I owe this game an apology as for the longest time I thought it was just some grindy rougelike. No it's an actually designed Metroidvania, and a solid one at that.
What gave me the impression of it being a rougelike is the footage I saw of the main character mining through samey block after samey block. This made me think the world was randomly generated, as it'd be easier to do that with such assets. But no, there's little randomness from what I can tell. Everything feels consistent and intentionally placed, which makes mining through it all the more funny in retrospect. It gives the player a lot of options on how they want to descend down the mines.
The core loop is delving downwards, finding treasure and caves containing upgrades, then returning to base before your lamp oil runs out of fuel. It's pretty slow to start as you're lamp runs dry fast, but because the mines don't regenerate its terrain, it means you're always making progress no matter what. Slowly etching your way towards the next goal at all times. It's simple but very effective. The challenge caves are all a nice... challenge, and give valuable rewards that makes mining and survivability much more comfortable. Yet soon enough you'll earn some incredibly fun moment abilities that makes traversal a blast. The hookshot is snappy and endlessly useful as you can cancel out of the pull-in while retaining momentum. After getting that I'd sometimes forget I had a wall jump since I was just hookshoting at every turn, it was really addictive.
There's a nice variety of stuff to spend your money and upgrades on. Money allows you to enhance your tools while providing access to perks limited by the amounts of cogs (cause your a robot) you have on hand. Glad it's not a skill tree system. You unlock perks linearly, but are free to have whatever perks you want. Simple and clean.
The bosses aren't ideal for a Metroidvania though. They follow patterns of invincibility as you dodge their patterns before finally getting a chance to attack back, only for your damage output to be capped so that you have to go through every phase of their fight. The final boss was cool in concept, yet it felt pretty haphazard in execution. It was too busy without enough grace. There aren't a lot of bosses to be fair, but I feel a Metroidvania having very rigid boss designs defeats a lot of the purpose of getting stronger and improving your character. This would be a bigger issue if Steamworld Dig 2 was about fighting and high action, but no its more about planning, problem solving, and exploration. Combat is low on the priority list, which for the kind of game this wanted to be is probably for the better.
This is an easy recommendation. It offers a nice balance for players who want a chill time digging, and those who want to be challenged in optimizing their paths to beat the game as quickly as possible.
I got killed by falling rocks more then I care to admit...
What gave me the impression of it being a rougelike is the footage I saw of the main character mining through samey block after samey block. This made me think the world was randomly generated, as it'd be easier to do that with such assets. But no, there's little randomness from what I can tell. Everything feels consistent and intentionally placed, which makes mining through it all the more funny in retrospect. It gives the player a lot of options on how they want to descend down the mines.
The core loop is delving downwards, finding treasure and caves containing upgrades, then returning to base before your lamp oil runs out of fuel. It's pretty slow to start as you're lamp runs dry fast, but because the mines don't regenerate its terrain, it means you're always making progress no matter what. Slowly etching your way towards the next goal at all times. It's simple but very effective. The challenge caves are all a nice... challenge, and give valuable rewards that makes mining and survivability much more comfortable. Yet soon enough you'll earn some incredibly fun moment abilities that makes traversal a blast. The hookshot is snappy and endlessly useful as you can cancel out of the pull-in while retaining momentum. After getting that I'd sometimes forget I had a wall jump since I was just hookshoting at every turn, it was really addictive.
There's a nice variety of stuff to spend your money and upgrades on. Money allows you to enhance your tools while providing access to perks limited by the amounts of cogs (cause your a robot) you have on hand. Glad it's not a skill tree system. You unlock perks linearly, but are free to have whatever perks you want. Simple and clean.
The bosses aren't ideal for a Metroidvania though. They follow patterns of invincibility as you dodge their patterns before finally getting a chance to attack back, only for your damage output to be capped so that you have to go through every phase of their fight. The final boss was cool in concept, yet it felt pretty haphazard in execution. It was too busy without enough grace. There aren't a lot of bosses to be fair, but I feel a Metroidvania having very rigid boss designs defeats a lot of the purpose of getting stronger and improving your character. This would be a bigger issue if Steamworld Dig 2 was about fighting and high action, but no its more about planning, problem solving, and exploration. Combat is low on the priority list, which for the kind of game this wanted to be is probably for the better.
This is an easy recommendation. It offers a nice balance for players who want a chill time digging, and those who want to be challenged in optimizing their paths to beat the game as quickly as possible.
I got killed by falling rocks more then I care to admit...