There's only enough room in this town for one stick.
“West of Loathing” was made by Asymmetric and published in August 2017 on Steam.
One thing I want to address is that the developers of the game, Zack Johnson and Kevin Simmons, had a controversy over a year ago. I’ve chosen to separate the artist from the art, so this did not impact my opinion on the game. However, I understand this can be a deal breaker for some.
Story (B)
The story involves the protagonist, an avatar character, leaving their family farm. The protagonist heads off to the west but gets knocked off the wagon taking them there and ends up in the town Boring Springs.
However, this town lets the protagonist acquire a partner, their objective, and the very important first hat. I swear the hat is important.
That’s about it for the main story. Unfortunately, it isn’t interesting and feels like a side-quest.
All the events in the main story just feel like they’re just there with no satisfying payoff, even the finale.
However, the main appeal isn’t the main story: it’s the characters and comedy — which are shown off best in side-quests.
The characters are likable and interesting. From the funny criminals, to the charming townspeople, and the unsettling circus people.
The characters make the world feel alive.
“West of Loathing” also has good comedy. One of the best running jokes being with the spittoons as the narrator does everything in their power to convince the player to not put their hand in it.
However, the story can be serious despite its goofy nature. Alice’s side-quest is a great example, as it deals with Doc Alice’s struggles as a doctor as the patients she failed to save come back to life.
The side-quest treats this topic seriously which really helped the game be more than just a goofy experience.
Unfortunately, the comedy only worked at the beginning as the jokes were getting less amusing the more the game went on.
I don’t know if it was because of my sense of humour or because the further the story went, the more invested I got, thus treating it more seriously.
The world itself is interesting, with the same splash of goofiness and charm. I mean, to be fair, I can’t think of another game that has ghost cucumbers.
Presentation (B-)
The game is made up of simplistic black and white art, with all the human characters being stick-figures. The only other colour that shows up is red for the health bars.
While none of the art is anything spectacular it does fit the silly tone of the game. It’s pleasing without ever being boring.
The style makes for some good animation and visual gags too.
The text message style for dialogue is a nice and clever touch too — like seeing text messages on a cellphone.
The simplistic style does lead to boring enemy designs since they’re almost all stick figures. The cows were neat at least, I liked the cows.
There are also funny filters and visual changes. Such as a no colour filter and film grain filter. The font can even be changed to Comic Sans or Arial. I wouldn’t recommend it, but everyone has the right to hell.
As for sound: Sound effects are fine but nothing special. The music on the other hand is phenomenal. The battle theme, main menu theme, area themes and so on give off the western vibe so well.
However, there is only one battle theme and no boss themes. Without them, it just makes the atmosphere of the bosses lack intimidation.
As for technical aspects, the game crashed once and one major side-quest soft-locked for doing one part too early, which was my bad. Besides those occurrences, the game is stable and runs well on low-end computers.
Gameplay (E)
“West of Loathing” is a turn-based RPG where enemies are fought to gain money and experience points, the latter is used to level up to improve stats. Equipment and weapons can be equipped to increase stats/add status ailments to inflict when attacking enemies.
There are two modes when it comes to leveling: either points are distributed equally to all skills and stats automatically or full freedom is given for upgrading skills and stats. I chose the latter and it was satisfying being able to fill out my preferred skills and stats.
Unfortunately, the sense of progression when leveling is akin to going to the Olympics on steroids. Throughout the game, consumable items can be found and used to give stat boosts. There is a limit however, as the stomach, liver, and spleen can’t take too much.
Even losing can give stat boosts. The first and second times the player loses in one day they receive the angry effect which increases three of their stats by three each time.
All stat boosts go away if the player receives the angry effect a third time, going all the way back to Dirtwater.
The stat boosts can be useful, especially if certain conversations require a certain number for a stat to proceed with specific choices.
However, it can make it feel as though no real progress is being made since a lot of it is through artificial means — it feels like cheating.
While these stat boosting items are optional, a lot of fights/decisions become massive roadblocks without them since the difference when leveling up stats naturally feels minimal.
By the end of the playthrough, I felt no stronger than I did at the beginning without the consumable items. There was barely a difference, the consumable items were the difference.
As for the combat, the player takes a turn by either using their sword, gun, or special attacks.
The sword can be used for standard attacks. The gun can hit enemies from a distance, but some enemies are resistant to guns; guns also don’t work against enemies hiding behind cover. Specials are special attacks that are equivalent to magic in other RPGs. Special attacks are determined by the player’s chosen class.
