Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. (3DS) (2015)

[Gabz Girl]

Thanks guys, that's a lot of cool new characters though I'm obviously not looking them up cos I want to be surprised by how they look and stuff. XP If only I didn't have to wait bloody 2 months for the game to be released here!

[YoshiUnity]

Welp, it took me a while due to college finals, but I finally beat the game.

 

Since last year at E3 when Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. was first revealed, there was something about it that caught my eye that I could not really explain. Was it because of interesting Third Person-Tactical RPG gameplay that seem like nothing of Intelligent System's usual affairs? Or was it because of the art style that made me do a literal double take when I found out that this was a new Nintendo franchise? Whatever the reason, I guess you can narrow it down to the words “Nintendo” and “different”.

 

Nintendo is not afraid to try something different every now then – unless when their new I.P.s are massively ignored no matter if they push it or not. But Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. is a new I.P. that I never thought that they would attempt; let alone in the way that they pulled it off. A tactical RPG that not only has art style that harkens to the days of golden age comics, but fully embraces the aesthetic in a multitude of ways through the cutscenes, writing, gameplay and tone just the name a few.

 

As hyped as I was, I will admit that I was a little nervous even after playing the demo. And do not get me wrong, I enjoyed the demo quite a bit. Though while it was a lot of fun, it was also a bit rough to get into at the start and proved to be a bit strict at times. Still I bought the game at launch, revving to go. And after playing it a bit more, I grown to see that this was definitely a game that was not going to hold my hand. And it's that sense of challenge that makes me happy to say, that Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. was well worth my time and will have me coming back, flaws and all.

 

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., or Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace, is an game where you play as an outfit of soldiers who origins root from folktales and folklore from all over the world. Characters like Henry Fleming from Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage to characters like the “Steel Drivin' Man” John Henry or even Randolph Carter of the H.P. Lovecraft's stories; and many more come together, lead by the 16^th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln. And under his command, the team will trek to parts unknown and not to save the world from the otherworldly threats by blowing off some steam and telling E.T. to not "phone” home but “go" home.

 

In the beginning of every mission, you start on Lincoln's patriotic-decorative airship, the Lady Liberty. It is here where you can talk with him for mission briefings; or to the library where you can talk with his associate, John Milton Hay, and look up info on characters, enemies and even the world of the game itself. Occasionally, Chief Engineer Katherine appears on the docking bay to give you advice on how you can advance thorough the maps more efficiently.

 

But when your not lounging about on the Liberty, it's time to embark into action! You can choose up to four your well-diverse agents and equip them with a multitude of interesting weapons for offense and strategy, and boilers to help you with mobility and defense. Once you are ready, your agents are sent out onto the field and it's up to you to observe the field and ensure that their mission ends in success.

 

The whole of Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. takes place in an steampunk alternative timeline where if it move rolls, swims or flies, it's powered by blowing off hot air. So if you could not tell from the title, steam is the name of the game... literally! All your weapons, movements and miscellaneous actions are govern by your steam gauge. Depending on how the player approaches the threat, the steam gauge can be your greatest asset, or your worse enemy if you are not careful.

 

If there is one thing that I enjoyed about Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., is that it has an impressive sense of challenge. This game is hard, and even harder if you attempt to collect all the collectibles on the map. This game is not for the gun-ho and never strays away from that as it goes on. The very moment you act reckless, the game will punish you for it. You have to tread carefully, keep an eye on your enemies, peek around corners, use your teammates to cover your blindsides and etc. Because running around without a plan equals failure. I highly recommend that you don’t test your luck.

 

I have already mention how your actions are dictated by the steam gauge, but another factor that plays into this are the enemies. They do range from easy to hard, but no matter the difficulty, these aliens are not slouches. Get over confident if you wish and they will tear your team apart like cheap toilet paper. When you are approaching the foe, it's important to observe how it acts instead of running up to it like an idiot. Some aliens are aggressive, others evasive. Some are even blind and won't attack you directly unless they hear you. And if you remember anything,  remember this: "Everything you can do, your enemy can do, too!" You can hit them from around tight corners, they can do the same to you.. You can defend yourself on your turn, so can they. The enemy won't ignore your strengths so it's important to not ignore theirs.

 

No matter what map it was, I always felt a strong sense of challenge from my foes. But even with this as a factor, the steam gauge restricting me and also a lack of a map; I never felt like the difficulty was suffocating.because of how well the maps where designed. Every map provides you with options and opportunities for protective cover, scouting, high-points, hallways and etc. All of which you can bend towards your favor if you're smart. Having trouble seeing enemy movements? Send an agent upward to a vantage point and keep an eye on the field. Enemy numbers seem too great? Play defensively by taking cover and keeping your agents close. I do wish that the game gave me a option on where to place my agents at the start of the mission to help capitalize on their skills, but still I was able to make due.

