Both the world and character design suggests a ramshackle, hastily jury-rigged universe barely hanging onto its functionality. I love the level of detail that goes into the SteamWorld games. It's an elegant solution for what is often a common irritation for those less enamored with the spacewhipper approach, and I rarely found myself needing to take notes on where I would need to backtrack to once I had acquired the right item. What tends to happen instead is that you'll reach a large new area with a newly acquired piece of equipment, and the first few side-area caves you find in that area will put you through the paces for that same new gear. fast travel) everywhere, but you usually have everything you need to complete one of the game's many side-area caves the first time you encounter them. Oddly enough, SteamWorld Dig 2 is comparatively backtracking-free: not only are there pneumatic tubes (i.e. Dorothy eventually acquires a large array of equipment, some of which are steam-powered - this means finding sources of water to recharge them, possibly as a means to stop players from spamming them against enemies - and, in true spacewhipper style, they tend to unlock new areas to explore.
#STEAMWORLD DIG 2 WIKI UPGRADE#
The game takes a similar step as Grow Up, however, in that it expands its once largely vertical world horizontally and as such has adjusted its upgrade path to include a few horizontal-focused power-ups, like a fast sprint which increases horizontal jump distance. Dorothy plays effectively the same as Rusty, working through blocks with a trusty pickaxe and using a combination of wall-jumping and various traversal upgrades to make her way through the environment. One of Tumbleton's vendors, Dorothy, decides to follow him into the mines for any trace of his whereabouts and eventually picks up a tip that he has made his way to the robot city of El Machino. Rusty, the first game's protagonist, disappears soon after his climactic battle with the sinister entity lurking in the depths of Tumbleton. SteamWorld Dig 2 is the direct follow-up to 2013's SteamWorld Dig, with the second game's story picking up shortly after the events of the first. It's a fantastic sequel to an already sterling first game, but let's break this down like so many ore-filled blocks. Dig 2 is the classic example of a sequel done right: it keeps the spirit of the original intact, but adds a lot of iterative gameplay changes, makes the game larger in scope without necessarily making it feel more padded, improves the presentation both graphically and musically, and doubles-down on the elements that worked in the previous such as having more of the gauntlet/puzzle-like side-areas and a larger variation in upgrades to choose from. It was only a few months ago when I caught up with SteamWorld Heist, but here we are back once again in Image & Form's endearing steampunk/western robot universe for another excavation in SteamWorld Dig 2.