Like a fistful of dirt to the face.
SteamWorld Dig is a 3DS downloadable title starring robot prospector Rusty, who inherited his missing uncle's mine. Shortly after arriving, Rusty finds his uncle’s "body" inside the caves, and with nothing else to do, decides to explore the mine in hopes of finding... something?
SteamWorld Dig has some of the laziest, cheapest storytelling on the 3DS. As the game begins, you just dig yourself into an ever deeper hole because maybe your uncle had a reason for you to do so, I guess, probably, and the entire game just keeps being handwavy like that, all the way to the (incredibly vague and disappointing) ending. Do the thing and maybe you'll find a reason. And it really hurts, because the experience desperately needed some motivation to go on.
Gameplay revolves around digging deeper and deeper in the mine, with frequent returns to town to sell off minerals and buy upgrades. The mine is randomly generated for the save file, but you'll find entrances to caves that offer a fixed, platforming stage, at the end of which you'll mostly acquire a new ability, Metroidvania style, which you can use on the next cave.
These cave sections are brief, yet they represent the only real content in the game, the one part that was carefully crafted. The mining part, which makes up the bulk of the experience, is clearly just there to waste time, to a point where the game has to contrive a reason -- low inventory space that needs to be upgraded -- for you to waste time going back to town.
And it hurts to see that there could have been a real game here: controlling Rusty feels great, especially when he’s fully upgraded at the end game and can rapidly move through maps. He's very well animated to boot. On a more fleshed out game, it could have shined, but on this one, it’s all wasted. Were it not for the fact that I could play the 3DS version on the go, I wouldn't even have finished the game, which is pretty damning considering it’s about five hours long. Awful.
SteamWorld Dig is a 3DS downloadable title starring robot prospector Rusty, who inherited his missing uncle's mine. Shortly after arriving, Rusty finds his uncle’s "body" inside the caves, and with nothing else to do, decides to explore the mine in hopes of finding... something?
SteamWorld Dig has some of the laziest, cheapest storytelling on the 3DS. As the game begins, you just dig yourself into an ever deeper hole because maybe your uncle had a reason for you to do so, I guess, probably, and the entire game just keeps being handwavy like that, all the way to the (incredibly vague and disappointing) ending. Do the thing and maybe you'll find a reason. And it really hurts, because the experience desperately needed some motivation to go on.
Gameplay revolves around digging deeper and deeper in the mine, with frequent returns to town to sell off minerals and buy upgrades. The mine is randomly generated for the save file, but you'll find entrances to caves that offer a fixed, platforming stage, at the end of which you'll mostly acquire a new ability, Metroidvania style, which you can use on the next cave.
These cave sections are brief, yet they represent the only real content in the game, the one part that was carefully crafted. The mining part, which makes up the bulk of the experience, is clearly just there to waste time, to a point where the game has to contrive a reason -- low inventory space that needs to be upgraded -- for you to waste time going back to town.
And it hurts to see that there could have been a real game here: controlling Rusty feels great, especially when he’s fully upgraded at the end game and can rapidly move through maps. He's very well animated to boot. On a more fleshed out game, it could have shined, but on this one, it’s all wasted. Were it not for the fact that I could play the 3DS version on the go, I wouldn't even have finished the game, which is pretty damning considering it’s about five hours long. Awful.