Rustler is a Grand Theft Auto style, top-down action game set in a medieval kingdom. Players will take the role of Guy, a rustler (a horse thief) as he begins to trick, steal, and kill his way to becoming king. On the way players will meet many wacky characters with plenty of jokes and punchlines to spare as they give the player quests to complete, new weapons to use, and gold to be gained. This looks great on paper, but by the time I had completed the campaign I could tell that the game couldn’t keep up with the balancing act. The balance between making the dialogue fun vs. giving the player enough freedom and tools to create their own. Grand Theft Auto has plenty of flaws, but what is key to Grand Theft Auto’s success is enabling the player to create their own chaos while also creating a satirical version of the world that the player wants to burn down. Rustler fails this balance largely due to focusing more on comedic dialogue and moments rather than creating a sandbox where a player can become a Rustler
All My Life I Wanted to be a Rustler
Rustler’s world feels less like satire and more like parody. It isn’t trying to critique the world when it emulates it in this fictional one, it just wants to poke fun. This world is zany with a capital Z, and it doesn’t really hide this fact, rather it embraces it. But I don’t think it really works with the story that they wish to tell.
The main character Guy is a brutish, straight man for every joke as he should be, because he is a contract killer for a local corrupt Lord named Herb. The player first meets Guy waking up from a drunken stupor and he needs to meet with his boss. His best friend Buddy is a fixer with all the connections to the underground, and he always “knows a guy”. The first mission that the player needs to do is to steal a horse from a local noble and then take it to a shack near Buddy. In the horse’s saddlebag Guy and Buddy find an invitation to the Grand Tournament and they begin planning on how Guy, a simple, peasant rustler, can win the tournament and the hand of the princess, becoming king.
That is the player’s ultimate goal. To find a way to enter a tournament just for nobles, and then win. But Guy is a gangster the same way that Claude was a gangster in Grand Theft Auto 3. And just like Claude, Guy will gladly kill, destroy, or rob anyone or anything that stops in his way. This just doesn’t mesh with the tone of the world. The dialogue is filled with “street” lingo and talking about drugs, crime, sex, fixers, and murder only for it to end up in a joke of some kind. Need a fake ID to enter the tournament? Well, you better go see the crooked painter. The game uses this joke so often that it becomes numbing. The absurdity of being a modern style of criminal in a medieval setting gets played almost on loop.
This isn’t an unpresented style though. There are plenty of parodies of medieval or fantasy settings such as Shrek or The Princess Bride and I can see that inspiration in the game, but Rustler seems scared to go this route. Instead, it goes halfway, where we get the setting, atmosphere, and characters of such a piece, but we get a rag to riches plot line for the anti-hero. In a strange way, Guy feels like he’s from another world, along with anyone who is directly involved with the tournament such as the Iron Maid, Buddy, and Herb. They don’t really fit the world they created because they are serious characters and everyone else is an idiot. Which would be fine, there are plenty of shows and movies where everyone is an idiot except for one straight man, but movies like those only last an hour and thirty minutes and shows like those only last thirty minutes. It took me around 10 hours to beat this game in its entirety, including all the side quests, and that is far too long for every other character to be an idiot.
But if you were to ask me what I thought about it after four hours I would have told you that it wasn’t as bad at all. The problem is that this kind of comedy doesn’t work well with the long play time of video games. Having every piece of dialogue become a joke only becomes tiring with time. Like that coworker who is always happy no matter what, they can get annoying after a while. Strangely I can see plenty of fun to be had if this were a short form show, but as a comedy in the format of a video game it doesn’t pace itself well enough.
Reference humor is everywhere from superheroes to flat earthers to metal bands.
Rustler and its infatuation with Monty Python is a great example of this problem. This can be seen in the Spanish Inquisition, three guys dressed in red robes with hats, giant crosses around their necks, and high maintenance facial hair. They are a direct call to the Monty Python sketch, and they will be quest givers. They will show up numerous times, and often they will do the same joke. The same one just worded slightly differently. The same bit about how we never expect them, and the game will tell this joke more than 3 times. Each time the punchline is seemingly the same. The game also sports a full-on recreation of a Monty Python sketch with the appearance of the Black Knight. And this goes exactly how the player thinks it will. You’ll strike the knight a couple of times then his arms will pop off. He’ll say, keep fighting, it’s only a flesh wound! Then you’ll just stab him and move on.
To put this more directly, what makes Rustler fail is that it doesn’t feel like a power fantasy but instead a tight 5 at the Laugh Factory. Which in all honesty wouldn’t be too bad, but the comedy that is being employed here is less Monty Python (though it is referenced) and more Family Guy. The comedy present in this game is rooted in reference humor with many jokes simply pointing at a current pop cultural phenomenon like superhero films or white rappers. But this style of comedy ages by the day, and often I found the references to be quite tiring as it seems I have already heard of them in memes. But comedy is found everywhere in this game, from the level design to the decision to make any character talking just a series of grunts.
