I played this for about two, two-and-a-half hours, admittedly only achieved the first one or two major steps plotwise, and I don't really want to keep playing to try and get any further. Which is a shame, because I really WANT to enjoy The Real Texas, and it seems very much like my kind of game. I feel like it's a bit of a disservice to post about it anyway and may try and revisit it later, but:
In an artstyle where nobody has functioning knees, you, a cowboy, find a portal while vacationing to the town of Strange, which is also a fair description of the game. The Real Texas sells itself as a Zelda-like RPG, where exploration and searching around is the name of the game between bits of action. Interacting is a text menu, including a "type anything you want to try it" box alongside recommended keywords.
The Real Texas definitely takes pages from old-school RPGs, in that open-ended exploration and perhaps a bit of pen-and-paper are expected. I love a game with a bit of exploration: it’s fun to look around and find a cool new thing, because lord knows I have spent more time than I should have in similar adventure, open-worldy games.
It’s unfortunate, then, that I bounced off it so hard, when it checks enough boxes that I really should have liked it. I actually really liked the visual look of the game. The humor is well-written, the world and town are interesting to look through, themes are played at which I visit a lot personally. The ultimate problem, I think, is I just didn’t have fun actually playing the game to do those things.
Clicking to interact turns into a bit of a pixel hunt, where the game trains you to be paranoid by making every rock, vase, and bowl an interactable (and potentially searchable – you’ll almost never find anything) object. This isn’t helped at all by the proper click spots being both unmarked until you actually click them, and their placement can be off a little – I consistently had trouble interacting with doors, which added to the paranoia of wondering if THIS door or gate was scenery or something where I just missed the spot. The lack of any in-game logs or recordings of what you’ve discovered might play to the game’s inspirations, but recording things manually only made exploration more tedious, not rewarding.
Mechanically, combat is awkward at best: you cannot aim and move at the same time. In theory, this promotes good positioning. In practice, I either right-left clicked for snap-shots at enemies while on the move, or fumbled around getting comboed to death. The day-night cycle adds some life to the NPCs as they go through their routine, but I spent just as often heading to a bed to sleep (sometimes twice!) for time to pass so I can actually talk with people again.
What I experienced of The Real Texas, I thought was a delight. No doubt the rest of the game would be a fascinating trip. Which is why I’m sad that what I played of The Real Texas was annoying enough that I wasn’t willing to complete it.
I wish I enjoyed it. Nevertheless, I respect what it is and what it’s doing, and consider The Real Texas a good game.