In my playthrough, I chose the snake oiler and could poison enemies to deal poison damage after each of their turns. The more I hit them with my special attacks, the higher the poison damage.
The poison damage was very satisfying to do.
There are also one of three partners to help in combat. In my playthrough, I chose Alice who could attack all enemies on the field, heal and instantly kill undead enemies. She was a helpful ally and many battles were won with her assistance.
Although, partner turns can’t be skipped which can lead to a death or two, in Alice’s case if the protagonist is at full health, she’ll use her shotgun. Even if she really shouldn’t. It seems her doctoral degree didn’t carry over to shot-gunning cows.
Items can be used in-battle to help even the odds. They don’t take up a turn, but their supply is limited. That sounds balanced but it’s quite broken since if a bunch of items are stocked, they can all be loaded onto the enemy with the enemy being unable to do anything except question their life decisions.
The combat has a unique twist from usual turn-based RPGs, that being the grid system. Enemies can be in one of nine places on their side, with up to nine enemies in a fight. Attacks can affect multiple tiles and even miss if the wrong grid is chosen.
Unfortunately, the grid system doesn’t deliver.
The grid system feels like an excuse to pile up a bunch of enemies against the player in unfair fights of five to nine enemies versus the player’s few allies. Yet, a lot of main story fights and random encounters are pathetically easy.
These fights of differing challenges are right next to each other a lot of the time. It just makes the game feel unbalanced with its difficulty.
Enemies are also just meh. They don’t require much strategy unless there’s a lot of them, and even then, it all depends on the number of items in the inventory.
The only exceptions are the enemies that use cover and the board game minigame in one of the forts, where each battle has preset units and enemies to defeat.
However, these instances are rare.
There are bosses as well, but they don’t feel like bosses, more akin to normal enemies. The final boss felt like a normal enemy encounter. Cover for the enemies are only used a handful of times and melee weapons have no restrictions while guns do.
“West of Loathing” also reveals the enemy's health bars and it’s easy to figure how much enemy is done to enemies. This can make a lot of battles end up being inevitable since it’s easy to tell whether victory is certain or not.
This all culminates into the combat being an unbalanced bore-fest. It tries to be different, but it underutilizes the grid system’s potential.
To enter battles, there is usually a prompt to do so in areas.
Areas allow movement in four directions. Items and meat, the game currency, can be found and there are no random encounters in these areas, most fights that happen are given a warning before they happen.
Exploration was enjoyable, but nothing special outside of the warnings for battles.
That’s not to say the game is devoid of random encounters though. The overworld map for travelling from one location to another has random encounters when traveling. Traveling will also allow discovery of new locations. Wandering around a location is also available to discover places and fight enemies.
The map system works well enough as it’s easy to traverse and gives the adventurer vibe. However, searching for locations can be annoying since it’s random and going to some locations are required to finish side quests.
The last area on the overworld requires exploration around the main town to find more locations. Some random encounters are dialogue heavy, which is unique but annoying when it goes on for too long.
Finally, there are the puzzles. They can be as simple as getting certain characters in one spot. The puzzles can be cruel as one mistake could mean failure of the puzzle due to the autosave system.
Some puzzles can be tricky too, although sometimes it’s because the question isn’t presented well.
For example, one puzzle requires algebra by pulling three levers which adds different number values to get certain numbers, with the goal of reaching a specific number.
However, the game doesn’t explain what number needs to be reached, which is a real bruh moment.
Other types of puzzles involve using items picked up in areas to solve side quests without fighting anyone, such as locking bandits in their hideout to arrest them rather than kill them.
However, the items required to do these are in limited quantity. The limited quantity makes these decisions even more important, as it must be wagered whether it’s important enough to use the item(s) or not. Speaking of the item management system, it’s a bit of a mess.
A lot of items are acquired throughout the game. Too many. Now, to be fair, there are sections for the inventory for each item type and there is an alert for each new item added.
However, with the number of items, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when going back through it or even lose track of items. It was also tedious checking the inventory after every new item required, ruining the pace.
The puzzles overall can be cool when done right and add weight to choices. However, some puzzles disrupt the flow of the game and are too unforgiving.
Overall (D)
“West of Loathing” is an interesting case where it has a charming story with interesting characters and fairly nails the presentation to fit with the game. However, a good story and presentation can’t save shallow, boring, unbalanced, and unenjoyable gameplay, despite some neat additions
“West of Loathing” is one of those games where it’s better to experience it through a YouTube let’s play. While the game is around eight hours (depending on side quests done), it felt like it was 20 hours due to the boredom of it. They say time flies when you’re having fun, but it felt like I was doing taxes when playing.
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