Simulation games are quite fun to play. They give you this unique experience where you pretend to be someone or something in a video game and carry on. Be it a truck driver or a medieval spirit, such games have you covered to cure your boredom from demanding games.
With plenty of genres of video games, you might expect some of them to just require no skills or too many investments when playing. But what falls short in such games is that they are rigid and have only one motive, to just enjoy being that character for the time being.
Now, I wouldn’t say that simulation games are worth that time and energy, but it’s good to binge when you have nothing good to do. Again, it has to be good enough to keep you engaged, and that is where Wild West Dynasty remains completely in shambles upon its release. Few things good do not compete with the number of things lacking in this particular game.
Here is what I felt when going through the gameplay of Wild West Dynasty.
About Wild West Dynasty
Wild West Dynasty is a world-building simulation game set in the early 1800s. Here, you are the only survivor on barren land who takes inspiration from the West and starts your journey in building your own house and farm, growing crops, and taming wild animals. The game is available on early access on Steam and Epic Games for players to experience the newest release by Moon Punch Studio and Toplitz Productions.
Gameplay
Wild West Dynasty may seem like a promising game, but it has a lot of fallout in terms of gameplay and graphics. It is quite easy to navigate around using a keyboard or a controller, but it feels very rigid and difficult to bring in lags while walking or changing directions. The world where you first start is empty with lands and stones, and trees.
You, the main character, encounter your mother, who is injured (and so are you). The quests unfold as you have a chat with your mother, and she shows you the basics of plantation and gathering in the land. What feels off is how the characters seem extremely rigid, and the perspective is placed a bit higher rather than on an eye level.
As the quest progresses, the mother sadly does not make it due to her wounds, and now you are left alone to find more people and start with your world-building. The game has various details, which include a world map, tool inventory, camp inventory, weaponry, and other skillsets, which gives it a tad bit different approach than your regular simulation games.
Thoughts And Reviews
I dislike how my first thought of mine was that either my eyes are not in the best shape or my PC has given away with its graphics due to the number of pixels and distortions. Medieval Dynasty, in comparison, which was launched by the same developers, had similar issues, which were overcome as the game progressed and new elements were added. But again, it is nothing compared to this early access version of Wild West Dynasty.
It was quite an exciting launch for players that are very much into strategic, world-building, simulator games, as that entire genre is vaguely explored to put out great dynamics. Now, I cannot compare it to Genshin Impact or Hogwards Legacy, which mainly focuses on the plotline more than simulation. But Wild West Dynasty tried too hard to mix the hints of RPG into a simulation game.
For an early access game, Medieval Dynasty had better functionality, unlike the new launch by Moon Punch which completely falls short in terms of game content and visuals. I cannot emphasize enough the amount of stuttering I have to face to just cut down one simple tree in the Wild West. What I found quite amusing was that the early access is locked behind a paywall.
So, you pay $29 without a discount which, thankfully, the developers gave to reduce it to $19 to access the game. I wouldn’t want to pay for an unreleased game only to experience what it lacks and how it will ruin my mood with an average hyper-realistic take on simulation games. Even Honkai Star Rail had free Beta access before launch, and so did Valorant when it was in Beta production.
So, for a game made by a small company, perhaps a different strategy could have been used instead of putting such a high price tag on the early access. Now, the negatives may outrun the positives, but there are certain aspects of the game where you can see that there was effort put in to make it look appealing to the player base.
The essence of the West is captured pretty well, and so is the inventory, which gives more of a realistic feel to a Minecraft inventory. Certain features like the quest modes and collecting and building are bearable to work with if I have to ignore the glitches of an uncut wood or an NPC popping up out of the blue.
The game feels like it was rushed to create, not to mention the quality would madden you. Which, I am safely assuming that would be resolved as the game develops further, just like the Medieval Dynasty, but it is quite lackluster when compared to many other exploration and strategic games.
I would not have minded it if it was strictly based on going on your horse as a cowboy and enjoying the Wild West, but they made it clear that it was more of you establishing an entire ranch rather than the former. I like a well-built game where the characters stand out as different entities and not just clones with changed clothing.
Perhaps that is where my will to continue Genshin also dies slowly due to copy-paste characters, but unlike Genshin, where there is proper lore present, nothing is interesting happening in Wild West Dynasty. It is as empty as it can get with clicking dialogues and NPCs walking like the dead. Not to mention, even you, as the main character, seem to have this dodgy walk that makes me laugh at times.
Coming to graphics and performance, a basic gaming laptop or PC with mediocre graphics cards is sufficient to make the game work, but there is no way you can save the quality of the game. Even at the highest graphics setting or the best GPU you may possess, the game does injustice to the entire set-up of the West.
The cinematic trailer made me think that the game would bring some new spice to simulation games with how brilliantly it was choreographed, but alas, it was a major disappointment to face. The list of problems the game has is unending. From poor graphics, unstable mechanics, rudimentary plots, and cloned NPCs to technical glitches, frame drops, and lags, there is nothing you can expect from early access.
Perhaps, all I can wish is there might be progress as the game gets the developers to put in more effort than just throwing in a few characters and a world to work with. As much as I dislike low-quality functions of a game, I would prefer playing Cyber Hunter over this one any day, even though both have the same problems with high glitches and lags. At least one is free-to-play and more fun to work with.
Final Verdict
In a word, I would describe this game to be a complete mess. There is no coordination and no flavor to bring the bits and pieces of the game together. It is seemingly understandable, but from the point of view of a simulation RPG game, you would expect better graphics and just better mechanics altogether.
If this were the case in Apex Legends, maybe I would give it less thought since FPS games are more into competing with other fellow players and demand more investments. Again, since that is not the case for simulation games where I expect to enjoy than suffer, Wild West Dynasty was just a sheer failure, in my opinion.
There are many things to work on, perhaps some more months or even a few years, to properly establish a game that could be interesting to play. And, of course, the restriction of payment. If that is a strategy to gain some funds to make the game better, then it is a completely failed concept from the devs. Wild West Dynasty holds potential but is not worth the early access.
Our Rating: ⭐ (2.5/5).
You can buy early access to the game on Epic Games and Steam.
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