The follow-up to Kingdom of Loathing, 2003’s browser-based cult classic, West of Loathing retains the surreal and quirky humour of its predecessor while taking players on a brand new quest for fame and fortune on a journey into the wild west.
The first thing you notice is the game’s art style. Completely drawn in black and white and inhabited by a cast of adorable stick figures, WoL‘s world is certainly quite unique. On starting the game itself, the humour slaps you around the face immediately and within seconds you’ll know whether this is going to be your sort of game or not. Self-aware, clever, cheeky, irreverent, occasionally smutty, and full of personality, this is very much a comedic adventure. It won’t be to everybody’s tastes (it certainly isn’t Skyrim or The Witcher, that’s for sure), but those of a less serious nature will be right at home here.
After creating your character and completing a tutorial area, you’re off on your 2D side-scrolling adventure. There are tons of locations to discover, and all of them can be travelled to easily by selecting them on your map. You’ll often be notified of new locations en route, which can be either explored straight away or put to one side to be returned to later. Each area is filled with monsters and bandits to fight, items to find, puzzles to solve, and huge quantities of silly interactions with all kinds of NPCs. Combat is turn-based, which might be a turn off for many people, but it’s incredibly quick and simple and never gets in the way of the fun.
Experience points gained through combat and exploration (did you flush the toilet? Have some points!) can be spent on levelling up your abilities, which can be enhanced further by equipping different pieces of clothing and consuming food and drink that can be found or bought from the world’s many traders. Enemies later in the game are quite hardy, so you’ll want to upgrade your character as much as possible in the early going.
Comedy in games doesn’t always work, so in a way it was a brave move to create a something that relies so heavily on making players laugh. WoL is full of nonsense, and it’s difficult not to have a constant smile on your face throughout the roughly 8-hour adventure. To say too much more about the game would spoil the surprises, suffice to say it truly is a wonderful must-play title. If we really had to nitpick, maybe a more easily manageable inventory system would have been appreciated, but that’s really the smallest quibble in an otherwise fantastic game.
Oh yeah, one last thing – if you notice the option to turn on “Stupid Walking”, just do it!
REVIEW: WEST OF LOATHING / DEVELOPER: ASYMMETRIC PUBLICATIONS / PUBLISHER: ASYMMETRIC PUBLICATIONS / PLATFORM: PC, SWITCH (REVIEWED) / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
