This review contains spoilers
A comic-book styled game in a steampunk era is certainly not something you see every day. The fun ideas don't stop there, as the leader of your group is Abraham Lincoln himself, and half the cast of playable units (or maybe even all of them and I just don't get some of the references) are famous literature characters, like Tom Sawyer or the cast of Wizard of Oz.
The story unfortunately isn't quite as zany as the set-up would have you think. Outside of a few instances (like escorting the Queen of England through Buckingham Palace, or using a giant mechanized Abe Lincoln robot) the game is largely just a generic alien invasion story.
I think the gameplay is generally quite fun, and each character comes with their own weapon focused on a different playstyle, like close-range, long-range, enemy distraction, healing, enemy stunning, and more. Unfortunately there's a couple of huge issues with the game that just make it a frustrating time.
Every action in the game costs steam. It costs 1 steam to move a space, and X amount to use your weapon, changing depending on said weapon. The enemies also have their own steam counter, and much like Skinner and his aurora borealis, no, you can’t see it. If you save enough steam on your turn you can perform a counter-attack (called an “overwatch”) on the enemies turn, and this likewise applies to enemies and their invisible steam. Thing is, with an enemy they’ll counter you the literal second you get into view, which based on the camera and map design, means they spot you 99.9% of the time before you spot them, and they will then proceed to do another counter every single time you so much as nudge the control stick. Your own overwatch on the other hand seems insanely inconsistent, as half the time enemies are free to just walk up to your face and slap you without your character doing anything about it. I know I’m using the right weapons with enough leftover steam (as indicated by a bright green gun icon on the character screen), so I have no idea why it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Much like another Overwatch it’s something that sounds very good in theory, but was utterly ruined in implementation by the developers.
The other big issue I have is the way the camera works. It's a cramped over-the-shoulder view, meaning you have very little visual information at any one time (which is especially annoying on a small 3DS screen). This means that all the action and enemies happening outside of any characters view are impossible to see, which makes it pretty hard to plan around corners and whatnot. This combined with the above issue is what makes it truly awful. I could accept the insane enemy reaction time if the game had some kind of birds eye view so you could see what's going on at all times. I could accept this regular third person view if enemies didn't stun you the second a pixel of your character pops around a screen, before you could know they were there. But having them both together is just messy.
Speaking of keeping enemy actions blind to the player, on an enemies turn you still don't get to see them. Instead your view is solely locked on your character(s). It will generally point in a direction of the enemy movement, but that could be anywhere from right behind the wall to on the other side of the map. When an enemy attacks a character the camera will instantly switch to the attacked character...sometimes. Sometimes that just doesn't work, so you'll see someone losing health and have no idea how it happened.
I find that the game was generally better once I got long-range characters (seriously The Fox is OP) because trying to get close enough to enemies that can shoot your nipple off your tit from another continent is hell.
Also this is one of those 3DS games that you can still find for under £5 brand new and sealed, so if you're one of the 5 people who still buy 3DS games, it's a good deal.
The story unfortunately isn't quite as zany as the set-up would have you think. Outside of a few instances (like escorting the Queen of England through Buckingham Palace, or using a giant mechanized Abe Lincoln robot) the game is largely just a generic alien invasion story.
I think the gameplay is generally quite fun, and each character comes with their own weapon focused on a different playstyle, like close-range, long-range, enemy distraction, healing, enemy stunning, and more. Unfortunately there's a couple of huge issues with the game that just make it a frustrating time.
Every action in the game costs steam. It costs 1 steam to move a space, and X amount to use your weapon, changing depending on said weapon. The enemies also have their own steam counter, and much like Skinner and his aurora borealis, no, you can’t see it. If you save enough steam on your turn you can perform a counter-attack (called an “overwatch”) on the enemies turn, and this likewise applies to enemies and their invisible steam. Thing is, with an enemy they’ll counter you the literal second you get into view, which based on the camera and map design, means they spot you 99.9% of the time before you spot them, and they will then proceed to do another counter every single time you so much as nudge the control stick. Your own overwatch on the other hand seems insanely inconsistent, as half the time enemies are free to just walk up to your face and slap you without your character doing anything about it. I know I’m using the right weapons with enough leftover steam (as indicated by a bright green gun icon on the character screen), so I have no idea why it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Much like another Overwatch it’s something that sounds very good in theory, but was utterly ruined in implementation by the developers.
The other big issue I have is the way the camera works. It's a cramped over-the-shoulder view, meaning you have very little visual information at any one time (which is especially annoying on a small 3DS screen). This means that all the action and enemies happening outside of any characters view are impossible to see, which makes it pretty hard to plan around corners and whatnot. This combined with the above issue is what makes it truly awful. I could accept the insane enemy reaction time if the game had some kind of birds eye view so you could see what's going on at all times. I could accept this regular third person view if enemies didn't stun you the second a pixel of your character pops around a screen, before you could know they were there. But having them both together is just messy.
Speaking of keeping enemy actions blind to the player, on an enemies turn you still don't get to see them. Instead your view is solely locked on your character(s). It will generally point in a direction of the enemy movement, but that could be anywhere from right behind the wall to on the other side of the map. When an enemy attacks a character the camera will instantly switch to the attacked character...sometimes. Sometimes that just doesn't work, so you'll see someone losing health and have no idea how it happened.
I find that the game was generally better once I got long-range characters (seriously The Fox is OP) because trying to get close enough to enemies that can shoot your nipple off your tit from another continent is hell.
Also this is one of those 3DS games that you can still find for under £5 brand new and sealed, so if you're one of the 5 people who still buy 3DS games, it's a good deal.