Hard West Reviews

Boring.

Hard West's reach kind of overextends its grasp. There's a lot going on, and an impressive amount of ambition on display, but the budget simply isn't big enough to fully reach it. It has a huge, sprawling story that encompasses a variety of interesting characters, but it is almost exclusively told via text boxes rather than shown in any capacity. The strategy mechanics are fun, but they can also feel a bit obtuse/ they don't always communicate everything in an effective way. Despite all that, though, this is still a fun game that I recommend if you're a strategy/ horror western fan. The first scenario you have unlocked sees you play as Warren, a prospector who runs afoul of the local crime life. Every chapter has an interesting outside of battle mechanic, and in this one, it's prospecting for gold in a variety of mines. You can suffer injuries that give debuffs to your party, but it can also make you rich. Most of the scenarios are a little over an hour depending on how long the combat takes you, and this opening one took me about two to see to completion. It ends on a dour note, and opens the door for the rest of the cast's story. The way the story unfolds is rather Tarantino esque; each chapter focuses on a different character, like one where you play as a Catholic Inquisitor and must seek out heretics to slaughter. Another one sees you playing as a clairvoyant on the run from a variety of people, but that supernatural ability lets her play a mean hand of poker. You can also play them in an order you choose; for instance, there's a prequel scenario that doesn't unlock until you're several chapters in, and it sheds some light on the antagonist of Warren's first chapter. It's a really interesting way to tell the story, even if it's easy to lose track of some details due to the written nature of the presentation. I will say the tertiary objectives don't always affect gameplay the way I'd like; for instance, in the aforementioned Clairvoyant chapter, there seems to be a mechanic where the law will come after you. While I did play her rather calmly, I did my fair share of ruckus raising and never really saw what happens, or if anything happens if you cause enough trouble. The inquisitor chapter, meanwhile, has you either paying for information on your targets so you can single them out at a given location, or if you're cheap and don't feel like paying, you can just wipe out everyone at the settlement to ensure they are put down. As far as I can tell, this is purely for role playing purposes and your decision to go genocidal doesn't really have any gameplay impact outside of an achievement for keeping the mass murder to a minimum. But these choices do lend some replay value to each scenario. There are lots of hidden side objectives you can complete for a variety of benefits, like bonus party members or powerful hidden unique weapons that will unlock at the "Fate Trader," a merchant that lets you take the unique guns from previous chapters and use them in the current one for a price. The combat, meanwhile, is fairly standard. You can take cover, which affects the enemy's ability to hit you, and you have up to two actions per turn. There's a mechanic called Luck which is basically how easy you are to hit; the higher your luck, the tougher it is for you to die, but you can also equip powerful abilities using the playing cards you find lying around. These can be things like a Golden Bullet, where you are guaranteed to hit a given target at full damage no matter where they are as long as you can see them. Flanking enemies is important since it takes away their defenses, but I found that there were times where I seemed to be on the flank of an enemy but they still had all their buffs from their cover. This game has no quick load, meaning you can't make a move to see if it's advantageous and then reset to tweak your strategy, so moving somewhere is a commitment. This forcing of the player to live with their choices is neat, but I do wish the game gave you a bit more information before moving. Some levels have stealth sections where you can subdue guards before opening fire. It's pretty rudimentary and honestly difficult to mess up if you're careful, but I did find it gratifying in the bank heist level to hold up the guards until I had the goods I needed. It almost took on the feel of Desperados 3 during these sequences, but everything inevitably becomes a shootout eventually, so don't expect the tactical stealth gameplay of that masterpiece. The structure I mentioned is odd, because you basically reset your power curve every couple of hours. Most scenarios start you with two party members at most, and you often have equipment that leaves something to be desired. It's weird for a game to do this, and I could see it turning some people away. On the other hand, it does encourage you to use what you have as you need it. Your money and inventory will reset so you may as well use everything you have while you can. It's a nice way to combat that pack rat mentality so many gamers (myself included) have. Overall, this is a pretty flawed title, and I didn experience the occasional path finding or visual glitch. And while it can't execute its ideas to their fullest, there's still a lot of creativity on display here. I enjoyed this game a lot, being a turn based strategy, western, and horror fan. I know the second game released this year; here's hoping that it's able to refine the best parts of this one into something truly great.