Monster Hunter Stories 3 was provided by Capcom for review. Thank you!
Having played previous entries in the Monster Hunter Stories series, I was eager to get my hands on Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, and I can assure you, if you're a fan of the series, Monster Hunter Stories 3 will not disappoint you.
The gameplay itself is largely the same as previous games in the series, with turn-based battles using a rock-paper-scissors formula providing the action, where you have to figure out an enemy's attack patterns and choose the corresponding counter. It works as well as ever, and we still have the opportunity to do synergy attacks with the monsties and whichever party member is in battle with us. It requires some strategic thinking, particularly in the more challenging boss battles you'll come up against.
I also found the difficulty well-balanced, which is crucial, since the game offers no difficulty options. I did have a couple of occasions where I needed to deviate from the main storyline to do side quests in order to gain some levels to fight against a tough monster, but by no means did I ever have to repeatedly farm monsters in order to grind experience. By and large, the game presents itself as challenging rather than brutal.
Beyond the combat, we also have a beautiful open world to explore. It's not quite on the same size as the mainline Monster Hunter games, but it's decent, and there are plenty of short quests, collectibles, and hidden secrets to find in each area you'll visit. On more than one occasion, I just found myself enjoying switching between Monsties in the open world, climbing cliffs, and gliding between platforms in order to see what was awaiting me. More often than not, there was at least some reward for exploring there, even if it was just one of the many Poogies you are tasked with finding.
One very neat feature in Monster Hunter Stories 3 is the new "Habitat Restoration" mechanic. Sometimes, when playing games like these, while you are trying to co-exist with the "monsties" in the Monster Hunter Stories spin-off, you do feel like you might be doing more harm than good, such as when interfering with nests and "stealing" eggs in order to raise your own monsties. Habitat restoration helps offset this by reintegrating endangered species into their native environment. This is more than a feel-good move, as it actually affects gameplay, eventually causing additional monsters to naturally spawn in the area you reintroduced them to, helping the game world to feel more dynamic and alive.
The storyline is a step up from the previous 2 Stories games. The narrative feels on a more epic scale and introduces more serious, darker tones, as adventurers from 2 warring kingdoms team up to find the source of the blight plaguing their nations. I felt myself becoming more emotionally involved with the story than in previous iterations, and you really want to follow this group of adventurers as they rebel against their respective rulers to restore peace to the land. Despite this high-stakes setting, the game still manages to keep things relatively light-hearted in true Monster Hunter Stories fashion.
All of this takes place in a visually appealing world. The Stories series' vibrant art style is back in full force here, creating some beautiful vistas of sun-soaked lakes and forests. While I feel the characters themselves don't look great, the monsters and environments come across really well and are easy to appreciate. The voice acting of the characters is largely on point, including the English dub!
If I were to draw criticism with Monster Hunter Stories 3, I feel as though the game does force you on linear paths occasionally, which can be frustrating. Certain missions require you to play as a solo party member, but that restriction applies even when you're in free roam at that point in the storyline, so any grinding or side quests you do during that time have to be done solo, making them much harder. Starting characters' side stories, too, puts you into an almost "instanced" part of the game, where you can't continue the main storyline or any quests until you finish that side story. It would have been nicer if they were more seamlessly integrated into the game.
I also encountered an infinite-loading-screen bug. Fortunately, the game autosaves frequently, and not much progress was lost. I also wasn't able to reproduce the bug in the same area again.
Monster Hunter Stories 3 runs well on the Steam Deck, but we do have to make some visual compromises.
As far as controls go, everything is perfect; the game is designed for controllers first. We don't get support for the 1280x800 resolution here, so we have to run 1280x720 with black borders along the top and bottom.
Generally speaking, we run the "High" preset for Monster Hunter Stories 3 and then set a 30 FPS limit using the in-game framerate cap. We also enable AMD FSR Upscaling and set it to Balanced.
Here are the full settings I used for my playthrough. Click the images to enlarge them:
These settings will maintain 30 FPS throughout gameplay, with some stuttering during battle animations and momentary slowdowns in cutscenes when a scene suddenly changes.
Even at the lowest settings with FSR on Balanced, the FPS can drop below 40 on occasion, with the additional stuttering proving irritating for me personally, so I don't recommend lowering the graphics further to try and improve performance. Given the turn-based nature of the game's critical moments, a lower framerate works fine here.
Power draw is around 15W-18W, meaning you should expect about 3 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck OLED and around 2 hours from a Steam Deck LCD. Temperatures were generally around 60-65 °C.
Monster Hunter Stories 3 has some accessibility options. You can enable subtitles for all voiced dialogue, including speaker names, with a background and a larger font if necessary. You can also set the sound to "mono" and disable camera shake.
Monster Hunter Stories 3 keeps the good parts of its predecessors, the solid battle system, the vibrant art style, and the creature collecting, then backs it up with the best storyline in the series yet. This, combined with the new habitat restoration feature and a beautiful new world, makes it my favorite entry into the series yet.
The good news carries through to Steam Deck, where we can get a pretty stable 30 FPS experience with the main compromise being FSR upscaling. It controls well, and the world really pops on the Steam Deck OLED's display.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
The Outer Worlds 2 was provided by Xbox Game Studios for review. Thank you!
Having not played the original The Outer Worlds game, I wasn't sure what to expect from The Outer Worlds 2, but I would say I was pleasantly surprised. What I ended up finding was a story-based, structured RPG where almost everything has its purpose, except for maybe the copious amounts of loot!
As far as the storyline of The Outer Worlds 2, there's a mix of personal revenge and an overarching plot affecting far more than yourself, although both are intermingled. It's an intriguing, if slightly odd, plot. Some of it felt somewhat contrived, but it does build up nicely, and there are some good set pieces.
The game also does a decent job of giving players some freedom to decide how the storyline progresses, mostly by letting them choose which characters and factions to side with. Although the immediate results aren't too different, the final ending of the game and its various factions will be affected by the choices you make throughout the game, even choices that don't seem particularly critical.
There are 3 main factions in the game, but only 2 are available to side with (or neither), and all 3 are very cult-like in their operations. A sense of loyalty to the factions is a pretty major theme throughout the storyline, and the majority of people you meet will belong to one of the three factions.
When it comes to the actual gameplay, The Outer Worlds 2 does feel pretty decent. The movement feels fine, although vaulting over objects is a little fiddly and seems restrictive at times; you do feel a little stuck to the ground in the game, and I would have liked to feel a bit freer in my movement. The guns feel good to use, though, and even though the enemies do lean on the side of being a bit bullet-spongey, you do still feel somewhat powerful if you have a decent weapon by your side, especially as you lean into automatic weapons later on.
As for the amount of content in the game, there is plenty to sink your teeth into. You have your main quests, which advance the plot, as well as plenty of side quests and companion quests to carry out, which often have an impact on the main quests, such as making them easier to do, so it's to your advantage to explore the world a little and interact with the NPCs.
