Outland Review (PS3)

     Outland is easy to describe in videogame-ese. It's a Metroidvania game with an Ikaruga-esque polarity switching mechanic. If you understand what that means, that's probably enough for you to want to try it out. That along with the smooth gameplay I experienced in the demo that's available on PSN certainly sold me.

     Outland is the story of...something. Two sisters are trying to destroy the world and you are this guy out in the jungle and you try to stop them by channeling ancient warrior powers. Something along those lines. After the intro, the story really takes a back seat and it is pretty much just gameplay from there on out. Obviously the story didn't have too big of an impact on me since I can barely remember it.

     The game is divided into five areas and a hub world that connects them all. You enter a 2d level, explore it while fighting enemies and looking for a key to get into the boss room, then go kill the boss to complete it. All the while you will be gaining new abilities that let you get through the new obstacles presented in the level. You can always return to a level through the hub world or through teleport spots that you open up, and the new powers you get will allow you to access new areas in those old levels that you couldn't get to before. I found the set-up to be a little more contained than most other Metroidvanias since each level stands on its own. There's no reason to backtrack through a level if you don't want to, you'll just miss out on power-ups (such as shrines that increase your max health and special attack energy) and collectibles and stuff like that, but nothing totally necessary.

     The controls start simple but soon map out to the whole controller as you gain more and more powers. Cross is jump, square is attack with your sword, and R1 switches your polarity. Your attack changes to an upward strike or a low slash if you press up or down and square. If you jump at a wall, you will stick to it for a second. You can jump off of a wall you are stuck to by pressing cross again. This is really helpful in a game that is refreshingly lacking a double jump. I love that it's not in here. You can jump really high, you can jump off of walls to get even higher, and your character will very effectively grab onto ledges, but no double jumping! I love double jumping, but it doesn't have to be in every 2d platformer ever, and I'm really happy that it isn't in this one. Those are the basic controls, but you will soon add many more. I won't spoil them all, but you get the ability to slide by pressing down and cross, do an obstacle smashing charge attack by holding down R2, and fire a giant Kamehameha wave across the screen by holding circle, among several other powers. Many of these powers take up special attack energy, which you regain by killing enemies.

     The polarity rules in this game differ slightly from Ikaruga's. In Outland, you must be the opposite color of an enemy in order for your normal attacks to damage it (some special attacks ignore this rule). Like Ikaruga, you absorb bullets that are the same color as you, although physical attacks from any colored enemy will damage you. So, for example, if you are fighting a red enemy that shoots red bullets, you should approach it in the red polarity to absorb its bullets, then quickly switch to blue in order for your attacks to damage it. This polarity concept brilliantly carries over to the platforming side of the gameplay as well. Certain platforms snap in and out of existence as you change colors. You can only stand on them when you are the same color they are (although you can always see their outline, even if you are the wrong color). There are also platforms that you can always stand on but that will move if you change to their color.

     The platform and combat scenarios that the different levels throw at you using these polarity mechanics are the game's main strength. There are countless platforming situations where you need to rapidly switch colors to activate platforms and then switch back and forth to avoid the fountains that spew out different colored bullets. Stages are loaded with these unkillable bullet fountains that spray out beautiful patterns of red and blue bullets you will need to absorb in order to advance. Just like in Ikaruga, it's little bit of an epiphany to switch colors multiple times to absorb a screen full of bullets to get though an area where the bullets literally cannot be dodged. It's like these games are breaking a cardinal rule of gaming, and your mind is expanding along with the scope of the situations they present to you. Throw some enemies in there that you need to be the opposite color of in order to kill and platforms that you don't want to activate (such as ones that drop you too low to keep going if you are the same color as them) and you'll really need to put on your thinking cap and then execute.

     Combat situations are similar in the way they make you think, as you'll be taking on multiple enemies with different attack patterns that are also different colors, making how good you are at switching colors and using you special attacks judiciously the deciding factors in whether or not you blaze through the enemies unscathed or take a boat load of damage before the fight is over. Since you primarily use melee attacks, the combat feels somewhat similar to Symphony of the Night. It has the same feel of trying to jump over and around enemies in order to get a hit in on them without getting hit that Symphony does, but you're going to be switching your polarity back and forth as you do so since bullet fountains are often around when you are fighting. There is an interesting variation on the polarity based combat that pops up in the game too to shake things up a bit (no spoilers!).

