izigame.me

Lengthy (and mostly personal) review: Long story short, a wonderful game ESPECIALLY in comparison to the first
This game. It's just really hard to explain what this game did to me.
I bought the first game just as a bi-product of being an avid Steam Powered Giraffe fan and also the crazy sale that was going on. I wasn't sure how much I was going to like that game as turn based games in general rarely intrigued me. So when I played the game, I was pleasantly surprised with how involved I was in the gameplay. I ended up having a lot of fun and became quite the fan of Piper Faraday, but it didn't leave me feeling any particular way. Not like this game did.
Despite all the new features this game offered in its trailers, I wasn't sure it would be too different from the first game. I thought that all that was offered in those trailers was all that was going to be new but man was I wrong. This game was a serious step up from the original and I LIKED the original. There's a lot to admire. The artwork, the voice work, the slice of life features (no more limited inventory!) but man, the gameplay and the story, the CHARACTERS left me feeling strongly about this game. I can already taste the nostalgia.
Obviously I loved the music. Even beyond what Steam Powered Giraffe did, the environmental music was SUPER effective.
I had a lot more fun playing this game with the many new gimmicks and features constantly being offered both within the missions and outside the missions. Absolutely LOVE the resting mechanic. A big gripe of mine with turn based games is that if there are a lot of characters, you'll probably feel more inclined to stick with just a few. I even had this problem with the first game but not in this game. As you progress, using other characters becomes much more necessary and the game makes doing so an easy decision. Also the checkpoint feature. I didn't realize it was there at first but boy do I abuse that thing now. Might be cheap, but does feel very strategic on my end.
The story felt much more cohesive in this one than in the last one. The motives of each character were very clear and it's real nice to see plot points beyond just "We need to defeat these guys because they're bad". I was motivated by the story. That's what kept me engaged. What REALLY surprised me though were the characters. I was not expecting to find myself gaining a sense of attachment to each and every one of these characters. I'm not sure if it was pacing or if the characters were just that interesting if not a little cliche, but either way, it all made the characters really enjoyable for me. All this makes me really interested in all of the other Steamworld games. It made me even more interested in the FUTURE Steamworld games.
This has got to be one of the first games I've ever played where I told myself "I need to play it again" even though I was only half way through the game. Of course, there are little things that bother me, like how the RNG can really mess with the difficulty on some levels, but it's all really easy to look past compared to what the rest of the game has to offer. And these are just the more comprehensible things I like about this game. There are many other things that I LOVED that I just cannot describe. I kept getting feelings that resonate with me deeply. It just makes me really happy. Everyone should absolutely try this game. I love this game, and I'd love to see where it could end up and what it could mean in future Steamworld games.
Also, notice the hours? I am very bad at this game. I'm also very stubborn, and refuse to change the difficulty, but I still ended getting each and every star in Experienced mode :]