Steamworld Heist - Cargo Commander meets Valkyria Chronicles with Space Cowbots?

Scotch_Lufkin · January 5, 2019, 5:39pm

I picked this up on a whim for a trip to play on my Switch and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite games. I grabbed it on PC when it first showed up there, but didn’t put much time into it (meaning to get back to it, I think a bunch of other stuff came out around then, or maybe I got it with several other titles as part of a Steam sale or something).

I thought I’d share some screenshots I took from the first … half? of the game? Something like that? Not sure how long it is, I’ve been playing for awhile and only just got a means to warp to an entirely new map, which was cool as it means I have a lot more game left. But this is the kind of game where you…

…Explore a map and uncover fun side quests!

…Level up and command awesome abilities unique to each of your crew members…

…to then unleash in amazingly satisfying, turn based combat in a procedurally generated map (each map location is a mission with a static set of objectives, but on a randomly determined layout).

…Fight really unique bosses and unlock an honestly kind of cool story and “world” to boot!

Plus it looks amazing, it plays smooth as silk, and it’s easy to take in bite size chunks or play for hours at a stretch, just replaying missions to get more loot and XP for your crew (only crew in a mission, and that survive a mission, get XP, so I have a few I like that are way ahead of others, and when I can bring like 4 members into a fight, I tend to have one or two low level guys I wish I had taken the time to level up a bit).

Also, high level crew get some seriously useful and tactical powers. Like Sentinal crew members gain “FOCUS” where if they don’t move from the previous turn they get bonus damage, or Inspire which if you position an Inspiring character next to other characters, they all do bonus damage. It gives the combat a satisfying puzzle aspect where you can really try some great strategies out.

And if you play on harder difficulties, you’ll need them. You can select before each mission the difficulty, so if you are having trouble you can drop it down on easy. Losing a mission can be rough, you lose half your funds (Water, is the currency here) and even if you complete a mission, as mentioned before defeated crew members are reassembled but gain no XP for that mission.

In a nod to @tomchick though, playing on harder difficulties yields more XP and I think better/more loot, on top of being a more satisfying experience for those looking for something like that.

I don’t know where it will go from here, I just beat the first major boss and got to a new area, like I mentioned, but I’m getting invested enough I wanted to make sure everyone knew about this gem. It’s just incredible so far.

I should also mention last year (I think it was 2018) I picked up and played through all of Steamworld Dig 2 and haed a blast with that, but this is a similar art style and I assume the same world (universe?) but it’s a completely different game. This is a tactical combat game, sort of like Worms meets XCOM.

JoshoB · January 5, 2019, 6:15pm

The events at the end of Steamworld Dig 2 explain why you’re out in space in Heist.

All three are great games, by the way.

robc04 · January 5, 2019, 6:59pm

Yeah, I keep meaning to pick up the DLC and play again - it is really good. Plus it would be cheaper than buying the tactical game I’m really gunning for - Mutant Year Zero!

I should really introduce Steamworld Dig to my son. It may be a little too laid back, but he doesn’t really like hard games much. I think the first wasn’t very challenging but they kicked it up a couple notches with parts of Steamworld Dig 2.

geggis · January 6, 2019, 10:59am

Glad you’re enjoying it @Scotch_Lufkin, I adored Heist on the Vita a couple of years ago! Easily one of my favourite tactical games. I rotated my characters as much as possible because I didn’t want to miss out on their potential later on – there really are some satisfying abilities and synergies. Keep us posted on your thoughts, you’ve got a fair bit more game left and more surprises to come…!

orald · January 8, 2019, 2:47am

Make sure you wear your favorite hat!

abrandt · January 8, 2019, 3:45am

The most annoying thing about the game was the fact that once your hat got shot off you had to manually re-equip it in the next mission.

Scotch_Lufkin · January 8, 2019, 4:05am

Better than having to retrieve it in the mission.

JFLS · January 8, 2019, 4:19pm

I wonder if the robots in the Steamworld universe have nightmares about showing up to school or work without a hat.

inactive_user · January 8, 2019, 4:21pm

How did I never know about this? Picked this up and it’s GOTY 2019 so far (think I’m toward the end of the Outskirts).

Just superbly done.

geggis · January 8, 2019, 6:27pm

Oh did it come out on Switch this year? Been losing track of the releases. That might upset my Quarterly list because Heist is so damned good and I never got the opportunity to nominate it before…

inactive_user · January 8, 2019, 6:28pm

I discovered it in 2019, thus it is GOTY 2019 ;)

geggis · January 8, 2019, 6:40pm

Gotcha! A fine choice, carry on!

Tman · January 11, 2019, 12:06am

I’m spending all my water on inventory slots. It kinda sucks that equipment that is equipped to a bot counts as part of your inventory. I’m looking at doing some replays of level to build up XP on new guys + get more water as everything is so damn expensive!!

Tman · January 11, 2019, 6:58pm

So now I’m getting pretty frustrated and I’m hoping someone can shed some light on some things. FYI I’m playing on normal.

I really want to know if a floor is shootable or not because every time I shoot, my bullets ricochet, and they are beating me to death, especially this one sniper on a mission. He seemed like he can shoot anything. When I aim, if my gun is blue with a red DO NOT cross on it, that means I can’t shoot, but so many times it’s not there & it seems random whether I can shoot or whether the bullet ricochets.
Cover seems like there is a RNG involved. If I’m standing next to a cover that an enemy is behind, I can shoot them, but with one or more spaces, I seem to always get ricochets off cover, yet the enemy pierces me at will.
The grenade paths don’t do what they show 90% of the time. I have damaged myself so many times I’m growing very frustrated with where they end up bouncing that I feel I should either abandon them or just close my eyes and click because honestly, the pathing is FUBAR.
How can I tell what classes a weapon can be used by? It’s probably staring me right in the face, but it seems like whenever I go to loadout, so few choices and when deciding whether to save something, how do I know?

