[Consol Games] The Outbound Ghost Review

[Douma]

The Outbound Ghost is a turn-based RPG with a spiritual premise but a cuddly, family-friendly feel. The Paper Mario vibes are strong with this one, with the game’s light-hearted appearance and battle system. The Nintendo Switch seems an ideal platform to enjoy this adventure into the afterlife, especially if you’re looking for a fairly casual RPG experience. Unfortunately, ghostly niggles in the form of performance issues on the platform make it hard to recommend at this stage. 

The town of Outbound has several resident ghosts who are having a bit of trouble ascending to the afterlife. Initially, you play as a ghost suffering from amnesia. It seems even in death; no video game character is safe from this most awful and common of ailments. With the help of your fellow spirits, you’ll explore Outbound, discovering the mystery surrounding the town and helping other ghosts resolve their pent-up issues.

The story is presented in text boxes, so parents remember to have those funny voices at the ready. The game’s general feel is family-friendly despite the overarching theme of death. You’ll encounter a variety of ghostly NPCs of varying personalities, many of which will share the odd joke whilst accompanying you on small stints of the adventure. As you progress to future chapters, you’ll take command of other ghosts, but I won’t spoil the plot any further. 

The general gameplay loop is the light exploration and battling ghostly foes. To do battle, you use figments which are manifestations of your psyche, such as Regret, Solitude, Corruption and many more. Not the nicest of names, but the sprites sure look adorable.

You can have up to four of these in a party at once and each one has its own speciality such as healing or defence. As you progress through the game, you will unlock more figments, but you also discover secret ones by finding hidden gravestones scattered through the world. 

As you explore the world, you can see enemies patrolling. You can choose to engage in battle directly with them. Or alternatively, make use of a variety of foliage like hedges to hide and get the jump on them, giving you a starting advantage in battle. When you hide, the screen will dim, and the game’s sounds will muffle, indicating you’re out of enemy sight, a useful mechanic, especially if you dislike stealth mechanics.

Once battle commences, it’s a turn-based affair. Each turn, you can select an action for one of your figments, such as an attack or use a special skill. Each time you select an action, a slider activates, wherein you must stop a cursor in a specific zone to achieve the most damage. The pattern for this is easy to follow with a standard attack but for some of the skills, the cursor will swing very fast and unexpectedly, making it tricky to achieve a successful hit. Other than this, I liked the battle system. The player is given many options to approach each encounter, whether you want to experiment with various skills or keep things simple. Your figments level up as a group, even the ones not in the main party, which nicely reduces a tedious grind.

Outside of battling, the exploration feels a bit light. You can explore the world to find hidden chests, find crafting materials and create new perks for your figments, but there is not much else to do. You can, of course, talk to NPCs and engage in a small lock-picking mini-game, but I guess I was expecting to see a little more variety in the gameplay, like additional mini-games or gameplay variation. The formula here keeps things pretty simple. 

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