It's one of the nicer ways I've seen side quests handled in an RPG, to be honest. You don't feel like you're finishing quests just to get experience points. Finishing these quests usually makes something easier later down the line, or will affect the story in a small way at least.
One of my main criticisms of The Outer Worlds 2 is the enemy AI; it's really disappointing in places. Simple things, such as shutting doors or going into another room, seemed to really confuse pursuing AI. They also seemed unable to see through entirely transparent windows; they are treated the same as solid walls for AI detection. which really pulls you out of the game, especially since the game often offers stealth as an option. The systems in place aren't really up to scratch for the game to work as a "Stealth" game.
Beyond the stealth mechanics, the AI sometimes seemed not to know what to do, and some ignored my presence entirely during a fight.
As for the loot in the game, it suffers from the same bloat that Bethesda games suffer from. Some areas just have an abundance of loot that's there for the taking, mostly food products that heal you for about 4-6% of your health. While it's not strictly necessary to loot them, you are going to lose out if you don't. The saving grace here is that at least lootable items are clearly outlined.
Visually, the game does hold up quite well; it's not spectacular; we've seen games look far better than this, but there's almost a stylized quality to the game that helps it along. It does suffer visually at lower settings, though, which is especially noticeable on the Steam Deck.
I also noticed a couple of bugs when playing, such as a character referencing a conversation I was about to have, but hadn't had yet, which was pretty strange. And I presume some of the AI behavior I experienced could also be called a "bug".
The Outer Worlds 2 makes a good first impression on the Steam Deck, defaulting to the native 1280x800 resolution and offering full controller support in all menus and gameplay. The game also runs you through the accessibility options on the first launch, so you can adjust your UI scaling/font sizes to your preference.
When it comes to the graphical settings, The Outer Worlds 2 already has a Steam Deck preset in place. Defaulting the game to the lowest settings, except keeping Shadows on Medium, I would recommend switching this to Low as well.
FSR is left on the "Quality" setting, so while there is some upscaling, it's minor, and we do still get a pretty clear image.
As for performance, the preset is clearly designed to target 30 FPS, so I would recommend using the in-game settings to lock the frame rate to 30 FPS. The SteamOS frame limiter introduces input lag in this game, so don't use it.
You will, however, still get drops below 30 FPS, even as low as 25 FPS in areas like towns where there are NPCs wandering about. In this case, the Steam Deck's CPU is struggling, so no amount of setting adjustments will help. I'd still call the game playable, but it can be a little unpleasant in these busy areas.
As far as power draw goes, expect it to be around 16W-22W, but mostly leaning on the upper side, meaning you'll be getting around 2.5 hours of battery life on a Steam Deck OLED and around 1.5 hours on a Steam Deck LCD. Temperatures were in the 70 °C - 75 °C range.
The Outer Worlds 2 has some good accessibility options. Of most note to Steam Deck users is the various UI scaling options. You can independently scale UI elements like the HUD and subtitles, and add an opaque background to subtitles to make them easier to read, ensuring text is legible on the device.
There are also other accessibility options, such as disabling camera swaying, enabling motion sickness mitigation, and adjusting aim assist. Plus, there is a "story" difficulty mode to make combat easier.
The Outer Worlds 2 is a solid game, if a little rough around the edges in places. I would classify this as a "Bethesda-lite" game. It has less content and a smaller world than, say, the Fallout games, but if you're after a more structured, story-based game, then The Outer Worlds 2 does a good job of being a first-person shooter RPG.
As for Steam Deck performance, it's a bit disappointing; holding 30 FPS just isn't realistic. On the plus side, most areas where you drop below 30 FPS are not combat ones, so I would still call the game playable.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time was provided by LEVEL5 for review. Thank you!
The Life/Farming Sim genre has been pretty active over the past 10 years, likely as a result of Stardew Valley revitalizing the genre, especially for indie developers. But LEVEL5 has brought something a little different to the table with FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and it's a welcome change from the usual state of affairs.
Don't get me wrong, I love life sims like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Rune Factory. But FANTASY LIFE i takes a different approach to these games. In a reversal of the status quo, FANTASY LIFE i puts the story at the center of the game, with life-sim elements revolving around it. In fact, if you want to, you can pretty much just focus on the storyline, completing quests, and progressing through the world at quite a pace, but that's not really how the game is designed to be played.
You can easily branch off from the main quest line and take on a wide range of side quests, or just explore the world and level up your various "Lives", which are the professions you can choose from in the game, ranging from a chef to a miner, and various combat roles too. You can change these on the fly once you have obtained the license for each one, which opens up the ability to perform various tasks. Each Life is leveled up separately and has its own skill tree, so progressing along the skill trees and leveling up each Life is really where a lot of your time will be spent.
If that isn't your cup of tea, then the main questline doesn't really require you to do any grinding. In fact, the game is surprisingly short. If you don't go for any side content, like optional quests or decorating your own island (more on that later), you could complete the main storyline in less than 10 hours. There are a couple of "hiccups" where you'll need to find additional friends to live on your island with you, and you'll need at least basic skills in each of the "Lives", but other than that, you can pretty much do quest after quest to progress the story.
While combat isn't really a focus of the game, there is a decent amount of it, and the mechanics in place work well enough, even if they are a bit basic. You have the ability to dodge, light attack, heavy attack, and, if you have a shield, block attacks too. Difficulty is on the easier side, although some bosses do put up a fair fight. Again, grinding usually isn't a requirement unless you're going for 100% completion, just make sure you have the right equipment and some buddies to fight alongside.
As for the story itself, as you might imagine, given the game's full title, it revolves heavily around time-traveling and time manipulation. There's not so much in the way of twists in this story; the antagonists and protagonists are revealed almost as soon as they appear, and while there are some interesting premises, there's nothing that really sets the game apart in terms of its storyline.
Shortly into the story, you'll be introduced to an island, which eventually becomes your "Home Base". A place where you can build houses, decorate your village, and gain villagers by saving them from the dark energy used by the antagonists.
This village represents a fairly significant portion of the "side content" in the game, and you'll be able to do things like accept requests from your villagers for certain items in exchange for rewards, complete guild activities to unlock more decorations, and expand your island further. It's reasonably fleshed out, and the customization, I would say, is similar to that of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, although the personalities of each villager are much less detailed and interesting.
Really, it's all about what you're buying FANTASY LIFE i for. It does have a storyline, and that's a nice rarity in the game like this, but it's not an especially deep one, and if you focus on it, you'll be done in no time. It has a fair amount of side content, but much of it revolves around grinding experience points and doing various tasks like mining, cooking, and fishing.
It lacks the close personal relationships you can build in something like Stardew Valley, as well as the fun daily systems in place in games like Animal Crossing. But you can still have plenty of fun with leveling up your jobs to get new gear and leveling up your island to get more villagers and new decorations, which is what you will spend most of your time doing, so if that does sound appealing, then FANTASY LIFE i is worth your attention.
