West of Loathing (2017) + DLC Reckonin' at Gun Manor (2019)
The catchphrase "And now for something completely different" would be a good way to introduce this thoroughly excellent RPG.
I'm a big fan of humour and this game has it in spades, and not just the odd dad joke or reference, it's every single inch of it, every single action is played for the laughs. It's The Naked Gun of RPGs. All kinds of jokes imaginable and they come so thick and fast that if you don't get one, you'll get the next 10 in the next 10 minutes so you don't even notice the gags you miss.
The game is a fully open world adventure into the old west where you explore small regions of interest via a world map with a single character stick figure. At the start of the game you will be awarded the Silly Walks perk, and I strongly recommend turning it on and using it for the whole game.
You can also select a companion to come with you if you wish. The combat is turn-based and is based around traditional RPG mechanics where your primary stats, armour, speed and HP determine your combat strength and certain abilities. At the start you can choose between 3 main archetypes, muscle, mage, dexterity, though the game refers to them as muscle, mysticality, moxie. There are also many, many other skills and traits to collect along the way, many of which open up a whole host of hilarious non-combat ways to circumvent combat or resolve quests.
The exploration is top-drawer and the music is perfectly addictive. The loot is never boring and there's no weight limit, and the loot is extremely plentiful without ever becoming a chore.
It's as much an adventure game as it is RPG, as it's one of those games that likes to provide puzzles, from the very easy to the obscurely mind-bending, all along the way, so you will always have a good reason to revisit locations when necessary and there will be visible changes to those locations.
I finished the game in 22 hours but it allows you to play on and do some loose ends if you want to before watching the end credits (complete with your adventure related story conclusions), and I added another 6 hours this way. And I didn't complete everything as there was still loads of new stuff left for future play throughs, including lots of elements that are excluded due to class chosen and elements that are excluded because of choices made in individual scenarios.
The combat is mostly easy and it's very easy to get overpowered but at the same time complacency will still result in the odd death here and there. However, even death is it's own thing in this game and adding a death or two to your adventure can actually increase your power level, so don't ever rush to Alt F4. There's no saving anyway, it's one of those exit-to-save and then continue games, which doesn't work for most RPGs, but works just fine here.
I'd rate it as a
9/10, one of those very rare computer games that achieves near perfection due to it's perfectly arranged atmosphere and overall cohesiveness.
So why not 10/10? Good question and one I can't answer with words, but it just feels like there's a small, tiny piece of the perfect puzzle missing, perhaps it needed more 'big' combat encounters? Perhaps it needed a few more 'interesting' combat encounters. Perhaps it needed more opportunities to hire more companions? Perhaps it needed slightly more companion interaction and side quests? Who can say, it was all lovely, near perfect, the near being a bit of Je ne sais quoi.
Anyway, if you were one of those people moaning about a lack of good RPGs in the last year or two and this game is still in your backlog for some reason (like it was for me) then... get on it! It really does live up to the humour hype.
