SteamWorld Quest

Steamworld Quest is a card-based JRPG that's on the Switch and Steam. I don't know why we're putting cards into everything now, but I guess it's better than putting Rabbids into everything. Steamworld Quest is great. I generally don’t play RPGs due to how long they are, but thankfully Quest is reasonably short.

Basically you get a random assortment of cards from your characters' decks and you arrange them into powerful attacks. You get a bonus attack for only using one character in a turn, so this makes the strategy about planning among different turns to maximize your attacks. It works pretty well, and there are a good variety of strategies with the different characters and cards you can pick from. The combat is engaging and has plenty of variance.

One thing I appreciate from games like this is when they let the mechanics allow you to break the game in various ways. This game does let you go wild if you want (and even pushes you pretty hard in the challenge arena). I was able to one-shot a boss because I tried a kooky strategy on it.

There's nooks and crannies to explore in every world which was nice, mostly rewarding you with equipment or cards. The overworlds are generally pretty simple and uninteresting though. This game is really just focused on combat.

SteamWorld Quest's aesthetics are, quite frankly, insane. All the SteamWorld games are in a Steampunk-themed robot world. This is too, only it's a Steampunk-themed robot high fantasy world. It works, but I don't know how. There's like way too much going on here. What next? A Steampunk-themed robot Romance-of-the-Three-Kingdoms cooking show? The steambots go to Antarctica and fight undead dire penguins?

SteamWorld Quest is a SteamWorld game and I love it. Check it out if you like JRPGs. It's short and sweet.