Welcome to this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. The busy season has begun with games we’ve been looking forward to playing including Dragon’s Dogma 2, Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition, and also console exclusives like Rise of the Ronin and Princess Peach: Showtime. Before that, I’ve been playing some notable games for review and Steam Deck impressions over the last few weeks. I’ll cover some of them today, including one I waited for fixes to play on Steam Deck. Before the news and new Steam Deck Verified games, let’s get into the reviews and impressions first.
Steam Deck Game Reviews & Impressions
WWE 2K24 Steam Deck Review
Back when I played WWE 2K23 on Steam Deck, it felt shockingly good on Steam Deck despite a few issues that also affected the PC version. WWE 2K23 was also worth getting for anyone who skipped the last few years of wrestling games with its improvements and additions. I was curious to see how WWE 2K24 would be, and how the team built on last year’s game. I’ve now spent a week with it on both Steam Deck and Xbox Series X. I’m going to focus on WWE 2K24 played on Steam Deck OLED for this review.
Before getting to the review, WWE 2K24 on Steam had an issue where people who played it through the early unlock (including myself) lost our save data. That will not be an issue for new players, but it was really disappointing seeing that happen. With that out of the way, WWE 2K24 has been impressive in most ways, and a good step forward from WWE 2K23, but the online servers seem like the only real hurdle the game has. It is easily Visual Concept’s best WWE game yet, and the focus on WrestleMania is excellent. Barring the showcase which has been fun to play, the new match types, roster additions, and more are good. The menus are a bit sluggish though, especially in the modes that require online.
If you’re new to 2K’s WWE or sports games in general, they usually are excellent with gameplay, but some are let down by monetization and server issues. WWE 2K24’s gameplay, visuals, and presentation are all excellent, but there are a few too many annoyances in the interface and load times on both Steam Deck and Xbox Series X for some modes. You can ignore these if you just want to play the Showcase story and then offline with friends, but keep that in mind. I only try them out during the launch month and then stick to playing these games offline or with friends online when possible.
For this WWE 2K24 Steam Deck and PC port review, I tested multiple superstar matches, online, community creations, and more. The online seems to have an issue where it has an error and replaces human opponents with AI. I’m not sure if this is the same as on Windows, but keep that in mind if you want to play on Steam Deck. I verified this on multiple Proton versions. The community creations and downloads all work fine, albeit with some slow menus.
On the graphics side, WWE 2K24 lets you adjust texture quality, monitor used, enable windowed mode, toggle v-sync, use an optional 30fps cap for the action camera, toggle shadows, adjust shadow quality, adjust shader quality, toggle anti-aliasing (FXAA or TAA), toggle reflections, use upscaling (sadly only FSR 1.0 or linear), adjust upscaling sharpness, toggle depth of field, toggle motion blur, adjust audience density (up to 100), and enable multi-superstar performance mode.
After trying out many options, I ended up turning shadows to low or off (better for matches with multiple superstars) for a 60fps target. Beyond that, I left textures at high, shaders at high, and enabled FSR 1. I turned most other things off. WWE 2K24 on Steam Deck plays great, but there are a few server-related issues and one specific graphics issue that I cover below. It loads quickly and is even better than last year’s game.
WWE 2K24 has some visual glitches that occur on Steam Deck regardless of the Proton version (GE, experimental, 9.0 beta, bleeding edge, or default) and graphics options that occur in some menus and in specific situations during matches. This is basically my only complaint with the game on Steam Deck right now. Barring that, it is another excellent wrestling game to play on the go, and one that runs well on Valve’s handheld. Thankfully Valve is looking into it. The MGS HD games got fixed eventually so I hope this one does too.
Yearly sports games are always hard to recommend without caveats given how they sometimes don’t change much between releases, but Visual Concepts has gotten to a stage where the WWE 2K games are really good for the most part. WWE 2K24 has a few issues on Steam Deck holding it back, but is otherwise a very good portable wrestling experience. It is worth grabbing if you skipped the last few games for sure.
