SteamWorld Heist II
Absolutely loved this. Apart from the original game, I don't think I've ever played anything quite like it. It revolves around turn-based combat missions, but the missions happen on a 2D plane and are very much about cover, firing angles and ricochets. You collect a team of steam bots over the course of the story, with 6 classes. Each class has 5 levels with unlocked abilities, personal upgrades and tiered weapons. It adds variety by allowing each hero to take perks from other classes - you can make each character any class by just changing their weapon. There's also overworld combat in your submarine. It's a very lighthearted game like all their others, and is very well polished.
Pros
- Works great on Steam Deck
- 6 classes
- Wide variety of enemies
- An overworld to explore as a mission hub, which also has submarine combat
- Lots of customisation with equipment slots
- In addition to buying weapons and upgrades for your crew, your submarine also has weapons and modules that can be upgraded
- I found it rather confusing to start with, but you can take skills from other classes if you train them. A sniper can change their weapon out for a shotgun to become a flanker, which then lets them be a flanker while taking skills from the sniper tree
- There's a wide variety of attributes for enemies which give you options for scrapping them. Some enemies have solid shields, some fly, some are summoners, there are also turrets, exploding barrels, linked enemies, chilled / frozen / burning etc etc.
- Most missions have some kind of countdown such as an increasing alarm, a meltdown timer or a unique objective, which encourages you to keep moving
- The game hugely respects your time and choices, allowing you to change the difficulty at any time, rewind to every alternate turn, and restarting any mission without penalty
Cons
- It's really minor, but it annoyed me that the main character said “Ha-haa!” after pretty much every sentence
- I really dislike the music in bars