SteamWorld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt (PS4) Review by Jason Bonnar

hertymakeup Haziran 05, 2022

Game Review: SteamWorld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt (PS4)

SteamWorld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt is an adventure platform game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. SteamWorld Dig having previously released on various platforms in 2013 received many nominations for a variety of categories in multiple Game of the Year Awards, such as Best Original Game, Best Indie Game, Best Handheld Game and Overall Game of the Year 2013, which really shows the quality of the game.

The story sees a lone mining steambot called Rusty arriving at an old mining town were his uncle Joe has just given him the rights to the entire mine. It is now up to Rusty to decide what he is going to do with the mine, if he is going to keep the mine open and if so, how he is going to run the mine, although Rusty professes to not be any professional miner with no idea as to why his uncle Joe gave him the mine in the first place; Rusty knows he must make the right and respectful choice to keep the mine in Rusty’s family, rather than shutting it down.

As you are digging your way through the mine you will find trashium, copper, citrine, ironium and much more, which is made up of various diamonds that the town requires as it will be purchased by Dorothy and effectively forms the in-game currency. Selling your trashium and various findings in the mine to Dorothy results in you receiving dollars to spend at the upgrade shop on such purchases as health to replenish your life; teleportation devices that will transport you from one place to another; new and improved pickaxes for more efficient mining; pouches that carry more inventory slots that will therefore store more of your findings from the mine at any given time; lanterns that provide light for an extended duration in comparison to your standard lantern; ladders that you can stack to help you out of tricky situations deep into a mine; lamps to provide light in important areas; and much more besides with each improvement costing more than the previous version of the upgrade. The dollars earned from selling your findings from the mine also levels up your character and unlocks new upgrades, which is a great design choice as it means that everything between collecting your findings in the mine, selling them at the shop and the upgrades are all intertwined, therefore providing an appropriate structure to the game that feels along the lines of a rewards system, which flourishes even more so as you progress further through the game.

Further upgrades can be found by venturing deeper and further into the mine were you actually find a machine that Rusty’s uncle Joe had previously created to invent various items to improve his ability of scaling the tunnels and caves that you will find throughout the mine. The inventions really allow you to broaden the horizons of how deep and wide you are exploring the mines with such inventions as speed boots that allow you to not only run, but also jump higher by successfully timing a running jump.

The character design is rather interesting as all of the characters are robots that each have their own unique look and personality in regards to how they approach you and the kind of tone of conversation they will have with you. Some of the characters provide humour to the game too as you will see the owner of the upgrades store called Cranky asking you “Ye buying anything or not?” as though he is starting to get irritated if you talk to him about anything other than buying an upgrade.

The environment design is just as great and interesting as the character design as there are different elements to the design that you will encounter as you progress further into the mine and caves with enemies of various sizes and new inventions, such as the steam pack that allows for huge jumps when you are equipped with enough water to power the invention to provide the appropriate elevation for the jump and teleporters that transport Rusty from one area of the mine back to the surface and vice versa with much more to discover as you dig even deeper into the mine and caves.

The PS4 version of SteamWorld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt supports the share feature that allows you to upload a video clip to Facebook or Twitter; upload a screen shot to Facebook or Twitter; and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as you are experiencing the game with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of your choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores your most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so you still have the chance to decide if you would like to share something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation.

SteamWorld Dig supports cross-buy between the PS4 and Vita, although it unfortunately does not support cross-save, so you will not be able to continue from your previous progression on the Vita version when playing the PS4 version and vice versa, however as SteamWorld Dig is also remote play; you can technically continue on playing the PS4 version anywhere you want to with the same save file during remote play. Cross-buy presents a superb amount of value as it means that you will be purchasing both the PS4 and Vita versions of the game with just a single purchase.