FANTASY LIFE i is a great game to play on the Steam Deck; it has good controller support for both menus and gameplay, the game actively mentions supporting Remote Play Together for the simple co-op mode, and it has the graphics automatically configured for the Steam Deck.
The graphics preset generally falls around "Medium" settings, and targets 60 FPS, which it reaches almost 100% of the time, with the odd dip into the high 50s here and there, but not enough for me to suggest changing the settings, so leave them as-is.
Power draw does vary according to your location, but it is generally around 14-18W, so it's not too intensive on the battery. You should expect around 3.5 hours on a Steam Deck OLED and around 2-2.5 hours on a Steam Deck LCD. Temperatures were in the 65 °C - 70 °C range.
FANTASY LIFE i has limited accessibility options. All dialogue is subtitled, even voiced lines. You can enable auto-targeting of enemies when you draw a weapon, and controls are rebindable.
FANTASY LIFE i definitely has its good points. It has a decent storyline, albeit a short one, and it has plenty of side content in the form of levelling up your "lives" and enhancing your island, but it caters towards players who enjoy that grind. If that doesn't describe you, then this game might not be for you.
As for Steam Deck support, you can't really fault FANTASY LIFE i. Great controller support and a graphics preset already in place for the device mean that you can't really ask for more in terms of how well it runs on the Steam Deck.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Digimon Story Time Stranger was provided by Bandai Namco for review. Thank you!
Digimon Story Time Stranger has been long-awaited and highly anticipated. At least by myself! With the last Digimon Story game (Cyber Sleuth) launching way back in 2016 for Western audiences, it's been a hot minute since we've had an entry in the series. But now Digimon Story Time Stranger is here. Was it worth the wait?
Digimon Story Time Stranger begins with a short prologue, which sets the scene for the game. After a catastrophic event causes global chaos, you are thrown back 8 years into the past. Curiously, as an agent of a secret organization, you still have contact with your handler in the future, and you must work together, along with new friends, both human and Digimon, in order to prevent the same events leading up to the future disaster.
The story is a little on the generic side, but Digimon at least sets the stakes high, and unlike Pokémon, it is prepared to go for a less happy-go-lucky outlook on the world, which really does help when facing world-ending situations. That being said, Digimon Story Time Stranger is still a cheerful and light-hearted time, for the most part. And to my chagrin, we still have a silent protagonist, which I always think hurts story-focused games like this one. There's also no branching narrative. You can ask questions at various points to get additional lore, but usually only one choice advances the narrative.
The combat system should be instantly familiar to players of previous Digimon Story games and JRPG fans in general. While there are a couple of new mechanics, such as gaining "CP" to use Cross Arts periodically in battle, which can give powerful attacks or buffs, the general combat is pretty basic. You have your "types" of attack, which will have different strengths and weaknesses, as well as your basic attack and skills. Nothing revolutionary here, but I wasn't really expecting there to be. Don't fix what isn't broken, I guess?
One thing that is refreshing in this genre, though, is that everything is fast. There's sprinting in the open world, which makes you move at quite a pace, and in battles, you can speed up animations by up to 5x. I know a lot of recent JRPG remasters are putting these quality-of-life features in, but I'm glad to see it here, too. By combining the animation speed-up with the auto-battling feature, non-crucial battles can be started and finished in about 5 seconds, which is great for grinding or when a Digimon that you were trying to avoid still catches you.
To speed things up even more, you can quickly throw your Digimon at another on the open field to do an initial attack, which skips the battle if the Digimon is especially weak compared to yours. These are great quality-of-life features, and for someone like me who hates constant encounters, they help to minimize the annoyance.
We're also treated to a few difficulty options here, ranging from Story to Hard. Story difficulty pretty much lets you "auto" any battle, except the boss battles, where you may want to take control yourself to choose the most effective attacks. Hard mode is an actual challenge, and you will want to familiarize yourself with your Digimon and their moves in order to win battles.
Visually, Digimon Story Time Stranger sticks close to its anime styling; the graphics are not the best I've seen, especially given that the performance of the game doesn't seem to match its somewhat basic visuals, but it does do the job. The environments can get a bit repetitive, though. The developers definitely want to make use of the environments and assets they created. Also, some of the "digital world" dungeons are quite psychedelic in nature, with moving backgrounds and warping textures, which did cause me to feel ill occasionally.
As for the sound, I played with the English dub, and thankfully, the English voices are tolerable. We do still have a silent protagonist, but the characters around you are voiced fairly naturally, and the writing steers away from being cringey. Battle sound effects are quite repetitive, especially if you increase the animation speed; you'll hear the same sound effect play very frequently.
On the other hand, the music is a plus point, with a nice mixture to it, ranging from melancholic to tense, depending on the current vibe of the story, and it really helps to bring some emotion into certain scenes. It's a shame that there's a juxtaposition between the quality of the soundtrack and that of the battle sound effects.
Digimon Story Time Stranger does have great controller support, with it being the recommended way to play the game. It also supports the 16:10 aspect ratio of the Steam Deck, meaning we can play at 1280x800 resolution and have no black borders.
As for performance, it's perfectly adequate, although not as good as I'd hope. We're best off selecting the Medium preset, then bumping the Texture Quality to High, and aiming for a 40 FPS target with the SteamOS frame limiter.
At these settings, the game runs at 40 FPS in the majority of play, but there are occasions, either in very busy urban areas (especially in the Digital World) or areas with dense foliage, where we can see dips towards 30 FPS, and very rarely into the 20s.
You can also lower Character Density to "Low" if you wish, which may provide slight performance boosts in urban areas; you will still get drops, though.
The power draw is usually around 12W-16W, but can spike up to 21W in intensive areas. Temperatures are around 55C-65C, but can reach 70C in intensive areas. You can expect a battery life of around 3-3.5 hours from a Steam Deck OLED and around 2-2.5 hours from a Steam Deck LCD.
Digimon Story Time Stranger does have rebindable keys, as well as all dialogue being subtitled. It also has support for cloud saves. There is a "story" difficulty mode, which makes battles significantly easier. Plus, if you repeatedly fail a battle, you can enable "invincible mode" for that battle, which essentially means you cannot lose.
Digimon Story Time Stranger ties a decent story with solid gameplay, backed up by familiar mechanics, meaning if you were a fan of Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth, you'll be safe with this one; it's more of the same, and that's not a bad thing in my book. If you weren't too keen on previous Digimon games, though, this one won't change your mind.
Performance on Steam Deck isn't as good as I'd hope, given how the game looks visually, but you can still get a smooth and decent-looking experience, plus the good control scheme and 16:10 aspect ratio support are great bonuses.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
The Knightling was provided by Saber Interactive for review. Thank you!
In a time when everything is about survival crafters, roguelikes, or huge open-world sandboxes, it can be nice to go back to the late 1990s, when more focused action-adventure platformers were king. The Knightling really feels like a bridge between the classic 90s formula and a more modern take on the format.
