Jan 302015
Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., the new 3DS turn-based strategy game revealed by Nintendo during E3, is due out on March 13. In the meantime, the demo is available on the Nintendo eShop.
I downloaded the demo yesterday and tried it. So far, it’s taught me two things:
- Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. has some really fun gameplay ideas, such as coins you can collect on the field and use at save points to restore your characters’ health/steam…
- …I am terrible at strategy games.
I’d like to give you an estimate of how long the demo is, but I can’t, because the sheer amount of time I’ve spent dying has stretched out my gameplay time. Other than that, I only have one criticism with it, and its one many other players share: the enemies’ turn takes far too long, and since everything is shown from your characters’ point of view, you sometimes have nothing to do but watch the camera vaguely bob toward things you can’t seen. An overhead perspective (or at least the ability to skip straight to the important bits) would make this a lot better.
As I mentioned, I like the coin system. I’ve also found collectible gears on the maps, which I like. The combat and Overcharge system seem interesting, and of course I like the alien designs. I haven’t seen enough story content yet to say anything about it or the characters (right now I only care about the protagonists in terms of how I can use them in combat), but that may be because I haven’t finished the demo.
So, while I continue to struggle with strategy, let me know your own thoughts on the Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. demo!
I can’t see myself playing a whole game of this tense “you don’t know all the information at any time” type of gameplay.
Back with Fire Emblem and Advance Wars, you know everything at every time unless there was Fog of War, and the maps with that were designed with that in mind and also gave you things to help mitigate that (Torches, Thieves).
Here, reinforcements appear to make sure you don’t take your sweet time collecting all the collectibles at your own pace, but you’re not told when and where they appear and they might be infinite.
…also not a fan of the art style, still.
The infinite reinforcements screwed up my initial strategy of “clear out all enemies and then grab the collectibles.” *sigh*
Yeah, the reinforcements in like, Fire Emblem aren’t infinite.
…well they are in some older games, but they’re very manageable if they are.
…I really should get back to Sacred Stones sometime. (Or start over, since I don’t remember anything that happened.)