Posted on: March 10, 2018

schmutah

Games: 121 Reviews: 5

Strategic Westerm

I was first reluctant to try out Hard West. I like X-Com and read that the turned based strategy was similar in Hard West. However, as I grew very tired of X-com, and never finished one playthrough I thought that it would be the same with Hard West. However, Hard West have something X-Com doesn't. A good story. Right at the first tutorial level I was introduced to this harsh western world, where the occult have a strong presence. The strategy is ok, you feel the power in the guns you use as well as the different powers you obtain later in the game but the best thing in this game is the story. A story about a boy growing up in a harsh environment and a dad doing everything he can to exact revenge on those that murdered his wife. A lot of the story is told on the overview map, as well as in cut scenes, the blend between the overview map quests and things you do there gives a good complement to the turn based combat. I highly recommend this game for people who wants to experience a good mature story where the nature of human behaviour gets explored to its core.

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Posted on: June 18, 2018

VacaDeMuerte

Verified owner

Games: 197 Reviews: 1

Great positional strategy game.

This was one of the few tactical games that has forced me to play both cautiously and very tactically. The generous cover system and high damage weaponry mean you really need to keep in a safe position to succeed, rather than a rambo-style approach. The enemies get the same benefit, though, so you have to constantly move around, analyzing the terrain to try to find points where you can get on a new side of them while staying safe. If this doesn't work, you end up pinned in a tense duel, which is sufficiently in the player's favor as to not be devastating, while still being a rather exciting twist. The theme adds a lot of pizzazz to all that, really making it feel like an old-fashioned shootout when you do something like dive behind a bar to get out of the way and fire your revolver. There's enough customization that you can play it your way (even choosing which aspects of the tactical play you prefer), but not so much it seems unfair or overwhelming. Overall, it's the tense shootout I'd always wished XCOM-style games delivered.

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Posted on: November 5, 2017

AkitoKitsune

Verified owner

Games: 188 Reviews: 2

Game was patched/improved since release!

Most of the not-so-good or bad reviews are from 2015 when the game came out. I am playing this game's newest version, the last update was provided in mid 2017 at the time of writing this. This game has still some rough edges but who cares? Nothing is perfect, important is that you work on the errors. These developers really do and listen. The game itself is in my opinion very good and pretty unique. Despite some basic errors here and there, like e.g. an event gets triggered over and over when you visit the same place more than once even though the event makes only sense the first time, I think that this game is a pretty gem. It combines many different styles and goals into a well done mixture. To me personally Western and Pirate themed games/movies are usually the most boring but this game's style, theme and crossover genre is interesting to me. It mixes the "Western" genre with a dark and crude style which has a rather horrory taste to it (which is btw. another genre I don't like on its own). Now that's the mixed theme and type of story. The gameplay is also mixed, at first a little bit irritating, but once you get how it is supposed to work then you get along with it and recognize how you will progress in your own experience provided by this game. To help you, dear reader, decide whether you should buy this game or not, here are some characteristics of the game that will clear up how it is to play it: - open turn based combat in a closed level - between battles improvements to your characters (and event-triggered debuffs) are possible - the big picture and overall experience of the game gives a pretty strong DnD-like taste - the story and theme of the game is filled with dark humour, western movie styled overall experience (e.g. behaviour of characters, atmosphere, any actions and how progress is made) - story is cut into "scenarios" that are separate from each other, gameplaywise, but are based on the previous one - variety of weapons, usables, characters

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Posted on: March 9, 2019

comastar83

Verified owner

Games: 261 Reviews: 14

Atmospheric tactical western game

Even though I am far from an expert, I really like turn-based tactical games like XCOM. The same goes for western themed games and Hard West does a good job using XCOM-like gameplay in a western setting. It took me some time to get into the whole supernatural story but once I got used to the dark, horror-like scenarios I really enjoyed it, mainly because of their presentation and the gritty narration of the story. The exploration mode can be a bit of a drag but it contains a few intriguing parts and nice ideas. The music fits the atmosphere but gets repetitive pretty fast. That being said, the game is far from perfect but charming and satisfying enough to keep you playing until the end. Should there ever be a sequel I'd certainly check it out.

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Posted on: January 31, 2023

RumaroTheFox

Verified owner

Games: 126 Reviews: 1

Busted

This game can be fun and engaging but the frequent glitch of getting caught on a barrier indefinitely and forcing you to redo missions is blatantly disrespectful. I am a streamer and have been getting into this live, viewers have endured theor share of restarts but they have also enjoyed the story. As much as you can get into this game the broken nature of it will pull you out. This game was abandoned to work on a sequal I will never buy if I cannot even get through the first installment.

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