Author Topic: Outland was the best game HouseMarque ever did and it's a shame it flopped  (Read 2481 times)

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Bebpo

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With Guacamelee 2 coming out, I was thinking about the absolute best metroidvanias ever, and I'd probably go SoTN -> Super Metroid -> Guacamelee -> Outland for top4.

It's always depressed me that HouseMarque made such a fantastic metroidvania with a cool Ikaruga bullet hell twist with Outland and then it flopped and their dumb shooter games sold great so now all they make are dumb top down shooter games. Really wish HouseMarque could have made another metroidvania. They absolutely have the talent.

Hyped for Guacamelee 2 though!

CatsCatsCats

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Outland was a good game, think I got it with games for gold or something, but it was a really fun play through

Positive Touch

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resogun was fun tho :(
pcp

Rufus

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It's always depressed me that HouseMarque made such a fantastic metroidvania with a cool Ikaruga bullet hell twist with Outland and then it flopped and their dumb shooter games sold great so now all they make are dumb top down shooter games. Really wish HouseMarque could have made another metroidvania. They absolutely have the talent.
The last couple underperformed to the point were they threw in the towel on that kind of game:
http://www.housemarque.com/arcade-is-dead/

So, you might get your wish?
« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 06:30:11 PM by Rufus »

Bebpo

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resogun was fun tho :(

Yeah, don't get me wrong, they're a great developer and all their games are good, it's just that they've made like 6 shooters and only 1 metroidvania, so as a metroidvania fan it's kinda disappointing.

Himu

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This game sucked imo
IYKYK

MMaRsu

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What

Bebpo

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This game sucked imo

 :'(

https://store.steampowered.com/app/305050/Outland/

99ct on steam.. worth it?

Absolutely. It's a solid challenge action platformer metroidvania that features a lot of bullets but has an Ikaruga style color switch where you can absorb one of the colors so you are juggling color switching while platforming and attacking. It works really well.

toku

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nex machina is great

MMaRsu

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Well I bought it

I got 99cts but outland aint one

wait what
What

Trent Dole

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Went for it too, more metroidy things is always good esp for a dollar and change for the se.
Hi

Beezy

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Wow, I completely forgot about this game. It deserved a sequel.

Bebpo

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Outland is a good game only if you've never played Ori or Hollow Knight. After those two games it goes down easily on the list of "good Metroidvanias".

Hollow Knight > SoTN > Super Metroid > Ori > Guacamelee 1/2 > Outland

I did not play Shadow Complex or Axiom Verge yet. They can also be better than Outland...

Fair enough, I played a little of Hollow Knight & Ori but haven’t sunk much time into them. Nothing wrong with more good metroidvanias.

Shadow Complex was just ok imo. The one Spider-Man (DS?) that was a metroidvania was just about as good. Couldn’t get into Axiom Verge, I know duckroll beat it and wasn’t a fan so I didn’t stick with it. Cave Story’s great if that counts.

toku

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Haven't checked the pc port or anything but I loved Shadow Complex when it dropped on 360. I remember there was an achievement or something for beating it in 24 hours? So me and like 3 friends had a party chat session for literally like 18 hours running through it to see who could do it first.

benjipwns

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Haven't checked the pc port or anything but I loved Shadow Complex when it dropped on 360. I remember there was an achievement or something for beating it in 24 hours? So me and like 3 friends had a party chat session for literally like 18 hours running through it to see who could do it first.
The PC Remaster just ports it to Unreal 4 and adds higher resolutions, etc. But it does include some new achievements and challenges to do. I think they may have tweaked one puzzle that had like a 1 in 10000 chance of screwing up in the original.

The remaster was mainly done for a number of non-financially driven reasons, like testing Unreal 4 features, their animation system on UE4, getting it on PC and Xbone/PS4, seeing if there was interest for and prepping for a sequel, etc. That's why they gave it away for the first six months or whatever. David Mustard gave an interesting brief interview about it in response to game journalists not understanding why they were doing all that for free* but I can't seem to find it now. Was on Kotaku or Polygon I think.

*I remember it because he pointed out that it was a six year old game, and the interviewer was like "but UbiSoft is remastering even older titles and selling them for $60?!?" and he was like "so?" :lol

Bebpo

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Am I missing a large, uncharted cache of indie Metroidvanias on Steam?
Never played Outland myself, but don't really want to. For whatever reason I don't find it all that appealing.

Do you like Ikaruga?
Do you like Shmups?

If you answer yes to both, it's a crime to not play Outland.

Raist

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toku

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Nex Machina is great and you should all give it a go!


Beezy

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Never even heard of Nex Machina until this thread.

Raist

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Never even heard of Nex Machina until this thread.

Wut. They made it with Eugene Jarvis. It was quite a big deal when they announced that.

Beezy

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who?

kingv

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Game looks pretty good. One thing is I rarely watch videos of gameS, so if it presents poorly in screenshots I’m uninterested... most top down shooters look like shit in screenshots.

Bebpo

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My problem with top-down shooters is they're almost always arena shooters and even since Smash TV I've never been able to get into arena shooters (like Serious Sam) or Horde modes. It's just way too repetitive. I need stage based shooters or shmups.