Hard West 2 - sequel from Ice Code Games

[rusty_shackleford]

not a fan of the new setting at all, way too much fantasy

 

[Urthor]

Is this a buggy Unity crapfest turn based game, or have they made good turn based mechanics with fast turn speeds?

 

[Saduj]

LoL they are supper easy to kill,their mortal enemies are stairs,just get all your chaps on the roof and one of them blocking the entrance square.They can't get past him. The two missions could tricky back to back,but not that hard.

Those spellcasters in the mission at the train station are what makes it tough. They are tanky, can regenerate, have 1 AP attacks AND if you fuck up and leave them injured they will transfer all their damage onto one of your full health characters. The AI will also have them hit and run with 1 AP spells and kite your characters once they are outnumbered. The wendingos just demand your attention for a couple of turns and are more a distraction that let the spellcasters run wild. I did have to reload once because I made the mistake of finishing off an adjacent wendingo. Turns out, they get a final revenge attack if you are in melee range.

The two missions could tricky back to back,but not that hard.

The train part isn't that bad once you figure out what you're supposed to do. Being able to swap out two characters makes it doable. But I didn't have the teleporting chick on the train because she was almost dead after the train station. The indians on the 1st train were tough because half of them are spellcasters and line of site is a bit hard to understand when riders are right next to the train. I just left the 1st train once the game said I could and didn't bother with trying to kill them all. If the 1st train didn't go away after all my guys got on the 2nd train, it would have been much harder. The 2nd train is easy because you just have to clear the 1st car and the rest will get caught up in the bottleneck in the 2nd car and can be taken down methodically with very low risk.

he hardest part was in the first chapter when you get the coal,with the two regeneration idiots that spam bombs. Also the most broken shit in the game is bleeding,it should have been 2 per turn,not per action.

I didn't think the bombers were that bad when you first see them. But that mission where there are two with regenerating health that turtle up in a house with melee bodyguards is a huge pain in the ass. I like how the AI takes advantage of 1 AP bomb attacks to hit and run. By the time I cornered the last one, I was out of meds and everyone was bleeding out. There are lots of "generic" enemies in this game that a single character or even two characters can't defeat.

Also the most broken shit in the game is bleeding,it should have been 2 per turn,not per action.

What sucks about that is that it isn't nearly as beneficial for you as it is for the AI because so many of the AI units regen. I usually bring dynamite instead of nail bombs because it does more damage in one turn. I like the priest character because he doesn't need meds and you can fill his slots with explosives.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Is this a buggy Unity crapfest turn based game, or have they made good turn based mechanics with fast turn speeds?

you can adjust combat speed
idk, found it boring, probably won't keep playing. Feels less like gunslingers killing demons and more like magical indians shooting magic missiles at each other.

 

[ArchAngel]

I started playing it today, got to half of chapter after introduction one. I am playing on Hard (I don't like mission timers shit in TB games), game is fun although not hard. I have yet to lose any of the characters in battle.
As far as UI I love that you can press space at any time to speed up current movement of your own or enemy units. What I don't like is one left click moves characters (same for selecting stuff) as that caused me to misclick move characters multiple times already..

 

[Saduj]

Not that it matters too much in a tactics game, but the writing in this one isn't as good as the original. It is OK for what it is but cliches are in abundance.

The one thing that I find very annoying is that NPCs refer to the region as "The Hard West" and it seems to get worked into more than half of conversations. "Blah blah blah... but life is always tough out here in The Hard West.....". Not a fan of that choice....

 

[rusty_shackleford]

flynn's VA is incredibly annoying btw
also don't like how ability selection is sticky

 

[rusty_shackleford]

can I have a game not written by people addicted to twitter?

 

[Tacgnol]

I agree with Rusty in that I dislike how much more overt the fantasy elements are in this one.

It's hard to describe, but the fantasy/supernatural elements in the first game felt a lot more subtle. It was pretty surprising when you actually saw non human combatants later in the story.

Much more in your face with this one.

 

[fantadomat]

I agree with Rusty in that I dislike how much more overt the fantasy elements are in this one.

It's hard to describe, but the fantasy/supernatural elements in the first game felt a lot more subtle. It was pretty surprising when you actually saw non human combatants later in the story.

Much more in your face with this one.

