Contents:
The Intro
Title: Hard West
Release year: 2015
Developed by: CreativeForge Games
Genre: Turn-based tactics
Platform replayed on: PC
Wild. Style.
Hard West, a turn-based tactics game set in the American Wild West. A game with style.
I first played Hard West a few years after it was first released, but it’s been a few more years since I’ve last spent time with it. What has stuck in the back of my mind since playing it is this word, style.
But what do I mean by “style”? It’s such a subjective term anyway.
Was it the foreboding, monotone narrator that speaks to you as you play? Was it the narrative itself, a violent Wild West tale of struggle and revenge, with a supernatural twist? Was it the visual style? Or was it the luck-based mechanic and poker-style character upgrades?
Perhaps it was the overall presentation of Hard West that conjures up these recollections.
But style without substance does not a good game make. It’s got to have good gameplay, and it’s got to be fun to play.
Is Hard West the complete package? Does Hard West deliver on the substance, as well as the style?
It’s time to grab your six-shooter and saddle up as we head west into Hard West.
The Game
Hard West is a turn-based tactics game at its core, but before you get anywhere close to guns blazing, this is the Wild West, and there’s a tale to be told.
The story is ever present in Hard West, with a narrator not only introducing the story and missions, but providing commentary throughout.
Hard West begins with a six-year-old Warren on the Oregon Trail with his parents.
Life is a struggle, and Warren’s father ends up on the wrong side of a band of outlaws and the whole family is captured. Breaking free, Warren’s father sets out to find his wife. This is where the tutorial mission begins, and you get your first opportunity to load up and let loose some rounds on the tactical map.
Hard West splits its time between the tactical map, where the gunfights take place, and the strategic map, where you can explore locations and undertake side missions. Anyone familiar with the XCOM series will feel at home with Hard West.
You have the standard action points when on the tactical map, and for the most part, it’s all about movement, cover, shooting, and reloading.
Hard West differs from other tactical shooters with its shooting mechanics. Where other games take into account conditions such as range, shooter skill, weapon type, and cover of target to determine the chance to hit and then randomly generate the result, Hard West takes out the randomness by using a target’s luck.
Wait, luck?
Intuitively, this doesn’t make sense at all, until you understand how luck actually works.
Basically, each time a shot is fired at a target, the target’s luck total is reduced by the shooter’s chance-to-hit percentage. But you don’t know what the target’s luck total is. You just know that if you keep shooting at the same target, their luck will run out eventually. When luck is reduced to zero, the shot hits.
As a quick example, if you have a 75% chance to hit a target, but their luck is 80, you’ll miss. But their luck will be reduced to 5, so anyone else shooting at the same target that turn will hit them.
It seems counter-intuitive, as you see your percentage chance to hit, but then the success of the shot doesn’t depend on a randomly generated result at all. Once you grasp this mechanic in Hard West, it drives your strategy, as luck can regenerate. As a target, you can’t stay in one place for too long, as if the enemy is able to see you, they will hit you eventually. Once a target is hit, their luck total is significantly replenished, and the cycle starts again.
Taking cover is still a good tactical decision, as the lower the chance-to-hit percentage, the lower the hit the luck total will take.
Visually, I like the look of the tactical missions in Hard West. You can rotate your view, and zoom in, which is most useful when planning your moves to ensure you click the correct square on the map grid.
Gunfire produces great sounds and smoke effects, and the hits are suitably bloody.
Tactical missions in Hard West are usually last-person-standing affairs, where the aim is to take out all of your enemies.
There is variation in mission design though, where some missions don’t start out in combat mode. This leaves opportunities to move your team into good positions, search areas, attempt rescues, and subdue enemies prior to guns being drawn.
The strategic map in Hard West moves the story along, as you explore the territory you’re in by visiting places of interest.
Essentially, these excursions provide you the opportunity to develop your characters by acquiring new equipment. Better equipment will provide boosts to character statistics such as health, luck, movement, and aim.
Character statistics are also impacted by boons and afflictions, which can come about from actions taken during the side missions on the strategic map.
There is also a thematic system for improving character statistics through the use of poker ability cards. Having up to five poker-card slots available, you can further boost the impact of individual cards by forming poker hands.
There’s a lot to like in the implementation of the strategic map in Hard West, with the wide range of firearms and stat-boosting trinkets and consumables on offer, to the branching choices of locations to visit and explore.
Hard West does explore some challenging themes, as it’s not purely a classic Wild West tale of revenge. I played through the first two scenarios in Hard West (out of eight, which you don’t have to play in order), and by the end had come across the occult, the undead, human sacrifices, and cannibalism (those latter two being optional).
Hard West appropriately falls under the “Weird West” genre, which mixes traditional Western stereotypes with horror and science fiction.
But before we get weird, I think it’s time we rejoin Warren’s father as he sets out on his own to find his wife and bring about some frontier-style justice for his family…
The Replay
The first scenario mission is a tutorial mission, but it doesn’t hold your hand long. Once you’ve learned how to move, take cover, and shoot, you’re on your own.