The Knightling puts you in control of, well, the Knightling. The game's prologue places you on an adventure with your mentor, Sir Lionstone, who abruptly goes missing. Now you must step into his shoes with his trusty (and possibly sentient) shield at your hand to help the residents of Clesseia and find out what has happened to Sir Lionstone himself!
The Knightling ticks all the boxes for a fun adventure, with light-hearted dialogue, plenty of puzzles, a decent combat system, and a weird sense of nostalgia. While the game is an open world, it isn't massive. It's more of a similar scale to 1990s platformers, but if all the levels were interconnected, instead of separated by loading screens. There are plenty of side quests, but there isn't an overwhelming checklist of things to do like in a Ubisoft game or a large-scale RPG.
That being said, the game has some Ubisoft-like elements, such as finding "Cartographer Lookouts" to unveil the map. But it's on a smaller scale than your average open-world game, and doesn't feel like a laborious checklist of things to do. In a way, it reminds me a lot of a Legend of Zelda experience.
While there is this main questline to pursue, the game is non-linear, so you can head off and explore, or, as I mentioned, do the plentiful sidequests to help the residents of Clesseia with their day-to-day problems if you want a break from the storyline.
The brightly colored, saturated world and cartoon-style enemies all add to the game's light-hearted aesthetic. None of the dialogue is voiced, but it does aim to be humorous and carefree and pulls it off without being cringe-inducing. You just might hear the city residents complain about kids a lot; no one seems to like children here.
The combat, however, is a little more on the difficult side, which is why I wouldn't say this game is designed for "kids". While not a "souls-like" game, The Knightling heavily features parrying and dodging mechanics, and you will need to learn them to succeed. Some enemies take almost no damage unless their stamina is depleted, and the best way to do that is through successive hits and parrying.
It's not as enjoyable as most soulslike games, but there is a degree of satisfaction when you face an enemy, pull off multiple parries, and whittle that health bar down with combos.
The upgrade system is fairly simple, and there aren't many upgrades, but it does aid the sense of progression. You can earn many upgrades simply by exploring the map, rather than having them locked behind storyline progression. It is great for someone like me who enjoys exploring over just barreling through a storyline.
I encountered a couple of issues during my time with The Knightling. Unfortunately, both of them were quite frustrating. One was a tooltip that stuck on my screen forever, even when exiting and restarting the game, preventing other, more relevant tooltips from appearing, making it difficult to know how to proceed. Secondly, some objectives are just overly vague, or in some cases, don't spawn the required NPCs. The game gives you a task, leaving you with little information on how to accomplish that task. This wasn't helped by the aforementioned issue of being unable to learn new gameplay mechanics due to the bugged tooltip.
The Knightling has great controller support and supports 16:10 resolutions, so we get a nice full screen with no black borders. The game even has UI scaling that can go up to 125%, which I recommend for the Steam Deck, as some text becomes difficult to read at 100%.
Unfortunately, performance is a bit of an issue with The Knightling, and oddly enough, the game is CPU-bound rather than GPU-bound. This does have the advantage of us being able to bump up the graphical settings a little and having some nice shadows and textures, but depending on the area, we can struggle to maintain 30 FPS. You can see the exact settings I used in the images below; you can click to enlarge them.
Using these settings, in combat areas and the vast majority of the game, we can maintain 30 FPS and have a playable experience, even if we do drop frames here and there with some stutters. The town area taxes the CPU quite a lot, so expect some drops to the mid-20s in that area.
The power draw of the game varies a lot depending on the area, with around 18-20W in the city, about 15-17W in rural areas, and as low as 10-12W when in dungeons. I would estimate battery life at around 3-3.5 hours on a Steam Deck OLED and around 2-2.5 hours on an LCD model. Temperatures were around 70C-80C outside, dropping below 70C in dungeons.
The Knightling does have difficulty options and the option to make the player character immortal. UI scaling affects all UI, including subtitles/dialogue.
The Knightling is a game that fills me with nostalgia for the platforms and adventure games of the 1990s. It's got some rough edges here and there, but despite those issues, it's a really good time. The movement and combat feel nice and smooth, there's a decent amount of content, and the world is interesting. It's a game to check out if you enjoy platformers and feel nostalgia about the good ol' days. It's possibly the closest I've seen to a 3D Zelda game on PC.
Steam Deck performance is a little disappointing; the inability to hold a constant 30 FPS is a shame, especially when it feels like the main reason you can't is because of non-essential background NPCs and their pathfinding. However, in most combat areas and away from the city, the game tends to hold at 30 FPS, making it a playable experience.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Wheel World was provided by Annapurna Interactive for review. Thank you!
Cycling games are pretty few and far between, while you've got more "sporty" games like The Descenders, Wheel World instead focuses its aim on more traditional cycling, with a few twists, of course.
In Wheel World, you take on the role of Kat, who, along with a spirit in the form of a skull, must embark on a quest to upgrade a rusty bike into a "legendary" one. But to get there, Kat must earn enough reputation and upgrade their bike to take on increasingly experienced cyclists in races. Thus begins Wheel World's gameplay loop.
It's not a long game, and you can fully play through the "story" in just a few short hours. You can explore the map to find free parts, complete optional challenges to earn "coupons" which you can spend on buying parts, and then upgrade your bike's stats so you can take on races, which, would you believe it, gives you more parts!
Wheel World is all about upgrading your bike, and not everything is a straight upgrade, either. You might get a new frame that increases your "power" but lowers your handling. More power is great for rural racing, where top speed is the key, but if you're racing in the city, you'll want something that can handle those tight turns, so modifying your bike between races is key to success.
You are constantly upgrading and refitting parts on your bike in Wheel World, which is a great feeling for a while, but it does begin to wear thin. So it's probably a good thing that, as I said at the beginning, the game is shorter. Sure, you will be doing races, some planned, others impromptu, with cyclists you find out on the streets, but there isn't a lot of variety in the game.
The whole time you are playing Wheel World, you are working towards your goal; there isn't much "side content" to go at here, besides some basic challenges you're likely to complete when just playing through the races anyway. Even the leaderboards for the game appear to only work with Steam friends, not globally, and there is no multiplayer component, so the replayability value is close to zero once you've played through the game.
Fortunately, the riding mechanics themselves are simple and feel good, with just an accelerate and brake button, alongside the ability to boost and bunny hop. Beyond that, it's down to player skill and choosing the right bike parts to win your races. You must pay attention to get around these courses, and for the few hours the game lasts, it is a good time.
Visually, the game is quite striking, with a pretty unique art style that works well, although it leans on the basics. There isn't much sound in the game, but it does capture the sound of cycling, allowing you to hear the sound of your tyres on various terrains. This brings back some childhood memories of when I used to cycle often. The music also gives an almost retro 1980s vibe to the game.
I encountered some issues in the game, however. A couple of times when racing, my bike sort of "fused" with another racer's bike, resulting in us being stuck together and unable to continue the race properly. I also had some weird physics reactions to hitting certain objects in the game, such as being thrown up in the air when hitting a wall once.