Another example of comedy in the game is how the streets of the medieval towns look like modern cities with street names, crosswalks, the whole nine yards. The kingdom’s knights parrot modern cops by being draped in red and blue, along with their horses who shine red and blue lights like a cop car. Need to get rid of your wanted level? Go to the Pimp A Horse garage where they give your horse a new paint job. Getting tired of all the bards playing old timey lute songs? Punch them enough and they’ll start playing some electronic music or even beat box.
Comedy is the core of this game, not Grand Theft Auto style destruction or creating a satire of our world. But this clashes heavily with this style of gameplay, and I often found myself being pulled between these two poles. I want to go and destroy the kingdom for gold and my own hedonism but every time I get close to becoming enraptured by the fire and blood the Spanish inquisition would show up. For the third time. They would then ask, “Did you expect us?”. These two competing forces are always at odds for the player as they are pulled from creating their own fun with the world to having scripted jokes interrupt the gameplay or having the tone of the jokes and dialogue does not mesh with the gameplay.
Holiday In Cambodia
Character design in Rustler is grounded in the fantasy setting with many characters wearing standard renaissance attire. But there are characters that stick out from the tunics and standard knight armor, as many characters will bring the goofy nature of the world into their looks. Drunken knights will have polka dot boxers with a penis tattooed on their chest, and a monk wearing thick glasses will have radioactive mushrooms growing from his bald head.
The comedic character design was often though not very notable. Unfortunately, there is a character meant to represent Asian people that is reminiscent of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Its placement seems odd and was humorless to see. He’s supposed to be a wise teacher that is going to teach Guy how to lance. While I understand the call back to characters like Mr. Miyagi, the caricature seems far too outdated and can leave players with a sour taste in their mouth.
Some may also have that taste after hearing all the hip hop and rap music call backs and references to black culture but find no black characters in the game. Ultimately this harms the game as these are distractions for the player or may be a thorn in their side. More time should have given to better realize the game world to avoid such missteps. This oversight is unfortunate to see and hinders the campy fun that Rustler is trying to provide.
5 Star Wanted Level and a Slow Horse
Rustler takes heavy inspiration from the older, top-down style Grand Theft Auto games. It has many of the same features such as having a wanted level, a big open sandbox, and tools of destruction to buy or find around the map. Rustler, being set in medieval times, gives the player mostly melee weapons with few ranged weapons except crossbows, holy hand grenades, and manure. Melee combat is what players are going to engage with the most, it’s the dependable way of dealing with enemies but it’s not without its hitches. The game’s hand to hand combat during the best of times feels quite nice. The mixture of sword strikes, heavy sword strikes, blocking, and dodge rolling will work together at times to make an enjoyable experience where the player begins to lose themselves to the power fantasy. But this gets interrupted far too often by the AI enemies in the game being too defensive, forcing you to play slower and more methodically.
This isn’t a problem for most games, but it becomes a problem in Rustler when a mission will ask you to cause chaos and raise your wanted level. This can be an oddly difficult task at times because while the game does have plenty of civilians and knights to fight, often you will just have a horde of enemies just holding their shield up and walking slowly at the player. The game often invites the player to cause mayhem, but it’s difficult for a player to engage with that kind of fun when the gameplay forces the player to act cautious.
Ranged weapons in Rustler are few and far between unfortunately. There are 4 in total from what I could find in the 10 hours played; the crossbow, the automatic crossbow, manure, and the Holy Hand Grenade. The crossbow is the ranged weapon that you gain access to first. It shoots one bolt at a time, and after every shot your character needs to stand still and reload the crossbow. This takes a while so often I would fire one bolt only to never pull the crossbow back out for the rest of the fight. The time it takes to reload a crossbow incentivizes players to play slowly and methodically.
The auto crossbow comes later once you find where it drops or purchase it, and it’s very similar to the regular crossbow except that it can hold 4 bolts. Unfortunately, this didn’t change the way in which I used the crossbow. When fighting with the auto crossbow, I may get 3 extra bolts but once all four of those bolts are fired, I put it in my back pocket again. Manure is introduced later into the game but can be picked up early on. This item’s only gameplay feature is that it stuns enemies when they are hit by it. Later in the game you can upgrade the manure to also slow enemies. The holy hand grenade is unlocked much later in the game and is the only explosive weapon at your disposal. Just like real grenades it has a timer that will tick down until holy light destroys the player’s target.
Ranged weapons are a good example of how the Grand Theft Auto style of gameplay is lacking in weapon options. Each of the ranged options are incredibly slow, which while realistic in a sense, disrupts the destructive fun. Sword fighting is a slow process and so is loading a crossbow, but in this instance all this does is make your crime spree less of a spree and more like a crime speed walk. This doesn’t facilitate a dynamic combat system that makes the player want to engage with the fun of slaying hordes of people. Riding a horse on a sidewalk may though…
Horses and horse drawn carts are the only means of transportation besides walking. Horses have a range of speeds that they can reach, and each kind of horse has their own name like Horspeed. The player can steal anybody’s horse or cart just like you can jack any car in GTA. Riding a horse is a smooth experience and feels natural with the recommended control scheme.
