Do yourself a favor, download an emulator and play the Windows or Mac version from the 1990's. Read on if you want a rant about an unpolished trainwreck.

Major Issues

Quitting the game while in Matt's shop causes the app to lockup on re-launch. Literally un-playable.

Losing network connectivity (wi-fi disconnect / reconnect), triggers a full-game restart because of Game Center. It also appears that some amount of data is going to a server.

A remake / revisioning of a pre-Macintosh classic pegs a single core of a 2020 Intel CPU to draw bland artwork.

Gameplay

Dysentary, broken limbs and snakebites are all treated by the same "medicine", and all repairs use "toolboxes", but there's still separate wheels, axles and tongue for you to not have when the time comes.

Characters including the one from the tutorial with a broken leg travel by walking alongside the wagon rather than riding in it. It's impressively cruel to the pixellated stick-figures.

Characters are chosen, one at a time, from a pool of three randomly generated options. A banker is worth $50. A non-banker is worth 1 item worth less than $50. Adjectives also matter.

There's an arbitary distinction between spotting bison and shooting bison.

Graphics

Spacing and alignment are all over the place. The aesthetic is faux-retro, but the result is both blurry and over-pixelated. The effect is wildly inconsistent, mixing modern anti-aliased fonts and hard pixeled variations on the same screen.

User Interface

Text editing requires modals. This is a post-keyboard world, Macs just live in it. Shop is confusing. Picking supplies is a math problem. Unwinding over-purchases is challenging. This was a solved problem in the 1990s, you filled out something roughly analogous to an order slip and adjustments were easy.

Overuse (read: use) of transitions and cutscenes slows eveything down. This is great if you're catering to modern norms or want a gameplay to take longer for some reason. It's less helpful when re-imagining a classic.

The wagon's inventory management is a charming throwback made frustrating with repetitive additional clicks to perform repairs or use items.

Social Justice

This is advertised by forced two paragraph callout when you start playing, otherwise it wouldn't merit commentary; you can now have Indians in you party. One named "Moses" is forced into your party to teach the three white people about medicine which cures both fever and cholera, but he only has one dose to teach you that status affects are bad. Then he shows you how to hunt because only the Indians starts with a gun. This whole sentiment is ham-handed and incredibly tone-deaf, but it's okay because only offensive to white people.

Miscellany

Game is ©2021 Gameloft, made using Epic's Unreal engine. It's entertaining to see Epic's technology "showcased" on Apple Arcade.