Golf Story (NS)
SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech (NS)
Two genres I'm not that big into: golf and card based RPGs. The only way you could make me more hesitant is by throwing "procedural generation" and "rogue-like" in there too.
With Golf Story I heard it was a pretty good game, and I remember when I saw the announcement for the sequel, Sports Story, I figured I'd give it a go. All in, I enjoyed my time with it. The first hour or so I was a bit frustrated. The tutorial wasn't that clear, the game will tell you tell you how to do certain things without saying with those things are, like precision mode or aiming where to hit the ball itself. I also didn't know you could change your shot type until I looked it up online cause the game doesn't actually mention it. I didn't know what the stats were when you could improve them when leveling up. On top of all that the amount of clubs you have weren't explain (again, not a golfer), so I was a bit miffed. A day later I figured if the game was a sim it would probably go into detail, so instead I'm gonna play with what I know and just roll with it, that's when I started having a lot of fun.
Just by messing around I came to grips with it. Getting a hole-in-one was really satisfying, as was landing on a narrow strip of fairways. It's not just golf either, I loved it when the game had other objectives like destroying skeletons, popping beach balls on a crab, or solving a murder mystery. Towards the end of the game it became more about just playing rounds of 9 hole golf, which is fine, I am playing a game called Golf Story mind, but I wanted more off the wall objectives too.
Lastly, while the story and humor were pretty good, the lack of a villain kinda hurt it in my opinion. Finishing the game was a tad anti-climatic because no one got their comeuppance or anything. Sure, you succeeded in living out your dream, but it just ends. Oh well. A bit frustrating at times, but still recommended. The good and satisfying outweigh the annoyances.
Between Shovel Knight: King of Cards and now SteamWorld Quest, I sorta feel like I could get into card games. I'm not big into board game nights or anything, but I really enjoy the SteamWorld games so it was only a matter of time before I played this one. My feelings are similar to Golf Story in that some annoyances didn't prevent me from really digging this game overall.
I was disappointed in that the levels are all essentially the same. Each levels are just rectangles of varying length stitched together in different ways, the only thing that changes is the look of them, one takes place in a forest, another a cave, a tower, etc. Sure one has you looking for two keys, and another for levers to open a gate, but they're all played the same. This game is 100% about turn-based card combat. Where I'm not big into card games besides Cribbage, I'm no expert on dissecting and analyzing it.
You end up with 5 party members, 3 of which can be on your active team. Each member can have 8 cards in the deck and you have 6 cards to chose from each turn. You play 3 cards per turn then draw another 3 next turn. There's all kinds of cards to choose from, but where you can only select 8 it limits how I would normally play RPGs. You really gotta be laser focused on how you want to play. Each character has their role: mage, fighter, tank, etc. There's also no MP in this one, you build up a number of gears by doing basic cards like attacking, and skills cost gears. One character has a lot of skills that are really handy, but I couldn't just load them up because I needed attack cards to build up the gears. Some cards get buffed if another character moves before that one, or if certain status effects are in place, etc.
I'm probably not the best at explaining. If this was a normal RPG where things costed MP, I'd be in heaven. I love messing around with status buffs and debuffs and oh boy is there a ton of moves that get improved by certain statuses. One attack has an additional benefit if the attack landed is a crit, and sure enough that's another card that boosts the chance of landing crits. There's so many possibilities here, yet because it's 8 cards, I feel like I have to pick one style. It's also kinda the worst with bosses since you never know what they're gonna be weak against until you fight them. I ran into a boss with ice magic spells equipped, only for them to be immune or resistant to ice for example.
This is why I feel like I can't complain though. Maybe this is par for the course for card games? Maybe it's required to put on my big boy pants and use my galaxy brain to make the best deck possible? Perhaps. I did beat the final boss on my first try. I also didn't end up using one character besides the initial "I'll try this character to see what they're like" for a couple of fight. I stuck with the initial 3 characters until the last character came along, then used them. I also mostly stuck with the same cards throughout the game. I cannot imagine how many ways there are to play this game.
That said, around the halfway point is when I started to get really into it. It took awhile to click, but when I was having fun, it was stellar. Lowering an enemy's arcance defense, then going to town with an arcane spell that casts poison, and then using a spell that increases damage on poisoned enemies was really satisfying.
If they make another sequel in the SteamWorld series, I'd much prefer Heist 2 cause Heist is the best thing since tummy rubs, but I do expect a Quest 2 at some point. I would love to see a brand new SteamWorld thing as well. Maybe a top down action game thing time? Please?
