West of Loathing is a hilarious indie adventure/RPG that's somehow better at doing the whole 'old-school RPG' shtick than Obsidian's current games.

Seriously. It's probably obvious at first glance that West of Loathing is comedy—and it is, indeed, absolutely hilarious. It's worth picking up just for the tone, ridiculous items, ability to do bean magic, choose to ride a crazy horse for the 'insensitive' achievement, explore the depths of spitoons (it's just as bad as it sounds, so WoL doubles as a horror game), receive XP-charged air from you brother, get a separate perk for hurting yourself on cacti too many times... and, most luxuriously of all, change the game's font to Arial.

However, what is less obvious is how good of an RPG WoL actually is. It's not very challenging—but it adheres to the idea that an RPG game is first and foremost about finding different approaches to various problems, not just fighting monsters. So you can, for example, make it harder... you just need to find the item that adds challenge first. Want to make a good fortune in the West? Good luck with that—you'll have to really honestly search for it, no hand-holding. Seems like something is stirring, and those are the bones of dead people? Once again, it's up to you to look for the Necromancer raising them. Or not.

For a 2D black-and-while stick-figure parody WoL is surprisingly open-ended. It has cryptography puzzles to be solved and musicians to be found in unexpected places. Most important conundrums can be approached in a number of ways, while others become secrets for you to unveil over the course of the playthrough... or several ones?

So yes, West of Loathing is a perfect blend of adventure and RPG, that feels robust despite being limited in scope. You never know which seemingly random action will grant you a perk or help out.

And if nothing else, it's worth playing for the fact that most needles in the game are found in haystacks.

[i]West of Loathing[/i] is a hilarious indie adventure/RPG that's somehow better at doing the whole 'old-school RPG' shtick than Obsidian's current games. Seriously. It's probably obvious at first glance that [i]West of Loathing[/i] is comedy—and it is, indeed, absolutely hilarious. It's worth picking up just for the tone, ridiculous items, ability to do bean magic, choose to ride a crazy horse for the 'insensitive' achievement, explore the depths of spitoons (it's just as bad as it sounds, so WoL doubles as a horror game), receive XP-charged air from you brother, get a separate perk for hurting yourself on cacti too many times... and, most luxuriously of all, change the game's font to Arial. However, what is less obvious is how good of an RPG WoL actually is. It's not very challenging—but it adheres to the idea that an RPG game is first and foremost about finding different approaches to various problems, not just fighting monsters. So you can, for example, make it harder... you just need to [i]find[/i] the item that adds challenge first. Want to make a good fortune in the West? Good luck with that—you'll have to really honestly [i]search[/i] for it, no hand-holding. Seems like something is stirring, and those are the bones of dead people? Once again, it's up to you to look for the Necromancer raising them. Or not. For a 2D black-and-while stick-figure parody WoL is surprisingly open-ended. It has cryptography puzzles to be solved and musicians to be found in unexpected places. Most important conundrums can be approached in a number of ways, while others become secrets for you to unveil over the course of the playthrough... or several ones? So yes, [i]West of Loathing[/i] is a perfect blend of adventure and RPG, that feels robust despite being limited in scope. You never know which seemingly random action will grant you a perk or help out. And if nothing else, it's worth playing for the fact that most needles in the game are found in haystacks.