Hard West 2 - Western Occult Open World Tactical RPG

what's up guys and gals and welcome back to the nerd castle today in the world of indie games we're going to be taking a look at hard west 2 which is the much awaited sequel to hard west one which is a top-down tactical strategy game this time around they've thrown in like a smattering of rpg i don't know how much it differentiates itself from the previous title i'll be honest with you i covered it but i don't think i ever got that far into it but as of this week with the steam next festival hardwest 2 has a demo that is released that you can check out right now for free on the steam stores so anyways i'll have that link for you down below in the description so you can check that on out and then of course down there you'll find links to my discord my twitch stream as well just in case you wanted to hang out live on any given day of the week but yeah i can't recommend highly enough check out the game go swing through go say what's up like that's one of those things that i feel like content creators never accentuate is there's always this temptation to act like you're always right and making the right picks on the internet go play the demo for yourself let me know if you think my thoughts are correct about this one never trust just some random guy on the internet i fell into this job i have no criteria i have no training or anything else that makes me right or wrong about games just trying to do my best every day sometimes you get it right sometimes you get it wrong but always try to go through and check stuff out for yourself and validate the things that i say so without further ado let's go ahead and dive straight on into the game we're gonna play for about 25-30 minutes see if it's something that's right on up your alley but let's kick it off any idiot with a gun can rob a bank robbing a train now that's a real feat so i got this tip from a guy about a train full of federal gold runs by a night minimal crew folks call it the ghost train some even believe it's on it me i think it's a pretty good cover so i've rustled up a posse to go after it flynn but on the green side but probably the smartest of us all clearly i don't keep her around for her fists but she's got darker talents the kind that don't bear dwelling on much laughing dear don't mind the name nothing funny about this one an exile even among his own tribe what he did i do not know but i do know what he does and what he does ain't pretty then there's clive kestrel colt as the press calls him fastest gun in the west they say and he don't argue man he's my protege and my best friend me i'm jen carter gunslinger outlaw first-rate gambler at your service and very soon a filthy rich man you were right boss they barely have any security no passengers too i don't like this let's call it off go go go whoever boards the train first gets an extra cut hell yeah brother let's get on in here all right so oh i like that they've actually got like a full motion battlefield like x-com style okay yeah i didn't i was actually kind of wondering how they were gonna handle uh an action scene like boarding a train inside a turn-based x-com style game but this is exactly the solution that i was picturing in my head to make it actually feel really really immersive okay so everything costs action points everybody gets three ap and when you use them up your turn is over can we shoot from here is that a thing we can do it looks like we can rotate uh we don't have enough ap for right now to take a shot at anybody it does look like we act so let's see here click the highlighted cell to move them to half cover let's go okay laughing deer is on the train that means he gets that extra cut all right and so well why i don't want flynn to be over there there's guys up top and he's going to be surrounded or she's going to be surrounded i feel like this first turn's going to be a little bit rough is this where we get to the healing tutorial [Laughter] let's do this by the book it sort of feels like we're moving towards a healing tutorial here a resurrection tutorial the bar above the character said has their hit points every attack deals some damage when it hits zero they faint but sometimes enemies will die in pain okay shoot some bad guy i mean we are the bad guys are we really shooting bad guys out here all right let's take a shot at somebody oh he fell off the train and everything nice man they're really getting that old wild western style like action going on love it dude i'm a red-blooded american and i just can't help myself i love cowboy stuff it turns out you grow up playing cowboys all day every day and thinking of clinking spurs and you know blazing six guns is cool and it sticks with you for life i don't know what it is uh whenever a posse member kills an opponent they get bravado and recover their action points look for opportunities to get bravado okay yeah i think that works okay that guy didn't die how about we give the boneyard maneuver a try so kestrel's revolver has a chance to hit with a bullseye in which it'll do double damage okay we can do that and so if we get bullseye damage it's double damage it's basically like a crit is this really a good time to be showing off all right so we can deselect our current ability and then move kestrel on into position all right so you have a significantly lower chance to hit enemies in cover however you can bypass their defenses by using trick shots remember enemies that are not in the line of sight of