 

You are never just restricted to only using the field to gain advantages. Katherine will have hints scattered across the map for you to see and think about – key phrase: “THINK ABOUT” – in case you need a helpful hand. This also replenishes your steam, allowing you to do more on your turn. Also all of your agents possess a special skill that can help you move through the stages easier. To name the few, Henry can move objects, friends and enemies out of his way; John Henry can break objects and Tom Sawyer can scout better than most with his abilities to climb up areas in his reach. With more skills in your disposal from the other characters, it's up to you to consider what agent to pick and how to use them. Using certain skills will consume steam, but using them right can prove to effective enough to buy you some time and lower consumption.

 

And when options are low, all agents possess a one-time use special move to help give you an edge. All moves feel unique are all pretty entertaining to use. Admittedly, some moves do seem more useful than others. As useful as characters are naturally, there are characters like Scarecrow whose special is a random number generator that doesn't have much use strategic value or Queequeg's special that feels a little under powered even when the correct opportunity presents itself. I tend not to rely on the specials, sure. But these little negatives did feel a bit disappointing.

 

Another trick you have under your sleeve is the Overwatch function. Whenever you have a proper weapon equipped with enough steam reserved, you can actually engage the enemy on their turn if they appear in your sights. This is a very useful tactic that I made sure to use at all times whenever enemies are close by. It worked wonders for defense and makes the enemies turns feel more engaging.

 

And yes... those enemy turns. That big fat elephant in room that always seemed to raise some hell every time someone talks about this game. I will not deny that lacking an option to properly speed them up – more than a measly second – is quite a bit of an oversight. Not everyone is patient, so they will not want to sit back and wait to have a full control again. However...! I will debate that the length of the turns have been a bit exaggerated. At it's worst, the enemy turns takes around 45 seconds give or take. And depending on how careful you are, the enemy turns will be reduced greatly overtime. And if you are not careful,well then I hope you like watching enemy after enemy beating your ass one by one, increasing the length of their turns. So have fun with that.

 

Another common complaint I have heard was about the artstyle. I seen a lot of the trailers, and sadly like most 3DS games, trailers spread across on a bigger resolution on a TV or camera just doesn't do it justice. Because I honestly think that the game looks wonderful on the 3DS screen, sporting a style that's a mix of Golden Age comic inking, Bruce Timm and a tiny hint of anime that really pops in-game and compliments the tone and comic book aesthetics.

 

And you know what? With how demanding this game is, I must admit that what I love most about it is the sense of give or take it has. It's truly the main factor that pushes the gamer to be more cautious in their decisions. For example, whenever you use your steam, all of the steam that's selected is not completely removed, but stored in reserve. You see a health pack and your character is low on health. You can pick up the health pack to heal yourself, but you will lose all of your reserved steam you have. If you are not careful this can leave you open to enemy attack and make the entire attempt moot if multiple enemies are in attacking range, ready to beat the tar out of you. Same with the save points that can potentially heal you and refill your steam at the cost of a lot of medals, which will restrict your chance to unlock new weapons.

 

Now if the difficulty proves to be a bit too much, there are section where you jump into the A.B.E. Mech and take on giant aliens where you are unrestricted by turns. These sections are much easier and do a good job keeping the game from feeling repetitive without overshadowing the core gameplay. However, I will complain that they are a little too easy as even near the end, I never felt like I needed to think about what I was doing. It felt like I'm just repeating the same dodge, dodge, attack, refill steam pattern over and over again, but it does prove to be fun because it doesn't overstay it's welcome.

 

Anyway, it took me around 25 hours to complete the story campaign, which is great for an tactical RPG of this design to keep it from growing too stale. The story was enjoyable from beginning to end as threat grew more immense, and journey takes you through places around the world and even a few places that existed in some of the agents' past. The overall tone and writing help complement the game, providing a mix of seriousness and cheesiness that only the golden age era could provide. It won't win any award, or blow you away like Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin or Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn, but it will keep you entertained. If anything, it's just above the pre-Days of Ruin Advance Wars games in terms of quality, I believe. Which were fun stories that weren't all that deep.

 

Though as fun as the story was, the characters – while enjoyable – felt very flat. Besides their introduction, most of the agents are reduced to just being standard heroes with barely any time to truly shine. It's a bit of a shame considering how capable Intelligent Systems has proven to be in giving even the flattest of characters interesting roles in their stories. Luckily the characters tend to showcase their personality much better during gameplay, so they are not completely made of cardboard.

