It's simple, short, easy to get into, and has a lot of replay value if you are into going for better personal best times. The card mechanic works super well, it feels fresh, the visuals are super fun, and it doesn't overstay it's welcome.

The dialogue is very reminiscent of American writers trying to use an anime style, but I found it pretty endearing. Keep in mind that I'm someone who enjoys camp and goofy writing way more than passable writing. If anything puts you off about this game, it's going to be in between missions, but you can skim the dialogue if you really need to. I'd imagine you can infer your way to the end of the story rather easily.

The music is one of the best soundtracks of all time for me, but it's kinda cheating by just being a Machine Girl album. I already liked them long ago, and this is some pristine work of theirs.

That whole "smaller games with worse graphics by devs who are paid more" quote that people like me have picked up is getting kind of redundant now, but this is a good example of the best possible interpretation of it. Stylized, simple gameplay, short duration, and polish should be what most games aim for nowadays.

I don't think this is one of my all time favorite games, and I think a lot of people will find the same to be true. The biggest problems with this game are it's biggest strengths.

However, I'm pretty open minded. I'm coming up on 400 games in my library, and I play almost all of them. I'd like to think I can tell if a game is a classic, and Outer Wilds is definitively in that club. There are people who are going to beat this game, declare it as their favorite of all time in that moment, and then not stop thinking that until they die.

Outer Wilds is beyond special for even being able to do that. For that reason alone, you should try it.

It's also one of few games that does actual exploration right. There is no collecting of anything. The only thing you are discovering is the places and the texts left behind within them. I never felt this good clicking together information in my own head. Understanding concepts, learning the rules of this world and abusing that knowledge to accomplish something is the true gameplay loop of Outer Wilds.

So I'm going to go back to my military shooters and violent, gameplay driven indie games now, and while playing those I'm probably going to think a lot more about this game then any of those.

I'm very glad to have experienced this.