Hard West

Pretty solid game, It's Fire Emblem(combat) meets Hunt Showdown(theme)

good story interface handles like a brick

While Hard West boasts an under represented old west aesthetic combined with elements of demonic blood and gore, the game's overall experience is merely 'okay'. Tactical RPGs strength lies in its mechanics and story, both of which Hard West accomplishes sure, but it does not go beyond what we can expect from the genre. From a gameplay perspective, Hard West is a collection of battle maps with brief moments of reading or problem-solving in between. While the game's characters are present, they lack depth and personality, leaving little emotional impact when they die. The card system, a unique feature of Hard West, is initially engaging. However, after a while, the power balance of cards does not incentivise variation in the future selection of cards. Unfortunately, the game's shortcomings have dampened my desire to buy its DLC. I hope that the sequel will improve upon the original and deliver a more satisfying experience.

The Review title says it all. I was really excited to pick this up, but have now had the wind taken out of my proverbial sails by a lot of confusion, a very clumsy mining experience that required multiple restarts, and general glitches as I waited for invisible computer players to move. I will be getting a refund and hoping Hard West 2 fares better.

The game itself is decent enough I guess. Nothing breathtaking but it held it's own. The western setting is nice if not a bit overdone. I found most of the guns silly and immersion braking and not really useful, early at the game at least. The card system seems pretty neat tho, and the demonic elements just started to spice up things. The tactical part mechanic of Hard West is pretty much XCOM: EU with some bad "improvement" choices. Not so many of them as to break it luckly. Graphics are very nice, with their own style and character. Same as music. Can't say much about the story though. Why? Well, the game doesn't let me enjoy it. This is the biggest issue. Years after it came out and was discounted a couple of time, and it's still full of bugs. And not minor ones. I get black screens, up to a point where the game can't go further. Tried on two systems, two computers, no result. Searched for answers on the web, and I found the developers of this game were at one point very active in making people send them technical data, but it seems they weren't so active using that data to actually fix stuff. No solutions posted anywhere where people reported problems, no patches, no anything. If you want to risk it, buy it, it might work for you. This is the first game from gog which, after days of attempts, I wasn't able to make run properly, hence the low rating. If the game would keep its quality till the end titles it would be probably a 3. So no matter the price, consider that you are risking your pennies. I, personally, would not spend them, and rather get something else.