As someone who saw promise in the developer’s previous works, and after seeing the interesting flavor Wanted: Dead was putting on display in its advertising, I was truly hopeful that the game would finally squeak past that threshold of being just short of greatness and deliver something flawed but truly excellent or interesting in its own right. Unfortunately, this one just wasn't it for me, either.

Everything is just a tad too clunky for my liking, even by the standards of a game trying to evoke an era of clunkiness, and the mechanics feel like they needed another pass or two in making sure they all work together in a captivating and fun way. Yet again I get the feeling while playing a Soleil game that there might have been something here, because (very) occasionally everything clicks and I feel like I see the vision, but I don’t think it hits that point nearly enough unfortunately. Most encounters are kind of a mess of bullets flying and tenuously rushing in for your strikes, with every melee hit feeling like it lacks impact, and every gunshot floppy in aim and flat in delivery.

The story is being compared to Deadly Premonition or other "so bad it's good" games, but it instead feels like it exists in a weird middle space where they didn’t go far enough on either end of the spectrum. Yes, there are weird and wacky minigames that try to accentuate those aspects of the game and the sudden presentation bending into anime and the like does give the game some sort of flavor as well, but on the moment to moment story, I never felt it really went far enough in embracing its camp to truly sell me on it.

Maybe with whatever roadmap they’re working on they’ll sand off the rough edges, but for the moment, especially at the midway~ point where the story starts to drop off, I simply couldn’t bring myself to play any more of it. At least the soundtrack kicks ass.

Reviewed on Feb 28, 2023


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