SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech Reviews

Fun game

8 / 10 (Steam Deck Playthrough)

I have played every game in the steamworld series, and this one is my favorite by a long shot. I'm currently in stage 13 of 19 and im absolutely in love with this game. I'm playing the game blind and i expected some kind of slay the spire clone, but this is a full on jrpg, instead of using commands you use a very fun and original card system, you have a lot of options for deckbuiilding, there are a lot of cards and some have combo bonuses with other characters. The music is absolute fire, and i feel they had some inspiration from jrpgs, specially from the 3ds era, the ost is so good i bought myself a copy on gog. The characters are diverse, interesting, colourful, fun, multidimensional. The game has multiple translations, i'm playing it in spanish and the localization is surprisingly good, generally spanish is one of the languages with more localization problems, specially with jrpgs (atlus and square are pretty bad at this). I'm pretty sure this is the biggest and more customizable steamworld game and is not even 10usd and 1gb of storage. Absolutely must buy. Also it works like a charm in batocera.

This game has a very unique turn based combat system that I quite enjoy

It's a very entertaining and relaxing game. All the characters are interesting, there is huge variety of card combinations and some of the battles are challenging.

The artstyle is beautiful, the music is kicking, and it's set in the Steamworld universe. What's more to ask? And if you're a fan of Slay the Spire, you cannot miss this one

Love steamworld... this is not that. Felt very "free to play" and after 3 hours it really felt like I had seen everything it had to show me. I know people love this game so I doubt its a bad game, just not to my taste at all

This game has excellent visual design, neat characters and the story's actually a bit intruiging but the gameplay leaves A LOT to be wished for. A real shame since I've adored and enjoyed every single previous Steamworld release, but getting through this title was nothing but a slog.

What if Steamworld had a lovechild with Hearthstone (Or insert cardgame here) Well, it's good and bad. Take this review as mixed. The reason the review is mixed is that the first half to two thirds of the game are rather fun. You're getting new cards, mixing up decks and playing around. It's fun combining different cards, affects, buffs and debuffs and such. The problems in this game stem from the later game areas, enemies and bosses that force your hand (Hah card joke) into really restricting and limiting your build by forcing you to use or avoid specific party members. For a deckbuilder, the game is rather averse to letting you run your playstyle with counters so hard that the enemies will literally be immune to, or heal from damage. Overall there's also not much unique here. You get your turn, you can use some cards to boost a meter allowing you to consume that meter to use more powerful cards. Each character has a deck of eight cards that can be adjusted as you unlock more, leaving you with a deck of 24 with your three party members. If you cast certain cards together they can trigger tag team attacks or trigger the characters weapon ability. You also cannot save deck presets for characters meaning if you switch your party around, you may have decks better suited for different team combos but no such QoL exists. Another big issue for me is the lack of the ability to level up as the game firmly plants you at set levels for each area. It's not too big of a problem in the early game but some of the late game challenges and such outlevel you and if you want to match up with their levels, you'd have to grind for hours. Much like Steamworld Heist, I did enjoy the characters here despite the rather simplistic overall story. Each one feels unique and adds something to the gameplay and the party overall. The setting is also somewhat interesting for the franchise as it offers something different. Overall it's the weakest Steamworld game but by no means is it bad, it's just not great.