Developer: Image & Form
Publisher: Image & Form
Platform: PC (Steam), Nintendo 3DS
Price: $9.99 (Steam) $8.99 (3DS eShop)
Originally developed for the Nintendo handheld console, the 3DS. The Image & Form hit Steamworld Dig made it’s way to Steam. But is it worth it? What makes this game different from the many titles from handlhelds, migrating from IOS or Android testing the PC market? Let’s find out!
Story
Welcome to the wild west partner! You are Rusty, visiting the town of Tumbleton because your uncle sent a letter requesting you to visit him. On your way to the town the ground opens beneath you, you fall into a mine in which you meet a steambot girl and find the remnants of your uncle.
What mysteries lie in the depths? It’s up to you to help the town and uncover the secrets of the underground!
Gameplay
This is a mix of platforming and mining adventure game, it’s conbination truly works like a charm, i was hooked right away. At the beginning it seems that all you do is dig in search of ores and playing to be a miner, i mean.. there’s Minecraft right? But please, hold on a minute because there is more substance in the game than that.
As you go deeper, you will discover caves, in there you will find lots of secret areas and technology you can assimilate. The new technology will increase your abilities, going from drills, powerful fist attacks and double jumps among others.
These are not the only upgrades at your disposal, when you go back to town to sell ores you can buy a lot of upgrades from the NPC’s. Not only that, also lamps, ladders, dynamite or teleporters.
After a few upgrades you can start doing some crazy stunts; by hanging from walls and double jumping all over the place, destroying entire rows of rocks or enemies with a powerful punch and going nuts defeating enemies with dynamite!
Going back to town is not hard, there are tubes that lead to the surface and random teleporters you will encounter in the mines.
You can even use the teleporter to go back to the same spot you left from the mine, this is very handy. Especially because you have to backtrack quite a lot in the game, this includes missing ores, secret areas to discover when you get the upgrades and appropriate technology for the task, and even as part of the story to unlock deeper zones to explore.
The mines and caves are full of dangers; not only will you find monsters, there are also barrels of TNT, giant rocks that can fall and shatter you, acid lakes and others perils, if you’re not careful your love for the shiny loot can make you end up like scrap metal.
The controls are quite good, responsive and very precise, I played this with a control pad and honestly, it’s the way to play it! I don’t see a reason to bother by trying to play with a keyboard.
Sound
The tunes delighted me, when you start the game you can hear the music that most of us know from classic western movies. I felt that my character was a robotic version of Clint Eastwood!
Graphics
By the most part this is a straight port from the 3DS version and no changes was done for the PC version of the game, except for minor changes the User Interfase. The game has a very cool art style, hand drawn graphics that give a fresh and different look, in a market in which every game is in 3D or a retro style with 8 and 16 bits is good to see games that stand out among the rest.
The details are quite good, especially in the mines, as you go deeper into the earth you can see the enviroment change, from a common mine to a lost civilization, even areas filled with pure technology and it’s a lot of eye candy!
Downsides
Although the game is pretty good there are areas in which could offer more variety and flavor to the player, while the first hours you won’t have enough and will feel delighted like a kid in a candy store by digging all over the mines, this can become repetitive after a while.
It would be great if there was more objectives or side missions given to you by the robots from town.
As this is a port from a Nintendo 3DS game, the game is short, but i can forgive that due to the enjoyable gameplay… aside from the last boss you don’t have major challenges in your journey to the deeps. Knowing where to jump and when to attack it’s possible to conquer the game without a single death, not taking in mind an accidental fall, which happens.
I wish there were other enemies, like mini bosses, or even a new game plus after beating the game the first time. Something that could give people a reason to revisit the game after your first playthough.
Maybe this will be corrected in a DLC or a sequel? We can only hope.
Overall
Enjoyed SteamWorld Dig enormously and I think it’s a game that everyone should try. Sure, the game is short and leaves you wanting more at the end of the story, but for sure it’s worth playing. I expected a good game but this surpassed my expectations, it is simply fantastic!
What it lacks in depth it makes up in entertainment, with quite good gameplay, nice looking graphics and bits of humor here and there, what else could you ask for? Steamworld Dig is a pretty little jewel and a fine example of what a platformer should be!
Giving the game an 9 out of 10!
Pros
- Polished Gameplay
Excellent graphics
Frigging western steambots!
Cons
- Way too short
Could us a bit more of challenge
