The Outbound Ghost

As a longtime fan of Paper Mario and Bug Fables, I was genuinely excited to dive into The Outbound Ghost. These spiritual successors to the classic paper RPG formula tend to blend 2D charm with 3D depth in a way that's both nostalgic and refreshing. Visually, The Outbound Ghost fits right into that aesthetic hall of fame—it’s adorable, expressive, and visually cohesive, with an art style that pays homage while still feeling distinct. The gameplay systems show real promise too: collecting Aspects to modify combat, gathering materials to craft them, unlocking traversal-based abilities, and uncovering a layered world with philosophical depth. There’s an earnest attempt here to explore heavy psychological and existential themes, all wrapped in a soft, pastel world of spirits. It’s quirky, it’s heartfelt—and conceptually, it swings big. But in execution? It stumbles. Hard. Despite its strong start, the game quickly becomes mind-numbingly linear. I stayed up for three additional hours, not out of excitement, but sheer hope that the story would eventually open up or surprise me. Instead, what unfolded felt like a slow, overwrought high school drama—drawn out and emotionally weightless. …

Overall I'd give this game a 4/10. The visuals are beautiful to look at, and the timing of the combat inputs is really tight (which would be annoying if they didn't). However, I'd say that's where the redeeming qualities end. It felt like oftentimes I was just wandering through the map from Point A to Point B, sometimes taking a detour to Point C and fighting whatever got in my way. There's no puzzles. Minimal exploration rewards. In fact, most of the time I felt like I took a detour to explore off-route and ended up feeling like I wasted my time or found a dead-end, which wouldn't bother me so much if walking wasn't so slow. The combat in this game (like the visuals) pulls from Paper Mario games. Your player character collects these "Figments," which are your party members and have different aspects and abilities. You can also equip them with items that will grant new abilities, make them better in certain aspects, etc. When you use an attack, there is usually a combination of inputs or specific timing to do to get the move to do the most damage or get the most benefit. While the structure of combat is pretty interesting, none of the enemies in the time I played felt challengin…

My review plus some info about the sequel / "Reborn Edition." Oh yeah! Thank goodness they fixed all their legal problems and fixed this this game! I just played for almost 20 hours straight and LOVED it. I wish they could have gotten rid of all the old reviews about the older version tarnishing this little fun pearl that kept me from trying it. Yes, it isn't quite Paper Mario, but it is Paper-Mario-like and a fun story. I had a great time with every second of exploration and trying to 100% the achievements (and succeeding). The game lets you make it as difficult or easy for yourself as you'd like with very user-friendly settings that won't affect your ability to gain the achievements. I ran into one glitch where I got stuck in some boxes while exploring a map thoroughly for secrets and had to back to a saved position. Thankfully, save spots (campfires) are EVERYWHERE, and I'm a save freak. Your POV does jump to a couple of different characters, which fills in the gaps of the mystery of the storyline. For such a cute game, this game is super-dark. Spoiler: [spoiler](A big part of the game is that you're trying to solve how a whole town got murdered.)[/spoiler] THE FUTURE: I …

I love this game. I know that it had its problems with the lawsuit, but those are over. This game is original. The story on great so far. I actually love the writing, the battles (on the hardest difficulty) require thought and inginuity. Dev, thank you for sticking with this game through the lawsuit and updating it to get through the issues from before. I really look forward to the sequel even though I'm not done with this one yet. Great work.

I couldn't get past the extremely weird control layout. for a game that was just released on switch there needs to be controller support. I would try to play again with proper controller support but right now the controls feel unnatural.

The game is okay. It looks beautiful, the OST is beautiful too & the first part of the game is fairly enjoyable... but it has a lot of issues, which I can understand might be related to the legal troubles surrounding its release. For me, the best part was the combat. It's similar to Pokémon/Dragon Quest Monsters & it's not *too* easy. You can build different teams, come up with strategies & experiment with different approaches. That said I don't understand why the SP (maná) of some "magic"-oriented Figments are so limited when their abilities are so expensive to use. I'd recommend the game if you're mainly looking for gameplay & combat. Also, from what I could tell, the game seems to scale levels for story progression so I never really felt the need to grind in order to keep up. Now for the negatives. The game feels unfinished. Again, I understand that the legal issues may have played a role here. There are things that are never explained, such as certain ghosts in a specific area. They say strange things but neither random NPC dialogue nor the main story ever explains them. Some characters who accompany you throughout the story simply stop appearing at some point.…