[3DS] Codename S.T.E.A.M. review

[briareos_kerensky]

London is under attack by aliens! The Queen is in peril! Quick, call...the Americans! OK Nintendo, can't we leave the concept of Americans being able to save the world in Call of Duty or things like that? It shouldn't bug me this much, but the introduction goes in presenting London as the world capital in steam technology, and yet the heroes of the day are a gold-blond, square-jawed, dashing guy, a...female Native American...the lion from Oz...and Tom Sawyer.

My point still stands, dammit!

Anyway, these are impressions based on the demo, which I've found surprisingly long.
Codename S.T.E.A.M. is a turn-based strategy game from Intelligence System, and it shows. Missions are turn-based (all your chracters first, then the aliens), with each character able to perform actions as long as they have steam. Characters are controlled directly, with maps divided into tiles; as soon as your character enters a new one, he/she expends one steam point; there's no action undo, but you can backtrack to your starting tile to regain spent steam points, unless you fired a weapon: in this case the steam reserve is "locked" and you cannot regain any until the turn ends.
During your turn, you can control the available targets as you see fit, and you can jump between characters to move and attack them in succession; if a character has steam points left, he/she can enter overwatch: the character will open fire during the enemy turn when an alien is spotted and within weapon range.
The system also includes weak point (head- or back- shots), cover system, stuns, and a number of character-specific abilities; is is quite easy to get into it, but offers a lot of flexibility. It's not without faults however: the rules for triggering an attack during overwatch aren't quite clear (I've seen enemies entering a tile right in front of an overwatching character and then walzt away without my character doing anything); the enemy turn always takes too long to complete, and it's a huge break in momentum; the camera always follows a character, and getting a good idea on what's going on takes a lot of camera movement; missions are on the long side, but that's probably due to the enemies taking so long to take their turn.

This looks like a winner, rough in some places but so have been all Intelligent System games in their first version.

[briareos_kerensky]

Some more impressions based on the final game.

You can load the demo filesave for extra coins, which translate to ranks and thus weapons, but you can't change your equipment until later in the game. You have to replay every mission from the demo, which is initially kinda boring; the demo, however, skipped a mission present in the final game, with the mission after that slightly different between the two versions.
Right now, impressions from the demo completely carry over the final game: how overwatch really works is still a mystery, I would have liked more camera freedom, the system is great, enemies take too long on their turn. Will keep the thread updated as I play through it (or until Bloodborne gets here :P).

[doodledude]

Some more impressions based on the final game.

You can load the demo filesave for extra coins, which translate to ranks and thus weapons, but you can't change your equipment until later in the game. You have to replay every mission from the demo, which is initially kinda boring; the demo, however, skipped a mission present in the final game, with the mission after that slightly different between the two versions.
Right now, impressions from the demo completely carry over the final game: how overwatch really works is still a mystery, I would have liked more camera freedom, the system is great, enemies take too long on their turn. Will keep the thread updated as I play through it (or until Bloodborne gets here :P).

Thanks for impressions, waiting for the uk release.
Advance wars games are probably my most played and enjoyed ever so looking forward to more Intelligent Systems magic.
Got a bad feeling this game will die on release though.

[briareos_kerensky]

Update time.
I've played quite a lot, and although I'm having fun, the wrinkles in the game are becoming more and more irritating.
Aside from the four characters present in the demo, the full game offers an incredibly varied roster, not just in looks, but also in mechanics.
Queqeeg (of Moby Dick fame) uses the "Penguin Lobber", that fires a mechanical penguin that will advance in a straight line, exploding at the first obstacle met. The Scarecrow (from Oz) is immune to stuns and can stun enemies (stunned units receive more damage). Tom Sawyer can climb on low walls. Randolph can lure enemies away.
All characters can equip a variety of subweapons, unlocked by collecting coins and killing enemies: there are heal guns, shotguns, shuriken launchers, stun mortarts, normal rifles, crossbows. All have their special ability, and it's fun experimenting with different loadouts on different characters, in different team compositions. By collecting gears, boilers are unlocked, and once again they give special abilities. The only drawback is that you don't know what a weapon or a boiler will do, and you need to test it in battle, be it the newest mission available, or one of the previous. Missions tend to be long, and some are composed by two or three maps.
Characters don't gain levels, so you're free to swap them at every mission, but going back to a map to collect missing gears is more often than not more boring than it should be.
Small things that irk in the long run: it's hard to understand your surroundings, especially if maps are in buildings; the ability to zoom out the camera or give a bird-eye view would have been greatly appreciated.
Overwatch works in its own mysterious way: I get that weapons have their own range and activating overwatch also depends on this, but overwatching aliens are often able to fire once or twice on your character even when taking aim, or alines will stroll before overwatching friendly without triggering any attack, or after the alien attacked.
Missions are a tad long, and rely too much on enemy reinforcements.

Overall, it's a fun game, unpolished and rough around the edges, but worth playing. My only fear is that Etrian Mystery Dungeon will get here before I finish this.