Wheel World isn't a full priced title, so it's up to you whether you're prepared to pay the price for what is realistically going to be little more than 5 hours of playtime, and you're unlikely ever to go back and play this one again, but the 5 hours you do have will be a pretty fun time.
Wheel World supports 1280x800 resolution and is perfect for playing on a controller, so we don't have any concerns there.
Performance is a bit more troublesome. The game seems to be pretty CPU-intensive, which harms its performance on the Steam Deck; therefore, we should limit the FPS to 30 using the in-game Framerate Limit option.
Because the issue is CPU-based, lowering graphical settings doesn't offer much benefit, so I recommend that you play the game at Medium. Check the image below for the exact options I used.
With these settings, most of the game will run at 30 FPS; however, the big city on the map will get frame drops, particularly during races. Expect frequent drops into the mid-20s during city races, occasionally stuttering down to around 20 FPS. The game is still playable, but you might have a harder time while racing in the city.
Power draw for the most part is about 12-16W, but can go up to 19W in intense situations. Temperatures are around 55-60 °C. You should expect to get around 3.5 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck OLED and around 2.5 hours from a Steam Deck LCD.
Wheel World has no accessibility options. No dialogue is subtitled.
Wheel World is a fun time, but it might have been the framework for something grander. It's a solid foundation, and ultimately, it will be down to each player to decide how much the game is worth, but at the MSRP of $20, it falls right between the line where I would have to seriously consider whether or not the 5-hour playtime justifies the price tag.
As for Steam Deck support, Wheel World isn't the best. It's playable, but performance issues have plagued the game since early playtests and still do, so don't expect to maintain 30 FPS the entire time, no matter what settings you try.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition was provided by Aspyr Media for review. Thank you!
Neverwinter Nights is an old D&D classic. It was always a name thrown around when I was young, being touted as the best RPG, with co-op support to boot. We've had Neverwinter Nights Enhanced, now it's time for its 2006 sequel to receive its Enhanced Edition. So, does Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition bring the game to 2025 standards?
"Enhanced" is the best way to describe this version of the game. We have some mildly improved graphics, although it still does feel like a fantasy RPG from the 00s. At first glance, someone not well-versed in RPGs could mistake this for World of Warcraft Classic. We also have controller support, along with some UI changes, including a reworked UI for those playing on controller instead of keyboard and mouse.
While the visuals are slightly enhanced, many of the core gameplay elements remain untouched. This might be expected, seeing as Neverwinter Nights 2 is based on the D&D 3.5 Ruleset, so any changes to how the game plays would have to be minimal.
That being said, the gameplay is enjoyable when it works. You have many classes, skills, feats, and spells to choose from; there's no end to the builds you could develop in subsequent playthroughs. The game even has that nice CRPG depth in places, where you will get different dialogue depending on your chosen race, for example.
The storyline of the main campaign isn't anything too crazy, largely focusing on the player character being a sort of "chosen one", with intrigue being built as you play as to who your adversaries are and what they want. It's helped by the fact that the game does have a lot of voice acting, especially for a game of its time. While some dialogue is text-based, much is voiced, especially any story-related dialogue.
There are plenty of things to do beyond the main storyline, though. Almost every location you meet will have at least a couple of quests associated with it, and if you are getting tired of blazing through the story, you can easily go to the World Map and head back to previous locations and tidy up all the side quests you've picked up. Plus, there are four campaigns included in the game, besides the main storyline.
There's also no need to gradually traverse back to do quests; you can fast travel anywhere as long as you are at a fast travel point. Perhaps not realistic, but definitely appreciated by me.
Combat can get a little frenetic, ironically enough. The game isn't turn-based, and instead uses a real-time hybrid system, a bit like the Knights of the Old Republic games. Unfortunately, I found Neverwinter Nights 2 more cumbersome than Knights of the Old Republic. Switching party members requires you to press RT and then scroll down a list to select which one, instead of a quick button press to tab to the next party member, which I feel would be faster and much more conducive to micro-management.
The amount of spells you have available can also be overwhelming, given the real-time nature of the game. You'll likely be pausing frequently during combat if you aren't familiar with the game. Going through the hotbar menus and trying to discern what each spell does (there are no detailed tooltips for your hotbar) can waste valuable time while enemies hammer your party.
The difficulty is a mixed bag, and it probably depends on the class you start with. I began with a Druid, which is usually a more difficult class due to their vulnerability, and I found the game pretty brutal. On the "Normal" difficulty setting, my party wiped several times. Enemies can easily overwhelm you, and if you're a class that isn't very "tanky", you might struggle at first until you get some better skills.
There is an "Easy" difficulty option, which weights the dice rolls in your favor, and if you are finding the game as frustrating as I was, you might want to switch to that. There are also harder difficulties if you are feeling particularly sadistic.
However, I noticed a couple of issues when playing. Collisions seem somewhat temperamental, walking close by certain walls or characters causes your player to sort of "glue" to them, meaning you have to back away to keep moving.
Your AI party members also seem to struggle with pathfinding. When entering a battle, your AI party members seem to aggro onto every enemy in the vicinity, even going so far as opening doors to adjacent rooms to fight new groups of enemies. This makes combat needlessly difficult, and I found myself fighting 15 enemies instead of 5 because my AI party was aggroing every enemy they could find.
Occasionally, they stood by while I was fighting and refused to engage the enemy until I manually took control and ordered them to fight. Unfortunately, these issues happen often enough that they have caused several party wipes for me and greatly impacted my enjoyment of the game.
Speaking of Party Wipes, they're pretty brutal in the game. If you do wipe, you have to restart from your last saved game, and the game only autosaves when you go between points on the world map, so you can lose an absolute ton of progress if you aren't regularly manually saving the game. It's pretty frustrating, to say the least.
Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition runs pretty well on the Steam Deck. The controller support is great, which was my main concern, and the game does support the Steam Deck's 1280x800 resolution.
Performance-wise, it's pretty decent, too. We can't quite manage 60 FPS on the highest settings, but we can manage 40 FPS, which is fine for this kind of game. We also get all the graphical niceties, which is how I would recommend you play the game.
If you want to run at a locked 60 FPS with less power draw, you can lower Shadow Options to Medium, which removes dynamic shadows (such as on characters) but uses much less power.
With these settings, the game stayed at a locked 40 FPS throughout most of the game, even during large battles with 15-20 participants and many particle effects. One exception is at certain times of day (sunrise and sunset) in areas with lots of grass. The High Shadow setting, which adds dynamic shadows, does cause some drops into the 30s, but it's a small portion of the game that is affected.
The power draw varies depending on your area and situation, but generally stays around 8-12W, with spikes up to 15 - 16W in busy exterior areas; interiors stay towards the lower end of the range. Temperatures were around 55 - 60 °C. You can expect battery life to last around 4.5 - 5 hours on the Steam Deck OLED and around 3.5 - 4 hours on the Steam Deck LCD model.
