The original SteamWorld Dig was defined by its rewarding progression loop, fun exploration, and steam-powered cast. As a mining robot, your job was to excavate resources, then spend the money on items and abilities to make you even better at excavating resources.

After the unquestionable success of , the appearance of is certainly a cause for celebration. Though its predecessor wasn't perfect and ended a little sooner than you liked, this follow-up works on what the original needed more of. And then some.

Let's start this off with an obvious statement- games are meant to be fun. We all feel that's the case, but all too often do we have games that fight against your expectation of how the game should play out.

Can you dig it

Beautifully sedate; A joy to play; Fen is brilliant

Slow to start; One harrowing segment; Possibly too short

As Image & Form often reminds us, its now-familiar core IP began with SteamWorld: Tower Defense on DSiWare, a thoroughly decent tower defence game. It was SteamWorld Dig that was transformative for the studio, however, achieving well-earned success on the 3DS and a range of other platforms.

My absolute favourite thing about the first SteamWorld Dig - a game that, in the memory, seems pretty much bursting with favourite things - was a simple collectable. It was an in-game currency of some kind, although inevitably I can't remember what you could spend it on.