Achieve Glory in SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech – Review (Switch)

It isn’t often that we play video games outside genres that we prefer. We tend to stick to what we know and love and it can be a difficult road getting someone to switch their tendencies entirely. This is why series and universes within the medium are often so beloved. Once we know what to expect from a particular series, we can expect more of the same with a few changes for future titles.

This is not the case with Image & Form Games and their SteamWorld line.

Image and Form has broken out of their genre shaped box multiple times across their four entries in the SteamWorld universe to date. SteamWorld Tower Defense set the standard to work toward in the heyday of the Nintendo DS line of consoles. Fast forward a few years and SteamWorld Dig would take the world by storm and become a widely beloved metroidvania platformer that would go on to see huge success on a variety of platforms.

But that wasn’t enough for Image & Form. Pushing even further outside of the genres that made them successful came SteamWorld Heist, a turn-based strategy adventure featuring a cast of stellar mechanical pirates.

After a successful sequel to SteamWorld Dig and a phenomenal port of the original title on the extremely popular Nintendo Switch, I&F couldn’t possibly be careless enough to change their formula that’s garnered them love and acclaim, could they?

Call it brilliance or dumb luck, whichever you prefer. But they’ve done exactly that – and it works. SteamWorld Quest is the newest title in the SteamWorld universe. SteamWorld Quest is a marvel in its own right, and a victory in a genre full of eternally popular bestsellers and beloved franchises.

Story

SteamWorld Quest is a story about inclusion and being true of heart. This is told eloquently through the character of Armilly, the daughter of some local grocers. Armilly wants nothing more than to be part of the Hero Guild. Her place in life and low social stature make that dream difficult and seemingly impossible. The heroine of our story doesn’t know the meaning of giving up though, and will do anything within her power to achieve her goals.

Accompanying Armilly from the outset is Copernice, a magic college dropout that knows too much for her own good. Armed with her sarcastic wit and a ton of knowledge of the alchemy realm, she makes a fantastic companion for Armilly and is able to ground her firmly in reality.

Although he has a hard time admitting it, Galleo is also a necessary companion on this most noble quest. He lives in his mom’s basement and doesn’t like to get out much, but he’s dependable and trustworthy. Galleo’s bird accompanies him everywhere he goes, making it easier for him to enter environments he would otherwise find too stressful.

Armilly and her friends very quickly find that the Heroes from the Guild are in dire straights and must rush to save them and defeat the oncoming evil. Throughout your journey you’ll meet more characters than you can count. You’ll find friends where you didn’t expect them, and be stabbed in the back by those from which you least expected. Never meet your heroes…

Ultimately, SteamWorld Quest tells the story of inclusion and valor. Inclusion doesn’t always come from where you wish it would, and the story of Armilly proves that to be true in a variety of ways.

Mechanics

On its face, SteamWorld Quest is a turn-based role playing game much like many you’ve seen before. Your characters will traverse the overworld in a side-scrolling fashion encountering many interesting characters, both friend and foe. What makes SteamWorld Quest different from other titles in the gigantic genre is its combat system, played out entirely with punch cards. When you encounter an enemy you can sometimes get a jump on them, striking first with your weapon, giving the player a slight advantage in the battle that will ensue. These cards grant the player a variety of skills for their characters and contain a wide array of actions. The player controls a merry band of up to three characters as they face off against their foes which come in many different shapes and sizes.

While simple, the fact that your characters and the near entirety of their dialogue exists outside of the actual card-based combat adds a dynamic to SteamWorld Quest that sets it above other card games. Certainly the majority of your time in the game will be spent in fierce battles, but the moments you are outside of battles sprinkle the game with so much life and character that we can’t imagine it being any other way. You’ll get all the emotion, depth, humor and, yes, even puns which we’ve come to love through the SteamWorld series.

Combat System

With such an excellent story and world wherein it takes place, it’s incredible that the combat system works so fluidly. Upon first glance the combat is confusing and difficult, but after a short set of tutorials and a battle or two under your belt, you’ll be flying through those cards and dishing out damage in no time at all.

Each character (you can have three on the screen during combat and control each of them) has its own deck of eight cards. At the beginning of each round you are dealt six cards, spread across each character. You’ll often end up with more cards from one character than another, but should almost always be able to employ the skills of any of them when you wish to do so.

The card and combat *economy are based on a system of gears. Some cards require no gears to be spent and actually generate them while also performing an action. Most cards require a set of amount of gears to play them. Generally speaking, the more a card costs to play, the more powerful its effect will be when you do so. It’s a delicate balancing act when building a deck. Pick too many low level cards and you’ll have more than enough gears to get you through a fight, but probably won’t have the firepower needed to do so. Pick too many high level cards and it will be nearly impossible to earn enough credits to keep them. Players can bank or earn up to ten gears in a fight, but they will disappear at the end of each match.

