Described by developer Condradical as "Paper Mario + Undertale" on the game's Kickstarter page, The Outbound Ghost garnered some attention with its aesthetic and gameplay along with its premise: the residents of the town of Outbound all quite suddenly died. Many of them have lingering burdens that keep them from moving onto the afterlife. You initially assume the role of an amnesiac ghost as he explores the town, meeting its spectral residents and uncovering a bit by bit what exactly happened. It sounds grim, sure, but it’s all wrapped up in a cutesy package that never devolves too much into the macabre. The game has finally arrived (though not without drama between Conradical and publisher Digerati) and can be played on a Nintendo platform, as all papery RPGs should.
If you’ve played Paper Mario before, the gameplay loop is quite similar. While exploring the areas around Outbound, touching a malevolent enemy in the overworld will trigger a turn-based battle. In battle you control four of a selection of figments of your own psyche – Solitude, Spite, Comradery, and so on – that manifest themselves as party members. Attacks are reflex-based, with an improperly timed button press resulting in a miss and a perfectly timed one increasing damage.
There are quite a lot of figments that unlock as you progress, giving you a wide range to choose from when you make up your party of four. Some heal, some focus on attacking multiple times per turn, some spread debuffs like it's their ghostly day job, but unlike the allies in Paper Mario, these figments have no personality to them.
To mix combat up a little, each figment can ‘Aether Up’ to save its action and attack twice or more in a later turn, and enemies have a stun gauge to fill. Once the battle’s done, it’s off exploring again, picking up dozens of different items scattered about each zone to craft and equip stat buffs and new skills.
Yes, there’s quite a lot of freedom to the combat that we appreciated, though it comes at the cost with some wonky balancing and an oversaturation of skills. We never used quite a lot of figments and even more buff and debuff types – there was simply too much to really keep track of when other strategies worked just fine. Combat felt more like a wide, shallow pond than a deep lake, especially because on normal difficulty, regular enemies rarely posed a threat or required much strategy to defeat. On harder difficulties, they became a gruelling pain to defeat.
Frequent bosses, however, fared better. Some bouts end up being lengthy battles of attrition as one of your early figments can replenish the resource used for skills in order to heal ad nauseum. Quite a few other bosses allowed us to think up some clever tactics to speed up the process. For example, a boss near the end of the first chapter had one giant mushroom poisoning our ghastly party and the other attacking us thrice each round. As poison deals damage per action, we poisoned the attacking mushroom back, defended, and healed until it defeated itself, then carefully took care of the poisoning mushroom baddie once the other wasn’t a threat. On the whole, we found ourselves avoiding regular battles where we could — especially because loading into them took several seconds — while looking forward to some of the boss fights.
The gameplay outside of battle fares about the same. A barebones minigame to pick locks functions as the only other diversion aside from finding hidden items behind bushes and lighting the odd torch to open up a path. Rarely did we feel rewarded for exploration, since most of the items we found were for crafting, but sometimes we stumbled upon a pleasant little vista that showcased some nice setpieces.
The Switch, however, doesn’t do these scenic spaces justice: the entire game has a fuzzy, low-res sheen over it that is quite apparent when comparing to PC footage, made worse when undocked as the skill menu text is often too blurry to read clearly in battle. The music, on the other hand, did an overall great job at setting a whimsical, adventurous mood.
We wouldn’t mind the drawbacks too much if The Outbound Ghost gave us a serviceable story to keep us invested. While the premise did grab our attention initially, the story quickly meandered and lost it. For much of the game, you chase an angry little ghost called Adrian who may or may not have answers to what happened to Outbound. Along the way, a cast of villagers will tag along with you to provide context and push the narrative along. Problem is, there’s so many of these characters – such as Michael the wannabe detective, and a cowardly ghost named Craig – that we never grew attached to any of them. In fact, we began to actively dread meeting new additions to the cast and the ample dialogue that followed. Again, wide and shallow rather than concise and deep.
Each chapter also changes the protagonist you control – from the voiceless amnesiac you begin with to others we won’t spoil, including a new character unlocked post-game – but these continual shifts in perspective and flashbacks took us out of the narrative rather than kept us in it. It felt quite strange to be given a voiceless protagonist and then shift to characters that we didn’t care much about that had established personalities.