Never played the first one,is it any good and does it feel supernatural like this one? The supernatural elements in this game are the best thing about the game for me,tho i would liked if there were more random side supernatural shit. It is too focused on the demon and a bit too linear.

Those spellcasters in the mission at the train station are what makes it tough.

The black hearths are pretty annoying till you get that you have to kill them in one turn or leave them be.

The train part isn't that bad once you figure out what you're supposed to do

It was pretty easy for me,i just had the two snipers shoot out any horse fagz and then just run to the other train before the time runs out,after that you just methodically clean up the train.

I didn't think the bombers were that bad when you first see them. But that mission where there are two with regenerating health that turtle up in a house with melee bodyguards is a huge pain in the ass. I like how the AI takes advantage of 1 AP bomb attacks to hit and run. By the time I cornered the last one, I was out of meds and everyone was bleeding out. There are lots of "generic" enemies in this game that a single character or even two characters can't defeat.

Yeah,it is the worst part of the game,if you have teleporter slut you could just teleport one of them in a kill zone and finish him with the rest. Sadly by that part one of me people got killed. There was plenty of enemy before you could get to them.

Bleeding is pretty good when you do it with the shotgun,in the last chapter the teleporter slut became the mvp,killing whole rooms in one turn lol.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/hard-west-2-review/

HARD WEST 2 REVIEW​

Hard West 2’s mix of turn-based tactics and supernatural cowboys is a humdinger.​

Just about anything can be made better by the addition of the supernatural. Pirates of the Caribbean exploited a winning formula with its ghostly buccaneers, Stranger Things puts the demons in D&D, and Hard West has hit a home run with its tales of the weird wild west. An XCOM-like tactics game, except when it isn’t, Hard West 2 brings some up-to-date ideas to the poker table.

It starts with a train, as many of the best things do. You’re robbing it, naturally, and having done your research you’re sure there aren’t many guards. ‘You’, in this case, are Gin Carter, a horse-riding, hat-wearing, six-shooter aficionado who’s the nominal leader of a band of outlaws. This train heist is gonna make him rich, you’ll see. With him are Laughing Deer, Native American melee specialist, Flynn, who appears fragile and keeps to the shadows, and trick-shooter Kestrel Colt.

The train guards don’t stand a chance, except there are more of them than you expected. Happily, you have certain advantages, which stand you in good stead throughout the game. The first is that your characters have three action points rather than the traditional two. This means they can move, heal, and still shoot. Or sprint into cover and hunker down for a better chance of evading incoming fire.

Luck of the draw​

Trick shots mean ricocheting your bullets off hard surfaces to negate the effect of cover, essentially outflanking the enemy with unfairness. To facilitate this, wheelbarrows, piles of junk, and non-explosive barrels are scattered around levels. You can even ping a bullet off hanging light fittings. Then there's luck, the addition of which makes your attacks more accurate.

It’s bravado, though, that makes the biggest difference. Kill an enemy, and your action points are refilled. It’s so simple, but affects battles in such a profound way. Suddenly they’re chains to be yanked on, to see how far they go. Living enemies are stepping stones toward your objective, at the risk of overextending and getting cut to pieces the next turn, or leaving other characters behind as you take one on a killing spree.

This, at least in the early stages, means Laughing Deer is a killing machine. Get him in close, add a dose of luck, and he can club anyone to death, instantly refilling his AP to move on to the next hapless victim. Luck will eventually run out, and enemies with more health arrive, but he still hits hard. That makes it all too easy to leave him unprotected, standing miles away from cover or allies when the turn ends just because you were having too much fun tearing through bad guys.

Red hot poker​

Back on the train, you’ve made your way to the driver’s compartment. The loco goes into a tunnel, everything goes black. When it comes out the other side, it’s crawling on hundreds of centipede-like metal legs, which is unusual for a steam train. There, stoking the boiler, is a man who turns out to have some interesting powers of his own, eventually revealing himself to be Mammon, the devil himself. And he wants to play poker.

Of course you play. Of course you lose. The stakes were only your very soul, but if you'd won he'd have given you the centi-train, making it a very tempting offer. And he seemed like such a trustworthy guy. The loss of your soul, interestingly, stops you from casting a shadow. I'm not sure how that works.


