It was only a few months ago when I caught up with SteamWorld Heist, but here we are back once again in Image & Form's endearing steampunk/western robot universe for another excavation in SteamWorld Dig 2. Dig 2 is the classic example of a sequel done right: it keeps the spirit of the original intact, but adds a lot of iterative gameplay changes, makes the game larger in scope without necessarily making it feel more padded, improves the presentation both graphically and musically, and doubles-down on the elements that worked in the previous such as having more of the gauntlet/puzzle-like side-areas and a larger variation in upgrades to choose from. It's a fantastic sequel to an already sterling first game, but let's break this down like so many ore-filled blocks.

SteamWorld Dig 2 is the direct follow-up to 2013's SteamWorld Dig, with the second game's story picking up shortly after the events of the first. Rusty, the first game's protagonist, disappears soon after his climactic battle with the sinister entity lurking in the depths of Tumbleton. One of Tumbleton's vendors, Dorothy, decides to follow him into the mines for any trace of his whereabouts and eventually picks up a tip that he has made his way to the robot city of El Machino. Dorothy plays effectively the same as Rusty, working through blocks with a trusty pickaxe and using a combination of wall-jumping and various traversal upgrades to make her way through the environment. The game takes a similar step as Grow Up, however, in that it expands its once largely vertical world horizontally and as such has adjusted its upgrade path to include a few horizontal-focused power-ups, like a fast sprint which increases horizontal jump distance. Dorothy eventually acquires a large array of equipment, some of which are steam-powered - this means finding sources of water to recharge them, possibly as a means to stop players from spamming them against enemies - and, in true spacewhipper style, they tend to unlock new areas to explore. Oddly enough, SteamWorld Dig 2 is comparatively backtracking-free: not only are there pneumatic tubes (i.e. fast travel) everywhere, but you usually have everything you need to complete one of the game's many side-area caves the first time you encounter them. What tends to happen instead is that you'll reach a large new area with a newly acquired piece of equipment, and the first few side-area caves you find in that area will put you through the paces for that same new gear. It's an elegant solution for what is often a common irritation for those less enamored with the spacewhipper approach, and I rarely found myself needing to take notes on where I would need to backtrack to once I had acquired the right item.

In addition to this world-broadening equipment are upgrade abilities powered by a finite collectible currency that the player can assign and unassign as they wish. New abilities become available as players upgrade their equipment with the gains from their resource-mining, but also occasionally from blueprints earned after completing side-quests, registering the game's other collectible type (artifacts with little jokey descriptions, most of which are from the long-gone human world), and finding hidden NPCs in the mines - the latter tend to give you blueprints for abilities that make the game significantly harder for some risky benefits, like earning double XP with the trade-off that enemies stop dropping health items. Stronger abilties, like one that will allow you to be resurrected at full health once, require more "upgrade cogs" to enable than something more simple, like reducing falling damage. Upgrade cogs are everywhere, and make up the bulk of the game's hidden items, but throughout the entire run of the game I always had fewer cogs than places to put them - it pays to strongly consider which abilities benefits your personal style of play most, and how best to mitigate the specific types of danger in the area you're currently excavating.

But all this nuance is simply a carrot on a rope; a means to work towards one or several concrete goals while spending your time exploring, figuring out how to mine all the valuable ores in the area, completing the game's many obstacle courses, and spending a few minutes beating walls and tunnels to check for secrets (there's a few secret-finding upgrades too, if your perception needs some help). That cycle, when you're digging through tiles for the next piece of ore and warping back to town to sell your minerals for upgrade money before warping back, is a compelling enough flow on its own. The game is helped immeasurably by what I can only call excellent exploring music; a soundtrack of atmospheric ambient tracks that always sets the perfect tone wherever they're heard. I particularly like the chill lofi hip-hop/prog track town theme; it's a great tune to relax with, if the more dangerous areas of the mines ever prove too intense.

It feels like January's going to be a whole month of "damn, wish I'd played this a little earlier so I could've talked about it in GOTY terms" cases. I recently completed Super Mario Odyssey and am in the early hours of Persona 5, which took a day off from for SteamWorld Dig 2: three games that would've easily made 2017's top ten if I hadn't put them off until now. SteamWorld Dig 2's unlikely to be lost in last year's shuffle given its pedigree and acclaim, but all the same it's a 24-karat Indie spacewhipper that pulls off the difficult trick of surpassing a great predecessor in part because it is smartly designed for maximum accessibility, so don't let it stay buried in your backlogs for long.

Rating: 5 out of 5.