Outward very early impressions

It does sound a lot more what I feared it would be like, rather than what I hoped.

I still could not really test it for a sufficiently long time, but the survival part (which I was willing to tolerate) may be too strong, hence ruining the exploration part (which I was looking forward to).

I basically want a proper RPG with Dark Souls combat. A super Gothic really. This ain’t it.

C stock title trys to be AAA.
no ty.

I like the game a lot. For every cherry picked negative review you can find 2 positive ones (seriously, 70+% of the user reviews are Positive on Steam). The game is very good and exactly what I expected and then some. It's your guys loss if you skip it, but I'm enjoying it a lot and getting a lot of Risen/Gothic vibes from it with Souls-like combat. Very enjoyable.

Yes, the combat does remind me of Gothic et al., too.

Man, I really WANT to like this.


Ah, by the way, if you want an "easy" way to safe your house (that is, avoid actually paying the blood price):

So mixed reviews that either say you will love or hate it then. Just how I like it then as to many games either get to many negative, or positive reviews to take seriously.

Unfortunately I'm playing other games right now to share my opinion.

Does anyone know whether there are consequences to stealing in the game? Other than getting rich, of course.

I've picked up everything not nailed down and sold it for about 30 coins

The reviewer must be pathetic. I suck at combat in games and I never die to the birds, the troglodytes, the hyenas, etc. Bandits can get me if there are two.

Not saying it's a good game. It's very niche in my opinion. I love looking for loot in every cranny, so it's working for me so far. The story seems to be really barebones. The biggest negative is there is a ton of walking/running and no fast travel at all. Also, the lack of save/restore is just a plain ass goofy idea for this type of game.

Originally Posted by Cacheperl
Yes, the combat does remind me of Gothic et al., too.

Man, I really WANT to like this.
[/SPOILER]

Just play it bro. A lot of the reviews on Steam are very glowing and positive, a lot of people like what they did. I already mentioned I'm enjoying it a lot, it's a great change of pace for an action RPG. Very Gothic-esque with beautiful, stunning graphics and view distances, a difficult world to survive in and satisfying combat. It's got a satisfying progression too, with no level scaling and a sense of progression in loot. Dark caves and nights require light sources and eventually you can hang a lantern on your backpack, but at first you need torches in one hand or a lantern. It's very immersive and enjoyable. I'm just setting out on the first path where I choose a faction (each of the 3 factions have their own everything, story, quests, etc.). I'm excited to explore more of the lovely alien world they've created.

So since you've gone into fanboy mode again(No offense meant), and played this game for a while can I ask a few questions? How is the writing, quests, and overall narrative?

As combat is not what I look for first when I decide what RPG's to play.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
So since you've gone into fanboy mode again(No offense meant), and played this game for a while can I ask a few questions? How is the writing, quests, and overall narrative?

As combat is not what I look for first when I decide what RPG's to play.

First I'm not in fanboy mode (whatever that is), I'm enjoying a new game like everyone else who is playing it (or most of them, check Steam if you don't believe me).

The writing is fine, but I'm still at the early stage of the game where I have to choose a faction and go meet them. So I haven't done a ton of quests or had a ton of dialogue yet. From what I can see so far, it's fine, not bad but not world-shattering either.

Only quest I've gotten so far was to find a special mushroom in a cave. The cave was dark and ominous, had a few fights and some difficulties but I recovered the mushroom and got a nice reward for it.

The combat is fun but you can avoid it if you don't want to risk it. The game is hard though so it will give you trouble if you try to button mash or not pay attention to your enemy's movements. You also have to decide - Do I want to fight this creature that might kill me? Or do I just sneak past/avoid them? The game is sort of like ELEX in that manner where tough creatures are present from the start. The world is dangerous and you have to move accordingly. When you die though, you get one of 90 random events to determine where you end up. You could be kidnapped, enslaved, or someone from town can recover you, etc.. You can't savescum so you have to be careful, which is a nice plus in my book.

The graphics to me are stunning, very crisp with a long view distance. Movement and combat is responsive and feels right, so it has good controls. Loot is fun to find and the progression is sort of Gothic-like where you start with nothing but get stronger as you go. The soundtrack is truly excellent and adds to the atmosphere a ton, it's sort of like an old-school JRPG soundtrack from the PS2 era, very nice. The backpack mechanic adds to the game as you have to be careful what you carry, carry too much and you get slower, carry too little and you might not have what you need to survive. Overall I'm enjoying it quite a bit, it's what I expected yet also more than I expected, it's an actual adventurer sim RPG.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
Better/upgradable backpacks probably; btw when does it save, i dont see any sign on the screen.

At least, it saves on quit. I'd expect auto-saves to happen during load screens (area transition and sleeping?). But yeah, that's only guessing.

And yes, I now finally understood the weight management is divided into current equipment (no restriction?), pouch (strictly limited) and backpack (limited, but upgradable. And downgradable, i.e., loosing it all.).

So yeah, getting better Backpacks goes a long way towards better loot.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
The reviewer must be pathetic. I suck at combat in games and I never die to the birds, the troglodytes, the hyenas, etc. Bandits can get me if there are two.

The birds running away is annoying. But, yes, the combat so far is pretty doable. I guess the hard part is to learn which of the tougher mobs are .. well, too tough.
Otherwise, the whole thing reminds me of Elex. People mostly complained about the combat because they did not understand how it works.

beautiful, stunning graphics and view distances
lol

Originally Posted by porcozaur
beautiful, stunning graphics and view distances
lol

I'm playing on Ultra at 144hz refresh rate and it's very beautiful. You can see miles in the distance, enemies spawn at a very long distance and nothing pops in at all. I like how it looks quite a bit.

People get the wrong idea when you say stunning graphics.

I can certainly enjoy sights such as the night sky, landscapes, lighthouse in the background, a mysteriously glowing cave… all very pretty. But the technical quality is a bit dated.

You're not going to convince Fluent that it's anything less than pure gold in every aspect. He tends to put on the blinders when he gets infatuated with a game.

I just finished installing it. Probably won't have time to try it until later tonight…

Originally Posted by Cacheperl
People get the wrong idea when you say stunning graphics.

I can certainly enjoy sights such as the night sky, landscapes, lighthouse in the background, a mysteriously glowing cave… all very pretty. But the technical quality is a bit dated.

I think Monsoon and the marsh is very pretty and atmospheric too. Dated or not, the game looks good to my eyes (on my new monitor ).

Played for about an hour. I'm going to start over and play some more tonight.

I have to agree that the graphics are pretty dated by today's standards. I'm playing on Ultra and it looks comparable to Medium settings on other recent games. I was messing around with AC: Odyssey yesterday and Outward is downright fugly by comparison. That's obviously not a very fair comparison considering the budget for AC games, but still…

The atmosphere seems decent. I strongly disagree that it's anything like Elex though. I don't get that same kind of vibe at all.

For one thing, it's scaled back in a lot of ways compared to other open-world games. No jumping, climbing, or swimming. I can get used to not being able to jump, but it's disappointing that we can't climb or swim because it would have added a lot to the exploration.

Also, NPCs are very rudimentary in this game or at least the ones I've seen so far. I led two hyenas back to my friend in the starting area thinking he would help me take them out, but he just sat there and did nothing. Likewise, the hyenas ignored him as if he wasn't there.

It definitely has that indie-budget feel to it. I'm not saying it's a bad game though. I'll give more impressions after I've sunk some time into it.

I guess my Elex comparison was a bit misleading. That was only in reference to the Combat comments.