Accessibility in Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition takes the form of difficulty options and a "Level of Violence" setting, which adjusts the amount of blood shown in combat from none at all to exaggerated. All dialogue is subtitled.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition certainly improves on some aspects of the game's original version, bringing slightly improved visuals, controller support, and some reworked UI. However, some technical and quality-of-life issues with the game stand out like sore thumbs and really damaged the experience for me. Hopefully, these can be resolved with patches, but now, Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition might best be experienced by those nostalgic for the game.
As for Steam Deck performance, it's solid. The game runs and controls well, is perfectly playable from start to finish, and has decent battery life.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Dune Awakening was provided by Funcom for review. Thank you!
With so many survival games out there and it being one of my favorite genres, I’ve played a lot of Rust, Minecraft, Enshrouded, and recently V Rising. With Dune Awakening, I got to playtest through the start of this year, and I quickly realized how it throws you into a complex world built on decades of sci-fi history, and it's an incredible experience.
When the game begins, you're hit with names, events, and terminology that won't make much sense unless you've dipped into the books or movies of the Dune franchise, but don't let it discourage you. However, you may feel a little overwhelmed. There is an in-game archive to help, and it is quite in-depth, but don't expect it to hold your hand.
Originally pitched as a survival MMO, the developers have now clarified it's a multiplayer survival game on a massive scale. The game is broken up into servers, so there aren't hundreds/thousands of players on one server, and it relies more on the survival and crafting experience alongside the storyline. In fact, outside of trade posts and social hubs, it's rare to bump into another player. The game also has global chat channels and close proximity chat to interact with other players. You can interact with other players and join them or invite them to your guild, but it isn't a requirement. I think that's not bad, especially for solo players, and you're not punished for playing alone, at least not until the end-game content.
The story turns away from the established Dune lore by featuring a world where Paul Atreides is never born. You are thrust into the role of a Bene Gesserit, an agent tasked with unveiling the Fremen's fate and "awakening the Sleeper." You'll navigate the planet Arrakis, where conflict between House Atreides and House Harkonnen rages, locked in civil war for control of the planet. You’re a prisoner who’s just been dropped into this hostile environment.
The first 10 to 20 hours are spent gathering research resources while tackling the challenges the continued day and night cycle brings. In the Sun, heat is your enemy; spending too much time in the sun rapidly drains your hydration level, which is your main concern regarding survival. At night, you get convoys that hunt life in their drones, and you need to move tactically. However, there are challenges regardless of the time of day, like Sandworms coming out of nowhere to eat you up. So, you must be sure about traversal when moving across longer patches in the desert, sticking to rocky ground when you can.
There is no hunger system in the game; instead, you have to keep your water supply filled. This can be done by gathering dew from certain plants, extracting and purifying the blood of fallen foes, and later by certain structures. Water is used to keep both you alive and extensively for crafting, so you'll always need to keep large amounts of water on hand.
The beginning part of the game is structured into chapters or sections of the map, which are open areas you're meant to explore between these story elements. You use the accumulated knowledge you've gained through exploring these open PvE sections to cross a vast, expansive desert where your understanding of the mechanics is tested. It's always meant to be this heart-pounding experience, and will consistently offer exciting challenges.
Another clever thing is how they introduce PvP. PvP can't just happen anywhere. PvP zones are present in the Deep Desert and mainly offer high-tier rewards, as well as Spice, the most important resource in the world. Dying in PvP can result in losing all your inventory; it's high-risk, high-reward. However, you’re always on the verge of getting raided for Guilds and Bases. Dune Awakening doesn’t go hardcore on this, protects you from griefing, and only allows player damage to your base if you build it in a PvP Zone.
The vast majority of the map in the Basin area is only PvE, but there are sections that you'll find that are enabled for PvP. These are typically things like shipwrecks that you'll find lodged in mountainsides or crashed in open deserts. However, those in the open desert are a bit more dangerous and temporary than the ones on mountains, as they're 100% guaranteed to eventually be swallowed by a worm. So, you're not only fighting against players but against the eventuality of it being completely consumed.
These PvP areas always contain more challenging NPCs to face off against. But at the end of these mini-dungeons, you'll find rarer items like better blueprints for weapons or armor and even materials you can use to craft some of the more complex items in the game. If you aren't prepared for this PvP, you can buy most of the items you can loot in these zones in some of the merchant NPC stores you'll find located throughout the map.
Character creation in Dune Awakening is crucial for shaping your experience on Arrakis. The character creator is extensive, allowing many customization options, including choosing your home planet, caste, and mentor. These selections affect your abilities, dialogue, potential perks, and access, giving you a chance to express yourself and build out the character you want. You can also express yourself in your base design choices and vehicles, which can have minor cosmetic changes, such as their paint scheme.
The crafting and progressing through material tiers aim to progress you towards the final part of the story, the Deep Desert. Essentially, all of the zones you've played through in the Basin (the majority of the map) are in preparation for entering the Deep Desert.
Eventually, along the way, you'll be asked to align with one of two major houses, Harkonnen and House Atreides, which impact your perks, alliances, and unlock the political part of the endgame experience. It also ties into the lore of the alternative timeline, and the houses remain locked in open competition each week. Then player activity across the game feeds into a global score system, determining which faction has control.
Joining a faction is completely optional, but it also means you’re missing out on unique building sets and skins for your gear and vehicles.
The game doesn't rush you. Whether chopping stone, refining metal, or dodging sandworms, the pacing is relaxed enough to go all-in on one area. The combat mechanics have flexibility, and you're not stuck in one class. You begin with a single skill tree, but as you level and explore, you can mix and match abilities from others. That allows you to tailor your play style and try different builds from ranged, melee, swordmaster, poison arrows, and more. Maybe you want a stealthy poison setup with some crowd control thrown in.
Melee is a big focus in Dune Awakening, but the melee combat feels clunky. Parrying feels delayed, animations are stiff, and enemies often behave oddly during close combat encounters. I tried to give melee more time, but for some enemies with shields where you’re forced to kill them with your knife or sword by deep bleeding, most of the time, it doesn’t seem to work. With the game highlighting duel battles, melee combat feels more like a chore rather than exciting.
Ranged combat, on the other hand, is smoother by comparison and feels more reliable. Sometimes, you are forced into melee because enemies have shields that can only be broken with melee attacks, which brings down some of the excitement of combat. There is a ranged weapon to bypass those barriers you can get, but that's a few hours into the game.
This is a survival game at its core, but it's not one of those punishing, brutal experiences where dying means you lose everything. If you go down, the game gives you a second wind, a chance to revive yourself. You can do it multiple times as long as a certain meter doesn't run out. It takes the edge off the harshness.
Resources are also fairly generous and divided into six tiers, with the rarity improving as you move towards the Deep Desert. Materials respawn quickly; you'll find enough essentials if you keep moving. That helps make building and crafting feel less grindy, at least in the early game. Just remember that, like many survival games, the gameplay loop can feel repetitive after a while.
