage, which is important because at certain parts of the game there’s a barrier that only goes away once a certain amount of stars have been collected within that act. With that basic housekeeping out of the way, I’m happy to report that the characters are all generally pretty powerful and that you’ll be able to get through the game with whichever ones you pick, although you’d be remiss to sleep on Sally. You see while every other class can only fire once per turn, Sally can fire again if she gets the killing blow on an enemy. This doesn’t sound massively overpowered, but when you consider that you’ll only have 4 squad-mates available on a mission at most adding an extra shot per round really begins to add up. The other classes are still cool too, but her bounty hunter class is the closest the game comes to having an “essential” choice.
Regardless of which character(s) you pick to take on your missions, they all have 10 levels and have 4 inventory slots that can be filled with 1 weapon and then 3 utility items. Annoying enough you have an extremely limited inventory space and items which are equipped still count towards it, so you’ll often by spending your hard earned err… water on inventory storage upgrades solely so that you can have the pre-requisite 16 items for those 4 character missions. Additionally weapon selling can only be done either at the end of each mission (when you get new weapons/items) or from the pause screen for some weird reason. Which means you can be in a store, see an item that sounds good, then have to go fiddle with your inventory for a minute before you’re able to buy the item. It’s not a huge annoyance, but a weird design choice and one that means you’ll constantly be faffing with your inventory. Especially as you keep gaining items, many of which are duplicates. Oh and did I mention that the game only marks equipped items if they’re currently equipped? So if you do some smaller missions then item’s stop being marked as equipped, especially if you’re switching characters (lest you end up with 3 at max level and 3 at low levels). Fortunately the levelling system doesn’t make huge changes, but grinding up the lower squad mates can be a bit of a chore because of this system. Inventory is arguably the largest factor in an individual squad mates effectiveness, as outside of some HP/movement increases all that your levelling up does is increase or unlock their class abilities. These abilities are powerful, but generally new squad mates start with them unlocked anyway. Constantly cycling out older weapons is by far one of the most important parts of the game, as new enemy types are constantly introduced and they generally continue to gain more and more and more HP.
Speaking of enemies, the game has a surprisingly large variety considering that the game only has around 45ish stages to play through. The main reason for the divergence in enemy types is that each act introduces a whole new faction of baddies, each of which has it’s own unique enemies. While each faction have significant overlap, the way that they operate is still pretty different and the way that the game leans into it’s level design emphasises this. Initially you’re facing scrapper bots which don’t have too many gimmicks, although they still have snipers that rarely move, shielded enemies that can only be damaged from behind and low health melee bots that try to rush you. The latter diesel-bots have standard enemies with partial shields, alongside a “goop” mechanic that a synchronises with bullets and explosive damage to cover swathes of the map in potentially flammable (and highly damaging) material. Finally the Vectrons make almost excessive uses of shields, which require you to aggressively focus your fire lest you be unable to take them down. They also have laser weapons that take a turn to charge and fire at a designated area, but can shoot through cover making them a menace. Plus their basic infantry can teleport for free at the end of their turn, making them a pain to pin down in one place. As a consequence of the myriad foes arranged against you, the game does a good job of feeling fresh and rarely if ever feels stale. Especially as despite each level being semi-procedurally generated, the different objectives and the inclusion of generators that must be smashed and alarms that continually spawn in tougher and tougher enemies keep the pace up. This pacing is then neatly tied into a risk reward system, as shooting enemies doesn’t give you any bonuses such as XP and instead you need to gather up loot that is spread across the stages seemingly at random. As such it’s common to have to choose between running through a stage to keep reinforcements off your back versus aiming for the maximum reward, or to decide whether to finish off an enemy or grab what could be a useful upgrade. It’s a good system that keeps each stage fresh, especially as higher rankings require you to gather the pre-placed “epic loot” that often requires you to go out of your comfort zone.
The combat is therefore generally pretty fun and while the game does have a slight habit of spiralling out of control, it’s rarely the game’s fault and more often caused by your greed. You see if you lose a squad mate you’re losing one hit per turn (and remember, almost every character can only fire once per turn) and the ability to flank certain enemies, which makes the remaining combat encounters harder, which then gets doubly dangerous when enemies are spawning in due to an alarm being triggered. Losing a squad member due to poor positioning is often the difference between a mission being easy and exceedingly difficult. One mechanic the game has that keeps the game tense is that each shot “sways” slightly while you’re aiming, kinda like Valkyria Chronicles if you’ve ever played that game. What it means in real terms is that unless you’re using a grenade or a sharpshooter weapon (the type that your starting character wields) then you might miss a shot slightly. Over the course of the game you’ll gradually get adept at this mechanic and can even use it to bounce ricochet shots around to hit enemies in creative ways, but it can also mean that you just whiff a shot entirely. In a game where you often have a timer counting down to dump more enemies on you and in which you can only fire a limited number of shots a turn, this mechanic adds some much needed stress to the game. Even if I’ll be the first to admit that it can be exceedingly frustrating. Fortunately you only lose your currency when you fail a mission and all missions can be replayed infinitely, so it’s only a light penalty. This also means that you can leave a mission with a low ranking, then go back to replay it later once you’ve levelled up your team and gained new equipment. So the difficulty is rarely overwhelming, although it can creep back in no matter how well you’re doing.
Outside of these missions there isn’t really anything to be found in the game, for better or for worse. While there is a New Game+ mode, it doesn’t carry much over to your second run outside of letting you start with all the characters you previously unlocked. Instead the real “side game” of SteamWorld: Heist is collecting hats, of all things. These hats don’t do anything, but the game has invested a weird amount of time into having a variety of hats, giving them to enemies, letting you loot them and even simulating the feeling of having your hat shot-off during a tense firefight. Considering that most of the in-game stores are kinda useless and that you’ll constantly be cycling through your inventory anyway, these hats constitute the majority of your spending throughout the course of your playthrough. The only other thing to do would be to listen to the robotic band that can be found in each bar, which plays through a handful of tracks that are part of the game’s faux-retro theme. As SteamWorld: Heist is embracing the steampunk, aesthetic the music is a mix of western themes with some light swing-band vibes, although I’ll confess that I’m not an expert in this sub-genre by any means. Generally the game is sparing with it’s musical theme and instead you get some standard background ambiance during engagements, although after defeating each boss you do get a specific track from the OST that fits the game’s theme. SteamWorld: Heist also features an announcer who narrates over brief cutscenes between each of the game’s acts, in a faux trans-Atlantic accent. These cutscenes are one of the major methods the game uses to give you it’s modest story, alongside some brief chatter between characters who all make robotic sounds instead of actually talking to you. The story is minimal but the narrator helps to infuse the game with some personality and without him the game might feel a little bland. It’s nothing amazing, but it helps to make the game standout, much like it’s competent but charming art style which nicely distinguishes the various areas and zones by imbuing each of the factions with their own feeling.
In summary then, SteamWorld: Heist is a competent TBS with minimal story telling or side content in favour of focusing on it’s missions and combat. These encounters do a good job of balancing risk and reward, which encouraging the player to go fast from mission to mission. The shot sway in SteamWorld: Heist can be annoying, but it does ensure that the game remains challenging and generally the game is pretty flexible with the characters and load-outs you use while not being excessively challenging. So SteamWorld: Heist is a pretty solid game with a nice soundtrack and one or two things that help it standout from the pack. Not the sort of game I’d consider a must-play, but as it’s on pretty much every system (PC/Playstation/Nintendo/Xbawx) for a reasonably low price I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a TBS game. It’s an especially good fit for handheld systems, or for players who like to play a game while listening to a podcast.
