West of Loathing

West of Loathing turns the old western into a joke that still has to play like a real role-playing game, and that is the reason it lands. It gives you turn-based combat, quests, a big map to poke through, and a lot of text that is doing more than one job at once: the writing is the main attraction, but the systems are not just decoration. By our assessment, the ASCII look and the deadpan humour make it easy to recognise, yet the real trade-off is that the whole thing lives or dies on whether that style amuses you. Under the jokes there is a fairly traditional adventure structure, with inventory fiddling, dialogue choices, and the usual wandering between errands. Compared with heavier Western RPGs it is lighter and sillier, but compared with pure comedy games it asks for more patience and attention. The combat and item management are simple enough, while the constant wordplay can wear thin if you want a straight story. West of Loathing ends up as a smart small-scale RPG with a very specific voice, not a broad joke machine.