If you enjoy structured routines and the satisfaction of upgrading and progressing, that might not bother you, but it could start to wear thin if you're looking for non-stop variety. Arrakis is massive, along with the sand, rocks, ruins, and the occasional scavenger camp. It nails the Dune aesthetic, but that comes with a price. The world can feel empty; most buildings you see will be player bases, which won't be enterable.
In the early hours, expect to walk a lot. Eventually, you can research and unlock a Sandbike, and that's when exploration opens up more. Until then, trekking across the desert to turn in quests or grab resources can feel like a chore. I had a lot of fun building my base. I like how you can preview what you will be doing before you lay out your structure, giving an idea of what is happening before you commit the resources. The game offers the chance to go ahead and cancel certain builds right in the middle of the preview.
Base building in Dune Awakening is great, and I had a lot of fun building a more open base to store vehicles and putting in tons of mining tech, storage, and crafting devices, such as fabricators. These allow you to craft new equipment and build bigger and better vehicles, such as Ornithopters and Buggys.
Dune Awakening does have good controller support, no doubt in anticipation of its console release in 2026. It also has a huge amount of flexibility in its graphical settings, even a "laptop" mode that massively lowers visual quality to improve performance. I recommend using it if you want to play on the Steam Deck.
Sadly, even with this mode, the Steam Deck struggles to play Dune Awakening. Despite Valve awarding this game a "Playable" rating, I strongly disagree; the game is not playable on the Steam Deck.
As you reach later into the game, with huge player bases containing massive pentashielded hangers for storing their vehicles, expect drops in FPS well below 20, resulting in a poor playing experience.
If you're wanting to hop on and do a little base management and organizing, or if you're playing in the early game, you can get by on the Steam Deck, but if you're in a guild base in late-game or just have a large solo base, and especially if you're doing any form of PvP, you will want to stay away on the Steam Deck.
Dune Awakening has some accessibility options, such as disabling camera shaking and allowing buttons such as sprinting to be either held or toggled. You can also adjust the font size to be slightly larger or smaller. Motion blur and gamma can be changed.
The game does have voiced dialogue, all of which is subtitled. It also features in-game voice chat, but there is no speech-to-text feature for those hard of hearing.
Dune Awakening is a highly inspirational Survival MMO. It does great with its building and crafting mechanics. Even for Solo Players, the game offers trading mechanics to help them choose to buy their resources and continue their quest or explore the Deep Desert. And I like this a lot for players who aren’t in it for a hardcore survival experience but like a challenge for high-tier resources.
Quest progress isn't always shared across the party. For example, if you need to grab an item from a research facility, each member must collect it themselves. However, only interaction is required for tasks like building and using a fabricator. So, one person can build it, and everyone else can interact with it to complete the quest. This system is designed to encourage teamwork while keeping some objectives individual. Even with some let downs with melee combat, the good heavily outweighs the bad in almost every other aspect.
As for performance, I ran into a fair few technical issues, including some bugs that required a game restart. I’d get these seriously annoying stutters in some parts of the map. There were also some weird visual artifacts at times, but generally, the visuals are fantastic, and the Dune universe has been smartly integrated into all aspects of the gameplay.
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Spirit of the North 2 was provided by Silver Lining Interactive for review. Thank you!
Spirit of the North sets the stage almost perfectly for its sequel. The first game relies hugely on exploration and somewhat decent puzzles, with quite a short length of about 4-5 hours. Spirit of the North 2, on the other hand, features huge open-world exploration, with one of the biggest maps I have experienced. And while some complained about the world of the first game feeling bland and having weak puzzles, Spirit of the North 2 impressed me with its resemblance to some of my favorite games, with exploration reminding me of Elden Ring.
When starting the game, you have numerous options to customize your fox. Many choices are available, from Fur and Eyes to how bulky or cute you want to let your fox be. The game doesn’t block you from further customization either, and you can change your fox’s fur and eyes at any time from the menu.
The story of Spirit of the North 2 relies on its beautiful music and imagery to paint pictures. It starts at the Fox Village, your fox’s home, with beautiful landscapes, and where other foxes live peacefully. You solve a puzzle about the Obelisk, a unique tomb that helps you learn about your surroundings. However, things take a dark turn when ancient soldiers are awakened, causing Fox Village to be lost. Now you're on a journey to fix your village while learning about the Guardians and their memories.
Open-world exploration for Spirit of the North 2 can surely feel overwhelming at the start. You will be confused about your objective, or where to go, and how to access a certain area, as puzzles are the main gameplay mechanic. But the longer you play, the more exploration will make sense, and it ends up fitting perfectly.
Spirit of the North 2 offers six different regions, and each region is gigantic in size, with Portals to fast travel between the regions. This is one of the best features in this game and can be very useful, as travelling on your tiny feet will cost a ton of time. The game also features your cozy Raven Companion, which ended up being way more helpful than I initially thought.
Spirit of the North 2's reliance on exploration is greater than the first game, which was more linear. Wisps are one of the main items you find during your exploration, and these help you unlock different areas. It can be confusing to find these Wisps, but they are usually close to where you will require them or need to explore.
Exploration and Puzzles in the Spirit of the North 2 world are the main highlights as you come across some caves, vaults, glaciers, and small puzzles like opening locked doors. These areas allow you to gather Runes and Skill Points, which you can then use to customize your fox as well as make it more powerful. On top of that, the Skill Tree is perfectly balanced with companion skills and Fox skills like Extra Health, Less Fall Damage, and Extra Wisps. These come in handy when you’re required to dive into a hidden cave or solve a puzzle that requires Wisps and some traversal skill.
The other main part of progression is Runes, which grant different effects to augment how you play, and you can find them while exploring. Some Runes can grant you special effects, like the Glide Rune, which can help you glide, and some special Runes can help you unlock exclusive fox skins for customization.
Spirit of the North 2 heavily relies on music and small cutscenes to highlight the story, but there are also other ways you can learn about the world. Scrolls are scattered throughout its different regions, covering stories about what has happened in the different areas, padding out the lore. This is another reason I compared exploration to Elden Ring, and it’s a good way to learn about the past.
Guardians and memories are new encounters in Spirit of the North 2, which requires you to solve a decent number of puzzles and explore to figure out. Once you’re done with them, you'll face that Guardian. The game doesn’t feature traditional combat, but instead, you help the bosses, or sometimes, escape from them, and learn their memories. I enjoyed these encounters, and I would say they are the highlight of my playthrough.
The game can sometimes feel repetitive, but as the regions offer different terrain types and various puzzles, it switches it up enough to keep things interesting. One comparison I can make of this is with the recent release South of Midnight, where you constantly go through different memories and learn them by going through a similar task. But in Spirit of the North 2, it’s quite open-world, and you can choose to do what puzzle you would like to solve first and then move to the next one to get to the Guardian encounters.
