alkir-2

Finally decided to write a review of this... thing - for lack of better word. Others have said it many times already - the game is unpolished, has poor graphics (the landscapes aren't bad, though), and is, generally, a mix of interesting, but poorly executed ideas. For example, a system any Dark Souls veteran knows well - all actions cost stamina - is taken to the next level in Outward and completely destroyed at the same time. On the one hand, when stamina (health and mana too, for that matter) is used, your max stamina is sligtly lowered as well, until you rest or recover it otherwise. This simulates fatigue and is an overall nice touch. But at the same time, stamina regeneration, even with buffs, is so painfully slow, you have to run around te enemy in circles for about a minute after attacking and roll-evading a couple of times. Attacks and rolls are yet another matter. And I'm going to talk about blocking here as well. First of all, there is no "action interrupt" in Outward. Which means, once you started an attack, you must wait for it's animation to finish, up to a point of returning to the original "ready" position, before you can block or roll. In most situations it means getting hit, which can be fatal wit stronger opponents. Opponents, or rather, their AI, is yet anoter problem with Outward. The AI is totally stupid and behaves accordingly. Enemies rarely care about their well-being, ignoring player's attack and slicing you up as you are trying to bash their skull in with a giant axe. When they do react to player's attacks, they do it AFTER being hit - they get damaged, roll away, and enter block mode. They may keep blocking while you block or just wait for an opening and then unexpectedly open up and try to attack you just as you finally decide to break their block. As a result, you mostly win (unless an enemy is too strong for your current equipment), but are always left slightly wounded, forcing you to heal. But the things I wrote about above are not just individual problems the game has. I believe, they all stem from a mistake developers made, while creating the game. You see, as I already said, AI is less than perfect. Should Outward have a well-polished system, like Dark Souls or even some other, less hardcore slashers, AI would simply not be able to cope with the player. And I believe, developers, instead of perfecting AI, decided to handicap the player. Take bows, for example. Enemies don't react to player shooting at them (they only react to being hit), but when you lock on, the aim reticle starts dancing around the enemy, making it close to impossible to hit them while evading their attacks. While it's OK for melee enemies (just aim manually, that's all), ranged foes bacome almost unbeatable with bows. Magic. Outward as a nice system of spell combinations - in order to cast a powerful spell, one must combine it with another one, wich often requires physical items or special spots in te world to be cast. And it's great. Except it's only the player, who has to go the long way. All enemies, not only Elementals or Magical Creatures, but also humans, can cast spells without any preparation at all. An Ice projectile, which, for the player, is a combination of two fairly advanced spells is a trivial flick of a hand for a common bandit wizard (who even studied with the same teacher as the player). Add to that the fact, that a player has almost literally zero motivation to actually explore the rather empty world (as there is rarely any useful unique loot in the dungeons and you can earn enough money by revisiting the fairly easy locations from te game start), and Outward loses all charm it might have had. Overall, a poorly made game, that could have been way better if done by just about any other studio.