The production was certainly not perfect but showed the full potential of this small development studio. We have therefore welcomed the arrival on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC of World to the West which is nothing but his spiritual following,
remaining amazed by the choice of Rain Games to leave the view in two dimensions to go to a bird’s eye camera, complete with polygonal characters and a semi-open world setting that reminded us at different times the old chapters of The Legend of Zelda. Revolutioning is always a courageous choice but will it also be the most suitable one?
World to the West is an adventure with many things to say but at the same time unable to express itself properly
A WRESTLER, A MINER AND A THIEF ENTER A BAR
World to the West begins very slowly, taking all the time necessary to present the four main protagonists. Maybe too long to look well, because the incipit of the adventure drags wearily for a couple of hours before entering into the action, forcing the player to go through sections that are not very exciting and with few ideas in the middle, with characters non-gamers with dull and predictable dialogues and nothing that stimulates the deeper exploration of the playing areas.
The dungeons are linear and things to do really limited, in short, not a great crackling start as we would have expected. And until you have assimilated for good everything there will be towards the game change rhythm, even when the protagonists will begin to interact with each other.
Rain Games decided to embark on a little canonical path, opting for a management of single characters rather than uniting them in a single group as usually happens in these cases and the choice turns out to be unconvincing. So it happens that you find yourself repeating the same sections of the map over and over again just to find an extra step or see a previously unattainable path.
Even teleporters between the various areas of the map work individually for the four protagonists, lengthening the stock in a senseless manner and requiring you to basically activate them four times.
It would have been enough to allow the player to choose which hero to use at the time, perhaps jumping from one to another as they have already done so many exponents with a simple click on the pad or a much more practical choice, structuring the party as a single identity and with multiple skills rather than dividing the whole experience into watertight compartments.
Each hero has in fact special powers, Lumina is a Teslamancer that can be teleported for example, Lord Clonington can punch the enemies and break through the doors reinforced with a charge, Miss Teri can use her scarf as a whip and Klaus dig deep tunnels and sneak into crevices that are too narrow for her traveling companions. To proceed through the intricate map you will then need to use a single character from time to time to unlock the route, go back, change hero and follow the same path using the steps opened by the previous hero and so on in a rather tedious cycle.
Things start to get interesting with the continuation of the hours, when we start to get hold of extra skills, with the puzzles that will become more complex and the most difficult to open doors, but we never reach a point of absolute quality like it had been for Teslagrad,
there is always that something that does not work properly to leave a bitter aftertaste on the palate of the player. Only the bosses have raised our spirits, surprising us by variety of situations and ways of fighting, a feature that alone can not support the weight of a really too boring and unnerving gameplay.
