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The former debuffs damaged characters, but strengthens them over the course of the scenario. Within each difficulty setting, the player has the opportunity to choose different optional modes – combat injuries and ironman. I found the tabletop, exploration portions of the game to be the most enjoyable.īefore starting any scenario, there are three difficulty options in the form of easy, normal and hard.
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Yet there are some issues that persist throughout. The motivations to engage in combat are justified, and serve as a nice diversion from the exploration portion of the game. Hard West’s risk reward system shines in these situations, as it encourages the player to make difficult decisions. After narrowly escaping death, I had made it to the church where the minister healed me of my ailments and performed an exorcism on my father for a meager price. My choices in this particular scenario left me severely injured as I slipped and fell to the bottom, and would ultimately affect my performance and vulnerability in combat. Once at the well, I was given the option to throw one of my own down into it in an attempt to strip my father of his curse, or climb down to snag the other coins at the bottom. The townsfolk pointed me in the direction of a wishing well that appeared after the fact. Before exploring the church’s scenario, I traveled to a Mexican town where I asked for information about a cure in exchange for some coin. The father, struck with a malignant curse, seeks aid from a minister held up in a church somewhere on the map. As you search for your wife’s killers, you build a homestead and venture out into the wasteland excavating gold, earning coins, and discovering new locations solely dependent on your choices within dialogue. At one point during the first scenario of the campaign, a family travels through the Oregon trail, only for the mother to be captured and decapitated.
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