Scotch_Lufkin · January 11, 2019, 7:15pm

There are two types of floors - the slimmer floors with crossbeams in them are shoot-through. The thicker floor types that are solid and you can’t show through them. Your aiming beam, if you have one, will show you if the beam is passing THROUGH the floor, you’re good. It works for both you and enemies the same way.

Can shoot through:

Cannot shoot through:

You can only ignore/shoot through obstacles you are adjacent to. Get right up next to a barrel and you can ignore it, which is how I like to take out enemies behind barrels.

A lot of launchers have the modifier “arcing shot” - stuff with arcing shots I found really hard to use, I started using launchers that didn’t have that to more reliably hit my target with those weapon types.

Look at the abilities of a character with (iirc) X and you can reiview their skills and weapon types. Everyone has two, like “handgun” and “something else”. I almost never use handguns - no scopes on them. My go to four-man team used an assault weapon type, heavy weapon type, sniper weapon type (sharpshooter with long range; cannot shoot if you move that turn), and sharpshooter pistol (works like a handgun, but with a long range scope).

Tman · January 11, 2019, 8:49pm

Thanks very helpful! I will look at this the next time I play.

Tman · January 15, 2019, 3:12am

vent/

I don’t think I’ve ever said “fuck you you fucking game” so much to any game without uninstalling it.

I am so close to uninstalling this. I feel like dropping down to casual because the scenarios they give me are stupid hard. The one where you have to survive for so many turns? Fuck that. The one where you can get some XP for ONE person? Yeah, fuck that too. The latest is the arena? That can go fuck itself until I’m level 20.

I’m numb to the “let’s add extra turrets and new fresh guys when you think you’re almost done scenario as well.”

I’m also really not liking the classes and how weapons are limited to certain classes. Along with the inventory management, it is just frustrating.

I keep playing, because I love some of the mechanics but losing 3,500 water because I get wiped is not fun when the scenario is 8-1. Seriously fuck this game.

/vent

easytarget · January 15, 2019, 3:17am

Been there, done all of that. I love this game but never completed it. Pretty much for a whole wide variety of reasons, but mostly for the ones you listed.

Oh, and I most certainly did uninstall it, although you guys coming back here and reactivating this thread is giving me the itch.

P.S. Space Tyrant gave me the same feel. Get all the way to the last battle, lose it and be forced to start the entire campaign over again. Love/hate that one too.

geggis · January 15, 2019, 9:13am

It sounds like you’re misunderstanding something about the game or your strategy/character loadout/composition isn’t working because I only had difficulty on the odd level throughout Heist, and that was on one of the harder difficulties, three starring as I went. I always felt like it was just the right side of challenging.

I know they’re absolutely useless words from me, and I’m sorry if they come across as patronising, but Heist shouldn’t be stressing you out so much. (One of my friends ricocheted off the game hard for what it’s worth.) I don’t feel that this is a puzzle-y tactical game where there’s only one viable approach. As I mentioned up thread, I was cycling characters throughout just to keep parity and get a good sense of all their abilities and synergies so I think most levels can be done with any team. There’s bound to be exceptions though.

I’m not sure what to say @Tman but don’t keep banging your head on this if it’s not working out for you :-) It’s unfortunate because, as I’ve said before, this is one of my favourite tactical games!

Tman · January 15, 2019, 8:47pm

It definitely could be that I’m not getting some aspect. Let me see if I can say what I try to do a bit more analyzing and the issues I’m having:

I try to position my people together to enter an area all fresh - meaning they have their entire turn. I put whichever guy has the most random / powerful weapon up front so they can go first & not damage the others. The problems start from there as with barriers & whatnot, to get the others into the room and behind some sort of cover AND have a shot they can take is problematic as the surfaces involved still are not clear which I can / will be able to shoot through with some sort of angle.

And this is probably my biggest gripe: the laser only shows paths on the sniper weapons. Where I am guessing at angle / trajectory with weapons without that, the enemy is routinely perfectly bouncing shit and ricocheting for hits against my guys where I’m ineffectual. I’m ineffectual because I have to guess what I’ll be able to hit before I move.

The aiming / launching mechanic of the grenade I’m still not 100% sure. It shows me some bouncing / arcs / trajectory and I can move this only with the movement keys (WASD) but then to fire I think is the space key (I’m using m/k). Let’s say a grenade goes where the path shows about 50% of the time.

Another irritant is the weapon damage. For example, I have one that says 6/4 crit and yet almost every fucking time it’s only doing 3-4 damage. I think it’s because it’s a spread weapon & will only do 6 when right next to someone. How far away can I be to get what type of damage? It really kills me (literally) when I get 6 damage using TWO SHOTS and the turret has 7 health.

And then I get the blowback from being to close to whatever I am shooting and end up doing damage to my own guys because when the turret explodes, I get 2 damage because I’m standing too close. I really don’t understand when I will get explosions and when the enemy will just crumble without an explosion.

There are so many things I really don’t understand. Those guys with the guns that have shields? Fuck them as well. I can only try to maneuver ontop / under or behind them. Trying to get them from the front is impossible unless you are using a weapon that has area damage and then you just give them a grazing. Although sometimes a lobber will take them out & I’m perplexed on why / what I did. It’s kind of like that Garry Larson Farside cartoon where the guy kills a mammoth - this is probably the best allegory to this game. It’s so much trying to decipher what works & what doesn’t.