While on the horse or cart you can also gain access to some of your weapons such as a spear, sword, or crossbow. This allows players to slash other knights on horses, strike unsuspecting civilians walking the streets, or shoot a chasing enemy off their horse. These tools while on the horse feel limited though beyond the crossbow. There were few instances where using melee weapons seemed like a viable option. The only time a player may need to employ a sword is when the chasing knights catch up to your horse and begin to swing at you. If the player needs to take someone down while on their horse, then the crossbow is your best friend, seconded by just running them over.
Carts are going to be a player’s worst enemy though. On a horse you are able to aim in pretty much any direction and fire. On a cart, you can only fire in front of you, the farthest you can aim backwards is directly to the left or right of the cart. This makes being chased by knights a frustrating experience. Horse drawn carts are slower than regular horses, and the knights’ horses are quite fast. This creates situations where the player has a knight destroying their cart from behind but being able to do little to nothing about it because the player physically can’t aim in that direction. The only way I found to get around this is to slam on the brakes and hope that I land that crossbow bolt. If not, then the cart is destroyed. Mission failed.
I Fought the Law and the Law Won
When a player thinks about Grand Theft Auto, they will think about the police chases through the city. Crashing into cars, blind firing behind them, and finally finding a hiding place to get away scot-free. This formula is broken in Rustler. The knights that act as the police are not pushovers like with cops in GTA. They will chase you from one side of the map all the way to the other side no matter how well you hide or how fast you run. The best way for a player to get rid of their wanted level is to pick up numerous wanted posters around the map or ride to the closest pimp a horse. Hiding in the trees for a while won’t work in Rustler. The only time I was able to do so was when I got an upgrade that made your wanted level shrink faster in the forest, and after being chased for around four minutes ignoring all the pimp a horse garages and wanted posters.
A player who jumps into this game will be confused by how competent the police force is. Grand Theft Auto and many other games of that genre have set a precedent that cops should be fools that the player can easily beat and dupe unless they cause too much chaos and get a max wanted level. Just like with those games, Rustler operates on a 5-point wanted scale. With a one point wanted level being a couple of guards and one of them chases you if you run, five points sends the armada. Players may ignore or actively avoid doing things that trigger a wanted state because of how ruthless this police force truly is. Getting a one star while doing a mission feels less like a chase and more like a chore. A player may be deep into a mission, but if they run over a person by accident within 100 yards of a knight, they will sprint to catch you.
The law enforcement in this game seems too ruthless for a player to have some madcap comedy within this world. Often the fun ended once a knight was on my tail and that’s strange to see in a game inspired by GTA. In this case, it seems that the knights in this game are not there to add to the excitement and fun of going on a crime spree. Instead, they act as a punishment system, punishing the player for being the criminal that they are supposed to be.
Upgrade Your Swinging Arm
Rustler has an upgrade system that allows players to make Guy hit harder, swing his sword more, or even make manure to slow enemies. There are 20 different abilities and stat bonuses that a player can upgrade as they play the game with missions supplying a player with points upon completion. There are also horseshoes that are scattered around the map, and with enough of these collected you can earn an upgrade point as well.
Upgrades for players will feel less like leveling up and more like getting to the starting line. By the end of the game, players will get to a similar point that I did. Where they begin to feel as if Guy should have been at this point from the beginning of the game. After upgrading their ability to reload a crossbow faster, their ability to take damage, and their ability to deal more damage, a player may say, “I wish I started like this.”. This perfectly sums up the upgrades in my view. Upgrades, as present in Rustler, don’t enhance the experience of the game. Players don’t receive any new weapon abilities beyond just stat changes and the few attacks that can be unlocked are extremely situational. This is the true problem with their implementation, that they don’t raise the gameplay to a new height with their inclusion.
Conclusion
Rustler can best be understood as a game not knowing what it wishes to be. It can’t decide if it wants players to have fun with the story and dialogue or if it wants players to create their own fun by becoming a master criminal. Rustler invites players to go on crime sprees but has overly aggressive cops that can be a hassle to get rid of and can become annoying. Rustler invites us to have all the zany fun of a medieval parody but doesn’t give us any zany things to do in the game that are not scripted cutscenes and events. The comedy of a beatboxing bard is overshadowed by horrible screams emitted when you run someone over with a horse. It just seems that there is missing potential within this game. There’s a great medieval Grand Theft Auto that is being held back by wacky antics, and there’s a funny medieval parody that is being held back by the need for Guy to be a rough and tumble criminal and a lack of player interaction.
Rustler is a game that does a little of both but doesn’t commit to either idea enough to make an interesting experience. This indecision to commit hampers the game’s enjoyability and leaves players with a confused understanding of what the game wants to be. This compounded by a lack of black representation while directly referencing black culture everywhere, makes this game difficult to recommend.