You lead Warren’s father through the outlaws’ camp and teach them that they messed with the wrong guy today.
Unfortunately for Warren’s father, there’s a grim discovery awaiting him once the last outlaw standing has breathed his last.
There’s also the foreshadowing of the horror to come, as before the last outlaw died, he was rambling about some unholy obligation.
More than a decade passes, as Warren and his father continue the struggle for survival. They turn to mining, as a gold rush comes their way, in the hope of making it to Oregon.
This leads to the strategic map, as you purchase some prospecting operations from “The Masked Man” who controls the mining in the area.
Mining allows you to build up some cash reserves to purchase better equipment and engage with other side missions.
It’s an interesting experience traversing the strategic map, as you never know when you might need cash or what you might need it for. For example, following an attack on the homestead, you can opt to build an escape tunnel in case of further raids. If you don’t have the cash, you can’t build it, and even if you do have the cash, you won’t know if or when you’ll need this tunnel and what benefit it might provide.
And speaking of the attack on the homestead, this becomes the second tactical mission. Warren is also further invested in protecting his territory, as he has fallen in love with a woman named Florence.
So there’s a love story in Hard West. From a tactical perspective, Florence becomes part of the team. Turns out she’s pretty handy with a firearm.
The homestead mission sees you starting inside your house as bandits swarm in. It’s a claustrophobic encounter with nowhere to hide. It’s a tricky balance of moving from window to window, reloading, and taking out the invaders when you spot them.
Following this homestead defence, Florence discovers her parents didn’t survive the attack. It’s at that point she decides to fight back.
Warren also has other concerns, as his father has been persuaded by a mysterious and charismatic man to buy a lucky amulet. Warren’s father is sick of the struggle, and has succumbed to the supernatural.
But Warren’s father’s frustrations will have to wait. The local Mexican crime lord has been demanding more and more of your gold mining profits the more successful you have become. Florence chooses to secretly parley on your behalf, and is promptly captured.
It’s time for a rescue mission in Hard West.
This mission makes use of the subdue command, where you can use stealth and force enemies to “stick ‘em up”.
Using this to your advantage, subduing a guard frees up the other member of your team to sneak into The Mexican’s compound and steal the jail key.
This not only allows you to free Florence, but also lock some guards inside an area of the compound, thereby reducing the numbers in the final shootout.
And there is a shootout, as soon as you free Florence.
Here’s a gameplay video of the Florence rescue mission:
Following the mission, and to no one’s surprise, Warren’s father’s amulet doesn’t work and soon disintegrates. This leaves Warren’s father distraught, and he soon spirals and ends up cursed. Eventually, he leaves.
It’s just Warren and Florence now in Hard West. And there’s smoke on the horizon.
The homestead has been set on fire and it’s a final defence.
It’s very similar to the earlier homestead mission, except bandits are already in the house. If you built the escape tunnel mentioned above, you can start the mission inside the house.
It’s a repetitive affair.
And following the final shot, it’s also the final affair in the first scenario mission.
Storywise, Warren and Florence are now on the run. But from a gameplay perspective, this was an abrupt and unexpected end. There were only four tactical missions, and two of them were quite similar. I know cliffhanger endings build up the suspense, but this was all over too quickly.
But what next for Warren and Florence in Hard West? Do they make it?
Let’s find out.
Where the first scenario only hinted at some supernatural forces, with Warren’s father and the cursed amulet, the second scenario immediately puts the “weird” in “Weird West”.
So Warren has been offered the solution to all his problems in return for his soul. Yep, that old classic soul trading tale.
But Warren doesn’t budge.
But maybe he should have. Gunmen are surrounding the saloon Warren and Florence are in…
You can’t win this fight, and Warren has to watch Florence die, before he gets overwhelmed himself.
But Warren takes the deal with his dying breath.
And awakens in a coffin outside the saloon.
Take a look at the intro to the As Good as Dead scenario:
It’s time for an undead revenge, as Warren takes on the whole town.
Now, you can’t actually take on the whole town, as if you end up with Warren surrounded by too many hired gunmen, you ain’t gonna last long.
I decided to hole up in a building and slowly snipe encroaching targets.
In Hard West (at least on the normal difficulty I was playing on), the gunmen never completely swarm you, but wait for you to make the first move. In this mission, I had to take peeks outside and around the building to spot the targets.
I was never left facing more than a couple of targets at a time, so I easily picked them off. What was strange at the end was finding four gunmen congregating in the next room of the building, just waiting for Warren to show his face.
So the AI was a bit unusual in this mission, as these four gunmen could have just swarmed Warren and made life (death?) difficult for him.
At least if undead Warren takes a hit, he now has the Nightmare Regeneration power, which allows him to recover health each turn when it’s dark or he’s in the shadows.
Following this undead rampage, the stranger who offered you the deal with the devil tells you he can help you find “The Masked Man”, but that he doesn’t want to do so too easily and spoil the hunt.