WWE 2K24 Steam Deck Review Score:4/5
Summerhouse Steam Deck Review
Summerhouse from Friedemann is an interactive toy game hybrid about building gorgeous houses with no rules. It reminded me of Townscaper, and how I have that installed on my phone and iPad to just boot up once in a while to play around with. Summerhouse takes things a bit further with how much more you can do, and it impressed me with its aesthetic and vibe. Everything about Summerhouse has a very homely feeling, and thi is elevated by its audio design.
For its low asking price, I have no complaints with Summerhouse, barring a minor controller-related issue I ran into on Steam Deck. Barring that, it plays great on the system, and looks gorgeous on the Steam Deck OLED. I hope it does come to iPad in the future as well as this is something I’d love installed on every device I own. If you’ve wanted to build your own nostalgic dream house or just play around with a creative interactive toy, Summerhouse is for you.
Summerhouse Steam Deck Review Score:4.5/5
The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered Steam Deck impressions
When Furyu’s The Legend of Legacy hit Nintendo 3DS in North America through Atlus and Europe through NIS America, it was advertised with famous staff from SaGa and other franchises being involved in the project. Since then, we’ve seen that regularly with Furyu’s games, but The Legend of Legacy was always a flawed but great RPG back then on 3DS. It had some technical issues on 3DS as well, but I enjoyed my time with it and adored the soundtrack. After it was released, we had Furyu’s The Alliance Alive for 3DS which saw a remaster on consoles and PC platforms. I hoped that we’d also see The Legend of Legacy brought to modern systems after that.
Fast forward to this month and The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered hits Steam, PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch in the West through NIS America. I’ve been playing it on Steam Deck, PS5, and Switch. Shaun will be doing a full review of the Switch version, but I wanted to cover the Steam Deck version and how it feels to revisit The Legend of Legacy in 2024. Since The Legend of Legacy on 3DS, I’ve played just about every localized Furyu game, and always enjoy certain aspects from them while being let down in others. Crymachina has been the best one so far, but I was curious how I’d feel revisiting The Legend of Legacy. Booting it up gave me some nostalgia, and I even got my 3DS out of storage to try it there for a bit. I sadly lost my original save file through some backup issue, but I did replay the opening there to see how it compares to this new The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered release.
The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered retains the gorgeous aesthetic, and it scales quite well on modern screens. It also looks great on Switch in handheld mode. The PS5 version is crisper than Switch when running docked though. On Steam Deck, you can force the game through the Steam Deck’s settings to run at a much higher resolution like 4K. This is a waste of power, but the game doesn’t struggle at all.
The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered is Steam Deck Verified already. It supports controllers and keyboard input options. I couldn’t get my mouse working on Steam Deck in-game to test though. The game is capped at 30fps on all platforms including PC and PS5. You can adjust the display mode (fullscreen, borderless, windowed), resolution (4K down to 864×486), anti-aliasing quality (off, x2, x4, x8), and rendering scale (balanced, quality, or performance).
Even when playing docked on my 1440p 144hz monitor, I had no trouble running The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered at 1440p. It looks crisp and feels great to play. Masashi Hamauzu’s score remains amazing, and I’m pleased that another 3DS RPG has been brought to modern consoles and PC platforms. Stay tuned for Shaun’s full review of the Switch version.
Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story Steam Deck Impressions
When Digital Eclipse announced Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story as the second volume of its Gold Master Series, I was very excited because Jeff Minter is a creator I’ve always respected over the years. I still have fond memories of playing the DOS version of Llamatron, and adored TxK on PS Vita many years ago. The thing is, I’d not paid much attention to Jeff’s older games outside Llamatron, and this interactive documentary release felt perfect to experience it all. Shaun already covered the game in his full 5/5 review, but I wanted to highlight how it looks and feels on Steam Deck right now at launch.
The Making of Karateka was a shockingly good release that felt like the kind of package you’d get if you bought the ultimate blu-ray edition of your favorite movie with all the bonus extras, but only for a video game. Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story is a bit different as it doesn’t focus on a single game, but the early days of a specific and important creator in the industry. Having recently gotten a Steam Deck OLED, the release date for this collection couldn’t have been timed better. Jeff Minter’s games have always looked striking and they perfectly suit OLED displays.
