Home Page / PS2 / S / Steambot Chronicles / News Listing / News

In Steambot Chronicles, the player controls a recent amnesiac who winds up stranded on a strange beach with a girl who assists him in his quest to find himself and the answers to her questions. While this is not the first game to ever use this type of situation to begin a story, this is where the lack of imagination ends. The exploration of the world is done either on foot (for looking in buildings mostly) or driving a bipedal mech called a trotmobile. The trotbot is largely used for battles with other trotbot, yet have other purposes including removing obstacles from your path, transporting trade goods, and jumping to places you can’t get to on foot.

Steambot Chronicles attempts to bring the world of Japanese Anime to the PlayStation 2. Bipedal Mechanoids, a mix of high-tech and low-tech, and an evolving complicated love story all assist in causing the player to almost feel like they are controlling the storyline of an Anime movie. The character models look as though they were taken directly from a Japanese Anime studio think tank and the background environment is superbly done. The voice acting for the non-player characters is wonderful and only adds to the feeling of immersion. The only point where the voice acting is lacking is with the main character, who does not vocalize at all. Unfortunately the utilization of a basic MIDI-sounding background score completely destroys the immersion into an Anime world. The sound effects, while better than the musical score, still leave much to be desired. The battle sounds are what you might expect from a pre-PlayStation mechanized combat game rather than from a next-generation console game.

Having gone through Steambot Chronicles from the very beginning, including the tutorial, I must say that the controls for the trotmobiles are possibly the most difficult of any game I’ve ever played. This isn’t to say that it is difficult from the beginning. Very shortly after you get to the meat of the story the battle difficulty soars without much assistance from upgrades or added skills. This leads to several failed missions until you completely master the control system. The difficulty could also be caused by the awkwardness of the controller setup. Using the two joysticks with your thumbs and the right and left side buttons for attacking, jumping, and dashing tended to put my hands into awkward positions and lead to cramping and loss of grip. Another problem with the control system is the camera movement. When locked onto an opponent you will continue facing them unless a sharp movement is made. Unfortunately, sharp movements are the name of the game in battles against two or more advanced trotbots which leads to loss of target lock and random flailing until target lock is reestablished.

The storyline in Steambot Chronicles is absolutely excellent. The designers have allowed many choices for the player which will gently and not-so gently influence the conversations and eventually the actual storyline. You can decide to make money being a farmer, play instruments for change on street corners, or become a great trotmobile arena fighter. Being mean to everyone you meet, while quite funny at the time will eventually lead to consequences which might not be so funny. Hitting on the girl who saves you on the beach eventually leads to romantic situations. This manipulation of the storyline definitely makes the game worth playing through a few times if the player can get the controls to be like second nature.

While the gameplay does get a little easier once you truly get used to the control system, it never has the natural feel of most first person shooters or even of other mechanized combat games. I would still recommend Steambot Chronicles to true fans of mechanized combat games, anime fans, or those looking for something with a completely different control system. I would not recommend the game for children as the size of children's hands would only make the handling problems greater. Overall a solid game with basic control problems I would possibly overlook when purchasing.