You wake up in the overworld map, a departure from the XCOM-like base-building globe, and something more like Total War’s strategy layer mixed with a 2D RPG. You wander around up here, discovering towns, mines, and weird things next to the road, generally getting yourself into trouble and switching to the turn-based combat mode to get yourself out of it again. You dig up (sometimes quite literally) new members of your posse with new abilities, have short conversations, make decisions like whether to take supplies or leave them for the starving villagers, and investigate the uncanny. Mammon and his centipede express to Hell are still out there somewhere, making a mockery of both timetables and 19th century engineering practices as they thunder through the countryside. Killing him could get you back your soul. It’s worth a try, anyway. And it might be fun.

For now, though, it’s cold. Heading to a town would be good, as there might be shops there to tool up on new weapons, but first we need to check out that old hut by the side of the road.

Dirty dozen​

Once you’ve built up a few extra members to your posse, you can start thinking about different ways to approach missions. The game shares more with Desperados 3 than a setting and a liking for the save scumming, giving each character special abilities. Gin Carter has a short-ranged skill that can shoot through cover, damaging every enemy within its area of effect. Flynn can swap places with any character at the cost of one hit point each—great for pulling an entrenched enemy out of cover or finishing off bad guys with just a sliver of health left. Others have more eldritch endowments.

Eventually you’ll unlock a gang of six outlaws, each with their own skills and inventory, ready to tear into the riflemen, shotgunners, exploding drunks (grenade launchers with apparently infinite ammunition), zombies and witches who infest every rickety wooden structure. Hard West 2 lives up to its name, as enemies are plentiful and become pretty tough.


They start off killable with one shot, but pretty soon double their hit points, bringing your bravado-fuelled rampages to an end unless you spend some time softening them up first. Characters can hold two weapons, plus throwables, each of which will have a different AP cost. Rifles, for instance, take all three action points to fire, but their damage and range are unmatched. Shotguns and explosives have an area of effect, and can hurt your allies. Killing an ally, however, can trigger bravado, so perhaps it’s worth it, especially as members of your team never really die, coming back to life after the battle with one hit point ready for a trip to the surgeon, if you’ve got the cash.

Then there are the cards, which you’ll pick up occasionally as you wander round the map. They’re normal playing cards, only slightly enchanted, and on their own can add extra hit points, luck or speed. But this is the old west, so giving a character a valid poker hand gets you something extra. Holding two pair may unlock an ability, but a full house levels it up and a royal flush makes it even better. It can help to have a poker guide or Wikipedia to hand while doling out cards, unless you’re an actual cowboy.

Take Laughing Deer: he needs to hold a pair to unlock his devastating Wild Run ability, which adds extra damage for every two squares he charges into battle. Add extra cards for a flush and an area of effect war cry is added to daze nearby enemies, while a straight flush increases base damage and gives allies a perk. Sending him zig-zagging across the level in a maximum-range killing spree among spread-out enemies, and watching the fires of bravado ignite each time he clubs another rifleman to the ground, is among one of the most satisfying sights the game has to offer.

Boom town​

Less satisfying are the things you’d expect to happen but don’t. Throwing a stick of dynamite should have a devastating effect on structures, which look lightly built and tinder dry. It does not. Area of effect attacks are two-dimensional, limited to the level you’re on and not affecting those immediately above or below, something especially frustrating with shotguns, which you should be able to use to knock someone off a rooftop. And cover can’t be blown away or vaulted over, though your characters do a good job of pathfinding the rest of the time, scaling ladders and bursting through windows. Replay value may be limited, as levels are more like puzzles to be solved, enemy positions not mixing up if you take another shot at them, and there's no multiplayer.

Given time, enemies appear who have the same sort of supernatural abilities as your characters, which feels like cheating on their part as their hit points return to normal after a flurry of gunfire. Then there's the enormous amounts of explosives carried by other enemies, who like to charge in and start lobbing grenades everywhere, causing your characters to bleed their own hit points alarmingly fast. There are ways to mitigate this, of course, like using the Heads Down manoeuvre to stop the bleeding and food to build your points back up, but they all take action points.

None of that really matters though, as Hard West 2 is as solid as the safe in the township’s bank. The one the local outlaws have been making elaborate plans to rob. The combat is crunchy, the bits in-between don’t outstay their welcome, and the whole supernatural cowboy setting still has just enough shine on it to be engrossing. There's more than enough room in our town for a game like this.

