Outskirts Review

Outskirts is a bullet-hell shoot’em up game by Rezo Zero and we are lucky enough to play the game and share our first impressions with you.

What makes Outskirts a successful title is simply harmony. Harmony of the colors and music, to be exact. Everything on your screen comes together and creates a hypnotic view. It is hard to play the game while this is going on your screen and I don’t even know if it is good or bad.

Drive your ship through mayhem

While playing Outskirts, our enemies will spawn at the center of the circle and will scatter to all directions. This is why we are calling this kind of games 360°. What we should do is to drive our ship into the outer circle and kill our foes which are coming from the inner circle, nonstop.

Enemies will follow different patterns which all are mesmerizing and create a beautiful view for us to witness. It is proven now that our brain likes order and symmetry, and Outskirts gives us just what we need. Everything is happening, happening around the center of the screen. Even though you are killing and in a combat, it is oddly calming.

Colors of Outskirts

The only thing you must pay attention to is the colors of Outskirts. There are three colors dominating the battlefield: yellow, blue and pink. You can always shift between these colors and once you wear one of them, you will be immunized against bullets of the same color. Blue enemies fire blue bullets, yellow enemies fire yellow bullets and such. Once you shift to blue, you will not take damage from blue bullets.

You must always pay attention to which color you are attacking with. Killing enemies in a proper order will unlock a combo. You can always watch the progress from the left side of the screen. Once the combo is ready, you are ready to unleash hell on your enemies. There is an option as ‘combo of combos’ which is a more strong attack and will grand you much more bonus points.

The pace of the game is getting faster and faster and your enemies start to follow more complex patterns. This is where the game earns the title of ‘bullet-hell’. Controls of the game are easy enough and very responsive. While you are changing the color of your ship, time slows down. But, while mayhem is going on on the screen, it gets harder to keep pace with the colors and rhythm of the game. It gets harder, faster, stronger. Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us stronger?

The game is designed as levels and at the end of each level, you will encounter a more stronger enemy as the boss system we know. This boss ship will make you regret reaching at this point. Even the boss fight may look glorious, it is hard to beat it. It will take some time and effort, but will worth the trouble. And, it will make you smile when you see your name and your score on the leaderboard.

Interactive music of Outskirts

Like I’ve mentioned before, Outskirts is offering a festival for your eyes. But, what about your ears? Well, we can say the same thing for them too.

Outskirts offers interactive soundtracks which are always in harmony with gameplay. The combo of the visuals and music will create a calming gaming experience. When it comes to games like Outskirts, the music gets highly important since it is one of the main elements of the game and will truly effect your experience. I can say that I am highly satisfied with the soundtrack of the game and how it follows the mayhem on the screen.

The other problem I am having with this game is the way it gets addictive real fast. At first, I just wanted to check it out a little bit before going to bed and I actually did. I failed a couple of times and I quit. And I started again. And again. And again. Every time, it feels like I get a little bit closer to beating the level and this feeling keeps you up and going.

Overall, I enjoyed Outskirts more than I should. Maybe Outskirts looks like a mobile game, yet it is fun on PC and a good way to relax. No big decisions, no regrets here. Just a little well designed game and some time to kill with mesmerizing visuals and music. You can not play this game for hours, yet when you are bored and don’t wan to push your brain too hard, Outskirts will be the first thing to cross your mind.

If you need a new addiction, Outskirts is now available on Steam with 40% discount. You can purchase the game by visiting here.

Outskirts was reviewed using the Steam key provided by the publisher.