Some cards simply deal damage to a foe. There are a variety of different damage types, so be sure to look at the symbol next to the numeric indicator on each card in order to ascertain what it is. As you’ve probably assumed, your characters and enemies have different strengths and weaknesses. As such, a bad guy may get completely destroyed by an electrical attack, while another will simply shrug it off and not even know it happened.

Within the card system there are various buffs and debuffs that can be applied to characters. You’ll have some just by virtue of your character, but can also obtain them through different weapons, accessories, and cards.

Cards can also grant healing, defense, strength increases, poison (don’t sleep on poison cards), and various other effects. Combining a buff from one character’s card with an attack from another’s can cause some serious damage. Being familiar enough with your cards to anticipate what you can do with them is almost as important as the act of playing them.

Each character has a special combo attack, sometimes determined by an item or weapon which they are carrying. In order to activate this special attack a player must play three cards from the same character (each card signifies to which character it belongs). When this is done, your character’s special card will automatically activate after all of your other cards have been played. Most of the time these specials are attacks, but they can be defensive in nature or even cause some effect to take place over either your team or the enemy’s.

Players can change their decks as they gain new cards by entering the deck building screen found in the pause menu. While you may like your buildout at the beginning, experimenting with and changing your cards is essential to the gameplay and will make your path much more smooth the sooner you adjust. Unlike some games where you can have an infinite variety of cards and simply cycle through them all, Quest limits you to eight cards in your hand, though you can have repeats of cards if they are in your inventory. Once you’ve unlocked a card you are granted a certain amount of them. You may put all or none of them in your hand. While it’s tempting to load out your character with all of the highest level cards, keep in mind that you’ll need to have the gears to play them and equip yourself with cards that allow you to generate that *currency.

Players will need to regularly check in on their character’s cards as other characters get new ones. You may find they had a card that could compliment it well where it seemed useless before.

All in all, the system is versatile and complex, but easy to understand. It may take a while to strike the balance between a good loadout and a great one, but once you get the hang of it you’ll never look back.

Saving, Upgrading, and Crafting

Throughout the world of Quest you’ll find statues. These statues not only save your progress when you encounter them (your progress also saves frequently) but also completely heals your party. As a trade-off, each time you use a statue all the enemies around you respawn. Hedge your bets and plot your movement if you decide to use a statue as you may encounter a horde of bad guys you just took down.

You’ll also encounter a merchant in a traveling cart. How this merchant manages to get their cart into caves, on top of mountains, and in the exact right place at the right time? Magic or something. At any rate, you’ll be able to do a variety of things when visiting their shop.

First, you can buy and sell items. This is where you stock up on healing potions, revives, items, and more. It’s important to go into battles well-equipped and this is the place to make sure that happens. If the entirety of one of your characters’ health is depleted, they will be knocked out of the fight. You can revive them with a potion from the cart. If all of your heroes go down during a fight you’ll be knocked out and have to restart at the nearest statue. Sometimes these statues are incredibly convenient and, other times, you’re in for a haul. Make sure to avoid the situation entirely by stocking up on lots of healing and regenerative items.

You can also do some work with your cards while visiting the merchant. While you can arrange your deck at any time outside of battle, the only time you purchase new cards is here. Take a look through the variety of cards and trade in some gold for some new abilities. Since the crux of SteamWorld Quest is played out through cards, consistently getting new ones is a must.

You can also spend some gold along with some dropped items from enemies in order to upgrade your cards. While they do increase in stats as your character rises in level, something that happens at the end of every fight, you’ll still want to take a look and see if it may be worth upgrading them for more impact. This makes the decision of getting rid of an older, less powerful card a little easier as you upgrade them to improve your combat. Upgrading cards is pretty easy with all of the resources given. However, the allure of buying one more healing potion may be enough to convince you that you should just sell those items instead. Weigh your options carefully.

Sound

As usual, Image & Form has thoroughly outdone themselves when it comes to their sound effects and music. Each SteamWorld game features the mechanical nonsense dialogue made clear by the written words below the characters. Aside from this small nitpick, the rest of the sound design is off the charts amazing. Worlds are made to feel more real by the dynamic music shown off within. Each track represents the environment in which you find yourself in a remarkable way. The combination of the animation on-screen with the sound effects of each attack, heal, and buff or debuff add to the game in every possible positive way. The sound design is superb and will be stuck in your head constantly.

Conclusion

SteamWorld Quest will be a welcome title for long-time RPG fans as well as those who are new to the genre. Its superb storytelling combined with the innovative card and turn-based combat system will excite you, even if it doesn’t seem up your alley at first. It can be a bit grindy at times with higher level bosses on higher difficulty settings. Still, we don’t feel like doing more of what is already great is a bad thing. The only real nitpick we have is that it would be nice to be able to change your loadout before encountering a boss that may be immune to whatever cards are in your arsenal at the time. Overall, Quest is a marvel in every way, and sets a new high bar in an already beloved genre.

*With words like economy and currency popping up, we feel it is important to let you know SteamWorld Quest does not have any micro-transactions and that everything you need to play is presented to you through regular gameplay mechanics.

Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.

SteamWorld Quest was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion.