Codename: S.T.E.A.M. 3DS Review

Codename: S.T.E.A.M. is a Third-Person Turn-Based Strategy game for 3DS, which was developed by Intelligent Systems, and published by Nintendo.

It was created by a same developers who was well known for their beloved franchises such as Advance Wars, Paper Mario, and of course Fire Emblem. This game is more like a steampunk fantasy genres taking place in fictional civil war era, while most of the characters in the game are heavily based on between the non-fictional and novels which brings the most interesting concepts to this game's presentation.
As I had previously enjoyed some turn-based strategy games like Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn on Wii and Valkyria Chronicles on PS3 from the past, I hope that I might able to like this game which I luckily bought it from Ebay for dirt cheap of £3.50 in brand new condition.
The answer is that the game is fairly does a job done that didn't get what it deserved despite it received an above the average reception is the reason why it hasn't sold well at the release.
I really liked the presentation for its story, characters, and the art-style graphics which is pretty neat for 3DS standards, but there are few problems that the game may going to frustrate players for its level design choices and difficult tactics seems to take sometime to get used with it doesn't necessary mean the game is unplayable because I've managed to properly beating the whole game in two weeks.
Is this game any good? I will explain all the positives and negatives part of this game during the review.

So without go further do, lets start the review.



Presentation

The game set in Steampunk Fantasy theme of London on the opening day of the Steamgate Bridge where the whole city been invaded by unknown Aliens species.
The game focused on an American private soldier named Henry Fleming had managed to escape from the attack and meet up with his old friend John Henry as they were been rescued by an airship called the Lady Liberty captained by the President of U.S named Abraham Lincoln who wiling these two men to become the team members known as the S.T.E.A.M. (Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace) as their mission is to save the world by stopping the continuous Alien Invasions.

The story in the game is quite an interesting concept which mixes between the genre of Sci-Fi and Steampunk in fictional Civil War. The plot in the game is seems to be quite as straightforward to follow which I think most of the players will able to enjoy the simple storyline that involves the war against the Aliens like most of the older Sci-Fi films back then. 
Most of the characters in the game you may familiar to recognise from novels such as Henry Fleming from The Red Badge of Courage, African-American folk hero John Henry, Dorothy Gale and her friends from The Wizard of Oz, Tiger Lily from Peter Pan, Tom Sawyer, Professor Randolph Carter from H.P Lovecraft's fiction, Californian Warrior Queen Califia, Fox the dashing thief, and Queequeg from Moby-Dick, while others are non-fictional such as British Queen Victoria and U.S President Abraham Lincoln which I think it sounds pretty cool to have different kinds of characters in video game titles like this.
The most surprising guest characters were featured in the game such as Marth, Ike, Robin and Lucina from Fire Emblem series which you can able to add them by scanning their corresponding amiibo figures.
The game's presentation is heavily influenced by mid-50's comic book era similar to creator artist such as Jack Kirby and Bruce Timm which fits nicely to story sequences and game's graphics as it filled with colourful art style of character's design and cel-shaded environments which makes the game look more appealing on 3DS standards.

Overall, it has enjoyable storylines, recogniable characters, and colourful presentation.



Gameplay   

The game features with 16 chapters with 3 or 2 missions each in single-player campaign. You will have character selection to choose any of 4 units to join in the battle, while you have the options to choose your selectable sub-weapons and steam boiler. You take control of your team in Third-Person Perspective of Turn-Based gameplay as you aiming to beating the stage by heading to the goal or other mission objective.

It has grey coloured transparent-grid on the floor which tells you where your character can move up to until it ran out the stream that shown on bottom of the top-screen. Speaking of steam, you'll use these as the ammunation of both primary and secondary weapons which allows you to shoot down these aliens during the battlefield. You can also take cover by hiding behind the objects which prevent being caught firing by enemy's nearby and you can also change units of your team by pressing d-pad up & down button or on the touch screen.
Once you had finished with your turns, you had to wait until your enemies had finished their turns which I heard most of the players doesn't like a very long enemies turns that takes forever to wait our turns to be ready, but you can always fast-forwarding the whole thing which I'm very glad that they added the features in later patch updates.
The combat gameplay has selection of sub-weapons to choose from unit options such as medi-carbine, stream rifle, crossbow, mine launcher, bananapult, and other useful sub-weapons which can be unlocked by collecting all of coins at the battlefield. Each of the units has different main weapons such as Henry's rifle, John's grenade launcher, Tom's punching gun, Lion's jumping attack, Califia's rocket launcher, Queequeg's penguin bomb, and Lily's medi-gun, while each of them has their own special attack such as Henry's eagle bomb, John's hammer, Scarecrow's trick and treat, Fox's instant counter-attack, and Tin Man's full steam replenish which I think these weapons had worked absolutely fine for its shooting collision and hit detection making it more effective on player's damaging attack on enemies, but the issue that I don't like about in the game was that both attacking and movement requires the use of steam, a meter that depletes whenever a character moves around or uses their weapon, so everytime you move the characters around the stage is likely depleting your steam ammunation meaning that you won't able to shoot these aliens in right range which I finding it quite annoying when playing the mission and I also not liking the part where it lacks the actual map screen during the battle instead they putting a stupid big ass camera controls on touch screen that made the tactics gameplay style very difficult to play in comparison with SEGA's Valkyria Chronicles is much easier for relying on limited real time movement, better range of attacking in target mode, and of course the full map screen on command mode which is the main reason why SEGA got it right for their style of tactics gameplay as opposed to Nintendo's Codename: S.T.E.A.M. is too much focused on more complex style of battle gameplay.
You can always save your checkpoints are located with yellow-green object save points which give you a two options to select such as restoring your health or recovering all units back in action are quite in handy which saves you from starting the mission over again during the battle.
There are collectables golden cogs in the battlefield that unlocks your new upgradable boiler which really improves your steam meter meaning that it adds more enough steam to move around your character unit.

I got to say that the 3DS's controls is quite responsive to play because you won't need a touch screen for its camera controls instead you have a easier three ways options to use a camera controls such as 4-faced button on 3DS system, 3DS's circle-pad pro for old model, and new model 3DS's pointing stick which works a lot better for its aiming controls making it much easier to point and aim at the enemy's nearby, so I'm very glad that they fully understand how the third-person genres actually worked on handheld gaming using a best alternatives 3DS's control schemes.             
Despite with playable controls and decent selection of weapons, the whole mission in the game is actually quite fun to play with all the objectives and goals that keeps you more motivated and most of the enemy A.Is is ridiculously tough and clever with their tactics that always giving a higher damage attack and cheap stun attack which really adds the overall challenge of single-player action.
The best part of the game is where you take control of Abe's steam machine fighting with bigger bosses is absolutely epic because I really liked playing the mecha style action with his dodging mechanics and heavy weapons had worked very well during the battles.
You can also add your favourite Fire Emblem characters in the game using the amiibo scan device which allowing them to join forces.
You can also enjoy with your friends through the local and online matches in versus mode which is sounds pretty cool if you're into with kind of game modes. 

Overall, it has responsive controls, decent selection of weapons, and fun mission.



Graphics

The graphics in the game is looking impressive for its 3DS standards. The whole art style has comic book look of the game for its character's animation and level environments. The character's animation is really amazing for its their personality with the use of their facial expression and body language that really adds the significant character development in the game. The level environments is fully cel-shaded with colourful details, smooth textures on surfaces, and has great looking scenery on each mission which fits nicely well on level design, but I do find the size of the level design is rather small which makes it looked bit shrunk out in comparison with other tactics turn-based games like Fire Emblem and XCOM which has slightly larger map making it much easier to explore, but so far it's actually acceptable for the 3DS titles.

Overall, it has decent looking character's animation and acceptable level environments.



Music and Sounds

I really liked the original soundtrack of the game which mixes with orchestrated and heavy metal genres really fits perfectly for the battle gameplay. These original music on battle gameplay is so much like the straight-up from Transformers: Devastation which I really enjoying listening all kinds of metal genres while getting ready to pump up for action and I also had fun listening to orchestrated sing-a-long theme song with goofy patriotic lyrics.
The game does have a great use of sound effects for the atmospheric effects, gun shooting, and some background noise.
Most of the characters in the game was voiced by some actors and actress you may heard of such as Adam Baldwin, Michael Dorn, Wil Wheaton, Fred Tatasciore, Kari Wahlgren, Jeremy Shada, TJ Storm, James Urbaniak, Paul Eiding, Grey DeLisle, Kimberly Brooks,  Andrew Kishino, and Amber Hood providing their roles in the game.

Overall, it has fantastic soundtrack, great sound effects, and decent voice casting.



Special Features

This game has Amiibo functionally, unlockable abe's mini game, and has more library details of characters, world, creatures, music and cutscenes.

Overall, its a nice addition to this game.



Advantages

Comic book style presentation

Fun single player mission

Responsive controls

Decent graphics

Fantastic music

Playable amiibo characters



Disadvantages


Complex tactics for lacking actual map screen

Both attacking and movement requires the use of steam



Final Verdict


Presentation 8/10 - enjoyable storylines, recogniable characters, and colourful presentation.

Gameplay 7/10 - responsive controls, decent selection of weapons, and fun mission.

Graphics 7.5/10 - decent looking character's animation and acceptable level environments.

Music and Sounds 8/10 - fantastic soundtrack, great sound effects, and decent voice casting.

Special Features 7/10 - Amiibo functionally, unlockable abe's mini game, and has more library details of characters, world, creatures, music and cutscenes.



Overall 7/10 - I would give it 6 at the release where they didn't include the features such as fast-forwarding enemy's turns and supportive amiibo characters, but as retroperspective I decided to give it 7 because it's definitely an overlooked gem title for 3DS libraries that could have deserve a second chance despite it mixed overall from critics and sold poorly at the release.
Its a shame that it never really got it made to the Wii U console should have made the sales much more better performance, but I hope they will able to bring it to Switch version if they had a chance to do it in future release.

So far, I really liked the game and I had fun playing it for over 3 hours a day of this fun-action tactics shooter. If you're into with this type of genres then this is for you to play worth getting it for dirt cheap from £3.50 to £12.


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