Devolver Digital

The hidden Superbosses of Look Outside (till v2.1)

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Look Outside is an amazing comedy-horror JRPG entirely set inside an apartment building. However, in this place, tons of terrible things are hidden, from a parallel Meat World, to a glitch land existing inside a cursed videogame, and an entirely flooded apartment. With every new update, the world gets bigger and bigger, and, especially after the 2.0 Final Vision update, the game is almost in its final state.

Bosses and monsters also get expanded with each update, and now the Bestiary is simply huge. For example, according to the wiki page, there are at least 35 bosses in the game. And we are only talking about bosses, so the complete Bestiary is insanely huge. The main character and party members also get stronger, with new weapons and characters to recruit. And so do the bosses, with new and stronger bosses released at every update.

In the following article, I will focus on the superbosses hidden in Look Outside, enemies that are far stronger than the final boss of the game, often guarding powerful weapons or equipment. Some of them are really difficult not only to defeat, but also to unlock and reach. I will focus especially on completely optional bosses, guarding weapons, and not related to any ending… with maybe a couple of exceptions. Since Look Outside is always updated, including new superbosses in an update following the “Final Vision,” the article could be updated with future updates.

Hellcar

Hellcar is the first superboss encountered in the game since the first release. Hidden in a car park inside the basement, the Hellcar is a devilish orange car that will attack after the player collects the flamethrower. Hellcar has an insane amount of different phases, making it one of the longest battles. First, Hellcar attacks directly, using powerful burning attacks and its light to blind the characters. During the next phases, Hellcar will use its long tongue to swallow the player inside its body. At this point, the player has a limited number of turns to kill Hellcar before being literally dragged to hell, reaching a game over with a special bad ending. During the second phase, Hellcar’s interior is full of ghostly passengers, which of course must be killed. In the next phase, the element of the interior design transforms into demons and must be killed. During the last phase, the Hellmouth is revealed, a giant maw inflicting heavy damage. If you are fast enough in killing all the phases before going to hell, the reward is the powerful Hellblade, the strongest weapon in the first update.

Furnace

Furnace is the superboss of the original 1.0 release. The creature lies hidden in the sewers, the most challenging section of the basement. In the middle of a room flooded with water, a shut-down furnace is waiting to be awakened again. Before fighting the boss, the player must fight six giant ticks draining the heat away from the tubes. After killing the ticks, Furnace will come back to life. While even only accessing the fight is a chore, defeating Furnace is a real challenge. The boss looks like a hellish boiler room, with fire drawing a disturbing grin on the metal. Furnace uses powerful fire spells, causing the burning status with almost every attack. However, the biggest issue is its chargeable attack. Turn after turn, the fire grin becomes bigger, highlighting how the creature is almost ready for its most powerful attack. A firestorm will hit the entire party, with a high probability of one-shotting several characters. If not, the entire party. Surviving the annihilation is difficult, even by guarding the attacks, and killing Furnace before it unleashes hell is even more complicated due to the high HPs. In 1.0, Furnace had no reward for such a challenge. However, next updates introduced Furnace Edge, the only fire-based melee weapon.

Taxidermy

Taxidermy is the owner of the disturbing apartment on the 3rd floor, a place full of stuffed animals and hosting a stitched-skin dimension. In the beginning, Taxidermy appears as an immobile humanoid statue, with a grotesque mask-like face and horns on top. After traversing the parallel dimension, the Taxidermy statue starts to move, becoming a challengeable boss battle. In 1.0, Taxidermy has two main phases, with the second one called Suture Wire. In this phase, the boss covers itself in deadly metal wires, and is able to use powerful bleeding and slashing multi-hit attacks. However, the boss was still an easy fight, regardless of the disturbing appearance. But everything changed with the 1.6 update, when Taxidermy got a challenging 3rd phase. After Suture Wire is defeated, the creature merges with the stuffed animals in the room, becoming a grotesque and disturbing abomination. The main head is that of a moose, which can open up, revealing an even more disturbing interior. A bear and rhino head complete the disturbing design, merged together on a fat rhino body. In battle, the creature is terrifying, becoming a 3-enemy fight where each head has unique attacks and HPs. While the rhino and the bear are the main physical attackers, the moose launches deadly magics, including a black hole able to annihilate the entire party. To defeat Taxidermy, all the heads must be slayed. And if the normal battle was not challenging enough, in Cursed mode, introduced with the 2.0 update, the Taxidermy 3rd phase became a 5-enemy battle, since the creature now also merges with a crocodile and a swordfish.

