Review for Outbuddies. Game for PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 15/10/2019 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 13/06/2020 The version for Xbox One came out on 13/06/2020
"Ocean man, take me by the hand, lead me to the land" in this case is not the lyrics of a Ween song, but it is a phrase that describes above all the plot of the interesting game discussed below.
OUTBUDDIES DX is a video game developed by Julian Laufer and published by Headup on October 15, 2019. It was created using the Clickteam Fusion 2.5 graphics engine. It is a strong indie-style metroidvania but with action and adventure characters designed to be tackled in single, but which also features a cooperative mode locally and via Steam Remote Play. The game can be purchased on PC and for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles.
The player plays the adventurer and archaeologist Nikolay Bernestein, who together with his little droid explores the fortress of Bahlam, located in the abyss of the ocean and belonging to the ancient gods.
This is obviously not a holiday trip, but a difficult undertaking carried out through a long and winding road ahead. The goal is to free the friendly Wozan - a tribe whose ancestors have been enslaved in the past - who, afraid of the ancient gods, want to rise to the surface at all costs.
As for the gameplay, the elements of the typical metroidvania are all there. That is to say that OUTBUDDIES DX is a platform in which the combat system consists of shooting enemies and defeating bosses, which in this case are ancient sea creatures that are decidedly monstrous and of Lovecraftian iconography. Each of them has its own pattern that follows a certain logic also based on the behavior and position of the player.
You move step by step from one part of the game map to the other, which although huge manages not to create too much confusion in the player. Using weapons in a certain way grants the ability to move to new zones, within which you can find upgrades and tokens to give to a Wozan in exchange for immediate rebirths. You can also use your drone in order to move objects and solve puzzles as small as simple, always in order to continue the exploration of the fortress.
On the Steam store page, the game has among its various tags that of "difficult". Remembering that these tags can be added by users of the online video game platform and are therefore the result of a subjective opinion of the public, we can draw inspiration to say that in reality the game is of a balanced and fair difficulty.
Even if you are at your first approach to video games of this genre, OUTBUDDIES DX should not be so difficult in our opinion. The reasoning also applies to the different bosses scattered around the map, which require a minimum of application but that once studied their attack patterns are not so hard to take down.
Now let's talk about the graphics sector, which is certainly worthy of being described. If the title is modern in its gameplay, it is equally retro in its choice of style. The idea is in fact to recall the first Metroid-style products, through a lack of light deriving from the fact that the place where the story takes place is located in the deepest abyss of the ocean. But the representation of what concerns the boundary between legend and reality proposed by the game does not lead to a totally static scenario as one might think, but to a dynamic and lively context through the use of numerous details and animated elements.
Precisely for this choice of location, a large part of the background is made up of total darkness, except for those few subjects placed in the background that give three-dimensionality to the surrounding space. In particular, dark colors such as blue, black and purple are preferred, which are clearly highlighted by the light colors such as green and red used in their immediate vicinity. In addition to this there is a choice of design in which the play of shadows constitutes the perspective and the sense of depth of the environment.
OUTBUDDIES DX is a title worth checking out if you are a fan of metroidvania that base their concept on more modern features, but which at the same time are closer to a classic Castlevania than to an RPG like Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Without taking away the fact that the player is constantly accompanied by an excellent soundtrack, which emphasizes the thriller feeling you get while playing.
► Outbuddies is a Platform-Adventure-indie-type game developed and published by Headup Games for PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 15/10/2019 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 13/06/2020 The version for Xbox One came out on 13/06/2020