the posse will remain invisible oh you can bounce a bullet off like a sign post oh that's hilarious i love that okay so with that guy right there we can trick shot off the metal barrel and get that dude [Laughter] okay that was uh that was awesome i'll take it and then this guy right here continue the bravado streak and try to shoot him i'm a miss aren't i yep i was gonna say all right so even kestrel colt is gonna miss a shot sometimes especially when he tries to shoot through cover when a character gets shot or misses an attack they get luck points you can use them on later turns oh so the game has kind of like an equalization mechanic for kind of like mitigating rng i like that i usually prefer it so if you've got a game like xcom or whatever having ways to mitigate rng so that the player doesn't feel robbed a lot of the time and doesn't lose just based on really bad dice is a really good idea so i like that implementation all right heads down all right rifleman's moving up i thought you guys said there was going to be minimal crew over here dude this is like 10 guys that we've killed we've killed like five guys and there's like five more oh that man's a madman he's out of his mind oh they've also got backup coming was it a trap oh it must have been this had to be a setup dude it's the feds they sent out the pinkertons on us okay so it wants me to use my luck on this one all right let's use our luck on it oh that was cool we got a different fatality for the look shot he fanned the hammer and the guy just sits there getting riddled with bullets very very nice okay let's do this okay so you can bypass an enemy's cover by flanking them yeah i was gonna shoot this guy but sure yeah we can move to a flanking position why not all right so let's see here oh she's got differentiated weapons too she got that big double barrel you can shoot multiple enemies with the buckshot ability all right sound like a plan to me okay so laughing dear's melee attack works best up close as melee attacks tend to do uh let's go ahead and we will move up oh can he move and attack in the same okay go for it man he's gonna move and attack all in the same motion i was kind of hoping he was going to launch off the top of the cab right there and just like land you know land that land the old tomahawk like right in the top of his head dude all right so complete the heist okay cool so i guess they're cutting me off the rails here uh what you got left there not a whole lot i think i'm not in love with my options right now so that's gonna cost me two to move right there we moved right there and we've got him flanked but we're gonna be flanked pretty soon can i do a trick shot from right here can i ricky the bullet off there and hit him looks like i can yeah go ahead and ricky it okay so there's our bravado right there i mean if i could do another trick shot i'm not gonna turn it down all right and that leaves us i think with one character left that's got any semblance of ap uh you i don't know what my you come back over here and cover us from the horsemen actually you engage with this guy on the next turn uh he didn't kill anybody unfortunately so what i'd like for you to do is if you can get there maybe get back into cover i'm a little bit worried about that guy right there i sort of feel like maybe i should have set up on this side and then used his turn to kill this rifleman but that's life actually if i can only spend one ap to move to right there i might be able to get both of them in one turn oh no shooting from horseback takes three oh no uh is there an undo button i do prefer that these games have like a limited undo button that you can use like maybe once per battle or whatever just because i thought that he's i thought his shoot cost was going to be the same as everybody else's shoot cost all right we'll just get inside then we'll we'll engage with these guys how we can but get inside i'm not gonna leave you out in the open and not in cover okay he's been shot [Music] okay shotgun blast out oh there's another rifleman coming on in big miss right there okay couldn't hope for anything better so that's still going to take all three of our shots huh all right well let's move on over to you then and if you got something you can do me for right here i i'd appreciate it there we go let's get these guys all up and off of our booty cheeks real fast before we uh get ourselves into any more trouble you can't move with bravado points it looks like so i think once you've actually like attacked you can no longer move let's go ahead and grab her over here and he's like white out in the open he's gonna get solid cover from right there though which is unfortunate swap over to the pistol desperately wish i could shoot and then move well i don't know what their range looks like so i'm just going to kind of like move back over to here and hope for the best sure why not there you go another one bites the dust maybe i'll be able to fix something up actually let's go ahead and we'll use uh we'll use laughing deer to go get this guy i will set me loose i'm gonna lie melee attack feels a little bit uh lackluster three damage when everybody else is spitting out five or ten we're gonna have to figure out a niche for laughing deer and figure out what we can do with them are you mad okay so you are currently on bravado right now there's even more bravado you might as well shoot that shot right there i don't see any other reason not to oh we can move i guess it just kind of locks in i guess