On Steam Deck, Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story lets you adjust the resolution and screen mode, but nothing else. It works out of the box near perfectly. The only issue I’ve run into that hasn’t been fixed yet (the team is working on it) is one that causes a glitched transition when you quit specific games in the collection to go back to the menu. Barring that, everything works perfectly docked or on the Steam Deck’s own display. I also tested this on my Steam Deck (LCD). Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story supports Steam Cloud, but is a 16:9 game so expect black bars on the top and bottom. It has full controller support with only Xbox button prompts.
The Making of Karateka saw Digital Eclipse set the bar supremely high, but I think Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story shows that the team is capable of overdelivering once again, and surpassing how good that prior release was. Given the part of Jeff Minter’s career this ends at, I hope Digital Eclipse does a second release focusing on his later games including the mobile ones. Until then, Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story is an essential release in 2024 on Steam Deck if you care about games history or like Jeff Minter’s games.
News
There has been quite a bit of news this past week. I don’t have time to cover everything, so I’ve focused on the highlights here.
Capcom has released its best Dragon’s Dogma 2 trailer yet ahead of the game’s launch next week on Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X. This trailer features Ian McShane, and shows off quite a bit from the game that we haven’t seen before. Watch it below:
Capcom also announced that the Monster Hunter Stories (the original game) remaster launches on June 14th worldwide for Steam and consoles. This remaster features upgraded visuals, new voice acting, and content never released outside Japan before.
The superb Granblue Fantasy: Relink got its first major update this week bringing in Lucilius with a new Proud difficulty quest, new paid DLC, and more with the next update set for April. A new showcase for the game is also coming next month to reveal more of what players can expect. Check out a screenshot from the update below:
Surmount, the mountain-climbing game, from developers Jasper Oprel and Indiana-Jonas and publisher popagenda launches on May 9th. It looks lovely and I’m going to make sure I cover it on Steam Deck. Watch the trailer for it below:
505 Games and developer Rabbit & Bear Studios released a new trailer before the game’s launch for the upcoming SRPG Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. Both Shaun and myself are looking forward to this. It releases on April 23rd for Steam, Switch, and other consoles. Watch the pre-launch trailer below:
MidBoss is finally releasing Read Only Memories: Neurovoider, the sequel to Read Only Memories, on May 16th for Steam and consoles. I forgot how long I’ve been looking forward to this for, but the wait is nearly over. Watch the new trailer below:
SFB Games’ throwback survival horror game Crow Country launches on May 9th for Steam and PlayStation worldwide. It even features an optional exploration mode to remove the survival horror and just be a puzzle game. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while now.
CROW COUNTRY launches May 9th! on Steam & PS5. Wishlist to be reminded on launch day & check out the demo.
A survival horror game with a RE1/FFVII aesthetic. Locked doors, rusty keys, and environments that evoke pre-rendered art (but are actually full 3D)
Links below- pic.twitter.com/knwNDrW8RX— Adam Vian (@SFBDim) March 14, 2024
Devolver Digital will launch the sniper puzzle game hybrid Children of the Sun on April 9th for PC via Steam worldwide. It also just got Steam Deck Verified, and looks excellent. I’ll be reviewing this in the future. Watch the trailer for it below:
New Steam Deck Verified & Playable games for the week
- Children of the Sun – Verified
- CLeM – Verified
- FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 – Playable
- Spacebase DF-9 – Playable
- STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life – Playable
- The Thaumaturge – Unsupported
- Wildmender – Verified
Steam Deck Game Sales & Discounts
The big Steam Spring Sale is on right now, and I have a separate article on 10 great game recommendations for discounted titles in the Steam sale. Make sure to check that and your wishlist out to decide what you want to grab. Also look at sites like gg.deals to ensure you get the best deal possible for a specific game.
That’s all for this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. There’s more Steam Deck coverage happening this week since I skipped last week. As usual, you can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here. If you have any feedback for this feature or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. I hope you all have a great day, and thanks for reading.