Estimated total reading time: ~5'

Title: SteamWorld Heist
Developer: Image & Form
Publisher: Image & Form
Release date: 2016-06-07
Regular price: 14,99 €
Bundled:      ☑Yes ☐No
Achievements: ☑Yes ☐No
Cards:        ☑Yes ☐No

One of the best game I’ve played this year!

The only reason i can think of that you could possibly not like it is if you hate turn-based games; otherwise, and I’m fairly sure many of you got it in that recent bundle, give this a push up on your to-play list ;)

I even clocked almost 30h in less than 3 days, should say something more about how I was mesmerized by it =P (to be fair, it requires few resources to run so I left it open while doing other things.. I’d say I’ve spent about 25h even so)
Does it count for the monthly theme though? Looking at HLTB and Astats times, averagely 15h are needed to beat the story.. (HLTB’s are generally too fast for me, doesn’t seem like so to you?)

Rough times for Piper, a space-pirate cowbot. Water is scarcer by the day since scrappers invaded her territory and those filthy royalists don’t care as long as they have their slimy petroleum (｀益´)
What to do?
Along with her trusty fellow Seabrass, they then set on a mission that will lead them to make the universe a better place. To achieve that, they first have to assault 2D, randomly generated, spaceships to fight countless enemies, perhaps with the help of some new crew mates they may gather along the way. Add also lot of weapons and utilities and –oh!– a weird passion for collecting bizarre hats and you’ll mostly get an idea of what you’re about to face.
It may sounds chaotic but don’t forget that is gentle(wo)menbots we are talking about, and as such they abide to the rules they have hardcoded in their circuits; and the most important is: Wait for your turn. TA-DAAN! Turn based! (not a real surprise though, as I already told you right at the beginning) =P
Anyway, gameplay aspects are really well done: sure, you may lose sometimes but it never feels unfair; and as defeat draws in you’ll have already planned a new tactics to overcome that challenge. Sometimes is just pure bad luck (watch out for friendly fire!) XD

Some tips that I realized way too late:
▪ The only things that matter for final score are
    • Keep all your crew alive. You lose a star for every mate’s death.
    • Get the epic loot. It’s the only one that gives you a star; hints during loading times keep saying «Get the loot, you don’t get points for killing enemies», but didn’t specify epic so I kept getting 100% of the loot around levels, sometimes leading to crewmates’ death. Also, increasing total game time and, apparently, you need to beat the game under a certain number of round to unlock some achievements.
▪ They recommend to play with a controller; I played with keyboard and mouse just fine. Hell, you could even play it with keyboard alone! and with one hand only so, for example, you could have lunch with the other.. I said it’s an example! I-It’s not like I did it or anything..BAKA!
It’s that moving camera around feels more natural with mouse. Oh, during your shooting phase, you can place an indicator of where to shoot with a single click (and drag it around if you keep pressed, second click to shoot) ..I aimed for almost the whole game with up/down arrows ᑈ

Graphically is not the best out there (I mean, it’s not bad.. just a 2D world) but it has style and I’d say it fits perfectly the way it is.
Story is nothing special but is not important.. bouncing bullets, that’s where the fun comes from! oh, and those lasers that pass through items are great too :D
Bonus point for the soundtrack: some level tracks are a bit “dark” but that’s to give you that feeling of “difficult moment” so it’s ok. Instead, songs you’ll hear in menù, bars, etc. are performed by Steam Powered Giraffe and are very good :) These are real songs, with lyrics and such, the kind you can listen with other people around too and not appear as a weird in their eyes =P (you know, like when there’s someone at your place that says: «Hey, put some music» but what they really mean is: put some songs, possibly only ones that I know. But you don’t get the real message and let your player start with the random function on and you don’t get to hear a single word for who-knows-how-long, only themes that could fit any battle scene, like the war your guest is about to declare to you. Problem solved)
Game’s also pretty long but most of its length it’s due to turn-based, that’s why I felt like it could have been a bit longer. I’ve enjoyed it but a couple more levels wouldn’t have hurt. Luckily for me, I still had some levels where I didn’t get all the stars when I beat the game, plus there are some achievements that I feel are easily achievable. Don’t know if I want to replay it fully in new game+ (should I start it, I’d raise the difficult to the maximum to get the relative achievements, but that may turn to be too tedious..we’ll see)