 

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. sports an impressive amount of replayability. With an array of weapons and boilers that will require even more playtime to unlock them all. Plus, completing a mission will unlock the options to replay it again, but with optional stipulations such as stronger enemies, no reserved steam and etc. for those who are feeling ballsy and want to earn more medals quicker.

 

To add the this game's length even more, there's also local and online multi-player which proved to be an surprisingly deep bout between players, both blind by the surroundings until their agents meet. It definitely keeps you on your toes and requires you to think ahead. There's also other modes such as Medal Battle where each player are given five turns to collect as many medals as they can and A.B.E. Mode where two players fight each other in the A.B.E. mechs. These extra modes are nice options, but to me failed in comparison to the intense nature of the regular battle mode. I will play them more than once, but no where near as much as the better option.

 

The online even supports tournaments, which is nice. But no Friends List is a big oversight in my opinion. You can set up a private tournament so that your friends can play each other, but it feels more tedious on a console that is more capable than this ... It's like if Friend Codes came back from the grave one more time. Hopefully sometime down the line, the Friend's list will be patched in like with Steel Diver: Sub Wars.

Overall, Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. does have a few flaws, but it also has a much more right going for it it's favor. It is very weird that it's biggest flaws are problems that you would expect Intelligent Systems to be on top on, but they do not hinder the game’s quality as much as one would think. So while it can definitely benefit from a bit more polish, I believe that Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. is still a very enjoyable RPG with plenty to offer in charm, challenge and replay value.

 

The sense of challenge it provides is it greatest ace, but since it demands quite a bit from the player, it might prove difficult to others who want something more streamlined. Still, I had a blast. And I hope Nintendo sees it as a success so that this wonderful game can become a wonderful series. If a sequel ever emerges, I'll be one of the first to gladly shout, “Full S.T.E.A.M. ahead!”

 

Edit: For those that don’t know, an update has been released for Code Name S.T.E.A.M. that allows you to fast-forward through enemy turns considerably. So if this was a concern for you, it has been fixed.

[YoshiUnity]

http://www.gonintendo.com/s/250245-code-name-s-t-e-a-m-enemy-turn-speed-update-details

We know from this Nintendo Direct that enemy turn speed will be boosted in a Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. update. The thing is, these speeds will differ depending on what 3DS you have.

- speed up 3x max on New Nintendo 3DS/XL

- speed up 2x max on regular Nintendo 3DS/XL

Well... Here we go! People wanted it an now, the update --announce in the recent direct-- will let you speed up the enemy turns. While I don't think I'll ever use this, great news for those who where concerned.

What ever helps this game sell is fine with me.

[YoshiUnity]

Alright! The patch has been released!

 

 

For anyone that it concern, the Enemy turn update has been released! And it has also been confirmed that you can use the update on the Demo, too! 

 

I've already beaten the game and pretty much unlocked almost everything, but try it out and see what you think!

[YoshiUnity]

Alrighty! Here's the UK launch trailer!

 

 

The game's been out for a few days in the UK now. Anyone who's still curious about trying out the full game, I still highly recommend it.

[Gabz Girl]

I'm holding off until the summer to get this game for two reasons; I'm trying to save some money for London Comic Con which I'll be attending on Friday and I got a HUGE backlog of games!

 

However I will say that I'm super glad Intelligent Systems heard our complaints about the terribly slow turns between sides and that they fixed it with an update. This should make Codename S.T.E.A.M. much easier for me to play now, especially after the drag that was the demo.

[Salamander]

I'm on a huge gaming backlog, too, but I'm considering grabbing the game now as a statement of intent, and so I don't forget about it.  There hasn't been much of a buzz about it since it's been released, but it's still something I'm quite looking forward to.

[Salamander]

So I've been playing the game for a few days now, and I'm quite enjoying it, but there's some... weird stuff going on with the script not matching the dub, and apparently this is an NoE thing.  Like mostly it's spoken names not matching up quite right to how the dialogue boxes format it - the text'll say Sergeant Fleming and the dub will say Henry Fleming, or vice-versa, things like that - but there's one bit where they changed two whole lines of Tiger Lily's dialogue.  And then I hit a bit just now in Chapter 5 where I acquired a new chapter, and... and not only does their text name not match up to the dub, but the text actually changes the name of a classic literary character.

 

It's Queequeg, from Moby-Dick, but they're calling him... "King Queg."  Uh, what?  He's never been called King Queg, anywhere.  Like this is a classic literary text that's been around for a hundred and fifty years, why did they change the name?  Apparently there's another literary character later on whose name they changed as well.

