Posted on: June 29, 2018

Snolus

Games: 426 Reviews: 16

Fun, but mechanically lacking

West of Loathing is a quirky, funny, explorative, weird, turn-based RPG. I don't usually like using the word “quirky” because I tend to associate it with “forced funny/weird”, but WoL is actually funny. I caught myself laughing out loud quite a few times during my first playthrough, and the stick-figure black-and-white artstyle only adds to that. Of course, you have to actually like the humour in it. It's mostly silly, with some fourth wall breaking later on. If you don't appreciate the way the narrator tries to keep you from digging for items in spittoons and eventually just gives up on you, well - leave the spittoons alone. Mind you, the game has issues. The combat isn't very interesting and can just be unfair at times since you can run into encounters that seem designed for later points in the game. There are WAY too many abilities and items, especially apparel; the problem with the latter is that you might need some of it for side quests later and it's not made clear at all. I sold a hat at some point which I needed for a side quest later and couldn't buy back. You can also get overpowered easily if you just make liberal use of the consumables, and if you don't have enough of one stat for a certain quest, you can just switch out equipment. That's not necessarily a problem, and considering how much stuff there is to do in this game, I actually like that, but it does feel a bit cheap at times. I barely even leveled up my three primary stats in both playthroughs, but got them all up extremely high (+46, +60, +46) with consumables and gear towards the end. There's a lot to do, and a lot of (semi-)hidden stuff. You can just go through the game once without paying much attention to side stuff, and some is really obscure/complicated – almost annoying – but even just a simple playthrough is immensely enjoyable if you like the mechanics and humour, both of which are well done. Definitely recommended for a very fun experience with little frustration.

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Posted on: August 27, 2021

robotSpaceGoat

Verified owner

Games: 98 Reviews: 8

Beauty in simplicity

I wont say this game is perfect, there were a few things that sort of annoyed me but they were trivial compared to the overall experience. I really loved this game's uniqueness and simplicity. I honestly thought I would find it boring because this game has no fancy graphics, no voiced dialogue, no color, and long text-only dialogues but honestly I really liked it. I found myself engrossed in the quirky little stories and the adventure of brining the various conflicts to resolution without having to rely on the hand-holding found in other RPGs like quest journals or map markers. The turn-by-turn combat was entertaining enough as well though it did get far too easy really quickly. Though you can choose different difficulty levels, I recommend that adult players choose higher level difficulties from the start because the default is far too easy and can ruin combat experience.

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Posted on: January 6, 2019

SSJ-D-MAN

Verified owner

Games: 401 Reviews: 7

Simply hilarious

Don't let the simple gameplay and simplistic art style fool you this is an incredibly well-written hilarious turn based game it's not so much about the challenge or the strategy but more the enjoyment you'll have reading the well-written dialogue and interesting characters and exploring the hilarious world of the game plus now with controller support it's more accessible than ever great work guys I look forward to your future games

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Posted on: December 4, 2017

RogerBk

Verified owner

Games: 112 Reviews: 2

Great, funny adventure

This a awesome game. It is easy to learn and very fun to explore all the different map locations. Combat is simple but can require some strategy. Also, it's forgiving- you can surrender if it looks like you are going to get wiped out. Different items give you different abilities so you have to figure out how to best equip your character. Like many games, experience gains lets you increase you various skills. You discover new locations either by being told about a place and given a task/quest, you randomly stumble upon a place, or you see it from a distance using binoculars. I love the humor too. The hand drawn graphics are amazing. I hope to see more games like this.

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Posted on: March 1, 2019

synedraacus

Games: 20 Reviews: 1

A really cool game

Well, everyone praises the humour and aesthetics. These are really cool, but they are why you come to the game. Why should you bother finishing it, let alone come for another playthrough, though? You don't really have an interesting main questline, that's just three stupid quests (each of which involves doing more quests, also mostly stupid). Nor the interesting combat system, really; although most skills and items are cool, without hardmode you'll quickly become overpowered enough that *not* winning the battle on the first round will be very rare. One word: exploration. Slightly more words: a sheer amount of stuff to mess with. There is a bunch of little toy skeleton soldiers somewhere in the game, and also the bunch of non-toy skeleton soldiers. The two go together and may be used for something really cool, but have fun figuring out what they do and whether you want to use them. There are demon clowns fighting demon cows and you can bring victory to one of the sides. Have fun figuring out how to do it or if you want to. There is a series of abandoned ancient alien facilities, so have fun learning alien language and using their tech for your advantage. There is an evil Necromancer to kill. There is a ton of seemingly unimportant little things that will do something cool if you stick them into the right slot. The aforementioned hardmode: do an obscure little quest to unlock it. No, it doesn't have the "HARDMODE HERE -->" pointer; just keep looking and maybe you'll stumble across it. TL;DR A great game if you like exploration and open world. Jokes are fine, too.

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