A lot of reviewers have commented already that Evil West feels like an adventure conceived in the previous generation of gaming. Open world games are now the expected and they've become the new normal. I love those kinds of games when they're done well but there's still a place for a linear and directed story. I enjoyed that I didn't have to do side missions or fetch quests in Evil West and that it moved from environment to environment at a quick clip. It helped me focus on bashing in the next monster instead of checking off extra missions on my list. I also enjoyed the different settings (I'll have more notes on the animation/rendering later) but the game has a very steampunk/graphic novel visual style that was a lot of fun. The character design is well done, Jesse looks like a bad@$$ with his varied weaponry and his fellow Rentier Institute members are definitely guys/girls you wouldn't want to mess with. Add in some gruesome looking enemies to fight (their design reminded me a lot of one of my favourite games The Suffering) who all possess some gruesome elements that highlight them among their fellow vampiric fighters.
If a game is fun to play, you can forgive a lot. Luckily, the standout element of Evil West is the combat. Jesse can dispatch his foes in a variety of way and not only do the guns and the gauntlet look great but they're a blast to wield. Some of the detractors of Evil West have pointed that it borrows a lot from of the reboot of God of War..... they're not wrong but it works here. Instead of being annoyed by wave after wave of enemies, I looked forward to it and whipping out the new gun I'd earned from my skill progression tree.
Evil West centres around Jesse Rentier, son of William Rentier. He's the best field agent at the famed Rentier Institute, the secret agency charged with supernatural/monstrous threats that's funded by the U. S. government. His father is in charge of the Institute and hopes that Jesse will take his place but Jesse doesn't have the temperament or the interest in being in charge. The villainous D'Abono clan are on the rampage with Felicity having taken charge and threatening national security in the process. The overall story in Evil West gets the job done, I wasn't impressed with it at first but as the game went on, I started to appreciate it more. The prickly relationship between Jesse and William gets a little more fraught and interesting. I also grew to enjoy Jesse bouncing off of Emilia Blackwell and other characters like Vergil. Evil West isn't the next leap forward in storytelling but it did a decent job in keeping me focused on what would happen next.
Evil West is largely content to be what it is and even though there aren't many drawbacks as a result of overreaching, there are a few worth mentioning. A couple of reviewers have pointed out the level designs being very similar and I don't disagree. It didn't bother me as much but what was evident was the setting not being rendered/animated properly in the background. The sawmill level is the worst, it's really choppy and doesn't look fully done. I also thought while the character design was good, this is the rare circumstance where I didn't like a lot of the voice acting. There were many scenes where the characters seemed to be trying to out gravel/rumble each other and while it wasn't awful at all times, I just didn't find much to compliment.
Evil West reminds me of another couple of less heralded ps4 releases in Control and similarly themed Vampyr. All 3 of them aren't the complete package with some highlight elements and some minor drawbacks. Much like Control, the combat and gameplay is the best part of Evil West along with a decent story to keep you interested as you bounce from area to area. Evil West resembles Vampyr in the moody setting, the skills progression tree and even some of its faults (repetitive enemies, level design and some iffy rendering on the environments). I would put Evil West above the latter and maybe a little below the former. Evil West is a lot of fun and is good enough that it checks all the required boxes. I'd give it somewhere between a 8-9 but I'm going to round down because even though I enjoyed it quite a bit, there are games out there that enjoy the same successes yet are more complete projects. If you're up for a classic shoot em' up, beat em' up romp through the haunted old west, Evil West could be just what the doctor ordered to relieve some open world fatigue.
