Each character can hold up to five cards, and in addition to cards’ passive and active skills, there are also passive stat boosts for completing poker hands with that character’s cards.ĭespite there being no shortage of the supernatural in the West, death cannot be reversed. These skills are built into playing cards found after story beats and gunfights in each campaign. In addition to these these skills, characters have passive bonuses like absolute stealth in the shadow of buildings, health regeneration from cannibalizing fallen enemies, and looting rare guns from fallen enemies. Everything else, though beneficial, is secondary. Better guns increase the ammo count and range at which a character can shoot, amulets give them access to a larger cache of luck or accuracy, and healing items can make the battlefield just a little less risky, but fights always come back to positioning and clever skill use. Players will always flirt with the unknown as they try to balance how many angles their characters are covered from against flanking their enemies – after all, getting the drop on opponents often means you kill them in one bullet rather than six. These skills are amazingly powerful, such as Golden Bullet, which allows the player to fire a shot with 100% accuracy into any enemy on the field, obstructions be damned, but costs 80% of most characters’ full luck cache – meaning the character is almost guaranteed to catch a bullet in short order.īecause of the luck dynamic, combat is always a bit more about strategy than equipment. The luck meter also powers your special abilities: Activating any character skill expends a certain amount of luck. Being caught out of cover, or at a bad angle, spells death. Cover is key, as it both reduces the luck a character loses from getting shot at and reduces the damage taken when they get hit – capping it at 1 or 2 HP depending on the weapon Since most characters sit between 6 and 8 health, the cover system keeps them alive. When characters get hit, they regain a bit of luck and can afford to take risks again. Characters have two significant meters in combat: A luck meter that determines the likelihood that the next shot will miss, and a health meter, which staves off the cold embrace of death as long as it has at least a single tick left. The demons players fight are dangerous, with more health and scarier weapons, but deal death no more exotic than a bandit’s bullet.Īlthough the game makes no bones about its difficulty, it never feels like a grind, striking a fair balance between hard strategy and the dose of luck needed to survive even a well-planned, well-armed, well-executed gunfight. Later, as demons and devilish men emerge from the dusty roads and start to bargain for the characters’ souls, the game still keeps everything very grounded. The atmosphere is near-perfect, and with it, there’s a constant sensation of feeling right at home amidst the dust and six shooters. The game is dark in the shadows, bright in the desert sun, and although combat feels relatively simple, there’s a lot of nuance buried in the joints of the game’s interlocking systems. The music is high adrenaline with a modern pulse and a pulpy feel that would be right at home in a Western film. The entire game overflows with aesthetic design. In motion, Hard West‘s best work is done in atmosphere and style. Taken as a whole, it’s a sobering experience, one where comfort feels fleeting and good luck lasts just long enough to keep hope alive. Tragedy follows the characters in Hard West, and no matter the player’s efforts within the various campaigns, Warren, his father, and a young woman named Florence never seem to find much luck. Without his spouse, or much in the way of provisions, the man and his son Warren settle down, hoping to strike enough luck and gold to get back on the Oregon trail – and back toward a better future. After slaying the men who took his wife, he finds her slain as well. The father creeps along the edges of wells, fences, and cellars on his way into the kidnappers’ hideout. This encounter is the tutorial, introducing the players to the game’s combat systems. Mid-journey, a mother is kidnapped, and the father, his name unknown, sets out to save his spouse however he can. Hard West starts with two good men in tough times, fresh off the Oregon trail, making what life for themselves they can in the lawless West.
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