SteamWorld Heist II - Switch Review

Fight the corrupt Navy, secure your freedom, support the oppressed, make a name for yourself, and become the Pirate King… wait, that's the wrong franchise. SteamWorld Heist II is a nautical adventure about a world that is currently going through a clean water shortage and follows the story of Captain Leeway as he tries to make a name for himself under the massive shadow of the legendary hero of a mother. Thunderful Games has captured the charm of the steampunk aesthetic perfectly and given the player control of how difficult they want the game to be at any time.

The Good

The musical talents of Steam Powered Giraffe have been added to SteamWorld Heist II whenever you're in one of the rest points. It's genuinely such a vibe listening to their music in the downtime that helps get into a slightly more relaxed mood. Although, while in combat, the music just keeps you in the zone with the sound design of all the weapons and the movement of the robots, it ties everything together. 

I love how the difficulty of SteamWorld Heist II is completely customisable for players at any point in the game, with no negative results for changing the difficulty. You can even go for the custom difficulty option to raise just the difficulty of the submarine combat if you’re finding that too easy. Speaking of the overworld nautical combat, it plays like an auto bullet hell game, a la Vampire Survivors, although not as complex.

Swapping jobs for classes is as simple as just equipping a different weapon designed for that class, such as a sniper rifle for the sniper job or a hammer for the brawler job. You’re able to carry over some of the skills from jobs to other ones using a cog system, with skills costing different values. The game definitely incentivises you to have character swap jobs to pick up more skills that synergise with their unique skills. 

One of the best features for accessibility is the fact that even if you fail a mission, there's no penalty. With missions being predetermined layouts designed around the objective, this helps you pick up the mechanics in the early stages without risking losing characters to a permanent death mechanic.

TL;DR

• Stellar music
• Customisable difficulty
• Easy to use job system
• No downside to failure

The Bad

The fact that you can just restart a mission makes the checkpoint to losing a mission in only two turns feel almost useless. Several times there were cases where I went back the two turns to be in the exact same situation with no way to improve it. Having a way to select how many turns you go back to fix mistakes would improve this problem.

TL;DR

• Checkpoints only two turns

Final Score: 9/10

SteamWorld Heist II is a splash of unique colour for tactical shooters that generally aim for a more gritty tone. Plenty of light-hearted humour, player agency given complete control, and the musical talents of Steam Powered Giraffe add so much character and charm that you can't help but love the down times as well as the tactical action. Thunderful Games has kept the heart of the SteamWorld series and released an almost flawless entry that I can't help but recommend to any fan of turn-based combat, robots, or the steampunk aesthetic.

Thank you for checking out our SteamWorld Heist II Switch review, thank you to Thunderful Games for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

• Andrew Caluzzi (Inca Studios / Camped Out)
• Bel Cubitt
• Bobby Jack
• Jack Caven
• NintenVania Podcast
• RedHero