Conclusion
Much like a shimmering ghost seen for just a fleeting moment, The Outbound Ghost flirts with taking the corporeal form of a great Paper Mario-style game but it never fully materialises. The heart is definitely there, with some great music and environments to go along with adorable little ghost characters, but a shallow battle system, a meandering narrative, and fuzzy presentation left us wanting in just about every ghostly regard.
Comments 41
You have read that the publisher sent out a previous version of the game, not the finished product.
Guessing you didn't take this into account, especially whilst advertising the physical which is fundamentally flawed
@Bunkerneath On top of that, NL even reported on this very story. I was surprised to see this review here after that.
Another example of an indie game that claimed it was going to give fans what they have been calling out for but only ended up showing they lack the skill to actually deliver. Truth is no one does it quite like Nintendo do.
@Bunkerneath
I mean... they can't sugar coat a game review even though they know it wasn't the developer's fault.
@Bunkerneath The game launched this month and will be of interest to readers who are Paper Mario fans, hence the review.
The relationship status of the developer and publisher and all the drama around the launch (which we linked to coverage of in the review text) ultimately can't factor into our assessment of the game itself. It's available to purchase on the Switch eShop, and this is our verdict on that product.
I was pretty intrigued by this one myself but everyone I'd seen who had played it didn't really enjoy it so I'm unfortunately going to pass on this one. A big shame too since I've recently gotten into PM through the original coming to NSO last year. There's always Bug Fables I suppose....
A pity, it looked pretty good.
For those interested in this type of games, ORIGAMI KING is such a gem, nothing to do with Stickers Star and much better than Color Splash (which wasn't bad, mind you). Aside from the combat, it's a full Paper Mario game, better than most.
I mean that's why tossing money at any Kickstarter game is usually a bad idea. They made their money before they even had a product and now it's just icing on the cake when they sell this for...jesus $25?!
@bluemage1989 Weird blanket statement on indie games when there are very high profile big budget games that are clear examples of AAA studios getting it wildly wrong too.
Before people start to trashing Colour Splash and Origami King again, I want to say that I loved Colour Splash - it was a 10/10 for me and Origami King was a 9.5/10
And because The Outbound Ghost, it looks like I have to wait for a retail re-release with all the patches and updates on it. If we ever get one hopefully. Maybe the game isn't a masterpiece, but not many developers can make games like Nintendo. It will be a good game between Nintendo games as a filler for me.
"[...]but unlike the allies in Paper Mario, these figments have no personality to them."
Well, the current side characters in Paper Mario don't either, with exception of the tag-along one off character that pushes the story along.
@dartmonkey
I wonder what about the PS5 version of this game?
Are every version have the flaws as Switch version?
Because I already like this game and want to get the PS5 version.
Ah that’s a shame. Feel bad for the dev but also, good luck getting another publisher to sign you.
@heisnbrg Completely agree, i absolutely loved Colour Splash, why it gets lumped in with Sticker Star all the time i don't know, it was a huge improvement on it i thought.
@Bunkerneath Bug and performance fixes doesn't make the story better, or the combat deeper, or exploring worthwhile. This review barely focused on Switch performance. And the Switch got the patch on December 12 anyway.
@Anti-Matter I played the PS5 version and it runs well apart from some battle transitions being long and some objects not appearing/floating.
@Bunkerneath The problems it has are exactly why it should be reviewed though. Plenty of people who aren’t clued up on everything in gaming who might see this on the eShop and think it looks cool and go to see reviews. If there’s no reviews they might end up buying it and end up with a shoddy game. It’s really nothing to do with the consumers who buy the end product whether there were issues with the publisher or not- if it’s been released then it should be reviewed whether they promised to fix it or not.
This does highlight the issue of why games should be reviewed after patches since games are in a unique position compared to other art forms like films and books but unless you’re an independent YouTuber or writer with your own site I can see why outlets would be hesitant to pay for updated reviews, especially when said games have become “old news”
Why review this now, 3 weeks after launch, just when the developer is trying to relaunch a proper version of his game? The timing of this all is really unfortunate.
