Undead West Review

Undead West is a top-down bullet-hell roguelike, one which draws a lot of comparisons to Enter the Gungeon, but maybe wears its inspiration a little too openly. There’s a lot of potential here, but from my current experiences, it feels like it could do with maybe some more time in the oven.

Undead West’s story is solid, if a little basic, and unfortunately is mostly only told out of the game. I found a breakdown of the story as a Steam post, but nothing within the game to really tell it. You take control of a Gunslinger, who regularly takes on bounties. Prior to the events of the game, you attempt to take on the Man in Red, who is seemingly supernatural, and kills the Gunslinger in a duel. Death itself manifested before the hero, explaining that the Man in Red was merely a shell, possessed by a Nightmare that escaped its underworld imprisonment. Death then gives the Gunslinger a second chance to hunt the Man in Red. And thus begins the game.

The core gameplay is enjoyable, but this is where I sadly draw a lot of issues. The first, and arguably the worst issue, is an unfortunate lack of balance and polish in a lot of areas. You take control of the previously mentioned Gunslinger, who starts each run with the basic, and incredibly unimpressive revolver, and a basic whiskey which, once used, increases your movement speed for a short period of time. Run’s each take you through a series of six stages, each with a vertical series of rooms, filled with traps and enemies. There’s an annoying inconsistency with how many of the rooms are built, some of which provide an interesting challenge of navigation, with good trap and enemy placements, but others feel far more sloppy, oftentimes wildly limiting movement, and therefore making certain instances of damage feeling a little cheap. This unfortunately goes hand-in-hand with some other issues, such as enemy spawns and attack inconsistencies, along with a lack of invincibility frames on taking damage, sometimes allowing runs to end thanks to small mistakes. Enemies have no indication of when and where they’ll spawn, so frequently they can spawn on top of you instantly damaging you, and some attack patterns seem to break the rules very rarely, such as the charging and exploding skulls found within the first stage sometimes charging a second time instantly after the first, leading to nearly unavoidable damage. Both the enemy and player hitboxes can be hard to gauge, too, which makes aiming feel a little inconsistent.

Each stage has a mini-boss at the halfway mark, and a boss to close out the stage. These are all solid, nothing that blew me away; they have reasonable but still difficult attack patterns to manage, and have enough variety in the fights themselves to be distinct. Upon defeating the mini-bosses, you earn money which can be used at shops during the run, and for unlocking new weapons, outfits and whiskey, which I'll touch on later. The bosses themselves drop some basic resources: increases to health and additional whiskey, which are single-use, and also boons. These boons are the majority of your power progression within the confines of each run and are sadly unremarkable. The majority of the boons I found during my time with the game were simple changes, such as random status effects on my shots, such as poison, fire, or critical hits which deal double damage. Some of the others are more interesting, such as homing bullets, however, these have issues, often they’d hard lock onto enemies seemingly at random, instead of focusing on enemies near my crosshair, which made them nearly impossible to use reliably. This leads to runs lacking much variety, which is the killer of a roguelike.

The meta-progression systems within Undead West are where the rest of the variety lies. Throughout runs you’ll accrue cash, which can be spent at the Seamstress, Bartender and Gunsmith during the hub in-between runs. These are unlocked one by one as you find keys, which do admittedly take a little more time than i’d have hoped to find, making the early game feel quite drab. Cash can be spent to buy whiskey and weapons at the Bartender and Gunsmith, while outfits require a challenge to be unlocked. Outfits give you unique passive abilities, such as faster move speed, giving you a bird companion to help fight, or giving you a melee attack attached to the dodge. Visually, they are incredibly charming. These aren’t build-defining though, so it may end up that you find the one you like the most, and just stick with it. Some more incentive to play with all of these would be nice. They are also not only locked behind cash but also simple challenges, such as defeating a certain boss.

Whiskeys all have different abilities, and are some of the most powerful abilities within the game. Some summon lighting strikes on enemies while it’s active, and some spawn black holes where your bullets hit. They’re distinct, powerful, and fun, if a little varying in balance. I have no issues with this as a system, it’s fun and the high amount of whiskey to choose from makes for some good choices, but may fall into the same pits as outfits, lacking any incentive to try others if you’ve found success with one. Weapons are exactly how they sound, you can take one into a run, and they each have distinct stats, and some, such as the flamethrower, have built-in status effects. This is another system which has nice variety, but a notable lack of balance will make this system somewhat harder to engage with. The crux of the issue here is that the whiskey and the weapons require cash, some requiring quite a lot to unlock, and this makes any form of creativity and experimentation incredibly punishing. You’ll often have to pick between picking a weapon or whiskey to unlock, and if you don’t like the one you unlocked, you’ll just have to tough it out until you can try again. Having a small selection of weapons and whiskey unlocked at the start would make the early game feel less frustrating and dry, but giving either more cash, or having separate currencies might make this whole system flow better.

The presentation of Undead West is really where it shines, aside from a few nitpicks regarding the clarity of certain screens it’s fantastic to look at. The use of black-and-white pixel art is a great decision and fits the vibe of the game, and the sprite work is fantastic, especially with some of the bosses, such as the Lich and the Bandit King. The outfits, certain bullet upgrades and certain interactive elements — such as explosive barrels and enemy bullets — break this black-and-white rule, making for a wonderful contrast. I also am very fond of the music, and the sound design is strong too.

Undead West is a game with a lot of promise, but in its current state it’s incredibly hard to recommend over a lot of its contemporaries, there’s clear heart, and hopefully, with some updates it’ll grow into the potential it has.