okay that's fine that's all right you i guess you've got it so like i was expecting it to contextually here's the thing so i thought that contextually based on whether or not i had my mouse over a tile or over an enemy it would just pick what i wanted to do in that case uh not the case at all you've actually got to swap your little tile down here basically for what ability you want to use but you can move after you shoot which is good to know because that was something that i was actively trying to plan around and now i know that that is not the truth uh let's go ahead and we will take yeah let's get you on up into cover why not we've got kind of like a perilous advance that we've got to do into a fortified position which i'm not incredibly excited about but what other option do i have you might as well get in there oh shot and a hit right there through cover miss on that one though we're gonna have to fall back with laughing deer laughing deer is just getting smoked man he's having a terrible day i don't know what our options are looking like right here i don't know what that is maybe i can't decide if that's an explosive barrel or not or what it's supposed to be either way though we have to advance we have no choice like we're sitting ducks as long as we stay down here oh i guess we could get inside and force them to come down to us i got a ricky shot right there i can take i hear my name yeah give me that ricky shot right there get him yep get him with a man that's just so satisfying right there the way that they've got that assembled and then he can do it again the man is just the devil with a pistol oh you missed i didn't realize okay all right fair enough fair enough so you've got a what 75 chance let's bump it up with luck yeah there we go i needed him to go away like right now and then with jyn carter oh we've killed all the guards so the train should be ours right get the whole posse into the passenger car will do all right let's get everybody in here is there a way to bypass a turn entirely so that i can move everybody in unison there we go all right passenger car are there simultaneous moves there are not i would like to see simultaneous moves added on into the game however i know i've got a sneaking suspicion why there's not simultaneous moves if they're simultaneous moves it makes overwatch tricky to program easy so anyways it can make overwatch behave erratically and i'm guessing there's probably going to be overwatch maneuvers at some point all right laughing deer get on in here brother you were the first one on board the train and it sounds like i owe you a little bit of money a tunnel there were no tunnels here on the map someone get away i can't see anything oh wait can you hear that what the hell is happening what is this stay calm where the hell are we i said stay calm god damn it yeah that's not natural i think i'm with kestrel on this one this seems like a panic moment what did somebody forget to turn on the geller field like oh brother i do not like what's transpiring here what is that thing a hell spawn oh god okay fair enough i guess i'm gonna need to get some trick shots out 75 percent chance let's say we hit it with a little bit of luck right there go for it okay laughing deer fall back don't engage until you have to i hear my name yes you do i'm gonna guess that these guys don't really care about cover they don't appear to have guns or anything so unless they decide they want to throw a fireball at me or something i'm gonna leave my guys out of cover just so i can keep making the shots that i need to make let's go ahead and lock this shot up a little bit did i put luck on it i felt like i put luck on it but i must not have i guess uh there's not really much i can do over here except for maybe slam a shot at this guy but we have no chance to hit so maybe i'll move you up a little bit there we go let's put you up behind this wall whoa hold your horses go ahead and heads down for me and we'll go ahead and bypass the turn real quick uh it does indeed look like they're gonna run up on us so they're they're functioning by zombie rules right now he's probably gonna take a little bit of damage oh no they can't quite get to us okay we may not be hosed as of yet we may still have some options all right heads down been cleared go ahead and light him up that's exactly what i had in mind go ahead and light him up too there we go and then with bravado maybe move over to there oh that's right he needs 3 ap for a shot i don't know why i keep forgetting that right there you can tell he's got an aperture sight on his gun which is well i can't tell if it's an aperture actually the picture's kind of small but anyways he's got like a little sight finder rangefinder on there but anyways i thought he had an aperture sight on there and i don't like so that's why his ap is going to cost a little bit more is because he's aiming let's go ahead and just get him five damage is five damage if you can get into position you get on into position you take care of it okay enemy bites the dust i don't know how many more enemies we're gonna have to run into here so we're gonna take it leave it to me i mean i guess not let's just rush for it let's just push up on into the cabin and see if we can get this thing over and done with yeah you still got movement go ahead and use it laughing deer you just stay in cover man i feel real bad for you right now your body's like in ribbons and tatters you're gonna need to see the old dock real real quick i