A badass arcade action platformer which oozes influence from 90's Konami and Treasure in the best ways. Couple this with some of the best sprite art I've seen in a game from 2021 and a jammin' arranged soundtrack and you think you would have a contender for an all-time great 2D action game, but there are a few shortcomings that restricts Steel Assault to having purely niche appeal.
This is primarily because Steel Assault is completely, unapologetically retro with few of the expansive movement mechanics and quality of life features that most modern platformers have. You can double jump with full midair control during your jumps and you have an i-frame slide on a one second cooldown. but besides that Steel Assault feels very rigid like a classic Castlevania game. I use "rigid" in a purely descriptive sense here because this kind of gameplay is right up my alley - I'm a sucker for platforming which involves weighing up a small amount of committal options for the best outcome, but I understand that it won't be appealing for many other people who like floatier platforming. This is exacerbated by the fact that the game is stuck in 4:3 aspect ratio and can reliably be beaten in a single sitting with the game's 5 chapters taking about 25 minutes of playtime.
When I first saw people complaining that Steel Assault is too short, I was initially eager to dismiss it as whining from people who should just realise that they aren't this game's target audience (the whole appeal of arcade games is that they can be experienced fully in a single sitting and encourage repeat playthroughs through self-imposed challenges), but there is genuinely something to be said for the structure of this game.
It's not so much that Steel Assault is "too short", it's that this game's level design, while perfectly competent leaves something to be desired. Some setpieces and boss fights feel like they're over as soon as they begin and the zipline mechanic, while interesting, isn't really expanded upon past the first couple of chapters. I think adding a couple more platforming setpieces and a couple more boss fights would have done a ton of good for making Steel Assault feel like a more complete experience while still being of a suitable arcade length.
The other aspect is that the developer's clearly didn't consider longevity for the average player. Other arcade/arcade style games like Ikaruga and Zero Ranger have continue limits that increase as you play the game more, to ensure that players will have to spend at least a few hours with the game to credit feed through it. Considering the respect these two games earn even from non-arcade players this approach clearly works. Steel Assault on the other hand has no such feature, on lower difficulties you can retry as many times as you want from frequent checkpoints and I don't think this is a good thing for the game's reception. The developers probably decided that they would rather have people complaining that the game is too short rather than have complaints that the game's too hard but forcing the player to engage with the game and replay stages would have actually helped average players to appreciate the game's design.
Another issue that is less impactful but still worth bringing up is that the difficulty levels feel unbalanced. Normal is too easy/forgiving but expert and arcade mode are an absolute herculean leap in comparison. A middle ground difficulty for properly learning the game would be appreciated.
So yeah despite most of this review being criticism I actually like Steel Assault a lot, once I'm electro-whipping bad dudes while headbanging to the arrange music I can easily forget about the game's problems and just have a good time, but I hope the devs provide patches to address some of the issues that basically doom Steel Assault to having very niche appeal.
This is primarily because Steel Assault is completely, unapologetically retro with few of the expansive movement mechanics and quality of life features that most modern platformers have. You can double jump with full midair control during your jumps and you have an i-frame slide on a one second cooldown. but besides that Steel Assault feels very rigid like a classic Castlevania game. I use "rigid" in a purely descriptive sense here because this kind of gameplay is right up my alley - I'm a sucker for platforming which involves weighing up a small amount of committal options for the best outcome, but I understand that it won't be appealing for many other people who like floatier platforming. This is exacerbated by the fact that the game is stuck in 4:3 aspect ratio and can reliably be beaten in a single sitting with the game's 5 chapters taking about 25 minutes of playtime.
When I first saw people complaining that Steel Assault is too short, I was initially eager to dismiss it as whining from people who should just realise that they aren't this game's target audience (the whole appeal of arcade games is that they can be experienced fully in a single sitting and encourage repeat playthroughs through self-imposed challenges), but there is genuinely something to be said for the structure of this game.
It's not so much that Steel Assault is "too short", it's that this game's level design, while perfectly competent leaves something to be desired. Some setpieces and boss fights feel like they're over as soon as they begin and the zipline mechanic, while interesting, isn't really expanded upon past the first couple of chapters. I think adding a couple more platforming setpieces and a couple more boss fights would have done a ton of good for making Steel Assault feel like a more complete experience while still being of a suitable arcade length.
The other aspect is that the developer's clearly didn't consider longevity for the average player. Other arcade/arcade style games like Ikaruga and Zero Ranger have continue limits that increase as you play the game more, to ensure that players will have to spend at least a few hours with the game to credit feed through it. Considering the respect these two games earn even from non-arcade players this approach clearly works. Steel Assault on the other hand has no such feature, on lower difficulties you can retry as many times as you want from frequent checkpoints and I don't think this is a good thing for the game's reception. The developers probably decided that they would rather have people complaining that the game is too short rather than have complaints that the game's too hard but forcing the player to engage with the game and replay stages would have actually helped average players to appreciate the game's design.
Another issue that is less impactful but still worth bringing up is that the difficulty levels feel unbalanced. Normal is too easy/forgiving but expert and arcade mode are an absolute herculean leap in comparison. A middle ground difficulty for properly learning the game would be appreciated.
So yeah despite most of this review being criticism I actually like Steel Assault a lot, once I'm electro-whipping bad dudes while headbanging to the arrange music I can easily forget about the game's problems and just have a good time, but I hope the devs provide patches to address some of the issues that basically doom Steel Assault to having very niche appeal.
LobbyDob
2 years ago