Steel Diver

"Take Submarine Combat To New Visual Depths. Explore undersea volcanoes, ancient ruins, and arctic caverns in Eye-Popping 3D! With the Nintendo 3DS gyro sensor, you can aim your periscope by simply rotating your body! Fight enemy submarines, dodge depth charges, and battle massive sea creatures. Challenge a friend to a strategic battle via Download Play."

This is one of the launch games intended to show off the 3D effect and it does that very well. At first glance it would appear to be a short 5-7 mission game that would take no time to complete but there is a lot more to it than that. The game may be low on content though as the game is designed to be replayed multiple times with plenty to do for the completionist out there. The game is not overly difficult but the intended challenge is to beat the clock and have the best times on the leader board.

The game is played entirely through the touch screen and the gyro/accelerometer. The game is split into multiple game modes. The main campaign consists of 5 initial mission and at the end of each one you get a periscope mode which requires you to spin around with the 3ds like you are moving the periscope/camera. each time you destroy a vessel in this mode you are awarded with a decal. Collecting enough of these decals can unlock a perk to make the missions easier in some way. You can only apply one perk at a time. I have chosen not to apply any perks during the initial longplay until the main game is complete to show the levels can be completed without them.

In order to progress onto mission six, the initial five missions much be completed with all three submarines. Each submarine has differing abilities requiring different strategies to navigating the levels. Completing mission six with all three subs unlocks mission seven. Completing mission seven with all three subs unlocks 'expert' mode. I show the expert missions with just one sub just to show how the map has changed and new obstacles to contend with. I also show off a couple of the deal effect as the game is technically already completed at this point.

Following the missions, I show the eight time trials with one sub. I also enable the developer times ghost in order to show it's effect on the game. Playing the any of the missions or trials with a developer ghost will award a medal if you beat it. There are three medals to earn per map (bronze, silver, gold) requiring you to play each map three times but in order to win gold, you will need to unlock apply the 'Gold Falcon' decal to increase movement speed.

Following the time trials, I show the three periscope levels. There are no real awards for this mode as you are just setting fastest times for clearing out the enemy vessels. I then show the Steel Commander mode briefly which is pretty much battleships except you have ships to move around in order to find enemy the enemy ships and sub, and you use the sub to attack enemies.

Overall, it a nice casual game to show off 3DS features but while it features a load of stuff to do if you like grinding away for no real reason, I feel like it has outstayed its welcome after completing the game and throws expert levels at you. Time to move onto the next game at this point for me. The battleship mode is a nice distraction though if you have a friend as they can join through the download play options without needing to own the game themselves. The longplay is by no means optimal and not racing against developer times is deliberate. I shamefully didn't realise you could disrupt the mines with the masker until end game.

00:00:00 Training
00:05:10 Mission 1 - ND-05 Serpent
00:10:00 Mission 2 - ND-05 Serpent
00:15:34 Mission 3 - ND-05 Serpent
00:22:33 Mission 4 - ND-05 Serpent
00:30:30 Mission 5 - ND-05 Serpent
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00:39:45 Mission 1 - ND-01 Manatee
00:44:00 Mission 2 - ND-01 Manatee
00:49:40 Mission 3 - ND-01 Manatee
00:56:10 Mission 4 - ND-01 Manatee
01:03:22 Mission 5 - ND-01 Manatee
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01:13:48 Mission 1 - ND-03 BlueShark
01:17:18 Mission 2 - ND-03 BlueShark
01:22:04 Mission 3 - ND-03 BlueShark
01:27:50 Mission 4 - ND-03 BlueShark
01:33:34 Mission 5 - ND-03 BlueShark
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01:43:20 Mission 6 - ND-03 BlueShark
01:51:20 Mission 6 - ND-05 Serpent
01:59:20 Mission 6 - ND-01 Manatee
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02:06:48 Mission 7 - ND-05 Serpent (Credits Cut)
02:15:42 Mission 7 - ND-03 BlueShark (Credits Cut)
02:26:28 Mission 7 - ND-01 Manatee
02:36:45 Credits
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02:41:05 Expert Mission 1 - ND-01 Manatee
02:44:57 Expert Mission 2 - ND-03 BlueShark
02:50:00 Expert Mission 3 - ND-05 Serpent
02:56:00 Expert Mission 4 - ND-01 Manatee
03:01:34 Expert Mission 5 - ND-03 BlueShark
03:12:51 Expert Mission 6 - ND-01 Manatee
03:20:38 Expert Mission 7 - ND-05 Serpent (Credits cut)
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03:30:37 Time Trial Map 1 - ND-03 BlueShark
03:32:38 Time Trial Map 2 - ND-03 BlueShark
03:34:28 Time Trial Map 3 - ND-03 BlueShark
03:36:20 Time Trial Map 4 - ND-03 BlueShark
03:38:02 Time Trial Map 5 - ND-03 BlueShark
03:39:38 Time Trial Map 6 - ND-03 BlueShark
03:41:00 Time Trial Map 7 - ND-03 BlueShark
03:42:38 Time Trial Map 8 - ND-03 BlueShark
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03:44:40 Periscope Strike - Mission 2
03:46:52 Periscope Strike - Mission 1
03:48:55 Periscope Strike - Mission 3
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03:52:36 Steel Commander - Map 1
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03:58:24 Mission 2 with Whale Perk enabled