West of Dead

While West of Dead is subdued in many ways, I find it to be an easy recommendation for any fan of roguelike titles.

A cool atmosphere and a great combat system meet an interesting lore story and challenging boss fights. Unfortunately, there are some negative points. Not only was the gameplay a bit monotonous, but the controls were to notchy. In addition we not only had to fight witches and undead, but also many bugs.

West of Dead is full of style and brooding atmosphere, but the clunky controls and a lack of polish overshadow a few of its original ideas.

A game this difficult, with everything to lose from permadeath, should at the very least feel fair; without any balancing of enemies against your character's progress (something that Upstream Arcade has seemingly done none of) West of Dead does not. [Issue#348, p.100]

It’s a shame. Put into a different, more traditional action game structure, West of Dead would be a satisfying RPG flavoured shooter with a truly inspired combination of gameplay mechanics. What’s here offers plenty of great, timing driven moments, but when saddled with conventions of the genre it has chosen to adopt, it quickly becomes an exercise in frustration and simply doesn’t hold up to the scrutiny.

Through it all though, I'm still going back and playing it. The live, die, repeat roguelite mechanic has its hooks in me and although it's frustrating at times, I'm working through gritted teeth to unlock more items to help me in future runs. The aesthetic beauty of the game helps keep me going as well as the music but I only wish some more tweaking had been done to some of the shootout mechanics. If you pumped hours upon hours into Enter the Gungeon then chances are you'll find a similar grab in West of Dead, but be fair warned that there isn't as much polish here.

A run-of-the-mill procedural twin-stick roguelike that has a unique aesthetic and premise, but little else. Without more content, more variety, and more exciting unlockables, West of Dead is dead in the water. Or will remain in gaming purgatory. Either way, I have very little faith in West of Dead’s future.

After playing the game for more than twice that amount of time, I never achieved a winning run, but there's not much left to see or conquer. The game's NPCs say the same exact lines at the start of every run. It becomes a drag to re-run facsimiles of the same levels again and again: They're similar enough that it feels like you have them memorized, even if the details change. When you spend too long in Purgatory, it starts to look a lot like hell.