Drowning

Drowning is a very peculiar superboss hidden in the 2.0 update. A new apartment appears in the building, a place completely flooded and underwater. The party has a limited amount of time to spend underwater before drowning, maybe a reference to the original FF7, where facing the underwater Emerald Weapon was regulated by a timer. However, in Look Outside, when the timer reaches zero, there will not be an instant game over. Instead, a battle against Drowning will begin. In 2.0, Drowning looked like a disturbing deep water creature, with giant jaws full of teeth and details difficult to understand. However, its design changed in 2.01, appearing more like a bug-related creature. The fight is not especially difficult for the damage received, since Drowning doesn’t hit very strongly, but more for the insane amount of HPs. In fact, Drowning has almost double the HPs of the final boss or Furnace. To defeat Drowning, you must heavily rely on status effects such as bleed or poison to chip away the huge HP pool. The reward for killing Drowning? Well, since the main character defeated the concept of drowning itself, he will become immune to it, and will be able to explore the flooded flat without timing. Not the best reward for the long effort.

Wilhelmina

Wilhelmina is a powerful witch trapped in a hidden basement inside the building in version 2.0. The craziest thing? Wilhelmina is inside a crossword-related dungeon. To access Wilhelmina, the player must complete the entire crossword book in the main apartment, a long and time-consuming task. After that, a secret password grants access to a dungeon contained inside a safe. Wilhelmina is trapped in a coffin protected by powerful sentences, which must be broken in order to free her. At this point, freeing Wilhelmina causes a secret ending, while facing her unlocks a challenging battle. Wilhelmina uses powerful and unique spells, including making the entire party regurgitating frogs, or breaking all their bones, causing massive debilitations and continuous damage. Moreover, Wilhelmina can also inflict almost every possible status effect, from stun to bleeding. By defeating Wilhelmina, the player can choose a special weapon as a reward, choosing from a sword, spear, or hammer.

Sybil

Fighting the real Sybil is part of a long and challenging secondary quest introduced in the 2.0 update. First, you must collect an Iris Key during the blackout, to then start to explore the Meat World to collect other keys. Then, you must explore and solve the mysteries and puzzles of apartment 12 to finally have a chance to meet Sybil. However, it is only after bringing her the repaired telescope that you can decide between two paths. And only by pursuing the truth, you are able to attack her, revealing her real form inside the Meat World. The real Sybil is a grotesque and colorful mass of flesh, with eyes and teeth all around.  However, fighting her at this point leads to an impossible battle, since Sybil can also attack 8 more times in a turn. To limit this ability, you must traverse the Meat World to kill 9 Organs, grotesque bosses with special powers, providing unique attacks to Sybil. For each Organ killed, Sybil loses a special attack, including the ability to digest your max HPs. However, the Organs regenerate after in-game hours (32h on normal), so not only you have to destroy them, but even in a limited amount of time. Even with the Organs destroyed, Sybil is still a tough fight, especially for the high HPs. At the moment, defeating Sybil mainly unlocks a bad ending inside a hidden room, without a strong reward for such a massive effort.

Baby Teeth

The apartment where the Teeth Family was corrupted by mutating into grotesque masses of teeth is one of the most disturbing locations in Look Outside. Baby Teeth is the boss of the apartment, an infant that mutated into a colossal abomination, spreading teeth on whoever gets bitten. The boss can be easily defeated or avoided, and the creature will simply hide again under the floor. However, after the update 2.0, the apartment got sealed by a giant mouth. The fauxes opened again in 2.1, where the mutated apartment became explorable again. And hidden under the floor, after a dungeon of flesh and teeth, Baby Teeth is waiting for her rematch. Just this time, the battle will be far more difficult. Considering that the apartment opens again on day 9, almost at the end of the game, says all about the difficulty of the fight. Baby Teeth grotesquely mutate during the battle and can attack with multiple body parts, including two long tongue-tentacles. The infant is highly resistant to different types of damage, can cause bleeding, and has an insane berserk attack. Moreover, the dungeon itself is constantly chewing whoever is inside, and every turn, the walls attack everybody, both the entire party and Baby Teeth, creating an even more unconventional and difficult battle. After defeating Baby Teeth for the (hopefully) last time, the player can access two new tooth weapons, including a rifle that converts HPs into tooth bullets.

