Virtuous Western Switch Review – Stop Those Horse Bandits!

Virtuous Western is a run-of-the-mill 2D action title from Ratalaika Games and Nibb Games. As is the standard in the Ratalaika Games catalog, what we have here is a simple yet entertaining title that puts you in the boots of a good ol’ western cowboy who is not a fan of horse bandits.

So does Virtuous Western prove that good will ultimately triumph? Or will those bandits just get what they want? Let’s find out!

When it comes to story, Virtuous Western does not do a whole lot, but that’s okay. This is a cheap little title that still finds a way to check off all the boxes despite its size and price.

To put it plainly, our hero is having himself a drink when some horse thieves barge in and cause trouble. Before he knows it, they have stolen his horse and left him with no other choice than to take out the no-good-for-nothing bandits.

It is a cute and simple story that is wonderfully depicted with comic book frames, and it is such an easy story to understand that the pictures alone are enough to tell it. As is usually the case with these titles, I am not expecting much in this area, so when they do pull the trigger and do it decently, I have to give the developers mad props for going beyond expectation. All in all, this is just a fun, little story!

As you expect from these Ratalaika published titles, the gameplay is rather straightforward. Each stage presents you some platforms, some horse bandits, and ammo/dynamite to use in order to kill the bad guys. This is basically an action puzzle game where you do need to figure out the right course of action to take out all of the enemies with the little resources presented, and you need to execute your shots perfectly. Most stages are rather strict with their supplies, but thankfully Virtuous Western is easy to restart if you make any mistakes.

Some of the design decisions are a bit weird for me, though. Enemies have a certain amount of bullets they can shoot subsequently until they need to reload. There are times when an enemy is just hanging next to a ladder, and you are forced to do this shimmy up and down the ladder in order to get them to fire off their entire magazine before you can take any appropriate action. There are some other points that have some strange setups, but it is not really a hard game, just one that has some weird moments.

The puzzles gain some good momentum across the 30 main story stages, but they can be cleared very quickly. I would say the that Virtuous Western takes less than an hour for your average person to clear, which is not a solid amount of play time, especially when there is very little reason to come back.

The boss at the end is painfully unfair, though. The timing and range of your shots pale tremendously in comparison to the boss who takes five hits to kill. Compare that to our cowboy hero, who goes does after just one shot. The main game was nice and fun until it his this point, and then the boss fight ramps up the difficulty to an extreme level that ends the game on a sour note.

As usual with these titles, the pixel art is adorable, although it gets repetitive after a while. The same skins and tiles are used pretty much the whole way through, so it does not feel like the levels change a whole lot until you get to the boss who is a much larger character with a lot more movement.

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The music is nice and western and definitely fits the look and feel of things, but it is not necessarily memorable. The sound effects, though, are cute, especially the ricochet sound of the bullets among other things.

All in all, Virtuous Western is a decent action puzzle game that will keep you busy enough for roughly an hour. It looks cute and controls really well, but it is hampered down by its aggressively difficult ending (Boss fight).

If you have $5 to spare or happen to find this on discount, it is mildly entertaining and checks most of the right boxes. I just wish there were more puzzle stages and less bosses to deal with.

Virtuous Western Review provided by Nintendo Link
Review also found on OpenCritic
Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Developer: Nibb Games
Release Date: September 3rd, 2021
Price: $4.99, £4.99, €4,99
Game Size: 37 MB