Steamworld Dig Xbox One Review

"Digging, Lots of it"

Campaign

Playing as this charasmatic steam punk robot you're on the lookout for your missing uncle. This will lead you to dig across a variety of underground terrains that vary from straight up dirt to technology. As you progress by conquering various mines you'll also come across minerals which increase in value as you continue to go deeper. These will net you money in order to build up your skills by buying additional pieces. It's a weird sort of unlock bar that builds with the more money you get, though those rewards definitely help. This includes getting better armour to take more hits or better water compression so your steam abilities can last longer. These caves also yield hazardous enemies including both actual moving ones out to kill you or even environmental ones like falling spikes. This only gets worse the deeper you go and by the end I'll be honest that it was a tad too overwhelming. It was also a rather quick experience as I finished the game in just under three hours though I'd have done better if it wasn't for that way out of place ending boss that had some ridiculous skill curve. That aspect really felt out of place and killed some of the enjoyment, though it's still a solid experience for the time you get. To elaborate further the whole final boss was not really built up by minor bosses and it had a weird system of destroying energy boxes yet it continously shot lasers along with other ground enemies. If you did die, you were sent all the way to the start of the mine which forced you to redo the entire sequence which was hardcore and slighy annoying. The game also features a neat supporting cast which guides you a bit and provides you with money for minerals along with shops to buy your skills.

Gameplay

Everything was done with digging tools as you start with a pick axe and move up to better equipment like a drill. These all run from water so you'll need to find pockets of underground water as you progress. Gaining better skills is basically the campaign narrative as you take past knowledge to battle in deeper mines in order to find better abilities. From there it just continues and repeats with harder rock the lower you go.

The Conclusion

Steamworld Dig is a solid digging platformer game that's something completely strange to the console. It was a solid time, though it could have honestly been longer. I my total playtime by the end of it according to the game was about two hours and forty-five minutes with the end boss probably being a good half hour of that. The ending was strangely and overly intense despite nothing else before feeling like that. I did also love the whole steam punk robots thing they had going. Also had a great time exploring off the path to level my robot and it was rewarding to dig better rocks faster. Really depends if you like the style of digging and collecting resources aspect of play which will determine if you want to play this.

Steamworld Dig Review on Xbox One
Review Code Provided by Image & Form Games

Rating Overall: 7.8