SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech

SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech is the latest entry in the SteamWorld franchise. The game is a mix of turn based RPG and card battling. The card battling mechanic, while initially promising, is never fully realized due to the mixed decks and limited card slots. And the RPG part of the game suffers from the classic RPG issue where it is better to stick with the same roster for the entire game rather than diversify to maximize experience allocation. Outside of those elements, there is a light hearted fantasy story with some minor puzzle solving sequences. SteamWorld Quest can best be summed up as an okay game with good ideas.

You start the adventure following Armilly, a knight who wants to become a hero like in the books she reads by joining the town’s local guild and Copernica, a mage who dropped out from a prestigious university, looking for a way to have her university be more inclusive to outsiders. Eventually the duo return to town witnessing it under attack by the mysterious Void Army. The pair, with the help of their childhood friend Galleo, repel the invaders only to learn that the rest of the guild members have been captured. It is up to Armilly and her friends to rescue the guild members and figure out what is going on.

Before I talk about gameplay, I want to briefly mention the dialogue. It does not take itself very seriously and has a lot of referential humor. For example, the first two soldiers that you encounter are named “Wiggs” and “Budge” a nod to how there is always a “Biggs” and “Wedge” in every Final Fantasy game. There is also a long elevator sequence that pokes fun at the long elevator loading times in the original Mass Effect. Just wanted to put that out there because I understand this kind of writing is not to everyone’s taste

The turn based card combat is at the core of the game and it initially does not disappoint. Each character in your three person party holds 8 cards that are either basic cards that build steam or skill cards that consume steam. When in battle, your deck consists of the combined set of the cards or 24 cards in total. Any used or discarded card eventually gets shuffled back in once all 24 cards have been used. The primary strategy is to use the basic cards to build steam that don’t do that much damage and then eventually unleash the skill cards to finish your foes. The game adds a few interesting quirks to the mix. You can only play three cards each turn and if you play all cards from the same character an extra bonus move tied to that character’s weapon is unleashed. As an example, if you play 3 Armilly cards, she uses the Lionheart ability that gives her an extra attack and partially heals her. Another interesting feature is the combo mechanic. Some cards will grant an additional effect if a card from another character is played. Such as if you play a Galleo card followed by Copernica’s Element Ward card, the team will get a free heal.

I mentioned that the card based system was promising initially, because the longer I played the more I noticed flaws within the system. Even with a well made deck, having the decks all mixed together sometimes forms hands that are partially or even completely unplayable. The game does grant 2 mulligans each turn, but I feel like that is a band-aid solution and doesn’t address the underlying issue that you are playing with three mixed decks. In addition, when one of your characters are KO’ed, stunned or disabled, their cards are unplayable, making a third of the deck entirely useless. I encountered a handful of boss fights where I was in control and then the boss got a lucky draw, disabled two of my characters and proceeded to completely wreck my crew. Which brings me into another issue with this game which is the deck building itself. Around Act 2 of the game, it starts to become impossible to build the ultimate deck that can beat everything. The game encourages you to optimize and tailor your decks for specific encounters such as one that might be good against a lot of enemies that are weak to lightning. I’m okay with this concept except that the game does not offer the option to save decks. It becomes a micromanaging nightmare to shift from a deck geared towards lightning magic to one that requires all physical attacks. Another way that I guess you can surpass this obstacle is to relentlessly grind, stockpile recovery items and upgrade your cards until it completely breaks the game, but that was not how I played the game.

Speaking of upgrading, at certain parts of each level there is a shopkeeper that Armilly and her friends can interact with. The shopkeeper offers the standard RPG fare of weapons, accessories and items, but she also grants the option to craft new cards or upgrade existing ones. On a regular playthrough with minimal grinding, it is impossible to craft or upgrade all the cards. This led me to focus on three core party members for most of the game because I could only allocate so many resources. The game also tends to introduce new cards every level but I would rarely add them to my decks because they were either for characters I didn’t bother leveling up or weaker than the cards that I have already spent my time upgrading. It is a shame that I had to stick with the same party members and same core cards because I really had fun trying out all of the characters’ decks, especially Orik’s deck and how his cards combo together with other characters.

SteamWorld Quest would have been a completely serviceable turn based RPG without the card battling mechanics. While I appreciate the inclusion of the card battling system and how it is a unique selling point, the card mechanics never feel completely realized, at least on a main playthrough. At its best, SteamWorld Quest features some creative deck building opportunities and fun encounters to challenge hardcore players. Unfortunately there isn’t much opportunity to truly experiment unless you are willing to find the time to grind, craft and upgrade every card.