Game Review: One Lonely Outpost

One Lonely Outpost Cover Art

Released: 2022

System: Xbox Game Pass

Genre: Cozy

My Rating: 1/5 Stars DNF

I currently base my reviews loosely around the CAWPILE system developed by Book Roast on YouTube. I modify the categories depending on the format of the story I’m reviewing.

My star ratings are purely by my opinion and not measured by any particular metric.

SPOILER WARNING: This review will contain spoilers! Proceed with caution!

Summary

An alien world sometimes needs a farmer’s touch to bring it to life. In this sci-fi, colonization-life sim, terraform a barren world: turn wastelands into verdant landscapes while exploring, farming, building, and unlocking all the mysteries of this strange new planet.

Characters

You play as a silent protagonist farmer who is also going to be the founder of the new colony? I can get behind that, I guess. I only met the first 10 colonists and many of them are… really weird. Like, for some reason, many of them have really strong dialects and caricature personalities. Everyone has a specialty. Then there’s the giant alien robot… it’s a little sus.

Atmosphere

I mean, it’s an alien planet that you terraform. It looks and feels like most farming sims with the 2D and the super bright primary colors. The beginning was oppressive and dreary, but then it moved to the aforementioned colors and feel.

Game Mechanics/Gameplay

Overall the standard mechanics as other farming sims, with a slight space twist. However, beyond that, it was aggravating. Slow movement, fitzy ‘hit’ boxes, repetitive NPC dialogue, LONG days of nothing, no quick travel.

Plot

The plot itself is perfectly fine. I wanted to build the colony, I wanted to figure out the robot, I wanted to learn the dark secrets that the text logs alluded to. But the execution was absolutely terrible.

Intrigue

What happened to the planet? What’s the dark secret? What happens when you romance a character? None of these questions kept me playing. They weren’t strong enough to make up for the boring gameplay.

Logic

It all made sense (as far as I made it, anyway). You’re exploring unknown territory and have to were spacesuits for a while and rely on your fellow colonists to survive. And so on and so forth.

Enjoyment

This game has so much potential. I mean, Stardew in space! But there were things that just made this game a slog to play. It could have been better if: fast travel, better character interactions, NPC tracking on the map, CONFIRMATIONS before entering or exiting a building! Oh, I hated that! If you got too close to the trigger, you went through the door; accidentally took one step back on the other side? Waiting for loading again! That’s another thing! I played this on a next gen console! How on earth were the load times so long?! AND it crashed on me! What the heck did they put in the game for it to run so poorly? Next! The UI in the menus. The menus were a pain to both look at and navigate. Then when you’re buying things, they don’t give you descriptions or tell you how many you already have in your inventory. Oh! And you can’t access the quick bar when accessing the crates or when selling. To whit, I will not return to it.

Would I Recommend?

No. Do not play this game unless they make major changes to it.