Swordmaster Comatus

Comatus is another superboss added in the update 2.1. The mushroom swordmaster hides behind a fake wall in the depths of the fungal colony. The boss is probably an homage to FromSoftware’s bosses, a loyal and powerful swordmaster that fairly challenges the player to a duel. Facing Comatus is quite easy, but defeating it is a far more difficult task. Comatus hits like a truck with multiple attacks, is highly resistant against physical damage, and can adopt different stances. For example, it can counterattack physical attacks or heal at the end of the turn. Defeating Comatus unlocks the Whisperblade, a really powerful sword.

Honko

Honko is the protagonist of a videogame that you can play in the flat to learn a new skill. And in 2.1, Honko appears as a superboss in the new Glitch World. Already accessing the Glitch World is a complicated task, since it is only possible after using the cursed videogame hidden behind a secret door on a console inside a parallel meat world. Moreover, the Glitch World is a challenging dungeon to traverse, full of monsters, peculiar status effects, and glitched items. And fighting Honko is even more obscure. First, you need to find and finish his videogame, and only then can you find a secret path behind a glitched tile. Honko is a tragic figure who doesn’t want to fight but is forced by glitches. During the fight, the cute pink humanoid continuously glitches, sometimes briefly appearing as a cursed version of himself, or even dead in a pool of blood. Honko is extremely powerful, immediately showing huge defense and agility, making it very difficult to hurt, healing powers activating every turn, and the ability to inflict multiple status effects with a single attack. And if this was not enough, after sufficient damage, Honko splits into three entities… and then into five! The main Honko now launches really powerful spells, while the others hit hard and inflict status effects. The reward for defeating Honko is many candies providing permanent upgrades.

Grimdark JRPGs for fans of Fear & Hunger

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Fear & Hunger (F&H) is one of the best examples of indie dark RPGs, set in a brutal dark fantasy world inspired by Berserk, where every amorality is allowed. However, regardless of its shocking value, F&H is an intriguing and original product, set in a world full of lore, featuring brutal combats that involve menomating the enemy’s limbs, and boasting a huge connection to survival horror titles. In fact, the enemies in F&H do not provide experience, and avoiding dangerous encounters is essential to survive. Brutal deaths, tough decisions, and sacrifices shape the freedom of this title, a world where you can side with really obscure beings, or die of starvation after jumping into a well.

F&H is a new starting point for indie horror JRPGs, with many incoming titles showing a similar brutal battle system or set in really dark fantasy worlds. While many proper “fhunger-like” games, or clones of F&H, will probably release soon, other very interesting horror JRPGs are yet available for people looking for another really dark and mature experience. Many dangerous and hopeless worlds, where grotesque enemies can brutally kill the party, bad endings are behind every wrong decision, and often sacrifices are necessary to proceed.

In the following article, which I will continue to update, I will write about the darkest, most horrific, and grim indie JRPGs available. I will focus on the most interesting and brutal settings, with challenging battle systems, a bestiary full of disturbing creatures, dubious choices, and bad endings. I will focus especially on games released after the first F&H (so from 2018), briefly describing the overall world, setting, system, bestiary, and whether tough choices are included. Some products are really inspired by F&H, while others are simply too good dark JRPGs not to be part of this list.

If you are a fan of F&H or, in general, of really dark and horror RPGs, this is an article that can definitely get your interest.

Look Outside

The best indie horror RPG together with Fear & Hunger, and not simply a dark JRPG or a F&H clone, but a completely independent product. The game is set in modern days, where something terrible happened. People live trapped inside, with the window closed, because only by looking outside, they mutate into a horrible monster, entirely losing their humanity. The setting is extremely dark and disturbing, especially at the beginning, with a few moments of comedy relief. For 15 days, the main character must survive while trapped inside his apartment building, with a lot of freedom on how to spend the days. Between recruiting neighbors, scavenging, exploring the other flats, fighting grotesque abominations, or simply spending time playing videogames, Look Outside has an insane amount of content to offer. And with each new update, the game gets even bigger, featuring a parallel dimension made of meat, around 10 different endings, and a world of secrets. Every apartment is a new world, a place shaped by the horrible mutations that happened there. An example is the “Teeth Apartment,” where every monster is uncontrollably growing teeth out of their bodies… for a very disturbing and sad reason. 