     Digression: this game also has a playable flashback like Symphony, and a sound effect that is strikingly similar to one found in Alucard's game. Also, the newly released Guacamelee! is a Metroidvania game with a polarity switching mechanic. I guess part of this genre is building on and homaging the games that came before!

     Fighting each of the game's bosses is great fun. I won't even say what they are, you should experience them yourself. Some of them are screen-filling monsters. Others are more human sized but you face them in really crazy situations. The final boss fight is quite epic and challenging, just like I like it.

     The graphics are very beautiful. The player and enemies are silhouettes with colored parts, mainly in the the polarity colors of red and blue. The main character is especially well animated. His running, jumping, climbing, and attacking animations all perfectly compliment the smooth feeling of the controls. I was very impressed with how natural controlling the main guy looked and felt the first time I played the demo. The backgrounds of the levels are also very impressive. There's a lot of stuff hanging by chains and subtly shifting in the background. There are also waterfalls and fires, so something in the background is almost always moving or shifting around. It's a great effect that adds a lot of atmosphere, especially since the backgrounds are very detailed and filled with symbols and architecture to begin with. Also the snow effect in the icy level is really cool. Sometimes you catch a subliminal glimpse of a giant snowflake passing by in the foreground, which is really awesome looking.

     The music is very subtle most of the time, which fits the feel of the game quite nicely. The music is in the background, helping to set the mood, but not really defining what is going on. It works well.

     I played the main game for about 10 hours to get all the single player trophies. It was probably about 7-8 to just beat it. Pretty good length for what it is. The other modes include co-op (which I hear is cool but I didn't get to play), and arcade mode, which gives you a handful of powers and a time limit to get through an entire level. You get points in this mode for killing enemies and picking up gold, and there are online leaderboards. I didn't really get into this mode. I played through the first few levels of this mode many months after playing the main game, and it was a fun way to re-play levels. After the first couple of levels, I ended up getting stuck on the harder bosses. The 4th boss is kind of... cheap... so I blazed through the level and then died to the boss over and over until time ran out. Then I tried the final level. The level was fun, but that boss is so hard... it would take a lot of re-playing to be good enough to beat the boss before time ran out. I love that the bosses are hard, but beating them in time requires more dedication than I want to put in right now. It's a fun mode to play around with though.

     What I really wanted to do was play the game again on a higher difficulty setting, preferably one where one hit kills you. I was expecting Outland to be a hardcore challenge. This is mainly because I played Ikaruga fairly recently, and as you may know, that game is really, really hard. Outland is certainly challenging, but doesn't rise to Ikaruga's level of difficulty. It has a nice pace and progression like a Metroidvania game should, but unfortunately lacks the payoff off the hardcore difficulty of the bullet-curtain games it draws inspiration from. An uber hard difficulty mode would have been really fun, and not overly frustrating due to the frequent check points. Unfortunately there is no difficulty setting. I thought about trying to do this as a self imposed challenge, but I couldn't make myself do it. Maybe I'm stupid, but I want the game to impose this on me and encourage me to play this way with a trophy. That's my main gripe with the game. I think I could have had another 7 hours of fun on super-hard mode, but it didn't exist. Having multiple hit points is great for your first time through, but the difficult polarity switching combat situations and platforming sections are begging to be done perfectly, and I really wish there was a game mode and that forced you to complete them without multiple hit points allowing you to brute force your way through.

     I had a great time with Outland, but couldn't shake a feeling of disappointment while playing. It just felt wrong to be able to keep going after taking a hit from the waves of bullets filling the screen. It's the 2d space ship shooter fan in me that saw all those bullets and wanted a hardcore challenge. Outland is a challenge in the normal video game sense, but not in the hardcore Monster Hunter, Demon's Souls, Ikaruga sense like I was hoping it would be. For that reason, I'm docking it a bit, although I'm sure you can tell from this review that I certainly enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a Tier 3 great game.