Hard West 2 - Release Day

HiddenX

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The tactical RPG Hard West 2 will be released today:

Hard West 2


Hard West 2 is a journey to the heart of darkness in the American West. Take control of a supernatural posse and catch the mysterious Ghost Train. Outsmart, outcheat and outgun your enemies in this turn-based tactics game set in a Wild West world where nothing is as it seems.
More information.
 
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Hmm dont know why but this game did not aroused any interest for me
 
Liked the first game quite a lot, and seems like the second is just going to get better. Already checked out the demo. I am already playing 4 other games at this point, but I guess, that has to be the 5th then...
 
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Not sure if I've ever been "aroused" by a game tbh. ;)

I tried the demo and thought it was decent enough. I might grab it at some point down the line.
What? You never played Samantha Fox Strip Poker, back in the nineties? 😜
 
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I actually refunded the game.
For me the push towards savescumming is a death sentence.

The game allows saving and loading during combat, and constantly pushes you towards risky situations, which you would then need to savescum. The end result is not really pleasant unless you just want to casually play through the whole thing on an easier difficulty, without any challgene. Also because I am doing LP videos, neither savescumming nor just playing through it on "normal" would be pleasant to watch. So I decided to rather stop early and refund.
Quite unfortunate.
 
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I actually refunded the game.
For me the push towards savescumming is a death sentence.

The game allows saving and loading during combat, and constantly pushes you towards risky situations, which you would then need to savescum. The end result is not really pleasant unless you just want to casually play through the whole thing on an easier difficulty, without any challgene. Also because I am doing LP videos, neither savescumming nor just playing through it on "normal" would be pleasant to watch. So I decided to rather stop early and refund.
Quite unfortunate.
Is it just a matter of learning the game first - which you can't do as a youtuber because of time - or you think it is badly designed?
 
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I think it's badly designed.
But ofc that depends on your playstyle. Like if you are "casually" playing through the game, and are not looking for challenging fights to beat, then you will probably not have any issue.

But the issue is that the game is very much designed around a feature called "bravado", which is that you refill your action points on a killing blow.

Example: You have one character which does 5 damage, and you got 5 snipers with 5 hitpoints.
In this game, you will be able to spend 1 AP to get into position to shoot at the first sniper with 90% hit chance. You kill him. The kill refills your AP. Now you go to the second, kill him. This Refills your HP and so on.
Thats all nice. But you can guess what happens if you miss a shot. Yeah, you die. Because you are liekly now in a bad position and all 5 snipers will shot at you.

Now you might say "ok, I just be careful and only kill one per turn". However the game only has 3 difficulties.
And the Upper difficulty actually as a time limitation. So Assume in the example above that you only got 1 turn to kill them all. Yeah, in some missions you actually need to do pretty much perfect.
Any bad luck would mean you need to reload. And ofc chances accumulate.

And you can see from my example that in this case you wouldnt be able to compensate with any great tactical decision. In this example it would be down to pure luck / savescum at the point where it matters.
 
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Why not play on the difficulty which has no turn limits?
Thats the medium difficulty, which then would be too easy, with or without savescumming.
I always play on hardest and like the challenge. But that would mean in this game I would need to savescum. Btw: The loading times are also quite long, not making it any more pleasant.

As mentioned, not an issue if you just want to play through the game and enjoy the story, rather than solving challenging battles.
 
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I think that confirms it's not a game for me. I already had my doubts after playing the demo, because the locations were only used for fight and not for exploration or NPC interaction.
 
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Thats the medium difficulty, which then would be too easy, with or without savescumming.
I always play on hardest and like the challenge. But that would mean in this game I would need to savescum. Btw: The loading times are also quite long, not making it any more pleasant.

As mentioned, not an issue if you just want to play through the game and enjoy the story, rather than solving challenging battles.
I understand what you're saying but not sure I am the same :D

If something is too hard or I'm learning a new game I don't mind lowering difficulty first until I understand the game more.
 
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I think it's badly designed.
But ofc that depends on your playstyle. Like if you are "casually" playing through the game, and are not looking for challenging fights to beat, then you will probably not have any issue.

But the issue is that the game is very much designed around a feature called "bravado", which is that you refill your action points on a killing blow.

Example: You have one character which does 5 damage, and you got 5 snipers with 5 hitpoints.
In this game, you will be able to spend 1 AP to get into position to shoot at the first sniper with 90% hit chance. You kill him. The kill refills your AP. Now you go to the second, kill him. This Refills your HP and so on.
Thats all nice. But you can guess what happens if you miss a shot. Yeah, you die. Because you are liekly now in a bad position and all 5 snipers will shot at you.

Now you might say "ok, I just be careful and only kill one per turn". However the game only has 3 difficulties.
And the Upper difficulty actually as a time limitation. So Assume in the example above that you only got 1 turn to kill them all. Yeah, in some missions you actually need to do pretty much perfect.
Any bad luck would mean you need to reload. And ofc chances accumulate.

And you can see from my example that in this case you wouldnt be able to compensate with any great tactical decision. In this example it would be down to pure luck / savescum at the point where it matters.
Hmm. That sounds a bit like they've been inspired by the Hotline Miami games. I really like those games, but they are really fast and has no reload time at all.
 
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Im wondering if its like the first game, from what i remember the campaign was structured in scenarios with different heroes or something like that which totally killed the atmosphere for me
 
It's not mission based with different heroes for each "scenario" this time afaik.
 
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