THE VERDICT
85


HARD WEST 2
A superb tactics game that looks like an XCOM clone but really, really isn’t.

 

[Roguey]

can I have a game not written by people addicted to twitter?

This doesn't read to me as twitter dialogue but as some Pole trying to capture the speaking patterns of American frontiersmen.

 

[Harthwain]

I agree with Rusty in that I dislike how much more overt the fantasy elements are in this one.

It's hard to describe, but the fantasy/supernatural elements in the first game felt a lot more subtle. It was pretty surprising when you actually saw non human combatants later in the story.

Much more in your face with this one.

I am not surprised it's "in your face" from the get-go, since it's a sequel and you literally start the first mission with paranormal stuff. However, I think you're overselling how things were in Hard West 1 - yes, you started in a somewhat normal way, but this went away after the very first mission. From there you should have expected supernatural elements to be the norm. They might've been not as abundant, but they were pretty much in the open. It was doubly so for the DLCs.

 

[Tacgnol]

I agree with Rusty in that I dislike how much more overt the fantasy elements are in this one.

It's hard to describe, but the fantasy/supernatural elements in the first game felt a lot more subtle. It was pretty surprising when you actually saw non human combatants later in the story.

Much more in your face with this one.

I am not surprised it's "in your face" from the get-go, since it's a sequel and you literally start the first mission with paranormal stuff. However, I think you're overselling how things were in Hard West 1 - yes, you started in a somewhat normal way, but this went away after the very first mission. From there you should have expected supernatural elements to be the norm. They might've been not as abundant, but they were pretty much in the open. It was doubly so for the DLCs.

Maybe. First one felt a lot more slow burn.

Different writers so to be expected I guess.

 

[lukaszek]

I agree with Rusty in that I dislike how much more overt the fantasy elements are in this one.

It's hard to describe, but the fantasy/supernatural elements in the first game felt a lot more subtle. It was pretty surprising when you actually saw non human combatants later in the story.

Much more in your face with this one.

similar to hard west 1 dlc. It starts supernatural and just couldnt hold my interest

 

[ArchAngel]

I am enjoying HW2 more than HW1. In story, setting or combat.

 

[Harthwain]

Maybe. First one felt a lot more slow burn.

Different writers so to be expected I guess.

Not sure if it's because of the writers, but it's certainly about the style, the execution, if you will.

In HW1 the supernatural elements were clearly there, but they weren't so numerous and pronounced to overshadow the Wild West feel to it, so I get where you're coming from. I enjoyed the base game over the DLCs too and I agree The Wild West with a touch of supernatural is more interesting than the Wild West that's all about supernatural, because it makes for more believable setting and the Wild West itself is pretty cool.

 

[Saduj]

For a while, the underused setting I most wanted to see in an RPG was pure wild west. But now I think a bit of supernatural is necessary because not having super natural elements would just force bad decisions like making gunshots less deadly, medical treatment more available and effective than it was, gear that can stop bullets, etc. Basically, if the PC is expected to recover from gunshots somewhat regularly, something supernatural is going on anyway. Protective magical trinkets and healing potions are really no less believable than armor and science fiction tier medicine, given the setting. Pure wild west would only work in a tactics game like Battle Brothers where the player is expected to repeatedly lose and replace characters.

Having said that, I do agree that the original Hard West did it better. The sequel has an entire region suffering a blizzard in June and NPCs seem to think it is just one of those things.

 

[Harthwain]

For a while, the underused setting I most wanted to see in an RPG was pure wild west. But now I think a bit of supernatural is necessary because not having super natural elements would just force bad decisions like making gunshots less deadly, medical treatment more available and effective than it was, gear that can stop bullets, etc. Basically, if the PC is expected to recover from gunshots somewhat regularly, something supernatural is going on anyway. Protective magical trinkets and healing potions are really no less believable than armor and science fiction tier medicine, given the setting. Pure wild west would only work in a tactics game like Battle Brothers where the player is expected to repeatedly lose and replace characters.