The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller as they are rather simple to master. The default control scheme consists of pressing X to jump and X again to double jump; holding down on the d-pad or left analogue stick and holding X then releasing X when you have unlocked and are wearing the steam pack invention equipped with enough water to perform a huge steam jump; pressing square to run or discard a resource from your inventory; holding square and pressing X to perform a running jump; pressing O to dig through the dirt and rocks with your pickaxe or attack nearby enemies with your pickaxe; pressing triangle to use a tool; pressing R1 to change a tool; pressing L1 to change a weapon; tapping the touch pad to view the inventory; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move Rusty; holding the left analogue stick upwards or holding up on the d-pad to look upwards; holding the left analogue stick downwards or holding down on the d-pad to look downwards; pressing the share button takes you to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu. The control scheme is totally customisable in the sense that you are able to have a control scheme that is set precisely to your own preferences as you are able to change the purposes of the analogue sticks and face buttons that represent the actions of jumping, running, moving, digging and much more to any of the analogue sticks, touch pad and other face buttons you desire to meet the criteria of your preferences. The colour of the light bar on the DualShock 4 controller unfortunately remains the same standard colour throughout the game, which is a bit of a surprise as I thought there would have been some experimentation in this area of the controller with a neutral colour for when you are exploring with a particular colour or flashing effect for when enemies are attacking you or you are attacking enemies and a separate colour or effect when you have just found diamonds as you are digging in the mine. The rumble feedback is only used here and there in such occasions as when a large rock or boulder is about to fall after you have dug out the dirt or rocks from underneath it.

The graphics have a cel-shaded vibe to them with a lot of bright and colourful textures in both the foreground and background particularly when there are lanterns fixed internally within the mine and caves or when you have enough light of your own. The characters, enemies and surrounding environments and everything else in between looks amazing with great animations for all of the characters and enemies.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main

menu, select profile menu, options menu and various gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and touch pad, although that is not an issue considering the other methods of navigation that are available. The background of the menu screens consists of the lead character Rusty walking along the desert that surrounds the town were the mine is located.

The audio consists of sound effects and music with the sound effects mostly including Rusty’s pickaxe grinding away at the rock and dirt, Rusty walking or running along the ground, jumping between platforms and any falling rocks and boulders from when you dig out from beneath them, while the music is western themed and fits perfectly with the environment of the town that surrounds the mine. Unfortunately, there are no voice-overs as the dialogue is presented in speech bubbles, rather than any voice-overs as you will only hear some brief robotic sounds.

The trophy list includes fourteen trophies with twelve bronze trophies, one silver trophy and one gold trophy. Some of the trophies will be earned naturally as you progress through the game, such as the Fully Loaded bronze trophy for maximising all of the upgrades; the Rock Bottom bronze trophy for reaching the bottom of the world; and the three trophies for finding new areas of the mine or caves. There are some much harder trophies that are nowhere near as certain, such as the Just Like Real Life bronze trophy for completing the entire game without being killed and the It’s a Secret to Everybody bronze trophy for finding all of the areas in the secret caves. I would estimate depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take around ten hours to 100% the trophy list.

There are no difficulty levels, although the deeper you dig into the mine you will naturally find it harder to make your way back out of the mine and into the town, while you will also find more enemies as you dig deeper into the mine, although you should have equipped yourself with a better pickaxe before you get deeper into the mine, so the increase of enemies and the danger they provide will be somewhat offset by the increased amount of damage from your new and improved pickaxe.

There is no local or online multiplayer component, which is disappointing as I feel as though it is a massively missed opportunity as the Vita version could have had cross-play functionality with the PS4 version, alongside local split-screen co-operative multiplayer and online co-operative multiplayer with a friend helping you dig through the mine and caves as you and a friend or multiple friends are sharing the experience of such wide open exploration and the fact that it is missing provides the only disappointing area of the game. There are also no online leaderboards, which could have saw leaderboards for how many diamonds you had collected and from doing so, how much in-game currency you had earned with the positioning of the leaderboards based upon the amount of dollars you had earned, although this is another area that I would have expected to see that is not present in the game.

The replayability of SteamWorld Dig is purely provided by the exploration through the mine and caves with some procedurally generated elements to the environments, such as the positioning of diamonds, positioning of enemies and various other gameplay elements, which really freshens everything up by making the environments quite unpredictable at times. Another area of replay value is the abilities and upgrades that you earn as you progress through the game, which makes some areas available having previously been inaccessible, which then rewards you for venturing back to those areas and exploring them again.

Overall, SteamWorld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt is an exceptional adventure platform game with great graphics and gameplay; it is just a shame that there are no multiplayer features as it would have made it a solid 10 out of 10. However, for the content included in the game and the replay value provided by the unlockable abilities; £7.29 is an amazing price for a very entertaining and engaging adventure, which is certainly worth your time and exploration.

Jason Bonnar

9 out of 10

Analysis