Look Outside

• Genre: Horror RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: A little. This is arguably one of those games it might be best to experience without having too much information. If you're already planning to play but haven't yet. It's best not to read too far in here.
• Time Played: 35 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Felt pretty good to me. I did the vast majority in a single run, but if I was playing a bit more linear, I could have knocked it out in half the time easy, and it's probably the way it was more designed to be played.
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Soundtrack: It's mostly pretty good, a little repetitive at time, but it has some bangers.
• Why I played: Alice insisted I play it, I kind of jokingly said I would play it after Adventures of Elliot with little intention of finishing Elliot any time soon, or playing something else and then saying "Yeah, and it will still be AFTER Elliot, even if I play 5 more games next", but I wasn't really feeling anything I've been wanting to get into so I just jumped right in.
• Jank: It's one of those games where you can easily click through dialog boxes and you may have to repeatedly read dialog, but that's partially on me for being impatient.
• Difficulty: Early on it's more about survival and using each resource carefully, but later on it's a bit easier - at least playing the way I did, so maybe combat isn't meant to be so easy. But the real difficult lies in the times where you need figure out how to proceed properly. It's a little difficult of a game overall, but nothing crazy.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very please with this. I'm not sure I expected all too much, and at first I just along for the ride, but eventually it clicked and I was very interested to see how things would turn out... at every turn.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would. I think a lot of people would get even more out of it than me. Especially people who don't feel the need to do every little thing and go full-completionist as they play through a game. People who are interested in the game enough to give it a couple playthroughs. There is definitely enough variation in how things turn out to have a couple, if not a few more or less wholly unique playthroughs if you're not trying to do everything. I also especially would recommend it to anyone who likes eldritch/cosmic horror.
  

The first thing I would do upon starting the game is Look Outside. I would find myself at many points in the game wanting to Look Outside. Maybe this is the time there will be an answer when I Look Outside. In a game where you awaken to a mystery of something beyond your comprehension, it's hard to talk about the greater theme of the game without being spoilery, but I feel like I can at least discuss some things I liked/didn't like, etc.

Look Outside has some really fun and clever writing. There are a lot of unique characters to interact with, and even when brief, they can often feel like characters more fleshed out than those that appear in many other pieces of media. It helps their design often strongly leans into their archetype in a unique way. Or perhaps something about them has changed so drastically, just hearing them tell their experience makes them feel more alive than so many others. There is a surprising amount of character dialog - and so much of it is entirely optional, or even missable. Another reason I think the game might serves multiple playthroughs better - as long as you're not trying to mimic your prior playthough, that is. I'm not planning to immediately restart it, but I can even see how I would approach things differently a second time just to experience things differently and likely get a lot of dialog I didn't previously. 

It's pretty impressive just how much is accounted for, and the variety of ways things can turn out. It's a true role playing game in that sense. You make choices, you take actions, and there are consequences, one way or another.

The combat isn't too complicated, more or less basic rpg combat, but pretty reliant or status effects and strength/weakness and it didn't really ever cease to be engaging. Since time/healing/exploration/encounters are all technically limited, you need be as smart as you can be through each encounter, you need to use items as much as possible, but also most items are finite. Not extremely finite, mind you, but enough to make you consider their use, and learn what you need to use more liberally, and what you need to conserve. Sometimes maybe that happens a little too late, but generally speaking I wouldn't complain.

The only real thing that got me was the fact that because it's always dark and trying to maintain that spooky atmosphere, you just spend way too much of the time of the game looking through a pinhole on the screen with most of it blacked out. Which certainly doesn't help navigate some of the labyrinthian levels. There are at least like 4 areas I just found it really hard to navigate and never quite fully had my bearings in, even at the end of the game. I could have done a little more without the repeated tile sets. The game is already big enough for only taking place in a "single apartment building" as it advertises.

I'm glad I've been playing so many of Alice's recommendations, even if it's a bit out of my comfort zone, because I've got to play some gems and more unique experiences like Look Outside.