Code Name S.T.E.A.M (3DS)

 It seems slightly incongruous for there to be a first party Nintendo game here, but it's one that doesn't even seem like it's been forgotten in the decade since its release, but rather no-one took any notice of it at all. They did try to build hype for it, and I definitely remember downloading the demo at the time, too. But no-one cared. If people were buying and playing it in 2015, then they weren't talking about it, and with it being a decade old now and with the 3DS having a minor renaissance in 2025 (thanks to the combination of broke nostalgic young people and the high price of new consoles - exactly how "retro gaming" should be!), I still don't see anyone talking about it.

 

Code Name S.T.E.A.M is a turn-based strategy game, with some mild action elements. You control a squad of very toyetic soldiers, with steam-powered armour and weapons. Moving a space uses up one unit of steam, different weapons use different amounts to fire, usually between two and four. Each of your soldiers generates eight steam per turn, and can store up to ten (though these numbers will change slightly as you unlock more equipment). So if you leave a couple of steam units at the end of a turn, they'll carry over into the next turn. Furthermore, when you fire weapons, you don't just select your target and pick "fire" from a menu: you've got to aim and fire yourself, either using a joystick on the touchscreen, or the right analogue stick if you're playing on a New 3DS.

 

I've played about ten stages so far, and all of them have had the goal of getting at least one of your soldiers (or in one case, an escorted non-combatant) to a goal area on the other side of the battlefield. After a few turns, more enemies will start generating on the map, so if you have infinite patience, you could theoretically keep killing them forever. But the battles also tend to be pretty tight, with my guys often just barely crawling over the finish line to end a lot of the battles. I think this whole semi-turn-based approach might be taken from SEGA's Valkyria Chronicles series, but I'm not very familiar with them, so I can't completely confirm this. 

 

As well as the toyetic protagonists, the game as a whole has a distinct aesthetic to it, too. The tech is all steam=powered, and your homebase is a blimp, but a lot of the fashion and such looks more inspired by 1930s and 40s military uniforms, and the world in general is a mixture of lots of brss and polished wood, with American and British flags draped everywhere. It kind of brings to mind a theoretical Fallout cartoon, made for an audience of kids in 1994. (I'll take this opportunity to make clear that I don't consider a work to be "steampunk" unless it's explicitly anti-imperialist, and since the aforementioned non-combatant you have to escort is Queen Victoria, this game definitely isn't that.)

 

This is a decent enough game, I guess. Playing through a stage is a decent enough way to pass twenty minutes or so, and there is some satisfaction to be derived from the active aiming, plus some of the sillier weapons are a lot of fun too, like the Lion Launcher (wielded by a lion-man named Lion, it makes him bounce on top of enemies for big damage), and the healing gun. Plus, if you play it, you can put it on your list of "3DS hidden gems" for internet clout, since I haven't seen anyone do that so far. Also uncharacteristically for a first party Nintendo game, you can pick up an actual copy for a pittance, if you are a cartridge-accumulating little freak.