Another Heist-Tastic Adventure!

Since my CyberPunk adventures were on a temporary hiatus (*but it's back on track!), I decided to check out the newest entry in the genre spanning SteamWorld series.  SteamWorld Heist II continues the rootin', tootin', and of course, shootin' adventures of a new group of plucky steambots trying to overcome a looming disaster on one of the many shattered shards that make up the SteamWorld universe.  If you're not familiar with this excellent indie series, I highly recommend checking out any of the titles.

What is it?

The second game of the "heist" variation in the SteamWorld.  It's a blend of turn-based strategy, adventure, and role-playing.  The story centers around captain Quincy Leeway, the son of a legendary hero who is trying to step out of the shadow of his monster-slaying mother.  As the captain of a swanky submarine, he is actively seeking to solve the mystery of what is causing the water (a chief fuel source for the steam powered robots) to be corrupted.  Along the way he recruits a unique cast of bots to help him defeat the legions of dieselbots, rattlers, and other enemies who stand in the way.

How long does a playthrough last?

This number could vary greatly depending on several factors.  My full playthrough clocked in at around 40 hours, but I will admit that I struggled a bit with the difficulty that I picked and that I skipped a couple of optional challenge levels.  I would estimate between 20-40 hours depending on whether you stick to the main storyline or try to be more of a completionist.  There's plenty of content and it definitely felt longer than the first Heist game.

Pros:

+ Ran great, with no problems.  The specs are low, so even if you're sporting a potato PC (or one with some lingering GPU issues) you can still enjoy it.  I encountered no crashes or problems.  I think once it loaded kind of slowly and that's the main technical difficulty that I encountered.

+ One of the new features in this iteration of Heist is combat with Quincy's submarine.  The world is littered with enemy ships and defensive structures, so the sub needs weapons and defensive measures.  Luckily both can be found as epic swag on certain levels or purchased from one of the many bars throughout the world.  There are a wide variety of weapons and other items to equip on the sub and it's fun to experiment with them all to find something that works well--whether that's low-damage, constantly firing lasers or slow-firing, high damage cannons and torpedoes--there are many options.

The open-world combat with the sub is enjoyable and fairly easy to understand.  

Dame Judy Wrench.  My favorite boomer/brawler.

+ A cast of new steambots to recruit and befriend.  You can spend resources to unlock crew slots and eventually recruit up to 10 fellow steambots to the cause.  My favorite crew member is Dame Judy Wrench, a seasoned bot with a reputation for bold exploits.  

+ The class system is familiar and features many of the same specializations for your bots--brawler, boomer, flanker, and sniper.  I believe that reaper and engineer are two new classes (I don't remember them from the first game, but I'm not 100% sure).  The engineer is a sort of support role whose attacks are fairly weak, but debuff enemies to take more damage from attacks during a turn.  They can also gain talents that allow them to build cover, grant an extra action, and heal other bots who are close by.  The reaper is a more offensively focused class that has the ability to attack twice if they scrap an enemy with their first attack.  Part of the fun of the strategy in Heist is to figure out the best combination of classes for success either on a specific mission of just in general.

+ Probably the best new feature that relates to the class system is the ability to give your bots multiple "jobs."  This means that you can combine classes and have talents from one or more other classes.  All you have to do is equip the main weapon for a different class (i.e. have your sniper equip a submachine gun) and then earn experience on a mission.  This unlocks "cogs" which can be spent to combine talents--each bot has a certain number of cogs and you can even equip special secondary items which increase the number of cogs a bot can equip.  It's a lot of fun to experiment with different talents and classes to find the most effective combination.

+ Several different world "zones" that feature unique combat challenges.  Certain zones feature frozen items (exploding barrels, icicles) that when exploded/dropped will lay down a patch of frozen ground--any bot that lingers on this ground will gain a "chilled" debuff that causes damage and if that bot continues to stand on that frozen area, will become frozen for at least one turn (but can be unfrozen by being shot by a friend/enemy).  Other zones feature items that cause fires which and cause burn damage.  This throws in a whole new layer of strategizing when positioning your bots.  Fortunately, there are special secondary items that can be purchased or found that can help counter these challenges.

+ A wide variety of combat missions with varying objectives.  There are your standard story missions, but also challenge missions.  I found the combat to be varied and challenging throughout with many different enemy types and special considerations to be made.

+ "Bounties" provide extra challenge when completing world combat or missions.  The star rating system from the first game is still in place, but now there are also special resources tied to your rating.  The higher your rating, the more bounty tokens you are awarded.  These tokens can be turn in at the friendly, local bar for a variety of rewards.  Part of the challenge of this system is the fact that your bots can only complete one mission before they need to rest and will be locked out of future missions.  Basically, to get the best rewards you need to have a good rotation of crew members, weapons, and items and be able to complete multiple missions in a day.  It's a whole new level of strategizing.

+ A solid story with the signature SteamWorld positivity and good vibes.  It's about building a fun team who works together to overcome a challenge.  If you're looking for something light and positive, this is it.

+ Multiple difficulty levels to choose from.  They range from "story" (your lowest difficulty which is more focused on experiencing the story rather than challenging combat) all the way up to the "veteran" level for the more "hardcore" folks out there.  Interestingly, they have also included an option for creating a "custom" difficulty level where you can adjust sliders for open-world combat with the sub and/or mission difficulty.  I didn't play with the custom slider, but it's a feature that I haven't seen at all in other games and offers up a way for players to adjust to their own needs.

Hats galore!  (*there are many, many more to collect)

+ Tons of fun new hats to collect (I think there are over 100!) and unique weapons to find/unlock.

+ There's no penalty for aborting and restarting a mission if things are going poorly.  I had to do this many, many times (mostly because I chose a difficulty level that was too tough toward the latter part of the game and made some mistakes with my class/job choices).

Cons:

- Earning maximum bounties requires quite a bit of strategizing.  One aspect that I was frequently frustrated by was the fact that weapons and secondary items become locked if you've used them on a previous mission.  Basically this means that your best items are only partially available.  I did a poor job planning for this and it came back to bite me later on when I was trying to do multiple bounties in a day.  Honestly, it's probably avoidable with some decent planning when it comes to assigning secondary "jobs" to your bots, but I struggled with it and felt limited as a result.

*This is not a con, but more of some advice--don't be afraid to turn down the difficulty.  I initially chose the "experienced" level thinking that since I had played the first game that I was, well, experienced.  The first part of the game was a bit tough, but I was able to get through it.  Eventually though, things just got too frustrating--alarms are tight at higher difficulties and enemies are much better shots.  I finally caved and lowered the difficulty to "moderate" and had a much more enjoyable time.  (I will just say that the final zone was brutal for me on the "experienced" difficulty)

Recommendation:

SteamWorld Heist II takes everything I loved about the first game and makes it better.  It's the kind of game that can appeal to a wide array of skill-levels and gamers.  It'd be very easy to glance at this game and scoff at it, but it can be challenging for even the "hardcore" among us while also having a fun, enjoyable vibe for someone who just wants a good story and lovable cast of characters.  I had a great time and would highly recommend it.