Have you ever wanted to lose your soul to the Devil in a rigged poker game and then wind up some kind of undead thing trapped between life and death with a posse of your pals looking for revenge? What do you mean, “No?” Okay, what if you got to be a cowboy? Ah, see! I knew that would bring you around. Diego would only give me this one if I wore the cowboy hat. The joke is on him; I never take it off.
See?
Hard West 2
Developer: Ice Code Games
Price: $30
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with Steam code for review
Hard West 2 is, as you may have guessed, the sequel to Hard West. It’s quite a combination of map exploration with your party–stumbling on quest opportunities, story moments, the occasional horrible dead thing–and grid-based combat like the XCOM series, but less prone to “Your guy has a 99% chance, his gun is pressed against the monster’s head, and for some reason he took a potshot at the moon. Guess he saw a fly or something” RNG fuckery.
The story is kind of…bonkers, if I’m being honest. That lead-in is pretty much the setup and gets you roaming the world following a demonic ghost train with spider legs piloted by a guy who is probably literally the Devil, trying to figure out what the hell happened. You’re not going to believe this, but the Devil cheats at cards. He’s definitely come a long way from losing a fiddle contest to a hick kid from Georgia.
The combat is that tactical turn-based combat you know and love with some interesting hooks. It uses a momentum system called Bravado where when you kill someone, all of your AP is replenished, so you can absolutely have that Western movie moment where you whip out your revolver and gun down like 5 guys and feel cool as all hell. It is absurdly fun to get rolling and start doing crazier and crazier shots. “Alright, lemme see here. Bounce it off the chandelier and get him right in the back. Hell yeah. Now that guy, there’s a 25% chance, but you’re sayin’ there’s a chance…”
Luck exists, as we are cursed and always at the mercy of the RNG, but the other twist here is sometimes you can load the dice. When a character gets hit or misses a shot, you get a chance to put a little more luck on your next action. The downside to that is that this combat uses guns a good chunk of the time. It’s still a Wild West setting, so it’s not like you’re rocking a ballistic vest, and is pretty high lethality if you’re not careful about managing movement and cover. I had plenty of moments where I’d get a bright idea and then BANG. Nope. Bad idea. The cover and height system is also pretty slick, where getting someone up on a rooftop means they have a magnificent field of fire, but they may have very little cover.
The progression system is based on playing cards. Building out everyone’s hand and building a good poker hand unlocks certain skills and abilities. Think like a Final Fantasy game where you wander around collecting playing cards, but cool and with cowboys instead of dumb and full of weeb shit. It is very cool and it’s extremely satisfying to build a great hand that unlocks some sick skills and changes your whole playstyle. Also, you get to learn about poker, a valuable skill in this collapsing economy.
The flaws, as such are: Some of the missions and scenarios are just a frickin’ grind, man. Hard West 2 is fond of that thing where you start with Goal A, but then Goal B is revealed, and then Goal C is revealed, and look, I wanted to go to bed an hour ago. I’m old and tired. Please let me sleep.
I also miss things like reaction shots and overwatch or whatever you want to call it where you can construct a satisfying ambush and let the enemy blunder into it. I frequently found the bad guys would run right by my guys during their turn and I’m like “stick a leg out and trip him for the love of Christ”. Likewise, I’d like to see something resembling suppression since an enemy running and ruining your setup means a few turns of a couple of people not being terribly useful until you get them re-set.
The visual design is great and feels right, lots of big crimson puddles on white snow, shitty towns, horrible atrocities, and the like. Sound design is excellent as well: Rifles and shotguns boom, pistols CRACK. Voice acting is a little…okay, your Native American guy sounds somewhere between “large oaf” and “he’s just an orc”, which is not what you’d call ideal in the representation department.
I found it compelling. Even if you don’t like tactical combat, you have to admire something so completely insane and very much its own thing when the world is busy making roguelike soulslikes platformers. It’s also an excuse to buy a cowboy hat of your very own.
The Final Word
I’m a COWBOY! On a GHOST TRAIN I RIDE! I’m WANTED (WANNNNTED) and NOT QUITE ALLL-IIIIIVE
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
