Hard West is a turn-based strategy RPG. With Cowboys. And Satanic cults. So flavor-wise, it’s pretty rad.
It also manages a rare trick that very few games pull off; using mechanics I know I personally hate in their given genre and implementing them in such a way that I actually enjoy and applaud them. No cumulative progress between scenarios? No problem! Allowed to move all of your units on your turn, rather than individually based on their speed or movement scores? I usually hate this, but the AI and cover systems actually make it work.
A number of weapons with differences that are mostly academic? Amazingly works, thanks to limited resources forcing you to figure out whether what you have is simply good enough, or whether you need a different weapon. In these ways and more, it reminds me of Jeanne D’Arc which also used a bunch of mechanics I hate but turned it around; I really need to go back and finish that game in retrospect. You know, as opposed to Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, which let you draw aggro and tank a given enemy like it was the printer from Office Space.
You also need to do something most games and movies forget when it comes to guns; reload. Some of the more powerful weapons only have a single shot before they need to be reloaded, whereas your standard six shooters have a capacity of (duh) six rounds. Since reloading will take one action point (out of a max of two) and will account for three rounds at best (depending on the weapon), you need to weigh your options for a given turn. In general, it’s best to remain topped off when you can so that you have the option of a bold move to end the engagement. Especially because the more common weapons have abilities allow you to shoot three bullets in one go, or attack in a cone.
The game is divided into chapters, with nothing persisting between them as stated before. The main four scenarios follow Warren and his father on their tragically diverted trip down the Oregon Trail (surprisingly, no one dies of dysentery). Rather than having individual actors for voiced portions of the game, there is simply a single narrator. Honestly, all of his lines sound like they wrote them for Sam Elliot or something; he wouldn’t have been out of place too much. Each of these chapters has a gimmick of sorts. Hard Times permits you to prospect for gold on the world map, while Graveyard Shift makes you deal with a day/night cycle and manage provisions for your characters. If any given gimmick seems to be too annoying, you’re in luck since you really only have to deal with it for about four to five battles.
Speaking of, several battles feature a setup stage that allows you to sneak around without engaging an enemy directly. You can intimidate certain enemies to allow you past their area as well. That being said, should you let their intimidation lapse or shoot an enemy, combat will begin as usual. That being said, there are often special pickups on maps that begin with this phase, so you usually want to gather as many as possible.
There is also a poker hand system. Each poker card you equip has an ability, either active (costing luck, which usually acts as a shield in situations where an enemy isn’t guaranteed to hit), or passive, such as regeneration. They also have a direct stat boost, say to aim or HP. Finally, if you make a proper poker hand of sorts, you will be granted an additional stat boost e.g. two pair boosts your defense by 10, three of a kind raises your luck by 30, etc.
It’s not all peaches and cream, though. The game autosaves, meaning that every world map decision you make sticks until you either finish the scenario or start over. What’s more, the developers seem to love making it so that the outcomes of your decisions are difficult to predict. It is also a sad fact that menus have always been fairly borked. There are a few other glitches; one I encountered caused a battle to become impossible to finish due to the fact that I had no other available character actions after triggering an event. Luckily, the team seems to be dedicated to ironing out these problems, and there’s usually a workaround, even if it’s sucky.
Overall, Hard West is a pretty solid game. I have little problem giving it my stamp of approval, though it may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
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Pros: + Music composed by the composer for The Witcher 3 + Tight battle system + Interesting storyline + You can literally give a demon cowboy a case of lead poisoning + The lack of experience points lets you customize characters as you see fit |
Cons: – Atrocious menus – Occasionally glitchy – Managing in game cash can be difficult – Occasionally ambiguous dialogue trees |
Title: Hard West
Developer: CreativeForge Games
Publisher: Gambitious Digital Entertainment
Platform: PC
Price: $19.99 ($24.99 for the Collectors Edition)
*We were provided a copy of this game for review*
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