The bestiary of Look Outside is insanely huge. Seriously, I have no idea how many enemies and bosses are now inside the game, but definitely more than 50… if not more than 100. From grotesque insects to an entire boiler room or the different faces of a painter, fighting the monsters is not an easy task, and the player must scavenge improvised weapons to defend themselves. The problem is that every weapon can break if you are unlucky enough, even the super-secret weapons such as the Hellblade. Luckily, there are many melee weapons to discover, from bats to machetes or chainsaws, including firearms and throwable weapons.

The world became a hellish mutant landscape, and everyone is suffering from the effects of this change. From kids to innocent people, the grotesque mutants, when insane, must be eliminated. Some people seem to retain their sanity, even while mutated, and can even be recruited. However, for every small bright side and comedy moment, there are even more horror and extremely tough decisions. For example, a hungry hole will only feed on a child… or a main character’s arm, wounding him for all the game or forcing him to lose a party character. The majority of the endings are also incredibly bad, often involving the destruction of the entire earth (including being absorbed by a hamster god, check about it here: The Rats in Look Outside: A spreading disease of fur and teeth) or terrible mutations for the main character. There are also proper game-over endings while making quite bad choices, often after trusting somebody who definitely shouldn’t have been trusted.

Materialization of Memories

The game is probably the first F&H clone, following everything that made F&H famous. With one big difference: the characters are mainly… well… anthropomorphic animals. The protagonists are working on a mysterious experiment, which will soon go sideways, teleporting everyone to a mysterious parallel reality. This place is infested with anomalies, deadly and invisible events, causing harm to whoever gets too close to them. And of course, deadly monsters also roam every corner of this parallel world. Because here, everything wants to kill the main characters.

The three main characters always fight together, each of them covering a specific role, from healer to brawler. Thankfully, several weapons are also there to help, including firearms. The battles are almost identical to F&H, including targettable body parts. The world is freely explorable and very open, with almost every building accessible since the beginning. Looting a building is always an extreme danger, due to the unknown creatures roaming inside. The monsters are well varied and with different strategies, from a horde of TV-headed illusions with only one of them real to a disturbing smiling entity summoning biting mouths. The healer can also perform an autopsy on the monsters’ bodies, revealing lore and important information on how to defeat them.

The grimdark parallel world is full of dangers and monsters, where everything is ready to kill or mutilate the party. Finding a way to escape this world is the main task of the characters, but soon, this will become even more difficult. A group of deranged NPCs will soon start to torment the main characters, offering brutal choices, including permanently wounding or killing characters.

Blood Soaked Bastard

Just by looking at the amazing and dark art-style, you see how this game fits the article. Set in a dark fantasy world, the story follows an unconventional antihero: a blood knight, a dark paladin using blood as a weapon. During his journey, the knight will meet other twisted and peculiar individuals, from a ghoulish mass of flesh to an ugly elf obsessed with being a chef. While the game shows some hints of comedy, the world is always a hopeless and violent place, inhabited by grotesque and mischievous beings.

The game is a bite-sized dark fantasy JRPG, a short but intense experience. The party characters all have different powers and roles to play, including specific equipment. While there are very few enemies, the main bosses are different and satisfying to battle, from a zombie lord to a peculiar siren. But the first price goes to the final boss, an insane battle with 4 completely different phases. 

Even in its small size, the adventure offers an unexpected set of tough decisions and evil choices. Party members can be coerced into a ritual to be reborn as bloodthirsty abominations, and boss battles can be avoided by permanently sacrificing a character. Moreover, every “normal” person is terrified of the main character, since the blood knights are feared across the land.

