Blood West

During the same Prime trial month I claimed Sands of Aura, I also grabbed Blood West. It had been on my wishlist due to allegedly being an immersive sim as well as for having been made by Hyperstrange, the developers of Elderborn, which I had quite enjoyed. I had been somewhat hesitant if I wanted Blood West due to the setting (I'm not the biggest fan of) and the game's low-fidelity visuals. But free is a good price. And then there are the curvaceous prodigal daughter enemies -- they certainly grab your attention on the game's store page.

Pixelated weird west

Blood West's setting is weird west, the game's take on it very similar to the fiction genre's video game namesake Weird West. (A pretty audacious title nab, I'd say.) There are werebeasts, necromancy, and all manner of horrors. Your gunslinger character has just died but is raised to unlife as some sort of revenant, now tasked to remove curses haunting the lands. The game has three separate maps, each its own separate act.

I didn't realize the protagonist was voiced by no other than Stephen Russell until the credits rolled. Although, to be fair, Russell did sound gruffier than the last time I heard him voice a character. He's definitely recognizable if you going in with the knowledge that it's him. He also doesn't speak out dialogue options, merely comments on locations, killing stuff, and picking up items.

Not sim-level immersion

I would discard Blood West's immersive sim allegation: the low-budget visuals lessen the experience too much. And not only does the game have a low polygon count and Minecraft-level texture resolutions, the world is also extremely static. The environments are barren and nothing moves except for enemies. The only interactive environmental asset are ladders. There is no carrying or throwing stuff, not even pushing things (with the exception of swinging saloon doors). The lack of mantling also hurts; every game aiming for immersion should have it these days. Even System Shock 2 back in 1999 had it in limited capacity.

It's a perpetual night in Blood West and view distance is limited. It would have been so cool if the lighthouse in the bayou map was functional, like if it cast a rotating beam of light across the sky. Menu and HUD art style is again disappointingly basic like in Elderborn, although icon pixel art is quite nice.

Make the first shot count

Gameplay features first person stealth, melee, and shooting. It's almost preferable to play the game mostly as a stealth title because open conflict is so hazardous and clunky. Melee is very viable, at least on the default difficulty, once you have properly invested into it, though. But gunplay will remain horrible.

Guns are so damn inaccurate when fired rapidly and/or on the move -- I hate four-way blooming reticles. Shotguns were about the only guns that felt worth using against enemies coming at your face. I also found it highly questionable how revolvers have higher damage than lever-action rifle with both using the same ammunition. Their listed effective range is often the exact same, too. Hyperstrange, please, what do you think the longer barrel is for? Guns do feel pretty satisfying when only a single shot is required to kill something, however. Slain enemies get thrown back by force of the hit and pixelated gore gets splattered about.

There's a light soulslike feature in how death takes you back to your current base and some enemies respawn -- chosen randomly, I guess. Being defeated also bestows a curse upon you that grows in strength with each death, becoming quite the nuisance at the full three stacks. One of the curse types gives you an experience penalty at 1/3 already -- you kind of want to get rid of it right away by using a consumable. The full curses can also be removed by performing a given task that can be something like headshotting 10 enemies in a row. The curse mechanic seems a tad unfair -- like getting kicked while down -- but I didn't died all that many times and I had excess of resources for playing the game so methodically anyway to remove any curse.

+5% swing speed

Blood West's skill system is pretty uninspired -- which is again not that surprising after Elderborn. A lot of perk effects are minuscular percentage increases to something, costing 1 to 3 points (you get 3 per character level). There's a perk set that increases your experience gain, too, and such need to be taken as soon as possible or never. Later on, there are also artifacts with the same effect.

With hindsight, I wonder if they're a newbie trap. I suppose you do quicken the pace you get to the few perks that truly make a difference but for the purpose of getting all the perks, experience multipliers are not entirely necessary because completing a certain set of easter egg side quests in each map can get you an absolutely massive amount of experience (should you choose the wisdom reward option) in the final act. I went way above the level on which you have enough points to get every single perk.

Another newbie trap is an artifact called Crimson Brooch. While equipped, every kill increases its value by $5 (and dying resets it). The artifact didn't even turn out to be unique: in addition to guaranteed locations, they're also randomly dropped by certain enemy type in the latter two acts. You could switch to a Broom if you're killing easy enemies but I got plenty rich by just looting about everything. The stash at your base has infinite storage space.

Could've used more complicated systems

Artifact slots you get only 3 so using any of them for something that doesn't directly increase your killing speed or survivability is questionable. The artifact feature is somewhat undercooked in how there aren't many cool synergies to build upon. But there are few.

The Giant Leech, for instance, increases your damage and accuracy while you're bleeding. The Edge, a unique saber, gives you an on-demand bleed whenever you attack without hitting an enemy. The Perforated Heart also makes you bleed when your stamina is below 15% but more importantly cures it when stamina is full. Normal bleeding isn't noticeable with all all the bleeding resistance you can get, though.

The Edge doesn't have any beneficial effects (besides moderately high damage) but it swings fast, a property I found to be crucial on a melee weapon. You might be tempted by high damage axes but their single attack animation takes way too long to reset while weapons like knives and sabers can be spammed, swings going from side to side.

There are some synergy bonuses from being drunk -- and beverages are buffs by themselves -- but the intoxication blur effect made my eyes hurt so I drank only for difficult encounters like act bosses. And speaking of bosses: they're not great. The final one was okay, a pretty standard video game dragon fight, but the first and second act bosses were letdowns. The first boss can be weakened beforehand if you were completionist with the act. The process took a massive chunk out of the boss's health bar but there was still plenty left so I went in fully buffed, only for the boss to die to mere 2 shotgun shells. And I don't even know what mechanics the second act's boss was supposed to have: I just blasted it with a shotgun as it walked around its patrol route.

Blood West has a DLC, Dead Man's Promise, that adds another act to the game with a new protagonist. I enjoyed the base game enough to probably pick up the DLC one day. There's still an upcoming DLC as well, titled Scavengers. It's going to be an endless roguelite mode, which I'm less excited about. They definitely need to add more depth to the skill and artifact system to make it interesting; the best roguelites these days have a whole lot of complexity.