On the surface, it's an okay western arcade shooter game. It's replayable, the way the story is told is quite interesting and unique (I will touch more on this in a bit), and it's generally satisfying, having a nice visual style, sound design, and soundtrack to accompany it. However, there are some key things that are holding it back significantly, which is why I ultimately decided to give a thumbs down (if Steam allowed for a Mixed thumb option, that is what this review would be).
First and foremost, it's the hit detection. Maybe it's just my bad aim, but I swear that if an enemy is moving, hits made against said enemy just do not register. Almost like their hitbox is misaligned or something.
Secondly, the quick draw fights. On paper, they should be simple and fun but end up being annoying as hell to actually play. Firstly, even with a high focus percentage, your reticle is still relatively wide, and so whether you'll hit the shot or not mostly depends on RNG. And secondly, the opponent AI will always draw a moment before the honorable timer starts, meaning that from the get-go, you will be at a disadvantage if you wish to play honorably. Bound in Blood (one of the other games in the series) does this much better because in that game, actual skill is required, thus making victories feel more meaningful and rewarding.
Next up are those quick time moments, mainly the ones where you need to dodge an oncoming bullet and the ones where you need to quickly press an assortment of keys to quickly dispatch a group of enemies. Both of them usually appear far too abruptly and don't give you enough time to react (I know it's called a quick time event for a reason, but even still). With the bullet one specifically, half of the time, due to the weird perspective and angle, you won't know which side you need to swing on before it's already too late, forcing you to remember it, reload, and try again. As for the "assortment of keys" event type, the main problem with it is that it uses the same keys as the movement keys (by default, anyways), and because of how abruptly it appears, you'll usually accidentally press the wrong key just because you tried to move when the event got initiated.
And finally, it's the narrative storytelling itself. For a first playthrough, it works amazingly. The voice acting is great; it's funny at times, and the unreliable storytelling of the main character is fun to watch: how he modifies the story based on feedback from his listeners. However, on repeat playthroughs, having your gameplay forcefully paused just to listen to the exact same 30-second monologue without an option to skip or disable it gets old real fast, which is why it serves as such a detriment to the overall experience.
If you can get this on sale, it's actually a pretty decent deal, but I found the above-noted issues far too annoying to be worth a thumb up.