Do you want to check all the weird and grotesque party members and the evil moral choices related? Check our video here:

The Pale City

Set in a city, on a platform made of bodies, existing high on a black and deadly sea, Pale City offers one of the most hopeless and grim settings in any JRPG. Seriously, in this world, babies are born from tunnels and must crawl to the city to be adopted, all this while a cult of cannibals loots for the bodies inside tunnels. I could write many paragraphs about this dark and complex world… but since I already did that, feel free to read my article about the setting of the Pale City: The grim world of the Pale City: where cannibals are looking for eternal life and babies are born crawling out of Tunnels [Grimdark Worlds].

The gameplay is a linear JRPG, amazingly written, and full of “gray morality” characters, including dumb or mad Gods. While the enemies are serviceable, with grotesque demons and other disturbing beings, the characters are what truly shape this complex world. For example, magicians are truly scary beings, able to rip people in pieces with a world or to coexist with grotesque skin parasites.

The game always walks on a dense gray line, following a linear and well-written path where many terrible things happen, and characters evolve toward their tragic fate. However, toward the end of the game, some quests feature some drastic choices. For example, you can join the cannibalistic Cult of Life, partaking in their special meal to increase your health, side with an imprisoned titan to help him in his revenge, or even murder the only human Gods.

Slimes

Slimes is a philosophical and extremely grim RPG inspired by Lucah Born of a Dream, an amazing surreal action RPG. While the similarity in the art style is evident, the two games drastically diverge in gameplay and setting. The world is a dangerous place due to the descent of a mysterious winged entity from the sky, taking residence on the moon. However, the scales from its wings crossed the sky as falling stars, reaching earth and causing terrible events. The main changes that this phenomenon brought include magic and monsters. Among the monsters, the weakest and dumbest are the slimes, which all originated from a single dungeon, deep underground. But if the slimes are so mindless and weak, why has nobody ever come out alive from their dungeon? On the other hand, magic is persecuted by insane crusaders. And one of this religious fanatics is the protagonist of the game, accompanied by a magical healer.

The main characters are not only at the opposite of morality, divergent on every topic, but also in terms of fighting mechanics. The priest uses bullets and firearms to fight off slimes, while the magician, of course, needs to balance the mana for healing and debuff. While venturing into the dungeon, each floors offer new mysteries, battles, and a lot of dialogues, often based on previous expeditioners. The bestiary is quite straightforward, basically involving almost only slimes, but their design and abilities evolve during the game.

The setting and the plot are extremely mature, dealing with heavy themes, such as persecution and religious fanaticism. The main character is far from likable, and even far from an anti-hero. During the evolving clashes between the main characters, the healer is of course the one to side with more easily. Moreover, the mysteries about the real origin of the slimes and dungeon keeps the interest high, offering other complex moral dilemmas.

Break Wolf

Break Wolf was a true surprise, a JRPG with an amazing art-style entirely set inside an SCP-like facility. The main characters are human-animal hybrid experiments, forced to continuously fight and win in order not to be disposed of. Between true friendships and brutal manipulations, the main characters survive this environment till the beginning of a lucky escape. Floor after floor, the main characters will try to escape this hopeless world. The biggest surprise? The characters are all well-written and likable, part of a cohesive story. The facility is also full of secrets, including hidden rooms, deadly bosses, and even a Cat God to summon (check more here: When Cats and a Cat God help you escape from a SCP-like facility in the dark JRPG Break Wolf [Mechanic]).

The game is heavily focused on battles, brutal 1-on-1 fights between the main character and the other grotesque experiments. With multiple health bars, fine-tuning of the many abilities, and a great set of items, including bazookas or flamethrowers, every battle is a tough and brutal tactical puzzle. An example? The main character will also learn to morph into a werewolf, adding an extra layer of complexity, while the recruited characters act as special abilities that need turns to recharge. The bestiary is well varied, including grotesque animal monsters such as bats with humanoid legs or colossal worms with a drill in their mouth.

The game includes some tough choices regarding the secondary characters, who can die or survive based on the player’s choices. And choices truly matter, because based on the characters saved, the game has an entirely different final chapter, with new locations, enemies, and bosses, based on the Route selected. And by finishing both Routes, the player can unlock an even more difficult Extra scenario. Break Wolf also includes mild sexual scenes between the main characters, which can be performed in “quiet” rooms.

