OOOoooh boy, this game, y’all. I’ll be honest, I several times thought about just walking away from it, but then I remember I needed to review something, and I’ve already dropped something like 40 mobile games for being utter shit. Steamworld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech isn’t utter shit, and for long spans it was even somewhat enjoyable. It’s a bog standard RPG story about friendships and family wrapped around a card game, and I do like card games.

But you know what I don’t like? Games that randomly introduce absolute bullshit mechanics to give them the illusion of challenge because they couldn’t think of anything else to do. I’m talking about enemies who can kill player characters with one hit, or others who can instantly recover all of their health, dragging an already agonizingly long fight to double or triple the time they take to finish. There’s monsters who can hit all party members for half their health, meaning the next turn has to be spent guzzling expensive health potions instead of playing cards. Half the time, they’ll just cast the same spell again. It’s almost like they only have two cards in their deck.

All right, let’s set that aside. First things first, here’s the story. The game starts with two friends, the wannabe knight hero Armilly and the aspiring mage/alchemist Copernica, wandering outside their village to search for the great MacGuffin, conveniently leaving them unaware that the Void army is burning their homes to the ground and kidnapping the Heroes Guild to make way for unleashing The Behemoth and thereby destroying the world. As usual.

Upon returning to town, they pick up their childhood friend Galleo, a recluse living in his mother’s basement who serves as both a tank and a healer while also acting as that one guy who’s always complaining about doing any of this crazy adventure stuff. Later on, the trio are joined by wandering ronin Orik, who has a mysterious connection to the villain of the story, and then by twins Tarah and Thayne, orphans who are presented as thieves, but mostly serve as backup mages and healers. Continue reading