I purchased the game and doing the tutorial. The game is a ton of fun so far. It definitely feels like the old west. I finally realized there is no overwatch but i think it is made up for by the replenishment of your Action Points by killing an enemy. You are always outnumbered and need to use strategy to try to go on a killing spree.
When we use an Overwatch in other games it is used to lower enemy numbers. This is the same thing really but from an offensive perspective rather than defensive. It does feel good to have something different. I also think it fits the theme of an Old West shootout.
Fair enough; I certainly plan to pick this up when it’s on real sale eventually. I don’t think overwatch is just about numbers though (although that is definitely a good insight you have there). It’s about planning and a feel of tactical evolutions. The Bravado system of continuously replenished AP is exciting, but to me smacks a bit too much of finding the right puzzle like sequence of choices for each encounter, sort of like a lot of Japanese strategy RPGs. Not a bad thing, but not quite what I was hoping for.
But I am still intrigued and will probably get this eventually.
Gah, you people. Convinced me to give the full game a try. Technically, it was on sale (10%) so I can claim I did wait for a sale! Played a bit more and it is growing on me. I do like the atmosphere for sure.
BTW, if you played the demo, DO NOT let the game start you up from the demo save, at least if you didn’t finish the entire thing. The game will not let you progress beyond the demo end point (blowing the pass) if you start from a demo save. I found this out the hard way, and have to play the entire first few hours over again. Not the worst fate, but still, very sloppy.
Oh, and the special gun you get for playing the demo? They effed that up too, and now you have to fill out some Google form and hope they actually send you the code for it. Not a big confidence booster for their coding skills here.
I’ve been enjoying the game - I’m midway through Utah, but I can’t seem to stay interested in it for more than one battle at a time. That makes for slow going. It sure is satisfying when I can get Laughing Deer to keep a kill streak up and just have him run around and decimate the enemy. Him and Gin are my main killers. Flynn’s ability to swap places is really good for dealing with pesky enemies that are behind cover.
Just picked Hard West II up after playing the demo. Anyone else think the horse battles are pretty cool? I really like how they did this in a turn based game, with the scenery all moving the entire time.
I think this will probably be a bit too easy for some. I’m playing on Nightmare and it isn’t too bad. I’ve definitely had to restart an encounter a couple times because I’m trying to be so aggressive for the bravado. I’m having fun though.
I like that it follows the same group of characters through the game. I wasn’t a big fan of the first one breaking it up like it did.
It starts out easy and then hits a wall a ways in. The puzzle-like nature of the Bravado system is cool, but you get to a point where the battles expect you to pretty much execute chain attacks perfectly, something that is impossible to do usually on the first try.
I rolled the credits today. It’s a pretty good take on turn based tactical combat. The bravado system was pretty fun, but I think Gears Tactics overall with its similar system. My biggest dislike was the ricochet system. For the most part in the earlier missions it doesn’t need to come into play a lot, but some of the last missions were really annoying because it seemed to have a ton of ricochet object which made positioning on defense a royal pain. I didn’t play the first Hard West and I don’t think I’d need to play the next one if it is very similar to HW2.
I didn’t notice any major difficulty spikes and just completed it on hard. Perhaps I was just lucky in my approach with divvying up the cards?
I agree that the ricochet system is a bit hit and miss, since its often tough to judge the range and / or accuracy when using those objects. With later enemies frequently having the auto-shoot response that requires them being attacked via ricochet, its a bit frustrating.
Overall a better game than the first in terms of mechanics and if used cleverly the various character skills can have cool synergies. (teleport a tough enemy into range with Flynn and then drop his HP with a smart double HP swap from Lazarus)