[Radiant Hero Ike]

I bought this game for my sister's birthday. She'll open it tomorrow. I tried the demo and I quite enjoyed it! Oh, the cool thing is that we got her a New 3DS as well... And I have all 4 FE Amiibo.

[Salamander]

So I've finished the game now, and wow how is this game so good.  It's tragic that it's garnered so little attention and such critical reviews, because as far as I'm concerned it's the best strategy game out of Intelligent Systems in a while.  I really like its innovative approach to movement and attack limitations, the more exploratory perspective, its unabashed commitment to its aesthetic, outlandish plot and literary sources for its characters.  It's so larger-than-life and tremendously fun in every cutscene.  The locations give a real sense of place and atmosphere, with their weaving corridors and multi-levelled designs.  Also, I'd recently been reading a Lovecraft omnibus, so I was in the perfect place to appreciate all the references in the abundant background reading.

 

It's not without its flaws, sure, but I feel that the reviews often overegged them.

• I will admit that the enemy turn speed-up button was absolutely necessary and should've been in there from the start, because while there are high-stakes turns where you need to pay attention, there are a lot of others where nothing will happen that's within your line of sight.
• Enemy designs are more varied than I remember from the demo, but there is a uniformity of colour among most of them, which is to say the ones that you'll see all the time, that could have been helped - although some of the later endgame enemies are far more interesting.
• It would have been helpful to have the brief overview of each map placed before you select characters, so you know what you're getting into and aren't going in blind.  Ditto being able to choose which character goes in which spot, as some spawn points are blatantly designed for particular types of character and will be useless if the wrong character appears there.
• I don't like the approach to enemy reinforcements, where on some levels they'll spawn in every turn or two and instantly jump in and take a turn, and the reviewers were right to criticise this, yet somehow Fire Emblem: Awakening managed to get away with doing exactly the same thing; at any rate, while I disagree with the very nature of enemy reinforcements and think levels should be a closed system, there are better levels where enemies will visibly spawn in but not actually do anything until their next turn, and that makes it fairer, even if there should be fewer.
• Powerful enemies with more HP than their HP bars will display are silly, especially when the final boss doesn't work that way; just give them multiple HP bars so we can tell whether we're doing it right!  This is especially a problem with the first enemy you're introduced to who does this, the Queen, as if she turns her weak point to the wall it's impossible to tell that you're even doing damage and equally impossible to improve the damage you're dealing.
• Lurkers are explained poorly in their introduction, and also are dumb; they should be limited in number so they can actually all be killed off for good.  I'm also not sure the advice in their introductory level to use Pumpkin Bombs to stun them out of hiding makes sense, since that only works on the Overwatching ones, and also wouldn't work to actually target the hiding ones as Pumpkin Bombs explode a turn later, at which point the Lurkers will have moved.
• The A.B.E. fights feel disconnected from the rest of the game; the fact that they work so differently to the regular mechanics is a point against them.  Added to that, there are so very few of them, and they're so very short - the target times for the first two are literally thirty seconds, with the result that by comparison the third one feels dragged out at only a minute and a half.  I definitely feel they fit the style and motifs of the game, but they should have been rethought and included a bit more frequently.
• The fact that boilers and subweapons are unlocked in sequence I feel is a bit... boringly linear; I'd have liked some kind of shop where you can choose what to buy, or use gears to upgrade boilers rather than having a selection which each have their own advantages and drawbacks.  A very small selection, at that; there should've been four of each type at the minimum, I think, rather than three.
• That European localisation.

So I just said that I really liked the game and then came out with a long list of criticisms, but I really hope they revisit the series with an eye on these; I wouldn't want them to change one iota of the game style, but I feel most of my problems are very much at a tweak level rather than requiring a total overhaul of the game's systems.  Maybe they could set a sequel around Britain or France, and utilise the characters of the literature of those countries, too; picture a game with the characters of Charles Dickens or Lewis Carroll or Jules Verne.  I'd be really excited to see what they could do with those.  Unfortunately, given the game's reception I can't be too hopeful, but my fingers are crossed; I think this is an IP with a lot of potential.

[YoshiUnity]

Alright... I know this topic is pretty much dead -- like the chances of this game getting a sequel... *Sigh*

But after I 100%'d the game not too long ago, I've found out that this game had another secret once you beat it and collected 100,000 medals.

Don't know why I'm putting this is spoilers but, here you go.

 

You actually unlock a 13th agent. Stovepipe, a human sized A.B.E.

I've actually gave him a whirl and he's a beast at close range. Really powerful, but you can't change his boiler since it's apart of him.

 

Edited September 29, 2015 by YoshiUnity