These days the old school console style RPG is sort of a rare breed, even on the exceptionally diverse shelves of the Xbox Indie Games marketplace. This week however, the genre is one title further from extinction thanks to the youngsters of Bertius Games and their RPG West.

Gameplay

West is, as previously mentioned, an RPG of the classical verity. The game features all the things you would expect of such a game: turn based combat, inventory management, considerable text dialogue, and inexplicably locked doors.

As with most games of this style, West is pretty intensively menu driven. For the most part the menus work pretty well once they are understood. There are a few pretty minor annoyances. For example not being able to simply scroll through the inventory list. Also in the inventory, the sales systems mechanics are a bit awkward. These little issues are pretty easily forgotten though and mostly wont detract from play.

The combat system of the game is pretty solid. the game uses a classical turn based system which asks the player to execute each characters abilities independently each round. I did find it a little awkward to commit to an individual characters move prior to setting up the rest of the teams actions and committing as a group. The other negative aspect of the combat system is that it feels very shallow, every attack is single target direct damage, and there is no healing abilities outside of items. I’m fairly confident that every battle other than the last couple could have been beaten by just mashing the A button.

Now one of the most serious problems of the game is the difficulty. There wasn’t a single encounter in the game where the slightest tinge of peril was felt. This issue was further exacerbated by an exceptionally generous save system that allowed you to save whenever and wherever you wanted. And if you think for a second that maybe you’d waltz into a boss fight without having a recent save, you’d be wrong since West has an NPC right in front of every major encounter that reminds you to save.

This may sound like a lot of negatives mounting up here, but it isn’t all bad stuff. The game is structurally sound. On top of that the game runs very well, with only the slightest hesitation being a particularly rare occurrence. Another positive note of the game is the map design, which managed to land right in the Goldilocks zone between overly complex and mind numbingly simplistic. All in all, the gameplay gets a passing grade, but wont singlehandedly bring home the bacon.

Story

West being an RPG, of course there is a story section. The story of West is pretty good. It accomplishes quite a bit of story telling in a fairly short amount of time. Unfortunately it does so with an extensive amount dialogue that feels to tread into the “TLDR” category. There are also times when it feels like bits and pieces of the plot just don’t make sense. Fortunately, they are pretty quickly forgotten as you continue on through the game. I was also left with the feeling that the story takes itself a little too seriously, which at times clashes directly with the visuals.

Audio/Visual

“Mixed bag,” is probably the best description I can give to the visuals of West. There are some parts like the sprites that look great. But there are also other parts that look pretty bad, like some of the map tiles. And then there is the downright bizarre enemy artwork. This is exactly what I was referencing in the story section. There is this overarching serious plot going on, and then you see a bat attached to a baseball, which is obviously, a baseball bat. Or worse yet a bell bottoms wearing disco deer complete with complementary disco ball. The actual art in them wasn’t bad, they just seemed flawed from a design perspective since they tended to clash with the serious aspects of the plot.

This game has good music. I can’t really say more then that, it has some catching beats that I found myself still humming when I took a break from the console for a few minutes. I’d say with some confidence it was the most polished part of the game.

Summary

Largely I felt a mixed message from the game. West tries to take on a serious characteristic with the topics of its story, but then immediately kills the mood with its overtly silly enemy designs.The result is a game that just lacks that charm and appeal that I’ve come to expect from games of this genre. That said, it isn’t outright bad and it weighs in at the hard to argue with price of 80 Microsoft Points. And if you have a classic RPG itch that needs a good three or so hour scratching, I think you’ll be satisfied with West. As a special note on first time developer Bertius Games I think there is a tremendous amount of potential in this crew, and I can’t wait to see their next project.