REVIEW | Weird West

LifeisXbox’s Weird West review | Are you interested in the wild west? What if it was not the one you’re used to? Sure, the things you’re used to seeing in other wild west media are also here, like shootouts and tumbleweeds, but there’s more to Weird West than just that. Created by WolfEye Studios and published by Devolver Digital, the studio did a great job with almost everything here, leading to one of the best wild west based games I’ve ever played.

Most Memorable Moment

One of the best things about Weird West is the abilities you can unlock. But the one that I used the most, was the slow-motion dodge leap, and it was always satisfying to use it, no matter how many times I did. Besides that, I’d say that discovering a Dishonored easter egg, which can be seen in the last image of this review, was pretty cool.

ℹ️ Reviewed on Xbox One | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion of the writer.

What we Liked!

• Substantial Player Freedom | Weird West gives players a lot of freedom. Want to try to kill everyone including key-story characters? Play stealthily and knockout human enemies? (Your companions cannot be detected if you weren’t) Enter a building through its chimney? Steal from anyone? It’s entirely up to you. These are just a few examples, as there are more possibilities in other situations throughout the game. I tried going in stealthily when I could, but sometimes I’d throw stealth out the window and shoot all enemies. Keep in mind that your actions have consequences.

• Abilities | In Weird West, there are five playable characters, each with four unique class abilities and several “shared” abilities. These “shared” abilities are linked to all available weapons: bows and melee weapons have four abilities, whereas revolvers, shotguns, and rifles each have three. I say “shared” because they can be acquired by any character, but they aren’t hereditary, so you’ll have to unlock them again when you switch characters. They can be obtained with Nimp Relics, which can be found or purchased. I haven’t tried all of these abilities, but they are all interesting and useful.

• Perks | Differently from abilities, perks are hereditary, can be acquired with Golden Aces, and are useful not just for combat. There are fourteen different perks, with three levels each. Here are a few non-combat-related examples: there’s a perk that has a chance to save your lockpicks from breaking, one that lets you jump higher, another that lets you find more gold in containers, etc. The combat-related ones can increase your or your posse members’ health, do more damage, reload faster, and so on. Just like abilities, perks aren’t essential, but they make your life a lot easier.

• Details-rich | There are quite a few cool details in Weird West, many other games don’t have the ones that are here so I’m going to mention a few of them. A companion abandoned my posse because I was being stealthy and they wanted more action. Dead people will be buried in the town’s graveyard. You can skin animals with a skinning tool to craft and upgrade vests. You can heal by eating cactus fruits and by piercing and drinking from a cactus. You can play a different kind of poker, where you’re only given one card and more.

• Good Visuals | Graphics aren’t incredible here, but I feel like isometric games don’t need them to be great to be good games. As you can see in the screenshots in this review the art style more than makes up for the graphics, and there’s even a map-like border for some of the locations you visit. The character portraits, menus, map, and the occasional hand-drawn cutscenes all look great and fit the somewhat dark tone of the game pretty well.

• Nice Soundtrack | The soundtrack was surprisingly amazing when it kicked in, even though it was mostly subtle. Every situation, whether it was combat or a story-related event, was amplified when that happened. The sound effects in general were good, but explosions and weapons had the best of them, sounding as powerful as they needed to.

Mixed Feelings

• Nothing | Nothing to see here, keep going.

What we Disliked

• Slightly Problematic | There aren’t many bugs in Weird West, but I’ve encountered a few that were annoying, as well as some other issues. I’m not sure if this is related to the update, but returning to a save file after said update revealed bodies that weren’t there before. If you’re in a multi-story building, companions may follow your position on a different floor. I had audio issues in the last chapter in a specific location, but it was resolved by saving and loading that save file. There was no way to turn off controller vibration when I played Weird West, and it was annoyingly strong. Other AI issues included NPCs and companions becoming stuck in specific locations. Some character portraits don’t look much like their 3D model.

How long to beat the story | 20-30h
How long to achieve 1000G | 30h+

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