Steamworld Dig Xbox One - 60 Second Review

Image & Form really struck gold, excuse the pun, when they released SteamWorld Dig back in 2013 and now this gem, another pun sorry, has come to Xbox One.

The story is pretty straight forward, you play as Rusty a steamboat who received a letter from his Uncle about a mine and when you arrive in town, you fall into the mine to discover your Uncle who has died. You are left with the mine and it's now up to you to dig throughout everywhere you can to uncover riches and the mysteries of the mine.

While Rusty, never speaks himself, there are other characters located into the town of Tumbleton, each of whom has a personality all of their own. Cranky and Dorothy are who you will interact with most in the beginning, as Dorothy is the one who will sell your haul to, she is peppy and happy that someone is helping to get the town going again, Cranky on the other hand is, well Cranky, he does not like the idea of anything new, which is pretty funny to see him react to Rusty as he upgrades. Lola is the other original townsbot when you arrive and she runs the local bar and you will mostly deal with her when you die.

From a gameplay perspective, it starts out really simply, you can walk, jump and dig, but as you venture deeper into the mine, you will uncover upgrades that will allow you to run, jump higher, break rocks and more. The system in place is very well balanced, at no point do you feel like you are stuck because you can’t reach a higher point, or unable to dig through something. When you do venture to depths beyond your capabilities, the game will give you a strong push to tell you this, which should result in your going back; Backtracking is actually something you will do quite often here and it never feels like a chore.

As you dig through the dirt, you will find plenty of gems and jewels and others as well, once you have filled your bag, you will need to return to the surface to cash them in, which will allow you to purchase new upgrades for yourself, or items to help you survive in the depths. While all that is very focused on you, as you cash in your collection, the town will grow, to help show the level of wealth you are bringing into it, which brings some more interesting characters to boot. The new characters will bring new gear for you to upgrade yourself with, meaning the more you collect the more upgrades you can get.

The game actually looks as nice, the art style that was created for the game has worked great on Nintendo 3DS and scales beautifully on the Xbox One, the colours pop more of course and things are shaper, but all that is a testament to the art style they used. Rusty is true to his name sake, he is old and you can see him falling apart, but as you upgrade you will see him change and while they are sublte, each change helps shape the character even more. From an audio point of view, the sounds ring out when your pickaxe hits rock, the drill is loud and boorish and the music hits the right notes.
The problem with the game is it only lasts a few hours and that even with the mine layout changing at random with each play through, returning to the game again will only result in repetition. The only other concern is that the game does not feature a new game plus mode or anything, so while you can continue to play, it will always take place before the start of the final boss, which is disappointing.

Overall, Steamworld Dig is just a great on Xbox One as it is on the other platforms, the gameplay is solid and the characters are just as interesting, while the lack of new game plus, or the games overall length put a slight damper on it, the experience is worth it.

Thanks to Image & Form for supplying the game for review.