A lot of the complainers on Steam mentions that this game was released without permission from the original dev so it seems this is just an unfinished game rush to released by Digerati. I say hold this review until the actual finish game is out first. This is not fair to Conradical Games, the dev of the game.
@Bunkerneath Developers and/or publishers shouldn't send out games that are not complete. What is this new trend? It only promotes negative feedback.
@Mauzuri As a fan who play every games in the Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi series, I disagree. Those games are super high quality and more charming than these indie trash, they are only disappointing if you compare them to the older ones. The only indie game that came close to Paper Mario's offering is Bug Fables and even that one had its downer too. Reason for the disappointment with Sticker Stars and Color Splash is cause those games were made with their platform in mind and the ideas which could only be done on those systems while indie games are made to take inspirations from those. Inspirational titles are good but may feels lacking if they also don't add something new to the table too.
@Bunkerneath None of the flaws brought up in the review have anything to do with the issues the developer cited though. Except maybe the resolution.
The gameplay, story and content is the same across versions, including the PC version the developer was happy with. Only the performance on console will be the difference, the PC version won't have better story or gameplay.
@Toadie You have to remember that majority of people didn't even play the game due to the console it was on, so they just wrote it off, which I find rather unfortunate
@Fizza If you like PM64, just wait until the day you somehow get your hands on PM: The Thousand Year Door (another one of the GameCube exclusives Nintendo hasn't yet saved). Then you'll see what we've been begging for since.
@NielsNL Because it's in the eShop NOW, as opposed to having been pulled until the developer and pub can sort things out. People interested in the game will be looking for a review NOW, not later. Therefore, they deserve to know how the experience is NOW, not later.
I did have interest in this but no more. Sad.
@Bobb I guess you haven't played the last one.
Hopefully I'll have learned my lesson about pre-ordering games before reading the final review! The lag is so bad, it makes the timing of some of the attack commands laughable. Another Paper Mario clone bites the dust. Guess Bug Fables still reigns supreme on switch.
If only there was an indie game on switch that offered the experience of the old paper Mario games, and might even surpass them.
If only
@the_beaver
Say what you will about origami King’s partners, Bobby is freaking awesome and ranks up with the best of the originals for me.
@blindsquarel I agree, it has great characters in general, but that one is especially awesome.
@Bunkerneath
Cyberpunk was rushed, does that mean all of its flaws should be excused.
@NielsNL because they're a video game reviewing site? What are you smoking
@Bunkerneath
what would you have them do differently?
It looks awful, sorry.
@Mauzuri
If you think Sticker Star or Color Splash are bad you haven't played enough games
Wow I was prepared for a 7/10 at least... ah well... I'm not a fan of the name.... should've been called just Outbound. Sometimes less is more.
@heisnbrg Let me get this straight, the bare bones Color Splash is a 10/10... but TOK has a slightly lower score??
...
Such speciment actually exists.... fascinating!
Yes, I like the coloring-mechanic with the hammer in Colour Splash more. And in Origami King the fights against normal enemies a little bit too long repetitive. The boss fights are amazing, but the fights against normal enemies took a little bit too long for me.
@Old_Man_Nintendo
Color Splash wasn't bad - it just needed more time in the oven.
It would've been amazing if a few issues were worked out. I so wish Nintendo would release a remastered version with the kinks worked out and some more meaningful upgrades/progression. It certainly had lots of cool ideas and elements going on.
(For example, cooking that steak properly took me hours to figure out, and that kind of stuff was ridiculous. Barely having a hint what to do was more frustrating than immersive. I know that I'm not alone, because there are videos for it.)
edited for typos and crap
@Bunkerneath They can only review what they have been given and what the publisher has put out, they can't put a score on a promise.
The only things I weren't a fan of were the long loading screens (particularly during battle transitions) and the handling of the finale, the latter which I thought was a big misstep that lasted way too long than necessary.
Otherwise, I greatly enjoyed The Outbound Ghost myself. It was a bit of a blast for me to playthrough left and right, the numerous accessibility options were great to see to help alleviate the common problem of having to grind in RPGs (albeit satisfying to certain degrees), and the overall vibe of the entire game was quite intriguing to me. This game and Bug Fables are equal to me, personally, but I'm always down for more Paper Mario-like indie games like these.
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