While I do believe your intent, saying Outer Worlds is a visual novel is like saying Warcraft is a tower defense game.
Take a look here, if you want to know what actual visual novels look like. We're talking Disco Elysium and Phoenix Wright.
At worst, if you're really dissatisfied with the RPG elements of OW, you would call it an FPS, which I would personally already feel is downgrading it.
I simply do not see or agree with the diminutive characteristics you're peppering your responses with. To me it's as much of an RPG as Skyrim / Fallout / Starfield. Just with a tighter budget. And I'm pretty certain that's what the devs had in mind.