SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech Review
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Developers: Image & Form Games
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Publishers: Thunderful Publishing AB
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Genres: Card Battle RPG
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Platforms: Nintendo Switch
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Release date: April 25th 2019
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Playtime: Around 12 hours
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Disclaimer: I received a review code from the developers
SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech maintains the tradition of Image & Form developing fun and memorable games in the steampunk vein. This time around, they decided to pick turn-based combat and give it their own spin with the introduction of playing cards.
At its core, SteamWorld Quest (SWQ) is a steampunk-inspired RPG with turn-based combat where a group of aspiring heroes set out to fight against the villains on their own. At first glance, this might seem like another beaten to the ground story, but it would be naive to dismiss this game because of the premise. For one, the story has a well-written script as well as a strong cast of main characters. On the other hand, SWQ brings to the table an ingenious way to revitalize the quintessential genre: playing cards. Instead of issuing attack commands or spells, there are playing cards which make combat more dynamic and ensures players can tailor their party to their liking.
But let us dive further into this playing cards thing. Fundamentally, they work as any other action you could issue in similar combat systems. However, these can be equipped and removed at will to tailor characters to the attack, support and tank roles or to adapt to the enemies in the current area. Plus, cards on hand are pulled from the deck at random, which means it rewards the creative players who can make the best of each situation. Cards are not lost after a single use either, that is, cards not on the hand are in the deck, and given the deck is composed of twenty-four (eight from each of the three characters in the active party), cards rotate in a couple of turns.
On a turn-by-turn basis, combat feels fun, dynamic and immediately rewarding. I choose these three adjectives to describe combat because that's how it felt to me from the very first card played. You can anticipate, but you can never be certain of which cards you will have available next turn, so you can and need to come up with new strategies and find unique synergies for your characters' actions. Plus, it's fairly easy to deal those satisfying big numbers of damage. The cherry on top of the cake is that all this playing cards goodness is directly impacted by how well you build your deck. The system is naturally fun and focused on making the player good, but the more you tailor your deck to your playstyle, I guarantee from personal experience that the time spent with the game will only improve.
Outside combat, gameplay is divided into chapters where each one is played in one of those 2D-ish worlds that you can move freely between the back and foreground. I liked to explore these areas as a complement to the combat because (1) I could find treasure chests with new cards or equipment and (2) they were well designed. There were some minor puzzles, but their implementation was spot on, as it didn't force me to slug through hordes of enemies or circumvent cryptic messages. Overall, I think the moments outside combat provide a good palate cleanser to not tire the player of combat and, simultaneously, reward the exploring players with new equipment and cards to improve in combat.
The story, as I've said at the top of the review, is definitely a key element in making SWQ such a great game. Because the story premise is, let's be honest, nothing new, it had to make use of the script and its characters to be successful. Thankfully, SWQ aces both, as dialogues are funny and entertaining and, because the characters are also well-put together, these two factors synergized and kept me engaged the throughout the whole story. It also helped that during its runtime the game went to some unexpected places, such as (mild spoiler alert) when each character had to face their own insecurities and overcome the upcoming challenge.
Presentation-wise the game has no evident flaws. The beautiful hand-drawn graphics help bring this steampunk adventure to life and, for a game that uses playing cards, has an amazing UI. Every visual element on the screen (and this part is related to combat) has its own purpose and place without detracting the player's attention of the action. On top of that, cards have concise and objective effects which are understood at a single glance. Image & Form definitely deserves credit for designing such a neat UI in a genre where it's so easy to mess it up.
Before wrapping up, I need to tackle an important topic: replayability. If you're like me, Slay the Spire is the game that comes to mind when speaking of deck-building card games, but that is a roguelike, which means the replayability is quite high. Thus, reading that SWQ follows a more traditional RPG route with a proper begin, middle and end might be a deal-breaker for you, but I still argue that SWQ is well worth your attention. It captures what makes good RPGs good and then adds on top of that the deck building gameplay which works extremely well with the former. As a bonus, there is a colosseum mode unlocked later in the game where you can put your skills to the test and enjoy pure combat for some sweet rewards.
And, finally, we’ve reached the end. What more is there for me to be say about SteamWorld Quest? Image & Form took their expertise in creating steampunk inspired worlds and characters, picked the RPG combat system and carefully crafted it with the deck-building card genre to create a memorable and fun to play game. If you liked the previous SteamWorld games, then I can say with confidence that you will enjoy SteamWorld Quest.