Trench Face

Trench Tale has some great thematic connections with F&H2, especially for its setting inspired by WW1. As a soldier with a permanent gas mask stitched on the face, you must venture through eerie bunkers and foggy trenches inhabited by disturbing puppet-soldier entities. There is no hope or help in those trenches, only enemies and mysterious cows helping you save the game.

In the beginning, you can select between different classes: brawler, sniper, or medic, including two other unlockable classes. Exploring the hopeless world is a huge challenge, since the enemies hit hard, provide no experience, and healing is quite costly. Moreover, saving requires rare resources, and finding metal scraps around the battlefield is essential to craft items. The enemies are relentless puppet abominations, suspended between life and death, from normal soldiers with a gun to colossal skeletal whales. They each possess multiple body parts, often including the threads that keep them suspended, and are able to kill the player with a couple of attacks. As you guessed, combat is very similar to F&H, and fans will feel at home.

While the atmosphere is constantly dark and oppressive, the gameplay is quite linear, with almost no choice. Exploring every new trench, while avoiding monsters and looking for save points, is the main gameplay loop. There are very few NPCs, and the hopeless journey proceeds in almost complete solitude. While the game is pretty short, a recent free DLC doubled the length by offering a new story.

And if you are interested in the enemies of Trench Face, here our video covering all of them:

The Rats in Look Outside: A spreading disease of fur and teeth

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In the world of Look Outside, living indoors, with the window shut, is the only way to survive. In fact, merely looking at what is happening outside the window will mutate your body, creating a set of complex and disturbing creatures. Without spoilers, the mutation somehow involves your true self, or at least how you are “perceived.” While the majority of mutants become mindless monsters, some of them retain their mind, such as in the case of Lyle (read more here: Forever trapped inside a picture after kissing an eldritch being: all about Lyle from Look Outside). While directly looking outside is the easier way to lose your humanity, becoming a grotesque being, some of the mutations are also “inheritable.” This is what happened to the entire family and their three kids on the 3rd floor. The youngest daughter watched outside, mutating into a sad and disturbing being, and with her bite, she spread the “teeth mutation” to all the family. A similar situation is what is happening to the rats infesting the building.

The first floor of the building is infested with rats. In general, rats are quite simple enemies, dying in a few hits, with the biggest threat of inflicting the Disease debuff. While rats of different sizes occupy several rooms on this floor, the biggest monstrosity roams the corridors. The Rat King is a colossal wolf-like creature, an abomination of twisted fur and multiple faces, all showing red eyes and deadly maws. And to give rights to its name, the creature wears a rusted metal crown on its head. The Rat King is a unique creature and an incredibly tough boss, usually better to be avoided till later in the game. It hits hard, with a huge health pool, and is able to inflict several negative debuffs. The only help is its weakness to fire. Defeating such an abomination rewards the player with a unique accessory: The Rat Crown. Other than being a quite powerful equipment, the Crown has a peculiar hidden effect, allowing the player to talk with all the rats. This opens to a world of possibilities, with rats giving you items or opening up shops, instead of attacking you. Of course, the rats that survived your murderous spree before getting the Crown. Yes, whichever rat you killed before, closed the door to a unique conversation. From their conversations, you will quickly discover that they were all human before. The Rat King spread the mutation by biting people in the building, mutating them into rats and expanding its “kingdom”. The 1.6 update introduced a new Bad Ending for dying against the Rat King. In this case, while keeping their will, the main character slowly mutates into a new colossal Rat King.

Before getting the Crown, you can also get additional information about rats and their mutation by talking with the Rat Hole. This creature is a merchant hidden behind a wall of darkness, a twisted mass of flesh and eyes hidden inside a hole in the wall. Regardless of the disturbing appearance, the creature is quite friendly, and will offer you powerful items and weapons in exchange for Rat’s Tails. And you got it right, you can obtain the tails by slaying random rats. The Rat Hole got infected by the King, becoming a rat aberration after a painful mutation. How painful? You can ask them directly, and they will give you a very detailed report about the grotesque mutation. The transformation was so painful that the most gruesome details are censored, with examples such as “intestines” and “screaming.” For this reason, the Rat Hole still wants revenge against rats, rewarding you for slaying them.

