Hard West 2 – Review
The first few minutes of Hard West 2 set the tone for a traditional western journey. The group you’re in charge of is robbing a train, and it’s up to you to lead them through the station and past the guards before making off with the loot. Yeehaw.
The train acquires frightening legs, and you find yourself shooting glowing beasts in a struggle against a demon for your very souls after entering a tunnel that shouldn’t be there. It establishes the mood and jumps headfirst into the rest of the game. After a brief cutscene, your adventurers will discover a snowy, demonic, and desperately struggling to survive Wild West.
Almost immediately, you unearth a revenant who, upon producing a firearm, immediately sets to work as a member of your posse. After taking harm, he calmly informs his assailants that he has already passed on. Hard West revels in the strangeness of its surroundings, and the more it does so, the better it is.
As a bonus, the game features heavy Western aesthetic elements. Shooting foes behind cover or around corners is easier when you can bounce rounds off metal objects, and your character gains a rush of bravado whenever they kill an adversary, recharging their action points so that they can act again. This can make for some remarkable pushes, as your indigenous warrior, who benefits from a number of bonuses related to close combat, will gladly push into a group of foes and butcher them all, gaining a fresh rush of energy every time he kills one of them. Your armed bandits can do the same thing; reloading isn’t an issue, so all you need is a nice sniper’s perch for someone with a rifle, and they can fire at will until they miss or run out of targets.
The cumulative effect of these alterations gives the impression that Hard West 2 favours reckless aggression for its own sake, rewarding players for taking greater risks in pursuit of greater payoffs. If you make a mistake, you may find yourself out of position and unable to take any further action as your adversaries close in. Unlike the calm SWAT team style of, say, XCOM, every combat here feels frenetic due to the fast pace. This novel twist, in addition to the fact that each of these bouts is scripted rather than randomly generated, makes many of the confrontations feel memorable, and I find myself remembering several of the larger set pieces even now.
The antagonists are varied enough to keep you interested: you’ll be shooting bandits and sheriff’s officers, sure, but there are also lots of demons, some spiritually empowered Indigenous Americans that made me feel a bit nervous, and a bunch of other things I’ll try not to spoil. Playing cards, which may be equipped to your character’s “hand” and used as bonuses, can be found in a number of different places as a counter to this. Additionally, each card has its own value; for example, equipping two of the same card to a single character will grant them the “pair” perk; equipping different poker hands will grant new and more potent perks; for example, a character might gain bonus damage with a rifle, or they might gain the ability to charge up and deal a mighty blow to an enemy.
Aside from that, it appears that you can only advance in the game by equipping yourself with weapons, trinkets, and consumables you find in the overworld. This involves a lot of point-and-click exploration similar to Mount & Blade, with the added bonus of fascinating side quests and other narrative elements. While the spider-like monster train may have caused an unseasonal snowfall in the West, it is clear that something has been off about this part of the country for some time.
From a challenge perspective, it’s not too tough of a game. While turn-based tactics have always been associated with difficulty, I found Hard West 2 to be surprisingly forgiving. Killed allies respawn with a single hit point once a battle ends, but it’s extremely rare for anyone to actually die.
You don’t get much of an opportunity to understand what makes these people friends. Conversations with your posse often take the shape of a Mass Effect-style choice of whom to agree with more in a certain situation in exchange for an increase in loyalty points. If you prove your dedication to the camp by earning enough points, they may provide some further information about their history. Over time, with development, these characters become more developed, but based on their language alone, I had the impression that the people supporting the main tale were poorly defined, thus I didn’t invest much in their quest. Thanks to the turn-based system, I kept going back for more.
As a whole, Hard West 2 is a rewarding experience. Playing through Ice Code Games’ take on the bizarre west and getting to know the desperate characters attempting to survive in it is a great option for fans of the genre or those looking for something a little different.
