Virtuous Western

At first glance I was really hoping this would somehow be something cool like a simplified budget game in the vein of Sunset Riders, but alas, it is merely a pretty simple puzzle game at the end of the day. The Western sheriff theme does at least make a little sense with the mechanic generally being that you need to pick up each bullet to either directly or indirectly deal with bad guys, and every few levels or so at least new elements or challenges do get thrown in to keep it from getting too monotonous too quickly. What feels a little surprising, and perhaps may be a bit of a misstep is that it’s not a pure puzzle game. At some point you will need to demonstrate some timing, whether hitting or coming off a ladder, or more critically jumping bullets. That may throw the traditional puzzle crowd off, so if you don’t think of yourself as being good at timing jumps it may not be for you. In the end it is at least a little different, but it really doesn’t do anything to make itself stand out in the heavily-occupied budget puzzler space, at least not in a way that’s guaranteed to be a positive. ****/2021/09/mini-reviews-september-10th-edition.html