With Spirit of the North 2 being a massive open world with forest and foliage, it struggles on the Steam Deck. It does support the 1280x800 resolution as well as having controller support, but struggles heavily to keep up to 30 FPS, and mainly is in the low 20s with FSR 3.1 enabled and set to Quality.
However, the upscaler performance is similar in Balanced and Performance, with FPS reaching 25 FPS. It can reach 30 FPS on Ultra Performance, but still dip below. The visuals are blurry because there are so many trees and foliage, making it look more pixelated. The TDP was also between 23 W to 30 W, which consumed the battery quickly. It should leave you about 2 hours of battery if you play on the Steam Deck. But I wouldn’t recommend it as it wasn’t a great experience and strained my eyes.
Spirit of the North 2 is a perfect sequel with a massive open world to explore and solve puzzles to find your way. However, the game has poor optimization, which could be due to the big open world. Some tasks, like solving puzzles for the Guardians and their memories, can feel repetitive. Otherwise, the game is great and a huge upgrade from the first one.
Steam Deck performance is terrible. The game runs mainly below the 20s while on 1280x800 resolution on Low settings without enabling an upscaler. Moreover, it still doesn’t reach 30 FPS or above while using FSR 3.1.
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Revenge of the Savage Planet was provided by Raccoon Logic Studios Inc. for review. Thank you!
The Savage Planet is back, but this time, the formula is getting switched up. Unlike the previous title, Journey to the Savage Planet, which was a first-person shooter, Revenge of the Savage Planet opts for a third-person approach and has a bit more of a focus on the crafting and research mechanics of the game.
After waking up on a planet after a long cryosleep, you find out that your former employer, who sent you on a mission to find a habitable planet, has fired you during your stasis. Now it's up to you to build up the colony that never was and explore nearby planets to find the resources to get yourself back home!
Some mechanics have carried over from Journey to the Savage Planet, such as the somewhat zany humor, whether or not that's to your taste. It also keeps the element of scanning and researching the flora and fauna on the planet(s), to unlock further upgrades for your equipment. I found this to be both a positive and a negative.
The movement is really solid in Revenge of the Savage Planet. You can double jump, sprint, slide, vault up ledges, and eventually unlock additional moves like dodging, which help you get around. It feels nice and fluid, and there are no feelings of frustration in how the game controls, which is good, because Revenge of the Savage Planet has you moving around a lot. The maps aren't huge, but there are 5 planets in total, and each of them will take a few minutes to traverse from one side to the other, unless you use the teleporters scattered around each planet as you unlock them.
The combat is perhaps more on the basic side of things; you're pretty much going to be using your blaster for the vast majority of combat, which can be given upgrades, but is largely going to feel the same throughout the game, with the additions of a faster firing rate and secondary shots.
There is a melee "whip," which also doubles as your lasso, with which you can capture and research species. However, it's generally not nearly as useful in combat as it puts you in close proximity to enemies and is pretty cumbersome to use. I mostly just used the lasso part of it and forgot the whip as a weapon.
You also have to hit enemy "weak points" on their bodies to stun them so you can capture them. Generally, it works okay, but sometimes it's frustratingly difficult. Shooting an enemy while it's stunned will pull it out of its stunned state (from what I could tell), so I kept accidentally unstunning enemies after shooting their weak point too many times. When your objective is to capture a rare animal, it can be a huge pain, as if you accidentally kill it, it can take several minutes to respawn.
Now, onto the upgrades of the game, and to focus on the positives, Revenge of the Savage Planet has plenty of upgrades, some of which are pretty cool. You can upgrade your jetpack, your blaster, your whip, you can even upgrade the drone that follows you to give yourself some extra abilities like gliding.
But my goodness, the upgrades are also the most tedious part of the gameplay loop, as story progression is largely locked behind finding a new "gadget". The game's structure invariably follows this same pattern:
This happens over and over again, and it's very tiresome. The worst part is that you know it's coming. As soon as you get an objective telling you to go to an area to find a resource you need, you know that once you get there, it's going to say the resource is inaccessible, so go to the other side of the map to get another resource so you can get this resource.
It feels like a thinly veiled way to slow progression down and either artificially lengthen the game, or the developers weren't sure how to introduce all the abilities you can have in the game, and decided to introduce them all similarly.
Visually, the game is nice, but it is running on Unreal Engine 5, so we pay the price for that with the game's performance, as we'll get into in the Steam Deck Performance section of the review. The voice acting in the game is also fine; whether you enjoy the game's humor will be hit or miss.
You can also play through the entire game with a friend in split-screen or online co-op (cross-platform supported). We played multiplayer for a bit, and it worked pretty well, although you had to stay on the same planet. Difficulty didn't seem to increase with another player either, so you'll probably find the game easier with a friend.
Revenge of the Savage Planet isn't a bad game, but its structure highlights its faults rather than its strengths. This is a shame, as the upgrades are good in their design, and the storyline is quite interesting; it's just that the methods of progressing both are a little arduous.
Revenge of the Savage Planet starts off with good controller support for gameplay and the menus and 1280x800 resolution support.
By default, the game's graphical settings are locked, so you will need to put SteamDeck=0 %command% as a launch option in the game's Steam Properties.
I'm unsure why the settings are locked. The settings the game gets locked to are completely unplayable on the Steam Deck, so this isn't some sort of developer-recommended preset for the Steam Deck.
Unfortunately, the game is taxing on the Steam Deck's GPU, and I found that the only way to run the game at a playable frame rate and with somewhat "OK" image quality was to reduce all settings to low and then run with Intel XeSS on Ultra Performance. The game does have FSR support, but it felt like XeSS gave superior image quality when both were set to Ultra Performance. We're also locking the game to 30 FPS with the SteamOS Frame Limiter.
Using these settings nets us a mostly stable 30 FPS, although we will get occasional stutters. Some areas can drop the frame rates as low as the mid-20s. But I still found the experience to be a playable one.
The power draw varies, around 15W-20W, and temperatures also vary between 60 °C and 70 °C. Expect to get around 2.5-3 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck OLED and 1.5-2 hours from a Steam Deck LCD.
Revenge of the Savage Planet doesn't have many accessibility options; it has a couple of options to assist with aiming, and you can enable/disable vibration and motion blur, which are classed as accessibility features. It also has subtitles for voiced dialogue available in various languages.
Revenge of the Savage Planet does some things well. I like the movement, the combat is fine, if a bit basic, and the upgrades themselves are interesting and affect how you play the game as you progress. But from a game design perspective, I feel the game needed a lot more variety in how you progress the game, and every objective is just heading to a new location to find a new resource. It doesn't ruin the game, but it hampered my enjoyment.
Steam Deck performance is alson't the best; we have to run on the absolute lowest settings possible, and even then, we only maintain a playable framerate. Fortunately, we do have good controller support, and I would say that the game can be played fully on the Steam Deck; you just might enjoy the experience more elsewhere.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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