Publisher: Experimental Gamer Studios
Developer: Experimental Gamer Studios
Platforms: PC, XBLA, PlayStation Vita

Boot Hill Heroes is the first game from indie studio Experimental Gamer, a developer which aims to bring elements from classic RPGs such as Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger and breathe life into the genre once again. This very small team had a successful kickstarter campaign in late 2012 and Boot Hill Heroes was released on Steam and XBox Live Arcade in October and December of 2014 respectively. It originally caught my eye because of its striking resemblance to Earthbound and I thought it would be the perfect game to play in the run up to the release of Mother 4.

Boot Hill Heroes uses an overlooked setting for an RPG; the American wild west of the 19th century. The story is that of a young boy named Kid, the son of a sheriff who scattered a notorious gang and forced them into hiding. After 10 years, the return of the gang has Kid team up with a bounty hunter, a native princess and a cowgirl out for justice in the hopes of taking them down once and for all.

The Saints-Little Gang is made up of a cast of quirky criminals, each with their own traits. The first, you encounter as he attempts to swindle you in a saloon card game. Things get heated and you’re forced to throw down. Luckily the wandering paragon and former deputy, Doc, is there to track down this trickster Monty Spades.The other characters periodically join the protagonist throughout the story, before officially joining forces to take down the gang later in the game. It makes for a varied, beautifully paced narrative that is full of surprises and makes use of its wild west setting to great effect.

Being the first in a planned trilogy, the game has humble beginnings but by the end, I was left in full anticipation of part 2. While I did not expect to see the credits roll as early as they did, I found the low price of £5.99 to be just right for the amount of time I spent adventuring. The four main characters are strong, have clear motivations and so far their stories have each played out nicely. The native American character Moon for instance is trying to get to the bottom of a plot to frame her tribe for attacking a nearby village. The chief and his advisors are set in their ways but Moon is willing to do whatever is best for the people regardless of superstition or tradition. Doc is a former member of the Boot Hill Posse that took down the Saints Little Gang the first time round, he is weary of getting others involved in a mess that he feels partially responsible for but nevertheless, his sense of justice shines through.

The variety and volume of people scattered about the game world is quite impressive, both in terms of artistic design and dialogue. Most of the NPCs look striking and you rarely find clones of the same person around the same area like a lot of RPGs of this type. Talking to an NPC will usually result in some interesting dialogue and sometimes even result in positive status effects for the party. This meant I often found myself trying to talk to as many of these NPCs in each new area as possible and getting really immersed in the game. Even your dog who can be found throughout as the game's 'save point' has useful pointers on the task at hand ensuring you don't lose your way. Though the standard movement speed of the characters is arduously slow, this is soon remedied when you are given your own horse which can be ridden at the push of a button. At a certain point in the game, rail travel also becomes available for the player to get around the main areas of the world.

One of the unique elements of Boot Hill Heroes is it's battle system, which can be played in single player or up to four player co-op. At first glance it may seem to outright copy Earthbound in an overly simplistic way, with each character only being able to access four moves at any one time. I soon learned however that this battle system has a much more strategic, yet fast paced approach to combat. Timing your moves is very important and sometimes launching an attack as soon as it is available can get you killed. The idea is to activate a 'stance' a defensive move which could either evade or reduce damage, right before an enemy attack. There are also more complex stances such as counter, delivering a counter attack every time the character is hit. This can be a bit cheap when certain enemies use very low damage, multi-hit attacks as the counter will count for all of them. I have trounced some bosses with this stance alone.

Of course, enemies can use stances too so the best time to go on the offensive is just after the enemies have attacked or when their stances have ended. Learning to anticipate what the enemy will do next and planning ahead with your own moves is the core of this exciting battle system but even more depth comes with a plethora of negative status effects which can be used such as setting an enemy on fire or putting them to sleep. You can also pause the action at any time in order to command all 4 characters at once, instantly set up a wall of different stances or line up a chain of complimentary attacks.

There is a job system of sorts in the game involving different hats which when worn, not only have a visual impact on the characters but teach them new moves. A standard experience and level system is used and double experience is earned if a battle is won without taking damage making fights with weaker enemies less of a chore. Other equipment used is a pretty standard affair, usually focused on increasing your defense with different types of clothing. There are also those aforementioned status ailments and buffs, which are either inherent to your equipped weapon, a side effect of your offensive moves or gained through weapon synthesis by using collected materials on your weapons. Collecting materials in this game actually manages to be a lot of fun. Things like flowers and fruit spawn periodically all over, and feathers and hides can be collected from farm animals with the right tool, and of course materials are also dropped after battle. The player is also treated to a lovely audio cue when picking up items and opening chests which is a treat in itself and never gets old.

There are various types of shops with an increasing variety of weapons, armour and status effect inducing food throughout the game. Materials gathered from battle are the main source of income, with that comes even more importance to collecting materials and an engaging trade-off between using them to upgrade your equipment or being able to afford new stuff.

The enemy designs clearly take influence from the childlike drawings of Earthbound yet still feel unique in the spaghetti western setting. I found the quality of the designs to be somewhat inconsistent, with some sprites looking far more pixellated than others, some sprites would also bug out and disappear completely on occasion. When an enemy is defeated the static sprites do a sort of paper like 'falling flat' animation or sometimes do flips and fly off the screen Smash Bros style, I would have preferred at least some proper animation of the battle sprites but I understand that within the budget constraints and the visual style Experimental Gamer was aiming for, this was not a priority.

The game's soundtrack by Jake Kaufman is perfectly suited to both the spaghetti western and classic RPG themes of Boot Hill Heroes. It is composed entirely from midi instruments, yet still manages to evoke emotions akin to the great spaghetti western soundtracks of Ennio Morricone. The soundtrack is lighthearted, fast paced, then epic, all when it needs to be and each track has very memorable and catchy melodies. I would place this on par with some of the early Final Fantasy soundtracks by Nobuo Uematsu.

The main game itself comes to a fairly abrupt end with a “to be continued” message leading into the next game Boot Hill Bounties. However, there is still more to discover at the end of the game with a bonus side quest & dungeon harder than anything that comes before. Here you can use all four character’s skills to their fullest, with complementary stances and buffs. The dungeon has various switches & chests that ask you trivia questions about the world such as “how many turtle shells are on the wall of the bar in Kickstart Creek?” This side quest is a double edged sword however, as I feel like most players will class this as frustrating busywork in comparison to the rest of the game, especially as you are kicked to the start of the dungeon for wrong answers. Also, whilst the story has only just got going in terms of the series, it has now crashed to a halt, so again, many will simply want to switch off and move on to the next game.

Other than a couple of bugs, such as the dog giving a false message saying "game not saved" and a gigantic sound effect volume spike when using attacks with multiple simultaneous hits, there is barely anything negative I can say about Boot Hill Heroes. The game kept me genuinely engaged from start to finish. It brought new ideas to a genre that many may believe has had its day and used its inspirations conservatively so as not to feel like a clone. Boot Hill Heroes goes above and beyond to prove that this classic RPG style is truly timeless.

Pros:

• Unique tactical battle system.

• Strong setting, story & interesting characters.

• Amazing soundtrack.

Cons:

• Graphical & audio bugs.

(Disclosure: This article was originally created for Gamesnosh.com)