Comedy in video games is such a difficult thing to get right when comedy itself is so subjective. Too many games that push themselves as being funny can wind up stretching the same tired quips to the point of annoying. Some have bad gameplay that you endure to get to the funny bits, and of course, there will be games that don’t click with your sense of humour. West of Loathing is an Adventure RPG. It’s also a very funny game that at the very least will have you smiling an awful lot.
West of Loathing (WoL) is a world of stick figures and hand-drawn scenery. A lot of the look and feel draws from the browser-based MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing, of which this game is a spin-off. In fact, if you’re still on the fence about this game you can sign up and play Kingdom of Loathing for free and get some idea of the kind of world WoL exists in. In WoL it’s an interesting combination of point and click adventure games and turn-based RPGs. Play is divided between the map where you pick locations you have discovered and walking around the actual place on the map in a 3D space (although everything still manages to look like very flat scribbled out drawings). When exploring the locations, the game feels very much like the Paper Mario games or more recent South Park RPGs, while very much looking very different to other games.
At the beginning you get to choose one of three classes: Cow Puncher (Warrior), Bean Slinger (Wizard) and Snake Oiler (Rogue). They all have suitably silly abilities. The snake oiler whipping people with snakes when you’re not filling them full of lead, the Bean Slinger slinging beans and the Cow Puncher’s less silly punching. Ideally, you’ll want to pick the class that best suits your playstyle, but I never found any class to really be a struggle if you keep your levels up. Instead of levelling up and being given a bunch of points to upgrade your stats, you are given XP. If you have enough, you can sink it into any of your stats and skills. I enjoyed being able to choose what I wanted to spend it on but if that isn’t your thing you can let the game spend the points for you.
Stats can play a big part of what you can and cannot access as dialogue choices and actions you can perform, sometimes it just involves getting more XP and getting those stats up. Not everything will be available to you in one playthrough, as quests can play out differently depending on what options your stats allow. To experience everything KoL has to offer, you will need more than one playthrough. Some quests can have different approaches and outcomes, trying the different classes and several different NPC ‘Pardners’. There are several options for Pardners who will join you on your journey. Each have their own backstory, attacks and buffs, gaining their own XP through killing certain creatures connected to the backstory. You only take one Pardner with you, so if you want to get the most out of the dialogue you’ll be replaying a few times. If that sounds daunting, just playing it the once still provides you with a lot of content.
West of Loathing isn’t a hard game overall. With minimal level grinding and good use of stat buffs, you can make a steady pace through the story, and there are lots to do on the side to help build up XP. I never found the combat too difficult, and it was usually a brief distraction away from progressing with a quest. Often being able to deal with obstacles by talking (or Hornswagglin’) your way through them as much as fighting someone. While you don’t have a posse alongside you to take on the wild west you do get to bring that ‘Pardner’ along with you (as mentioned earlier}. They’re an NPC who will accompany you on your journey, help in fights, and add a bit of extra dialogue and character into the game. Depending what Pardner you pick, they can also help make dealing with certain enemies a bit easier. For example, Doc Alice can kill any skeleton in one turn.
Ultimately, I found you can really make the combat as straightforward or difficult as you want. As a Snake Oiler, I could pull a snake out of my suitcase to fight for me while I drink potions to buff my stats, or I could just select the ability to fire three bullets at once and brute force my way through. If you do want a challenge some of the side content can provide that. There is also a way early in the game to unlock a hard setting by finding a suitable hat. The combat can also have its fair share of laughs, as it carries the same wordplay and ridiculousness that is throughout the rest of the game. The best part is that the battling works well with the rest of the game. If you do struggle with a fight and lose, there’s no real punishment. When you’re defeated you’ll be booted out of the battle and have gained an ‘anger’ buff, and you can either go do something else or try again. The worst that can happen is that you get too angry and pass out. This just returns you to your room and a slightly longer trip to returning to where you were.
So, I’ve mentioned a little bit that West of Loathing is a funny game. It’s hard to know what to pick out as an example, knowing any other review would discuss the more stand out moments. For starters, the dialogue is regularly good for a laugh. The game doesn’t take anything seriously, whether it’s silly puns, ridiculous enemies and attacks, and your interactions with anyone. There’s plenty of moments that stand out, whether it’s the narrator’s increasing disgust at you for sticking your hand into spittoons or playing through the whole game with the ‘walking stupid’ perk activated, causing your stick figure to regularly change walking animations from cartwheeling to doing ‘the worm’ dance move around the area (I left this perk on for the whole game). For fans of bureaucracy, there is a whole town dedicated to tedious tasks as you run around trying to file paperwork. This is funnier than it should be and frustrating as you’re reminded of tedious bureaucracy. There are side plots such as collecting ‘Nex-Mex’ books and finding the Necromancer or stopping an invasion of hellcows (cows from hell naturally) from returning to terrorise the world (again). There is more to WoL besides the comedy in it, I don’t want to downplay that, it’s just a fun game. Throughout the game, you’re regularly finding new locations to explore and at any one time, there are usually at least three different things you can tackle at your own pace.
The one knock I do have against the game is that there is so much content. If you don’t know what specific order you need to do things or have a certain item at a certain event, you can miss out on side content. You can go well over five hours without knowing some of these side things exist and the game still feels like you’ve gotten so much out of it. If you do want to get the most out of the game prepare to get a guide or wiki out when you start another run so you can see everything you missed the first time around, or I guess get it all right the first time.
West of Loathing is one of the most fun and funniest Adventure/point and click game that I have played in some time. Combat rarely gets in the way of the adventure, and everything moves at a good pace to get you back to doing silly things that will keep you smiling through most of the games’ playing time. If you’re looking for a game with laughs that don’t lean too hard on using pop culture references or mean-spirited jokes at peoples’ expense, then West of Loathing is worth checking out.
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