Initially it feels like the original in size, but then the story and scope expands and you gradually stretch into dark areas of the sizeable map. That's just as well, too, as it's a sizeable world we're dealing with. The mechanics make the process of digging, exploring and progressing the story feel entirely natural, at least in our case. You can also move these cogs around as you please, so when heading to an area with lava, for example, you can give up a couple of abilities elsewhere to free up enough cogs to increase your resistance to dangerous terrain.Īs is now typical of Image & Form games it's carefully constructed and works beautifully in practice. It's all very well balanced - as you acquire wealth and improve your gear more abilities are available, and you find cogs to make the upgrades. These challenges are a nice diversion, often riffing on a recently discovered ability, and the cogs themselves can be used to add special abilities to your various tools and gadgets. Once you return to the surface it's all a balancing act as you consider how to spend your money - expand your bag to carry more minerals, strengthen the ever important pickaxe? Minerals are finite - though there's no major shortage - so the fear of dying is also ever-present if you die you lose some or all of your collected resources, though your stack of cash goes untouched.Īn addition here are upgrade cogs that you find, often within challenge rooms scattered around the world. There are pipes that serve as warp points, too, so you can plan your tunnelling around managing smaller areas between these fast-travel resources. As always digging has a bit of engineering nous to it, as you work around (or towards) enemies, and try to ensure that you dig in such a way that you can easily retrace your steps back to a checkpoint. Blocks with minerals and ores are clearly marked, and by mining these and taking them to the surface you make money that you can then invest in improvements to your toolset. The core loop remains, too - you dig not only to explore and carry out objectives, but to accumulate wealth. Dig 2 goes further in its abilities that its predecessor, with some pleasing surprises the further you progress that also play into nice puzzle and exploration elements. Early on you discover simple and familiar things like dashing, but later you get goodies like a hookshot and 'jackhammer', a powerful ability to bash through previously impenetrable rock. The term 'Metroidvania' certainly does apply, as your chances of reaching new areas are restricted by a mix of gear and mysterious abilities that Dorothy inherits from machines scattered through the world. Pretty soon you meet a new cast of quirky bot characters and you get into the nitty gritty - digging and exploring. The game is full of references to lore - we found ourselves piecing it together as we played - and the game also has a cute way of recounting the basic events of Dig. Playing as Dorothy, you quickly learn that she's on the hunt for Rusty following the events of Dig 1, and teams up with a floating light-based being with a name familiar to fans of Heist and its Outsider DLC. You're guided to specific points, earn new abilities and even have an early boss encounter this battle sets the tone and brings some fantastical colour to proceedings. Switching to the portable mode the game still shines visually in fact, we were drawn to handheld play on a regular basis during our playthrough.Įarly on players learn the basics through carefully choreographed albeit hands-off tutorial areas. We started off with the system docked and the game looks terrific, with environments being heavily stylised. Upon booting up the game and starting the story it's immediately apparent that Image & Form has never been so confident in its own qualities the look that's graced the series since the original Dig has become refined and eye catching, with the visuals being undeniably striking. Now we come back around to the game that was second in the series but really started it all, with a fully fledged sequel in the form of SteamWorld Dig 2. That allowed the team to up the ante in terms of technology and ambition with turn-based play in SteamWorld Heist, further establishing the company's reputation. It was SteamWorld Dig that was transformative for the studio, however, achieving well-earned success on the 3DS and a range of other platforms. As Image & Form often reminds us, its now-familiar core IP began with SteamWorld: Tower Defense on DSiWare, a thoroughly decent tower defence game.
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