wonder if the crit is better on this weapon so he's supposed to be using luck like more frequently i guess it does only cost one ap i thought it was costing two ap and so that was just an oversight by me so that's the balancing factor right there he can multi-attack okay like i thought it was costing two like everybody else's so i was just having him take one chop and then take one chop and then end his turn and apparently i've been poorly using my resources right there i'm sure a great many of you have probably been yelling at me about that but oh well that's life welcome to working on the internet you're first ah my guests finally here okay he's got a lot of hp let's take out his little buddies first i think and then we'll just kind of dive into high cover as necessary you get on in behind that door right there kestrel can't quite get you to where i want you to be sort of wish that i had gathered everybody up by the door unfortunately before i went in like always but uh that's life you get into like solid cover man i'm not trying to do triage out here in the middle of a battlefield dude the trains legs are so cool like i really really really like that right there like that's rad as hell like this was not what i expected whatsoever from the game but this is some really sweet ass art design dude like a weird kind of like millipede train that moves through like the eldritch fields you know what i mean it's kind of badass you gotta admit that's a really really cool idea to get really cool idea to get a train to effectively run on just open soil without a track kind of reminds me i guess of wild wild west although i don't know if i would sit through wild wild west again okay snipey mans what you got everybody's in high cover so there's not much that i can do there yeah we do have trick shots available my suggestion would be you trick shot into one of these idiots [Music] and then you've got a like a what chance hit right there a 25 chance to hit so i would hit that first and then go to him just if it was me then i would use your movement to maybe fall back a little bit one and only i don't like the idea of you being isolated but i hear my name yeah realistically is there anything i can do here 75 yeah we'll turn on luck now you've got bravado i'd like for you to oh it's an invalid angle huh can you hit that right there you can we'll hit that right there for me brother very nice oh you just had to hit him once oh christ step right up step right up welcome to my mirror shop don't like this i hear my name yeah that's like several different flavors of uh just i guess start eliminating mirages least the mirages uh trigger our trick shot there's the real one right there we know where he is go ahead and hunker down so we know that that one's a mirage so like technically he should be able to run up kill this one right here and then get a refill i was gonna say okay so he's got the refill right there and he can get over here i think i can just use him to do like a big old chain of murdering mirrors [Music] i don't know when the end of this is going to be but i'm definitely not going to let them shoot it seems like this moment was like purpose-built for laughing deer to shine again so that right there is going to use up all of his ap if that would lock that guy down and i could guarantee he wasn't going to shoot and he'd be inside an attack of opportunity zone probably would go for it however regardless i've got a sneaking suspicion that laughing deer may not be long for this world so let's just get out of them what we can get out of them i guess not too bad solid performance from my man right there go ahead and hunker down with your last ap and then jin carter set up a flank over here so that no matter where he goes we've got somebody on him got something for you ow oh he just summoned a bunch of little buddies huh okay well i can handle a bunch of little buddies little buddies aren't too bad we can we can take care of little buddies out here little buddies are fine uh if i have anything i can ricky a shot off of i'd like to 50 50 go for it oh you missed it but that's okay let us stack up a little bit of luck and then if you can ricochet a shot into him from right there that'd be just swell missed that one too okay looking for trouble this is not going the way that i wanted it to miss that one too good lord wait how did you not have 100 right there that don't count as a flank it must not count as a flank it's all that i can figure anyways okay use your ap to fall back real quick you hunker down nice duck right there oh no he took damage never mind i thought he ducked it oh yeah it's a 50 chance right there oh that was a 50 chance with luck activated gotcha i mean that's a 2 ap move you sure about that one there chief i guess it's like right on the cusp of being i'm just going to do it dude we got to finish this now we gotta we gotta knock this out like right this second there we go let's get this guy taken care of otherwise this is just gonna be absolute hell to pay uh give me my rifleman eyes on the prize yep get bravado where we can he's got a little bit of luck he can even it out hit him cannot and then you if you got any luck left oh brother i need you to land this shot sister sister please i wonder if we have better luck hitting that one right there no not really okay well look it on up hey you done got him there it is bang you're dead my my such bravado what the hell oh don't be so surprised mr carter i am a devil after all who do you think you