Genre mixing is something that has become commonplace for video games in recent years. After all, how many AAA games let you choose between stealth and action when on a mission? With that said, there are still those games that manage to be unique by combining two genres that, on paper, wouldn’t seem to go well together, but the game manages to make it work, and I beat one of those games today:

On the surface, this might seem like an ordinary action-adventure game. You move the player with the left stick and the camera with the right stick, using the X button to interact with objects and the triangle button to bring up the menu. However, this game’s combat isn’t during the on-foot sections of the game; only the exploration is done during these parts. You can get different costumes to wear, but it’s purely an aesthetic change. You have a hunger meter, but it only affects your walking speed (you can’t even starve to death). You have a reputation that is affected by your dialogue choices, but on top of changing each in-game day, it’s also purely aesthetic and doesn’t even show up that often outside of the pause menu.

So, where does the action in this action-adventure come into play? Well, shortly after starting the game, you come across a giant mech suit called a trotmobile (which is powered by gasoline, NOT steam, darn false advertising), and when you get on it, the game suddenly shifts to tank controls, but these aren’t your typical “up moves forward and left/right turns you around” tank controls of yester-console; this game goes right into tank simulator territory. Holding up on the left stick moves you forward while banking to the right, and holding up on the right stick moves you forward while banking left; you have to hold both sticks forward to move forward in a straight line. If you want to turn around, you hold one stick forward and the other backward. The game still lets you do action-adventurey things like lock on (square), strafe (hold both sticks horizontally), dash (L2), and jump (R2), but if you’re not a fan of tank simulators, these controls take some getting-used-to, to say the least. Plus, whenever you disembark your trotmobile, the controls shift back to the industry standard “left stick moves you, right stick moves the camera” controls, and this also takes a bit of getting used to.

In other words, this is a tank-sim-adventure.

Oh, but there is a third genre shoehorned into the mix: one of the items you start with at the beginning of the game is a harmonica (you can get different instruments later on), and as you progress, the protagonist gets forced to join a band and play in their concerts. Whenever one of these happens, a one-to-two-minute rhythim mini-game starts, with the rules dependent on which instrument you use to play. For example, the harmonica requires you to press or hold two different buttons at different times, sometimes while holding left or right on the left stick. However, the trumpet only requires that you hold the left stick up, down, or horizontal at certain points (you’re not even penalized for holding the stick when not prompted). I should note that your performance only determines how much money you get after the concert, that you can choose to play only one song per concert, and that there are only a few concerts in the whole game; however, these parts are forced upon you nonetheless, unlike the pool-table mini-game. As a side note, you have the option to play music while at save points (the same areas where you can park your trotmobile). If you do this, you get the same set of required inputs as during a concert, but a crowd will slowly gather around you, and you’ll get a tip afterward depending on how well you do (not that you’ll ever need the extra money), which I thought was a neat detail.

Something I’d like to bring up is the nonlinearity, or lack thereof, of Steambot Chronicles. You see, if you leave the game on the title screen, different characters will say different things about the game, followed immediately by them saying the game’s title: Steambot Chronicles. Lets set aside that the game starts with a memory card check, only to default to the new game option anyway, each time you boot up Steambot Chronicles. Lets also set aside that, aside from the first voice clip (which says “get ready for: Steambot Chronicles!”), each mention of the game’s title by the voice clips comes off as awkward and forced, Steambot Chronicles. Instead, I’d like to point out that one of the voices says “A relaxing, nonlinear adventure. Steambot Chronicles!” I bring this up because the world design in this game is easily one of, if not the most linear I’ve seen in an action-adventure, Steambot Chronicles. I can understand giving the player a variety of areas and obstacles to overcome, but when the backtracking sets in, you have to backtrack through practically every single area you went through to get to where you are, Steambot Chronicles. If, for example, you’re in Neuhaven (3rd town) and want to get to Nefroburg (1st town), you have to exit town, go through farmland, get past Happy Garland (2nd town), cross Zig Zag way, trek through the Sabbia Desert, then go through one more rural path before you finally reach your destination; such is the map design of Steambot Chronicles. There is a train station, but it gets crippled near the beginning of the game and, according to a walkthrough I found, the event trigger for letting you fix the problem doesn’t even show up until 3/4ths through Steambot Chronicles (and I never found this NPC, and believe me, I looked for it quite a few times during my playthrough of Steambot Chronicles). Sure, there are a bunch of optional sidequests (so much that I imagine they take up half the game’s content), but that isn’t what makes a game nonlinear, Steambot Chronicles. What I’m trying to say is that false advertising is present in the title screen of Steambot Chronicles. Did I mention that the robots aren’t even steam powered, in a game called Steambot Chronicles?

