SteamWorld Heist II

[Maryokutai]

Not sure how popular this series is over here, haven't seen it mentioned much. I never got into the Dig games, but really enjoyed Quest and Heist, and as I was looking for a nice handheld title I picked up the latter's sequel right when it came out last week.

 

For those unaware, Heist is a turn-based, squad-based tactical RPG that is rather unique, but describing it as Valkyria Chronicles in 2D probably comes rather close to how it plays. After positioning your units you can aim freely, either directly at your enemy or letting your bullets ricochet off walls and objects if the line of sight is obscured. Where VC makes up for the lack of agency while aiming by applying RNG to hit quotas, Heist makes things a bit more complicated by weapon sway during aiming or some classes and/or weapons not having aiming sights at all, so you kind of have to eyeball the direction and hope for the best.

 

Speaking of classes, this is a big new feature for this sequel. You still control predetermined characters but you can now freely switch classes around by equipping different weapons. Some skills you learn this way can then be activated in a different class by using cogs, so you can, for example, give the 'Boomer' (grenadier) the sniper's line of sight skill so that they can fire their rockets with more accuracy. There's six classes so there's decent potential for experimentation but also not an overwhelming amount that will make you lose interest in it, and with certain weapons having different properties and additional equipment there's definitely enough depth here to finetune your crew.

 

The second big new feature is that, this being a pirate themed adventure, you now travel the ocean by ship instead of just picking missions from an overworld. And this isn't just for show, as the ship can also be equipped with weapons and will be pulled into naval battles with other vessels. It's all very streamlined – you only have to get in range and in position and you will fire automatically whatever weapon is equipped to the front and sides – but it adds a nice little extra dimension to progression and gives you something else to do than just the tactical encounters.

 

I'm about ten hours in and close to completing the second area and while I don't want to oversell it, I think this is excellent. There was one slightly annoying enemy type in the second area, but otherwise it almost feels flawless so far, the right balance between accessibility and depth, rewarding progression, overall high levels of polish (as usual for their games, but still worth pointing out). It can be challenging at times, but it has multiple difficulty setting and even one that lets you completely customise certain aspects like damage, health etc. Haven't messed around with that though.

 

Good year for unique tactical games between this and Unicorn Overlord I'd say.

 

(Not my screenshot, because Nintendo hates Musk.)

[shinymcshine]

Enjoyed the first one, sounds like I'll have to check this out sometime.

[Maryokutai]

You'll like this then, it's pretty much an improvement across the board and would have been a good candidate for the latest hot topic question.

I think the only aspect I like a little less in this one is the overall setting because the Firefly-type 'cowboys in space' setup was more appealing to me, but that's purely subjective.

[Maryokutai]

So this seems to be significantly bigger than their other projects. I've passed the 20 hour mark now and saw an, in context, surprisingly well-executed little narrative beat/plot twist happening. I've also been going back to earlier areas to get better ratings, because maxing these out per zone unlocks some handy little upgrades for your team (permament health +1, movement +1 and stuff like that).

 

I've also found some really nice synergy between classes and equipment. There's one mission where you go up against melee units exclusively and they spawn too quickly for you to keep up killing them the traditional way. So I gave my bruiser, whose passive dishes out partial damage whenever she gets attacked, a melee attack bonus which combined with her skill to heal whenever she kills means that she could just stand there and everyone attacking her was basically killing themselves while she immediately recovered the health lost. 

 

One slightly annoying thing about the game is that there's no fast travel. I usually barely use these features, but the world is surprisingly big and getting around can take a while later on. Other than that I'm still very much enjoying it.