Look at Conscript: it has gunshots that aren't exactly deadly (they are dangerous, but not in the real-life sense), medical treatment is fairly easy and more effective than it should be (although it's a limited resource) and there is the actual armor (which makes sense, experimental armor and medieval-like armor was a thing during WW1. In case of Wild West there are at least two historical accounts of people wearing body armor. That said, if anything armor would be much more useful in melee or against arrows and not so much against people using guns). You CAN use supernatural to explain it, but for a video game you can suspend disbelief* if you don't expect a realism simulator on the level of ARMA**.

* It am totally for post apocalypse Legionnaires from New Vegas looking like this:

Spoiler

** But, hot damn, I would be lying if I were to say that I am not interesting in seeing ARMA-like game set in Wild West.

By the way, I watched do gameplay from Hard West 2 and it looks like they got rid of the cover mechanic from Hard West 1 (where the damage was reduced when hiding cover, depending on cover)? Did they went for XCOM's way of handing this?

 

[Tacgnol]

By the way, I watched do gameplay from Hard West 2 and it looks like they got rid of the cover mechanic from Hard West 1 (where the damage was reduced when hiding cover, depending on cover)? Did they went for XCOM's way of handing this?

No damage reduction in this one, shots either miss or you get hit with no variance in damage (aside from crits).

 

[Harthwain]

No damage reduction in this one, shots either miss or you get hit with no variance in damage (aside from crits).

So they butchered one of the things that made the game feel like Wild West and unique compared to XCOM? I... suddenly lost all interest in Hard West 2. The reason I loved Hard West 1 was because cover encouraged prolonged shootouts and flanking. There were guns that allowed you to power through by ignoring cover, but you could balance this by removing these weapons from the game.

 

[Saduj]

So they butchered one of the things that made the game feel like Wild West and unique compared to XCOM? I... suddenly lost all interest in Hard West 2. The reason I loved Hard West 1 was because cover encouraged prolonged shootouts and flanking.

It was definitely a conscious decision. I preferred Hard West combat to Hard West 2. But I will say that nerfing cover definitely fits in with the combat style they were aiming for. And it hardly matters anyway because you will always be outnumbered by enemies who will aggressively try to flank you and most of the time you will be fighting them in relatively close quarters. Not only that, but even when you are able to sit back in cover, you aren't able to kill things while doing it. Most enemies in HW2 take more than one hit to kill and regenerate HP so they have to be killed in one round. The character that gets the kill regains AP. The game is about setting up chain kills to clear the board as efficiently as possible. You want every shot you take to be a 100% flanking shot because any miss screws up your plan for the turn. Leaving a character out in the open at the end of your turn is still a very bad idea but prolonged gunfights are really not a thing in HW2.

Another thing I liked about HW1 combat was having to hunt enemies down across large areas of the map. That doesn't happen in HW2. The maps are large but they are designed around several encounters in closer quarters.

 

[Harthwain]

It was definitely a conscious decision.

I realize that. It doesn't change the fact I see it as a major decline (and a personal betrayal). What I find particularly sad is how very few people noticed the change and how unlikely it is for us to ever get a spiritual successor so good at recreating the feel of the Wild West shootouts. Because as good and thought-out the design for Hard West 2 is, it ain't even close to Hard West 1's execution that I fell in love with (which is a very rare thing for me).

 

[Saduj]

Was going back to this last night after not playing for a few days when I noticed there was an optimization patch released. In the notes was this:

"Lastly, there is some feedback about enemies and certain levels feeling harder than other parts of the game and about difficulty options overall. We are in the process of rebalancing the game and changes should be coming to your way shortly in the next patch. Please see the image below for all that will be included. As you can see, we take your feedback very seriously and have been noting all of it. We want Hard West 2 to be one of your favorite games of the year, and we’re striving to implement your thoughts into the game as fast as we can. Thanks for the patience and all the support you’ve shown us so far with sharing the game with friends, talking to us in Forums and generally being an amazing community."

BTW, the "image below" doesn't add any additional info about this and just reiterates that there will be balancing of levels and enemies.

Sounds like they are pretty keen to get this out quickly. The game has fallen to 69% approval, which puts it in the Mixed reviews category on Steam. If they can't get back to 70%, that's a real problem for them.

Most likely, the game will just be made a bit easier. At this point, I'll just wait in case they manage to make things more interesting.

 

[Parabalus]

Game is fun. Bravado is fresh, cards as stats too - I like that with no XP you can just change party members willy nilly.

Is Hard West worth checking out?