Interestingly, the Rat Hole also speaks of another side of themselves. And later, you will meet the unavoidable Mouth. The Mouth is the “other half” of the Rat Hole, just this time it is much less friendly. The creature is a disturbing rat-mouth opening in the wall, constantly hungry. The only power it possesses, other than eating living beings, is to create illusory halls to imprison people. Food doesn’t satisfy it, since the only meal it craves is babies. Feeding the mouth is mandatory, and you can do it in two ways. First, you can really feed it a baby, specifically the Rat Baby, an innocent creature that follows you after being discovered abandoned in a crib. If this deed is too mischievous, you can decide to feed it your arm, debuffing the main character for the entire game. I like to believe that this creature is a connection with the other two greatest RPGmaker horror JRPGs: Lisa and Fear & Hunger. With Lisa, the connection is with the tough moral choices, offering sacrifices or character mutilations, including losing an arm. Regarding Fear & Hunger, the Pocketcat is another disturbing NPC asking for kids as a form of payment (more here if interested: The Pocketcat of Fear & Hunger: what RPG merchant could be more disturbing than one exchanging items for children? [Evil Characters]).

The two rat hole creatures are very disturbing examples of how far this mutation can go, creating split personalities of the same creature, one talkative and understandable, the other only looking to satisfy its gluttony.

The Rat King is not the only colossal rat abomination, and another challenging being lurks inside the 1st floor apartments. The Rat Freak is a gigantic humanoid rat, a giant made of fur and red eyes, a cluster of multiple rats fused beneath the fur. The giant is a tough opponent guarding a key item on the ground floor, so avoiding it is quite challenging. However, this gigantic abomination will also become friendly after slaying the King and wearing its crown. In fact, the silent but generous creature rewards the player with powerful hidden weapons after talking with it, including the ultra-rare Sewage Sword. Sure, some luck and RNG are involved, but the rewards are really worthy of the time.

A battle against a swarm of rats welcomes you inside Rat Hell, a new rat-based dungeon available in the 1.5 update. Venturing into this crawling hellhole is necessary to recruit Ernst. The place is practically shaped by rats and their red eyes, creating a maze-structure that works as a gladiator arena. Win enough fights against the rats to save your friend. However, be ready for tough and bizarrely fantasy-inspired battles, including: magician-like rats of poison and fire elements, gladiator rats, a champion paladin-like rat, and a beast similar to the Rat King. With the Crown, you can understand the rats and have tips on how to defeat them; otherwise, be ready for many puzzling battles and a world of squeaking dialogues.

It could come as a surprise after reading about all these abominations, however, the strongest and most dangerous rodent in Look Outside is not a rat but a hamster. By offering Cinnamon, a cute and innocent hamster, as a final gift for the ritual, you will face a very peculiar final boss: Xin Amon. This grotesque and eldritch mutated hamster is, all in all, a rodent god, and a very tough battle. The creature offers two main endings, both quite disturbing. In one ending, the creatures start to exponentially mutate, covering the entire world in flesh towers made of mutated hamster heads. In the other ending, Xin Amon truly evolves into the God Rat, an immense “Kaiju” rat able to level cities and swallow their entire population. The multi-headed abomination is always followed by piercing screaming… coming from the mutated heads of all its victims now appearing on its skin.

Look Outside is an innovative and interesting RPG full of grotesque and unique enemies, with praise for creating a very varied bestiary around simple creatures, such as rats.

Forever trapped inside a picture after kissing an eldritch being: all about Lyle from Look Outside

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Look Outside is a huge surprise: a dark JRPG with a killing art style, challenging, and full of secrets. The player wanders entirely in one apartment building since something outside is horribly mutating people. You have only 15 days to explore, gather supplies, and discover what is happening. And with 100+ grotesque monsters and disturbing bad endings behind every corner, this will not be an easy task.

During these days, you can meet different NPCs. Some are still hiding in their flats, while others come knocking at your door. However, deciding who to trust is challenging, since several neighbors already “watched outside.” Because trusting and welcoming to your place a devious maniac, who then demands your bone marrow, is not the best choice.

Luckily, in all this grotesque madness, there is always Lyle. He is a nice neighbor, well, maybe a bit creepy and stalkerish, but not that bad. Lyle lives in his flat and happily welcomes you inside. He is passionate about photography and even has a dark room in his flat. However, regardless of his kindness, the fact that is wearing a long robe with a hood, and that bug-like appendices are coming out of it, are probably a good sign that Lyle watched outside. In fact, he tried to take a picture of whatever being was up in the sky.