Warren thinks he can cause enough damage himself to bring “The Masked Man” out of hiding on his own.
In this second scenario, the objective is to cause enough property damage and take your revenge.
There is also an optional side mission involving killing 100 people along the journey of the main scenario. This is where the human sacrifice comes in, as you can offer the companions you come across up at an Indian totem of a despicable god.
I decided against sacrificing my companions, as I preferred them to be breathing and to have a gun in their hands during the tactical missions.
The next mission is another rescue mission, where someone by the name of Old Man Murray is being held captive. Old Man Murray might have some information on “The Masked Man”.
Time is of the essence, as Old Man Murray happens to be a captive on a cannibal farm.
Old Man Murray’s on the clock in the mission, as you need to rescue him within ten turns or he’ll bleed out. Or you can just leave him to die. Ten turns is more than enough time to get to him, and that’s what I decided to do, subduing one of his guards.
Again, I was more interested in whether or not Old Man Murray could handle a six shooter than sacrificing him.
A more disturbing choice is also presented in this mission: Do you allow Warren to partake in some of the meat from the farm?
The more I reflected on this choice, the more disturbed I was by it. I’m just glad it was a choice, and I’ll leave it at that.
It’s not long before you locate “The Masked Man” and prepare for the final showdown. This would only be the third mission of the scenario. Again, it felt like this scenario was ending before it really got started. Or perhaps more accurately, most of your time in Hard West feels like it’s on the strategic map and not in tactical missions, which you might expect given the genre.
You do get one more opportunity at a tactical mission with an optional one involving a rather wealthy demon.
It was a straight-forward mission, ending in a final shootout with the demon.
He was tough, as he had more health than normal enemies, and his health regenerated. It took some concentrated fire from my team of three before his luck ran out.
The riches were worth it, with some more gold, special items, and a handful of poker cards to assist with the final mission preparation.
Like the previous three missions in this second Hard West scenario, there was not much to do in the final mission except take everyone out.
It didn’t always go to plan, but with Warren able to regenerate health, a slow and methodical approach to moving across the map to where “The Masked Man” was holed up.
It definitely helped having two hired guns with me (rather than sacrificing them…), as the guards on the compound were tougher.
Finally, “The Masked Man” revealed himself.
After trading long-distance snipes at each other for a few turns, “The Masked Man” soon came up close and personal.
But by this stage it was three versus one, and Warren and his little posse prevailed.
While a satisfying revenge for Warren, to avenge his death and Florence’s death, what of Warren’s soul?
And what of the voice in Warren’s head telling him that Florence can still be saved, with her soul trapped in purgatory?
Well, that’s a tale for another time…
The Verdict
So is Hard West more style than substance?
To put it this way, I think the greatest strength in Hard West is also its greatest weakness, and that is its pace.
Hard West is a fast-moving experience. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on what you’re looking for.
The visuals, the sound effects, the narration, they all draw you into Hard West. But scratch beneath the surface, and you might find yourself wanting more out of this Weird West experience.
I found myself wishing both scenarios were longer. You start to invest in the characters and the storyline, and then it’s over after several tactical missions and you have to start again with a new scenario. Following the first scenario, it’s a non-linear progression, with three branches to choose from.
The tactical missions themselves are short and repetitive affairs. The effect this had on me was I felt like I was spending more time on the strategic map than in shootouts.
The narratives that accompany the side missions on the strategic map are well done, and it’s almost like a choose-your-own adventure story. They add depth to the stories, but are very tangential to the tactical missions—I wondered how much they actually enhanced the overall tactical experience.
And should you want to experiment with choices made in either the strategic or tactical maps, the save-game system prevents this, as Hard West autosaves for you. Once you make a decision on the strategic map, you’re locked into it. If you want to try a different approach, you have to start the scenario again.
Likewise, on the tactical missions, Hard West autosaves at the start and at the end. There are no mid-mission saves available. So, you have to complete each mission in one sitting. If you fail a mission, you don’t fail the scenario, and can reattempt it.
While it was sometimes frustrating not to have the flexibility to save my game whenever I wanted, the short tactical missions and short scenarios work well with this save-game system. If you find yourself needing to restart a mission or a scenario, you’re not losing hours of effort. I found myself in both situations, and it wasn’t as much of an annoyance as I thought it would be.
It was a nice change of pace from mission-based games where you can save at any time, as it forced me to not just think out my next move on the battlefield and the strategic map, but it forced me to accept the consequences and follow the story through to the end.
Hard West scenarios are short and deadly affairs, and this fits the Wild West theme. If you go in knowing what to expect (and what not to expect) the overall experience will be more enjoyable. To do so, you need to embrace the abundance of style Hard West brings with its visual presentation, narration, and Wild West-inspired mechanics (such as luck and poker cards), and be forgiving of the repetitive missions and fast-paced scenarios.
Hard West may not have the deepest gameplay, and I didn’t care for the more extreme themes in these Weird West vignettes. But Hard West is one gaming experience where style over substance actually works.
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