Shadows over Loathing is a great sequel to West of Loathing. The writing continues to be very high quality, and the battle system is still fairly solid - albeit very simple. Graphics aren't anything to write home about as it's all just crude drawings and stick-people (which are still pretty charming, mind you). The game doesn't try and take itself seriously and ends up benefitting from it in the long run.
However, a huge problem with the game is that 70% of the items you find are completely useless. This is tends to be because you already have something better, because you already have something else that does the exact same thing, or because the item is essentially useless. With so many unwanted items being picked up, I often found the need to head to a store and sell as much as I could just so I could find the things I actually wanted to use. Although, that in of itself ended up being somewhat of a pain as you can't sort by item type when selling in stores which led to each selling trip taking longer because of the time it would take for me to find the stuff I wanted to sell in the first place.
Another issue has to do with the effectiveness of companions and pets. Whether or not they will actually be of any use tends to be a 50/50 as the enemies either die before they get their turn, or the enemies kill your allies before they can do anything. With how little health your companions/pets have in comparison to the damage a lot of enemies can dish out, you end up having to pray that they don't get killed before you can even act. While you can boost the health of pets by bringing them into battles, they still struggle to stay alive even more so than your companions. It just makes me wish your allies had a little more health to balance everything out.
Regardless, I still had a wonderful time with my playthrough (I even got the Alphonse ending, mostly on accident). I would absolutely recommend this game to someone, but I also wouldn't go in expecting this game to blow your socks off. It's just a fun experience. What more does it need to be?
However, a huge problem with the game is that 70% of the items you find are completely useless. This is tends to be because you already have something better, because you already have something else that does the exact same thing, or because the item is essentially useless. With so many unwanted items being picked up, I often found the need to head to a store and sell as much as I could just so I could find the things I actually wanted to use. Although, that in of itself ended up being somewhat of a pain as you can't sort by item type when selling in stores which led to each selling trip taking longer because of the time it would take for me to find the stuff I wanted to sell in the first place.
Another issue has to do with the effectiveness of companions and pets. Whether or not they will actually be of any use tends to be a 50/50 as the enemies either die before they get their turn, or the enemies kill your allies before they can do anything. With how little health your companions/pets have in comparison to the damage a lot of enemies can dish out, you end up having to pray that they don't get killed before you can even act. While you can boost the health of pets by bringing them into battles, they still struggle to stay alive even more so than your companions. It just makes me wish your allies had a little more health to balance everything out.
Regardless, I still had a wonderful time with my playthrough (I even got the Alphonse ending, mostly on accident). I would absolutely recommend this game to someone, but I also wouldn't go in expecting this game to blow your socks off. It's just a fun experience. What more does it need to be?