are the name's mammon thanks for asking i really have guests here there's just no one fresh to play with you like games mammon then how about a hand of poker i win you let us go and throw something in for our trouble we lose well it's your call so greedy i'd love it i'll tell you what how about i toss in the ghost engine just imagine all this power it can make your wildest dreams come true win and i give it to you and your souls are mine you want our souls yeah sure knock yourself out ah dude it's not called the ghost engine anymore if i control it's called the hello rattle act one deal high hand wins are you ready let's get to it then yes that's right read them and weep devil if you think that will make a difference and the winner takes off you really think you could out cheat me five of a kind no no this is some kind of a trick i don't even have a joker in my deck [Music] it's time to cash in those chips hold on not too bad of an opening for the game i'm going to be honest i'm kind of impressed dude like i'm having a good time with it let's carry this on a little bit further i know i normally stop videos around the 30 minute mark but like i want to see if we can i'm gonna give it another five ten minutes and see if we can get to like the rpg elements so that you guys can be properly appraised of what's going on with the game because obviously it's tagged as an rpg got to my feet feeling strangely light and empty and cold not just on the outside but through and through there was three saddled horses nearby huddling together to keep warm where'd you get the horses from you want to look them in their mouths do it later now let's move we can't stay in the snow we need shelter all right flynn was trying to sound brave but i've never seen her so scared and the snow snow in june in new mexico let's look for shelter all right so apparently we've got like a open world map here that we can play around on yeah that looks pretty good what's up with the destroyed camp we stumbled upon the remnants of a camping site the tents were ripped to shreds and the fire reduced to a pile of smoke and embers i think you're right whoever camped here came a little bit too close to the ghost train's path and they're probably long gone now we can't stay out here we'll freeze uh ruin the cabin maybe close encounter with the ghost train left the track in shambles half of it's missing and what remained is barely standing searching the ruins is gonna be risky the things we found trophies skinning knives rusty snares suggested the hut belonged to a hunter but they were useless to us after finding a whole half eagle though we gave up and decided to abandon the hut and look for a different shelter hey five bucks is five bucks dude this is like the 1800s five bucks would buy like you know an entire town back then that was back when money actually had value all right there's an abandoned farm over here that'll work let's get on in there a building offered little shelter but we started a small fire it's better than nothing suddenly there's a muffled thump coming from a low mound sitting under a cockeyed cross right beside the broken fence the sky went dark and the snow gave the night enough of a glow that we could see we're alone out there we stood above the restless grave thump thump thump flynn looks at me i want you i want you to think very carefully about what you're about to do now um check it out carefully it's fake girl come on would you be able to sleep tonight if we didn't dig up whatever the hell that is we just need to be careful i'd sleep perfectly well i hate you jen carter we searched the farm we found a pair of shovels and started digging we were at it for a half an hour or so when the thumping intensified and just as we unearthed the lid of the crude pine coffin it stopped a pale fist punches through the hole splinters fly around us and the stench of a stale tomb billows into the cold air we recoil and drew our guns and leveled them at the hand more loud cracks and grunts the dead man hauled himself out of the grave am i here i don't know man you're the one that's dead inside a snow bank you do um nothing wrong whoa there we didn't do anything wrong we heard you knocking so we dug you up the undead thing grunts and trudges towards the house we decided to follow inside the stranger inspects every room nook and cranny grunts and coughs his way through the place his methodical movements betraying a peculiar strength and purpose he towered above us and yet we still couldn't see his eyes when he finally turned towards us again i need guns what are you after i'm gonna get some guns i'm gonna track down the devil who woke me up gonna get him good then i'm gonna lay me back down okay listen we know that devil of yours and he's one tough son of a name's mammon and he's done us wrong too if you're gunning for him i reckon we should maybe ride together at least for a few days can i just say this is a really hard game to do commentary on it seems like they decide what to narrate and voice act completely and totally at random so i keep starting a sentence and then voice acting comes in and then i sit here in silence for a second no voice acting i'm like uh this is uh this is presenting a peculiar challenge you got yourself a deal for now mister whatever you say kids call me bill look years ago i stashed some equipment in an old hunting shack east of here let's wait out the blizzard see if my stuff's still there all right let's do it so apparently there's side quests