dont understand why this one got low rating as its a good straightforward fun action/shooter game, yes the enemies are generic and repetitive but game still offers fun dialog/conversations development of interesting characters and interesting concept with many guns at your disposal, I recommend if you just want to lay back and enjoy this sweet short game with cutscenes and interesting background. ps:I think game supposedly be called HighMoon before because I got crashed like 2-3 times and It was saying "HighMoon-UE stoppped running" :)

Had a great time with this one. Combat was superb, played a bit like God of War 2018 cranked up to Doom Eternal levels of intensity and variety. You're teleporting around the arena doing launchers and air juggles with an electric gauntlet, whipping out flamethrowers and gattling guns, throwing sticks of dynamite, tons of fun stuff.

The levels were structured like an Xbox 360 game, following a mostly linear path through combat arenas and light puzzle solving with secrets tucked away in the map's corners.

Story was really disjointed, to the point that it got kinda distracting. I wasn't expecting much, but I did find myself asking questions like "wait, what are they talking about? who? how did they get there?" more often than I figured.

Towards the end of the game, they start throwing you in to these really cramped arenas that are just PACKED with enemies, to the point that the execution animations can't play properly for all the enemies crowding around you. Lots of repeated deaths, but I never got so frustrated that I needed to stop playing to cool off. I imagine this might change on higher difficulties, seeing as I played on Normal.

I have my nitpicks, but Evil West was a hoot and I'm glad I got the chance to play with Game Pass. For people who love intense action games, this is a must. If they ever make Evil West 2, I'll be there for it.

This has been the most conflicting game I’ve played so far this year. There’s so many things that I can appreciate about the game but there’s also a lot of things that just didn’t stick with me. I will say though, I like how focused this game is on its purpose. It knows it’s supposed to be a fun game first and I can feel that even though theres plenty of flaws. I saw this game on Game Pass and tried it on a whim, expecting to play something sort of like a mix of Evil Dead or Van Helsing. That’s what I got and it’s decently enjoyable, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t struggle to finish the game a few times.

For starters, I fucking love the entire aesthetic of it. It’s like I said earlier about feeling like a mix of Evil Dead and Van Helsing, and I’d even say it sort of reminds me of Darkwatch in some areas. I wasn't super immersed in the world, but it feels like they actually put passion into making it all interesting to traverse through. Not to mention, Jesse and Edgar’s designs look badass too. I can’t remember much from the soundtrack but I thought it fit most of what was going on decently enough. The visual presentation alone is strong enough to probably draw some people to this game and rightfully so. In fact, I don’t think they ever dropped the ball on the environments this whole time.

Okay, so when playing the game I thought it would be a lot more focused on the gun play, but surprisingly the melee combat is what they introduce first. It’s simple as shit but I appreciate that they made Jesse capable all around instead of making him a sitting duck without ammo. Speaking of which, there is no ammo. It’s a choice I welcome because with this combat I feel like it would be a slog trying to scavenge for ammo on top of managing the enemies. Now you could do a decent amount of mix-ups with your abilities to juggle and lay heavy damage on foes, but it’s honestly not as DMC-ish as I heard. I don’t feel like the juggling ever really advances past how it’s introduced. Also I gotta talk about the leveling system because my god it’s fucking atrocious. This alone makes the middle game feel so awkward to get through because you earn perks at this weirdly slow, yet not slow, pace that feels unnatural. This is where I put down the controller for multiple days just because it was like playing through mud. It should feel like you’re gradually getting stronger overall but instead it feels more like you’re still Jesse from the start but with a new trick. Granted, when you have most of your abilities towards the end game, the combat starts to feel natural again. It’s really satisfying holding crowds of enemies back while laying into a larger enemy then immediately shifting back towards other threats to take care of. Although this also brings about another issue where some of these enemies are spongey as hell, and it’s worse when they make you fight multiple of these large enemies at once because you’re just chipping all of their health bars away until they die. It’s better when they give you enough changes to get energy charges so you can mitigate this issue. The combat just feels like it’s taking both a step backwards and forwards, but I personally enjoy it more than I don’t.

Now for the part where I have issue finding what to say. To be honest, I didn’t have an interest on the story. It felt like they did try, but it all just comes out feeling flat with the dialogue, the characters, and the pacing. The pacing is something I noticed the most because it’s also sort of awkward to me. I know the game is very focused on being a game, but it just felt weird being dropped straight into every level after one or two scenes of exploring a mostly empty location. I wanted to like the characters more too but I feel like some of them don’t get enough time that they need, or the others are just characters that have mostly been done before but better. I would’ve loved to see Jesse and Edgar go back and forth more often since they’re long time friends but Edgar is one character that I don’t think is in the story as often as he should be. Felicity just feels like she has the same flat note of being the creepy little girl and I honestly couldn’t have been bothered to pay too much attention to her.

Evil West is a decently enjoyable time but my god it had some places where it should have grown a bit. I wanted to like it more than I did but I still liked it enough that I wouldn’t mind seeing Evil West come back in some way. If they ever did a sequel for this game that fixes the issues and polishes everything, then I’d gladly pick it up and play it. As it is now though, give it a cautious attempt through Game Pass or borrowing it if you can. It’s an interesting game that I think warrants a try, if at least so you can form your opinion on it and see if it’s something you’re interested in.