izigame.me

Evil West is a good game, held back only by its lack of ambition to be an amazing game. I had non-stop fun all the way through the fairly lengthy (about 10-12 hrs) single player campaign, brawling with werewolves, having shootouts with bandits, and electrocuting more than my fair share of vampires. I traversed the weirdest of the Wild Wests (in a good way), journeying through ghost towns and abandoned mines, snow-capped mountain peaks, rank and noxious bayous, and paranormal oil fields to name just a few. And all the while, I couldn't help but think - man, this would be truly incredible if they just went that extra step.
Evil West is one of those games where you can feel the love and effort the developers put into what they ultimately knew was the selling point: the combat system. But you also feel like they may have cut a few corners with some other elements: like the level and enemy design, story, and so forth.
The combat is what the game is built around and it's great. The arsenal of tools you have at your disposal is immense, and you'll be steadily acquiring them throughout the entire game, right up to the end. In this game, you can uppercut a werewolf, juggle him with revolver bullets, blast his face in with a shotgun, parry the vampire who's about to attack you, stunning him, and launch him like a cannonball into a barrel of TNT, which will stagger enemies, giving you time to use your electric lasso to rope some poor SOB towards you for your battle rush combo, do a finisher to get some health and then toss a stick of dynamite at the big monster that's been on your tail this entire time (which explodes into a tornado, I might add). And that's honestly just scratching the surface of all the crazy combat you can do in this game.
Where Evil West somewhat falters is everything outside the combat. Levels are very linear, and your intended path is very clearly telegraphed by glowing interractables. Occasionally, there will be some very light puzzle solving that involves zero risk platforming, or sprinting form point A to B within the time limit. There's a lot of neat "moments" while traversing the level that exist to set the stage and atmosphere, like when the platform breaks while traversing the cliff face of a mountain, or zip-lining through an exploding oil tower. But you never need to interact to catch yourself, save yourself from peril, or the like. It's all just cutscenes. There are some rewards hidden off the beaten path. And by that I mean just around the corner hidden behind a fence you might blow up with a button prompt. Exploration is very limited. And that's too bad, because the level themes are very fun looking and capture the imagination. I will remember the levels in this game for what they were themed, but not what I actually did in them.
The enemy design is fun, and some of it is pretty out there, especially with the bloodsucking vermin motif the enemies tend to have. This is just personal taste, but I would have enjoyed a few more enemies ideas pulled from classic horror or even American folklore or Indigenous myth to round out the rogue's gallery. There is a good variety of enemies throughout the first two thirds of the the game, but it stagnates after that.
The story, while not bare bones, is not the most enthralling thing in the world. Many of the characters have fun designs and personalities, but the plot really just exists to carry you from wild west location to wild west location, and from battle arena to battle arena. There's nothing wrong with that, but I would have loved to see some of the more interesting elements of the plot explored further in more detail, such as vampires trying to keep up with humanity's progress for instance.
Overall though, Evil West was a smashing good-time, it scratched the itch I've had for a while for Wild West Fantasy and Wild West Horror at the same time. It gets compared a lot to games like the newer God of War, where it definitely takes some influence, though you can also see influence from a slew other games, old and new, such as Doom 2016, Xbox 360 era brawlers like Dante's Inferno and Lords of Shadow, and even some trace influences from Devil May Cry and more. It's obvious the developers put a lot of love for the passion of the brawler genre into the game. I'm looking forward to power bombing more Native American Frankensteins in a hopefully bigger and better sequel some day.