Review SteamWorld Heist: Ultimate Edition (Switch)

Game: SteamWorld Heist: Ultimate Edition
Genre: Turn-based strategy
System: Switch (also on 3DS, Wii U, PC, PS4, Vita, and iOS)
Developer|Publisher: Image & Form
Age Rating: EU: 7+| USA: Everyone, 10+
Price: €19,99| £14.99| $19.99
Release Date: 28th December 2017

No review code was provided, bought the game myself.

The good guys: Your ragtag team of robot space pirates.

The bad guys: Three varieties of unpleasant space jerks, from dumb to devious.

The mission: Board the baddies’ ships, steal their treasure (known as “swag” here), beat up baddies with high-tech guns and brawling.

How could I not like SteamWorld Heist?

Target practice with space pirates

The past two years have seen great turn-based strategy (TBS) games come to the Switch, and Heist brings its own twists to the genre.

Manual aiming is its most notable feature. Whether you manage to shoot the hat off a baddie depends entirely on your hand-eye coordination (it isn’t as hard as it sounds!) instead of the whims of computer-calculated probability.

Heist starts you off with the fearless Captain Piper Faraday, whose “Sharpshooter” ability allows you to see the projected path of your bullet and line up ricochet trick shots. Using Piper’s teammates who don’t have the Sharpshooter ability means you’ll have to squint and aim more carefully, but either way it’s incredibly satisfying to score an accurate shot.

Another twist to the genre is Heist‘s 2D side-scroller perspective. Apparently the game was birthed by a debate about whether a TBS could work in 2D instead of the usual top-down or isometric perspective.

But the basics of gameplay are standard fare. Each turn, characters take up to two actions: move, then attack or use an item/ability.

Ideally, you should move the crew behind barrels and shields that provide cover from enemy fire. Blue lines show how far a crew member can move. Yellow lines show how far they can move and still attack or use an item/ability. The game’s interface and mechanics are simple and intuitive.

Meet the crew

But genre mechanics aside, the highlight for me was re-immersing in SteamWorld’s universe: its visual design, colorful dialogue, and spunky steam-powered robots.

Though missions only involve 1 to 4 crew members at a time, you’re allowed to pick from a wide selection of steambots. Some bots only join Piper’s crew if you’ve got enough water (the game’s currency) or reputation (symbolized by stars), but it’s never a difficult requirement to meet.

They come in different classes such as Brawler, Flanker, and Bounty Hunter. This means your crew has different abilities tied to their class, but each character also has abilities unique to them individually.

My favorite was Billy Gill. He’s a brawler, which means he deals more melee damage than non-brawlers. But he also has abilities unique to him; “Flee Fisher” lets him move again after killing an enemy, while “Vampire” restores 1 health after every melee attack, making Billy pretty mobile and not-too-flimsy.

I also enjoyed using Fen, a character from the DLC Outsider, which is included in the Switch version of Heist. Fen accumulates a lightning charge with every enemy kill, which can be stored up for a lightning attack or (very handy) self-repair.

I liked experimenting with different characters. But you’ll eventually want to stick to a core few, since characters who don’t participate in missions don’t receive XP and can’t level up.

Show me the swag

Then again, you can replay missions for XP, which is one of Heist‘s excellent features for leveling up characters, though grinding isn’t necessary—at least not on Regular difficulty. To keep things fresh, enemy ship layouts are different each time you replay a mission.

A typical mission is to eliminate certain enemies, or pick up enough “swag”—shiny goody bags that contain water, weapons, special gear, health kits, bombs, or artifacts. Even if the mission objective doesn’t require you to collect swag that’s lying around in ships, you’ll want to because it’s compulsively fun.

‘Cos the best part of finishing a mission, besides seeing your characters level and gain new abilities, is to open your swag bags and see what fantastic new items appear. Bazooka-style guns, jet packs, armor plating, an enhanced health kit… It’s all very exciting.

As you complete missions the space map expands, opening new routes. These may lead to shops and optional missions. It took me 15 hours to complete the game and most of the optional missions. It’s a short time commitment for such a solid TBS.

The key to enjoying missions is to adjust the difficulty level, which—fantastically—you can do before any mission. Regular difficulty, the second easiest, was just right as I wanted a relaxing playthrough.

Conclusion

I loved aiming my shots and snatching loot from enemy ships in this simple but well-designed TBS. Thanks to adjustable difficulty with every mission, Heist is a great entry to the genre for casual players yet offers greater challenge to veterans.

There’s some replay value in the wide selection of likeable characters and procedurally-generated ship layouts. New Game Plus mode, unlocked after the first playthrough, allows you to keep recruited characters and their decorative hats while returning their experience to Level 0.

While I wouldn’t mind a second playthrough to experiment with new characters, I wasn’t strongly compelled to replay. I might be if the characters had more backstory to discover (ala Fire Emblem) or if Heist had a list of interesting achievements to attempt (ala Into the Breach).

The Outsider DLC included in this Ultimate Edition (costing $5 more than the original version available on other platforms) is a nice addition. It offers the interesting character Fen, plus additional missions and items.

Overall, I would recommend Heist as one of the best games in the SteamWorld universe so far.

Verdict: I like it a lot!