around that will give us extra loot uh i already looted the damn place so unless he hit it real real well i i doubt there's gonna be anything over here i feel like we should have fessed up on the front and been like oh yeah we looted that place after we hit it with our train are we poking around here guns beneath the floorboards i think plus some whiskey stashed in the cellar and dynamite tucked up under the roof that's a damn mess getting anything out of here without bringing it down on our heads is gonna be a hell of a feat girl's right i'll grab the guns and then what any preferences uh let's go with i said i never say no to whiskey this is a cowboy game after all so we stand safely outside the shack and our new undead pal goes rummaging through the debris the place creaks and moans in protest it wasn't gonna hold up much longer justice flynn predicted busted down hut collapsed bearing bill underneath piles of timber we stood there and gaped at the ruined shock that we lost the old man so suddenly but just as you're opening your mouth to say a few words over his grave the tough son of a gun crawls up through the wreck like it's nothing and hands us the loot with a scowl pretty slick old man he doesn't say a word just nods and rides off all right fair enough dude so apparently we've got a number of different menus over here and we've got our inventory screen where we can equip up our characters so we got the wild buffalo rifle over here definitely throw one of those on in because it served us well in the last fight we got a coach gun on this side so we'll throw that on her and we'll just leave him with the dirty copper handgun but he's got like a big stick of dynamite so like what are we even worried about apparently whiskey is a consumable and will heal your hp nice that's not what happens when i drink whiskey but all right fair enough uh it also looks like we've got a card menu over here which i'm guessing is gonna be the level up system so yeah he's got a whole bunch of traits over here that increase the amount of damage and whatnot he does with various attacks or makes him more resistance to things he's got demon bullets does everybody oh yeah everybody's got different trees very nice and apparently everybody's got like a signature skill too apparently we now have access to magic now that we've been run over by the old terror train all right let's head off and down the road i want to i want to get to the skill tree that's what i want to get to i want to at least show that before we go there's a red cross over here if i wanted to freeze my ass off out of state in chicago suddenly we stumbled upon a scene so gruesome and irrational that even i cursed silently looking down we could see a patch of blood-soaked snow surrounding a flimsy cross somebody nailed a naked man to it and left him to die in the cold i get off my horse and take a step closer flynn doesn't follow the man had been dead for days left out in the weather and the animals had gotten to him leaving behind only a scrawny skeletal shape with a mess of dried guts spilled between his legs anything useful ignoring the stench i kick the snow and the guts around in search of anything there's something inside his chest cavity what could it be playing cards suddenly the corpse jerks up twists its neck and snaps its teeth at my face shawless render yours bill uh dead thing keeps thrashing about hoping to attack us but the nails and ropes are holding tight he's nothing like me no memories no free will only hunger probably revive when the ghost train came through damn full set our own revenant then took a gun and kept shooting until the undead's head was gone then it stopped moving without the head it was a whole lot less lively now it was just a simple matter of courage oh we collect decks of cards gotcha and the cards make you better at stuff as he reaches inside the rib the headless corp jerks and i saw its broken bones jabba's hand but he managed to get a hold of the cards so we got a nine of spades a king of diamonds and a queen of clubs lively damn booger okay so now we've got the cards menu so what is this adding cards to the character's hand you improve their stats okay so like we just drag and drop those on up there oh yeah it increases the amount of luck you have this one right here gives you more speed and this one gives you bullseye what does speed do just how far you can move per action point okay fair enough well there you go now you have it we've got skill trees over here traits we level up on into and then we've also got the deck of cards which you can coupon the characters to make their stats accentuate in various directions i've covered what i wanted to cover my name is splattercat thank you for joining me this is hard west too hope you guys enjoyed the episode i'll see y'all tomorrow thank you for stopping on in that's about all i've got for right now but i'll see y'all next time thanks for hanging tight we'll be back tomorrow with something hot and fresh off the indie skillet bye everybody

Channel: SplatterCatGaming

Views: 123,215

Keywords: Hard west 2 gameplay, hard west 2 playthrough, hard west 2 walkthrough, lets play hard west 2, hard west 2 review, hard west 2 preview, hard west 2 impressions, hard west 2 music, hard west 2 soundtrack, hard west 2 guide, hard west 2 tutorial, hard west 2 trailer, hard west 2 boss, hard west 2 steam, hard west 2 download

Id: ApwtcIicQ3Y

Length: 42min 9sec (2529 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 14 2022