Moving on: normally, I try not to spoil a game’s plot, as experiencing the story for the first time is part of the fun of playing a game. However, while most games usually have some overarching antagonist or consistent objective, this game’s plot is somewhat sporadic and disjointed; the player isn’t working toward an end-goal so much as the protagonist just has really bad luck. The game starts with the protagonist waking up beside a shipwreck, having lost his memory. However, regaining your memory isn’t really a driving factor of the plot, as you’re too busy fighting members of a gang who won’t show up after the 1/4 mark of the game and escorting a caravan across the desert so that it won’t get destroyed by desert bandits who were never mentioned before and never appear outside of the desert. Heck, half of the boss fights are just random people who have no allegiance to any of the game’s villainous factions and just come out of nowhere and attack you without saying a word. It does turn out that there is an evil organization bent on destroying the world, and you have to defeat its leader to roll the credits, but this group doesn’t even get so much as a mention until the 11 hour mark of this 16 hour game (and they had nothing to do with any event in the game prior, except the shipwreck). The game plays more like a series of sidequests rather than a cohesive campaign. It’s surreal, to say the least; I’ve never played a game with a plot like this (even The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has a more focused narrative for its main quest).

The game also managed to bug me in a way I didn’t even know was possible until now. You see, as is typical of RPGs and action-adventure games, you’ll occasionally get to respond to NPC dialogue by selecting an option from a list. However, unlike most games that show you exactly what the protagonist would say, this game’s options are a bit more vague, usually showing up as some variation of “Be [adjective].” While this isn’t an issue for the most part (and, as mentioned earlier, it only affects aesthetic details), there were a few times where the option I selected made the protagonist say something much different than what I thought he’d say. For example, there’s a part of the game where some one-off antagonist threatens to kill your band-mates if you don’t go along with his scheme, and your options range from “insult him,” “defend [member],” (there’s an option for each one) and “defend yourself.” Not wanting to be rude to the guy (I kinda wanted to see if the game would let the band members die, as I’m not a fan of rhythm games), I selected “defend yourself,” at which point the protagonist got on his knees and begged for his life. I was expecting something more along the lines of “You may get my friends, but you’ll never get me!”, as “defend” and “beg for” usually aren’t synonymous.

I have a few more nitpicks about the game. As you go through the game, you’ll get into trotmobile duels with other characters. Most of these duels are optional and take place in the arenas, but there are a few required battles in the main story. For the first two non-arena duels, you can lose the battle and still continue with the game as if you’ve won. At first, I thought that this was a result of the devs not being fully committed to their tank-sim control scheme and wanting to sell the game to the average consumer as well, making the end product less focused and enjoyable as a result. However, as I played the game, I noticed more details about trotmobile duels. First, even when you’re not fighting in an arena, there’s a 120 second time limit, and if that timer runs out, the match ends in a draw, and if that happens, the game treats it almost as if you lost (“You must’ve lost to Fennel in the UTC. I can tell by the look on your face.” NO, WE TIED, AND THAT APPARENTLY RESULTS IN DISQUALIFICATION! TEN MORE SECONDS AND I WOULD’VE WON! THAT’S THE LOOK ON MY FACE!). On top of this, the AI for enemy trotmobiles seems to be near identical, regardless of which point in the game you’re in. I may have lost my first couple matches, but as I got better at the game and got better equipment, I was even able to beat the final bosses on my first try simply by brute-forcing it. They had a neat idea with the trotmobile duels, but couldn’t realize it in a way that resulted in a proper difficulty curve for the game.

There’s also a few neat details the game has that I’d like to mention. As you play through the game, you can collect “classic world literature,” and you can actually read the books you collect. Also, unlike real world classic literature, these books aren’t so dull, dry, and long that the desert would get jealous; instead, they’re really short and cheesy, often barely having a plot at all, and each book I found at least got a chuckle out of me. The game also has very obvious load point barriers, where the game will have to stop and load the next area. However, this game helps to alleviate the wait for the longer load times by having a short blurb about the next area appear as the game loads. Oftentimes, these blurbs are the only thing that justifies the non-allegiance enemies you’ll encounter between towns. Unfortunately, the blurb is always the same, and they lose their novelty when you have to go back and forth through the same areas later in the game.

Overall, while the game is relatively well made despite its flaws, it’s made for a very niche audience, making it hard to recommend. If you like both action-adventure games and tank simulators, and you’ve always wanted to see the two come together, then this is your dream come true (assuming you can stomach the frequent linear backtracking). However, if even one of those things sounds like something you wouldn’t enjoy, give it a pass, Steambot Chronicles.

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(mood music)

THE NEXT STORY!

NORMALLY, I SAVE MY PORTABLE BACKLOG FOR WHEN I’M AWAY FROM MY PC, BUT THIS IS A GAME I’VE BEEN PUTTING OFF FOR FAR TOO LONG!

COMING NEXT SCENE:

“FOR GLORY!”