I really hate spiders.......... and bats
Have you ever played a game that isn’t good or bad and is just simply mediocre? Well, that’s Evil West. This game takes inspiration from games like God of War 4, Devil May Cry, and some shooting mechanics from Red Dead Redemption. They just mashed them together adding nothing new to the table and decided to call it a day. I’ll of course go into detail about everything it has to offer and my experiences.
In this review, I will be comparing this game to DMC and GoW4. I should add that I have only played GoW4 and none of the others, so only it will be mentioned.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- The gameplay is fun at times
- While the graphics look a little outdated, they still do look nice
Cons
- Story and the characters are shallow
- Gameplay, while fun, can be tedious
- I wish there was a lock-on feature
- Sometimes the enemies will have annoying attacks
- There will be times when really tough enemies will stack
- The upgrades don’t do much of anything
- Collectibles don’t feel rewarding
- Encountered quite a few bugs while playing
Story
Taking place in the 18th century Jessie Rentier works for the Rentier Institute, a secret organization that aims to take out supernatural creatures like the Sanguisuge. Vampires hunt and prey on humans and have special powers associated with them. Jessie is equipped with a special gauntlet that is helpful in dealing with them. He works with his father and retired agent Edgar Gravenor and must take out D’Abano’s daughter, Felicity.
The story and characters of Evil West are shallow. Yes, they do have development and motivations for them doing what they are doing. However, they don’t have much to really like about them. The main villain in this game looks like a character you would see in a typical horror movie that you know is just evil, it’s uncreative. The other characters aren’t really better either and aren’t interesting in the slightest. I’ve never played a game where all the characters act like they hate each other but just agree that they have a mission to do, it’s like the Lakers Basketball team.
Gameplay
Evil West is an action beat 'em up that has some fun gameplay moments but has a slew of issues with it. You will use your gauntlet and a revolver to help take out enemies but you will also get your hands on other guns, there are no other melee weapons in the game. Most of the weapons you get are rather fun to use and actually do have usage to them, the only weapon I never found useful was the flamethrower. Except when I had to go out of my way to actually use it to burn an obstacle down. There will also be times when Jessie can put himself into an overpowered state and he can kill enemies by teleporting and is invincible while doing it if you spam it. This will consume all of your batteries but one so use it wisely, you can also do a shockwave attack that consumes one battery. You get batteries by defeating enemies or finding items that replenish one.
There will be times in combat when an enemy will do a certain attack and will show their weak spot, you can use the rifle or crossbow to hit the weak spot and do a big amount of damage. I highly recommend you attack them as you will also get health pickups. Overall, the gameplay is fun at times, there are some enjoyable moments to it that I do like, although I say fun at times, for a good reason.
The gameplay, while fun can be tedious, as you are going to one part of the map, to an open space full of enemies to fight. There will be occasions where you may have to push something but this makes the gameplay rather lackluster. There isn’t really anything special or new that this game does, to make it stand apart from its predaceous in any way. I really wish there was a lock-on feature but there isn’t one and I did press every button on the controller. I’ve never played a game, where a basic feature is present in every DMC game (except the first one), and GoW4 is not included in a hack-and-slash game, I’m baffled by it.
The enemies will also sometimes pull off their most annoying attacks, making you have to choose which targets to exploit the weak points. One attack may go off, unless you are lucky and happen to get them both but you may have to rely on dodging for the most part. There is an auto lock-on feature to point toward the enemy's weak points but sometimes other enemies may get in the way and take the bullet you were going to use to hit that enemy.
The upgrades you get don’t really do much in terms of making you feel powerful, they have a use but all of them are just there. You can upgrade your weapons by funding bucks or really, it’s just gold and you can level up to get a perk upgrade. This also goes with the collectibles you can find, most of them aren’t really worth it. You can either find bucks, which does help in weapon upgrades, hidden perks, which is the best thing you can find in my opinion, or lore you probably don’t care about.
I have to compare DMC and GoW4 again here, they have collectibles that are worth finding, you can get health upgrades, devil trigger meter extension, etc. In Evil West, there is none of that, there are perk upgrades that can increase your health by 15% and one that gives you one extra battery but that’s it. I’ve never played a game where I just don’t care about collectibles, that's two things that are missing from a typical hack-and-slash.
Graphics and Performance
Evil West’s graphics, while outdated, do look nice in some areas. I like the detail they have, an old Western setting with some gothic stuff mixed in. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50 and 16 GB of RAM. You will need a decent PC to run the game, as I played it on medium settings.
However, Evil West has to be the buggiest game I have ever played until I play Lord of The Rings Gollum, if I ever play it that is. I experienced a few glitches like me being taken out of the map, floating objects, enemies getting stuck, and a few others. I unfortunately tried to complete the game but I ended up putting the game on window mode, for me to revert it back but my frames dropped completely. I tried fixing it but to no avail, meaning I had to drop the game and there is no way I am playing another 10 hours of this game.
Final Verdict
Finding good things to say about Evil West is difficult. I first saw the trailer for the game and I wanted to play it for me to only be disappointed. Evil West isn’t a bad game, it’s just ok, it has some steep competition and those games are in my opinion much better and worth your money. If you want a good hack-and-slash, go play the games I mentioned in this review and that includes DMC: Devil May Cry. While that game's story is bad, its gameplay is really good. However, if you are looking for an old-west type of game - then I recommend the hidden gem, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. That game is shorter than this one but you can get it dirt cheap on sale.
If you are really curious about playing this game, however, I highly recommend you wait for a sale.