Luckily Lyle retained his personality after watching outside, and he can still help the players by providing them with photographic paper to capture the bizarre phenomena around the building. However, Lyle will ask for something in exchange. Something as simple as taking a picture of the main character… or a kiss. Don’t worry, nothing super pushy, and you can refuse it. In this case, Lyle would break the tension by joking about it. If instead, you accept the wild proposal, Lyle demands you to close your eyes before the kiss. Would you really trust this creepy creature? Luckily you can, except for the feeling of kissing something burning and mechanical, nothing bad happens. However, Lyle will also take a picture of the main character, with or without the kiss.

During the game, Lyle can also help you to develop pictures in his dark room. He doesn’t allow you inside, because he is working on a secret project, but gladly develops the picture for you. Again, he will ask for a kiss as a reward, and again you can refuse. Just try to don’t break his heart, because Lyle is a good guy, especially in a world of grotesque dismembering monsters. But seriously, you can truly break the poor guy’s heart by peaking after closing your eyes during this second kiss. In this moment, you can glimpse Lyle’s true appearance: a mechanical grinning face with a lens in the middle. While the main character’s face appears terrified in the reflection, Lyle’s only reaction is to run away ashamed and in tears. He locks himself in the dark room, crying and with a broken heart. Yes, monsters do have a heart, and you broke it.

As for any other NPCs in the game, the player can also attack Lyle at any moment during the dialogue. However, the battle against Lyle is quite unconventional. First, he doesn’t directly attack the player, he just passively endures the attacks, showing to be stronger than the appearance, with really high defense. After being attacked, with a broken heart, Lyle shows the player the picture he took of them. At this moment, the Polaroid also joins the battle, appearing in the top-left corner. Starting now, the player has only a few turns to kill Lyle before the picture is fully developed. At every turn, the picture reveals a grotesque face behind, each time more disturbing. The problem is that the main character’s portrait also mutates in synchrony with the polaroid, becoming at each turn a far more twisted being. And then, they will become forever trapped inside the picture, reaching a very unexpected Bad Ending. Or not that bad, considering that Lyle will always bring you around in his pocket, taking the picture out only to show you the world around. Sadly, one day Lyle will lose the picture. And the main character will remain there, forever alone and trapped inside the picture.

During the fight, if you attack the Polaroid instead of Lyle, especially using fire, you can challenge Lyle’s true form. If you defeat the Polaroid before being trapped in it, a furious Lyle will reveal his true form. However, Lyle is not exactly angry with you but more sad about the loss of his treasure. He wanted to keep that picture (probably with the main character’s soul imprisoned inside) forever with him, and now everything is lost. The true form is the one of a disturbing bio-mechanical abomination, a sort of caterpillar mixed with cameras and lenses, with grinning mouths, eyes, and pictures all across the body. Lyle’s passion for photography got imprinted in his design after he watched outside. Regardless of the twisted and disturbing appearance, the grotesque Lyle is not a very dangerous enemy, and he is still weak against fire. After all, he needs to protect his body from extreme temperature and light, as if he was made of film paper.

After killing Lyle, regardless of his form, you can acquire the key to his dark room. What kind of mysterious project was he developing there? The answer is easy and only slightly shocking: dozens of pictures of the main character, his apartment, and his door. Apparently, Lyle was truly obsessed with him since he was still human, a crush that started to become a disturbing obsession. After all, we warn you that Lyle was kind of a stalker. Moreover, if pictures all around are not enough, hidden in a corner you will find a copy of the key to the main character’s apartment. If Lyle already used this key or not, and to do what, is a secret that will die with him.

Lyle is a fragile soul, a grotesque being, a helper, and a creepy stalker, all packed together in a well-written character with a striking design. Lyle truly shows the potential of Look Outside, a small game with so many secrets, variables, and details to discover. And, of course, in a world of devouring rats, teeth spreading like a disease, and beings who steal your flesh if you stare at them, Lyle “the kind stalker” is not such a bad NPC.

This article has also a video compendium on the Surreal and Creepy channel, where you can see all about Lyle: