Steel Diver Review: An Absolute Blast To Play!

Steel Diver Review

I have finally made my way through playing Steel Diver on the Nintendo 3DS. I would have to say this quickly became a favorite of mine even with a lack of missions.

In Steel Diver you will be at the controls of a submarine vessel. You have the option of three different type of subs to choose from before you start your mission. Each sub has it’s own specialties and vary in size and how you even control them. Speaking of controls you will be using the stylus the entire time to control your sub from how fast and how deep you will go. This also includes a steering wheel on the medium, in addition to a large sub and a firing button to fire your missiles. I found the controls to work pretty well once I got use to them and the underwater seas that I would be moving throughout. There will come moments in the game where the maps get really small and you’ll have to carefully maneuver your sub around. This is when the controls can be a little more difficult and you’ll need to be quick in what you want the sub to do. I have a need for speed, so I probably brought on more difficult situations than where needed. You can easily and slowly take your time throughout each level even though it does have a time limit for you to complete.

Steel Diver is an absolute blast to play and I had a great deal of fun with it. There are 5 missions for you to play through and 2 additional missions for you to unlock. Each mission has a time limit though it wasn’t often that I had to deal with the time limit at all. The time you usually deal with is either 10 or 15 minutes for you to complete the map. The missions vary in their difficulty, but by the 5th mission you’ll have a pretty difficult time going about things. Dealing with mines to maneuver through and dodging enemy submarine missiles is a great challenge. You’ll even have to keep your eyes out for depth charges being dropped by enemy boats above. You will also have some good boss battles that you will have to fight in. This ranges from interesting sea creatures to large enemy boats that you will need to destroy. There really is a great deal of fun to be had in the gameplay.

As I mentioned before, as you select a mission, you will then select one of the three subs for you to play the mission with. Once you beat the mission with that specific sub, it will display that on the mission select menu that you’ve completed that mission with that sub. It shows all three subs below the mission number and it will fill in the sub that you beat the mission with while leaving the other subs black to let you know that you didn’t beat the mission so that you will know what sub you need to use next to beat the mission. This is helpful as well for unlocking the extra missions as once you beat all 5 missions with each sub you will be able to unlock the 6th mission.

After you complete each mission you will have a 20 second periscope mission where you will try and sink as many ships as possible in that short amount of time. Depending on what ships you sink you will earn decals for your subs. These decals, once you collect the required number of each decal, will give you special abilities when playing the game. These abilities include reducing the amount of damage taken by enemy weapons or even collisions with the environment. They also increase your ship speed, weapon reload speed and many more, with over 30 decals to collect.

Besides the main campaign missions you will also have Time Trials that you can play in. There are 8 different courses for you to participate in each having their own obstacle to get by and maneuver your way through. There is also Periscope Strike in which you have 3 modes to choose from within that. Enemy ships which is the most basic option as well as enemy submarines. Both modes you will be looking through the periscope to hunt down and fire on the enemy ships. They also included an “Enemy Ships in a Storm” mode, with which you will be hunting them down while dealing with the biggest of waves and it provides for a much bigger challenge. Both of these modes are a lot of fun and a great addition to the game.

There is also one other mode as well which is called Steel Commander which is a strategy game in similar fashion to Battleship. You will position your ships on a map and move them around while searching for the enemy ships. To win at this game you have to either sink the enemy sub or sink all of the enemy ships. This game can be played via download play or single player vs. the computer.

Visually the game is very impressive and makes me wish I had more missions to see, as it would be an absolute treat. The 3D in Steel Diver looks so good and really captures your attention into the game. It also comes with a very good soundtrack as well which added even more to my overall enjoyment level for this title.

Overall I had a great time with this title and find it to be a must own. It’s so much fun to play and can be challenging at times. While it only has 7 missions for the campaign, it surely makes you work for those missions by requiring you to complete each mission with each sub. Every mission is a good experience and they look wonderful.

Score: 5/5

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