This game is an absolute joy to play. I thought it would be West of Loathing but with a prohibition-era H.P. Lovecraft setting, but it feels very different in many ways.
Firstly, it's a lot more "immersive" or whatever you call it; even simply creating a character isn't just assigning a look and name in the main menu, but going through the prologue and making your character creation choices through various interactions. The game's polish also really helps with the immersion, despite stickfigure graphics and grayscale colors the game does it's best to present the world through small details, effects, and nice parallax backgrounds.
I got curious and went back to West of Loathing just to revisit some areas, and Shadows over Loathing feels much "cleaner" than it's predecessor.
Second, you're not just exploring a western map to your heart's content, but rather, multiple small-scale maps that you get access to one-at-a-time every chapter of the story you complete. Yeah you could say that West of Loathing's map expands as you play too because the railroad extends with each part of the main quest gets completed, but it just feels like more of the same map to roam and explore, whereas Shadows over Loathing's maps are entirely different locations (at least the 3 that I have unlocked because I've not finished the game yet).
Lastly, I like the UI more here, it's much less cluttered than it's predecessor's and displays a perk's effects without needing to do anything to show it.
Side note, the music in this game is really cool, often it's orchestral stuff but in some areas there are multiple sources of instruments playing and you can walk between them and hear the balance of the sounds change but they all go together to create a whole song.

Apart from the comparison, some criticism that I have for the game is that you'll be doing quite some backtracking because of time-travelling mechanic stuff. The time-travelling stuff is cool, but I wish I could strap a doorway to my back so I could change between past and present wherever. The combat isn't too much better, or hasn't hooked me yet because I still feel confused as to what the point is to half of my abilities/items.

Anyways, some final thoughts are that this game is now one of my favorites. I already loved the first game and I love this one even more. It has already made me laugh many times in my ongoing playthrough and dialogue has not been more entertaining. I can already see myself playing this game again but making different decisions, because I have a feeling that there's still so much that I haven't seen. It might look like a simple game at first, but it's far more sophisticated than you'll expect. 10/10 Would kiss my future self on the lips again.

This game is an absolute joy to play. I thought it would be West of Loathing but with a prohibition-era H.P. Lovecraft setting, but it feels very different in many ways. Firstly, it's a lot more "immersive" or whatever you call it; even simply creating a character isn't just assigning a look and name in the main menu, but going through the prologue and making your character creation choices through various interactions. The game's polish also really helps with the immersion, despite stickfigure graphics and grayscale colors the game does it's best to present the world through small details, effects, and nice parallax backgrounds. I got curious and went back to West of Loathing just to revisit some areas, and Shadows over Loathing feels much "cleaner" than it's predecessor. Second, you're not just exploring a western map to your heart's content, but rather, multiple small-scale maps that you get access to one-at-a-time every chapter of the story you complete. Yeah you could say that West of Loathing's map expands as you play too because the railroad extends with each part of the main quest gets completed, but it just feels like more of the same map to roam and explore, whereas Shadows over Loathing's maps are entirely different locations (at least the 3 that I have unlocked because I've not finished the game yet). Lastly, I like the UI more here, it's much less cluttered than it's predecessor's and displays a perk's effects without needing to do anything to show it. Side note, the music in this game is really cool, often it's orchestral stuff but in some areas there are multiple sources of instruments playing and you can walk between them and hear the balance of the sounds change but they all go together to create a whole song. Apart from the comparison, some criticism that I have for the game is that you'll be doing quite some backtracking because of time-travelling mechanic stuff. The time-travelling stuff is cool, but I wish I could strap a doorway to my back so I could change between past and present wherever. The combat isn't too much better, or hasn't hooked me yet because I still feel confused as to what the point is to half of my abilities/items. Anyways, some final thoughts are that this game is now one of my favorites. I already loved the first game and I love this one even more. It has already made me laugh many times in my ongoing playthrough and dialogue has not been more entertaining. I can already see myself playing this game again but making different decisions, because I have a feeling that there's still so much that I haven't seen. It might look like a simple game at first, but it's far more sophisticated than you'll expect. 10/10 Would kiss my future self on the lips again.