The gameplay for Westward III doesn't really deviate too much from the rest of the series. In fact, I was a little disappointed to see that very little had changed. The mechanics of the game are fairly standard for the genre. You need to build lumber camps, gold mines, farms, and houses to make a big town. There are also lots of other buildings to increase your resource gathering efficiency and overall town happiness.
I'll go ahead and start with the good. The best part of the game is still there. I mentioned in the beginning that there were two main towns. The game is centered on these two towns. You'll switch about halfway through the story to a new town, so the time is well divided. The fun part is that you are given a huge map with lots of resources and areas to explore. You get a real feeling of accomplishment as your settlement grows to cover every corner of the map with mines and hotels.
The other boost is the fairly varied gameplay. There are some neat missions that really mix up Westward III. I can just name a few to give you an idea of what to expect. One has you racing to collect enough lumber to bridge the flooding rivers in the area and rescue stranded settlers. Another has you facing off against the Headless Horseman, who comes through every few minutes to turn one of your civilians into a worthless zombie. Another brief mission has you solving a series of puzzles to lure bandits into a trap. These are bright spots for the game.
The problems with this game mainly fall to mediocrity. Resource gathering is painfully bad. I always enjoy resource gather that is active. Westward III just has you build the relevant buildings and wait. The actions of your citizens don't even matter. The only interaction is that you need to replant trees that are cut down over time. Combat also falls into this category. All you do is hire gunslingers and tell them to attack bandits or wolves. Then they stand there and shoot until somebody dies.
These wouldn't be problems by themselves. This is a fairly cheap game so I'm not expecting top strategy. The problem is that this becomes an integral part of gameplay. In order to earn enough experience to unlock new buildings, you have to undertake bounty missions and trading post missions. The bounty missions involve dragging your sheriff and deputies around 10 repeating maps with repeating ambushes and monotonous gunfights. The trading post missions have you tell a few citizens and your hero character to collect resources within a time limit. You then wait and pray. This is not fun gameplay! Some of the puzzle missions also feel like they are really starting to struggle with staying fresh. For every good one listed above, there were a number that felt like needless padding material.
