I’m certainly not an aficionado of the franchise nor would I even fake to be. Oddworld, regardless of being one thing that I might often catch a glimpse of occasionally which if I have been to even put it into context is as typically as I get guilt-tripped by my accomplice that I spend extra time testing recreation shops as an alternative of bringing her out to dinner… however regardless of what number of instances it truly is, and who the frick is even counting, the intrigue within the title by no means actually bore fruit into selecting it up for takeaway till now. Was it a horrible thought to get into it this late? Who is aware of…
Abe?! Abe… temporary historical past to the place it began
However earlier than we even get down and soiled with the nitty-gritty of what Soulstorm has in retailer for us, my go to with good ol’ Google received me caught up with many of the questions I had after beginning this odd-venture. For starters, the sport begins you off scratching your head, figuratively and fairly actually, because it throws you off within the opening sequence pondering who the hell is Abe and why does everybody stored shouting his title? And apparently, in contrast to most fashionable recreation sequels these days, Oddworld is a recreation you’d have a a lot better time understanding ought to you may have performed the prequel. Who would’ve thought proper?
And for the sake of filling up this text of phrases with out it being full of extra questions than solutions, let’s break the sequence down a bit. Oddworld was initially deliberate as a pentalogy nonetheless as destiny would have it, the sequence was halted to redirect its efforts elsewhere. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee is the start of the sequence, bringing Abe, a contented but ignorant employee at RuptureFarms which is a meat-packing plant. Nevertheless the mentioned plant’s boss Mollock the Glukkon plans to show the manufacturing unit’s Mudokon slaves, your species, right into a supply of meat and sooner or later in time, as most protagonists would, effectively I assume you’d already know what’s about to occur so I’ll cease there to keep away from any extra spoilers. In the meantime Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus begins the place Oddysee ends and never lengthy after that, we get Oddworld: Munch’s Oddyssee. However quick ahead to 2014, 17 years because the first one got here out, Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty brings again a full remake of Abe’s Oddysee whereas 2021’s Oddworld: Soulstorm breaks the sequence as a result of as an alternative of a remake of Abe’s Exoddus, it reimagines the sequel the place the Glukkons, the principal enemies of the sequence, is now out for revenge for what occurred again on the plant.
A singular platformer marred by points to see success within the fashionable period
The Oddworld sequence in contrast to most platformers that got here out in recent times brings methodical and slower-paced encounters at its core gameplay roots. You’re not going to breeze by sections of the map zipping up and down, left or proper whereas attempting to get essentially the most exhilarating expertise with pixel-perfect precision. No, as an alternative, the bread and butter to its core mechanics revolve round working your means by enemies and traps with varied crafted objects and distinctive instruments whether or not that distinctive device simply revolves round you tiptoeing ever so slowly in the direction of sleeping enemies to tie them down or disarming mines with a wonderfully timed slap together with your naked palms that might probably and can most undoubtedly kill you the primary few dozens of instances. That is the place Oddworld shines and breaks aside too… as a result of in contrast to simply having an agile murderer zip by the display screen and take down enemies with fast and environment friendly slashes, Oddworld’s mechanics make the sport unwieldy and clunky at sure instances. One such occasion is lobbing bottles to both delay fires or to start out one, at instances, placing out a hearth is simpler mentioned than carried out when lobbing a bottle would typically take a few tries when it fails to place it out regardless of being within the common space the place the bottle was thrown.
In the meantime, slap mines are most likely one in all my worst enemies within the early ranges of the sport simply the truth that the margin of error is fairly slim even for somebody like myself that on the very least has gone by a number of titles from the music rhythm style. It doesn’t assist both that dying to a piece restarts you again to whenever you first touched the checkpoints which in flip, forces you to refill your pockets with stuff like water bottles or traps current in that part of the map. Nevertheless, Abe regardless of not having the ability to strike down foes like a badass, makes up along with his arsenal of instruments and sacred powers to even management his enemies to struggle one another earlier than blowing them up as soon as the deed is finished. This helps alleviate problematic areas the place you’d probably be slapping mines all day however as an alternative simply forcefully make them blow up with the our bodies of your personal enemies though there are additionally some restrictions to this as some areas disable your powers forcing you to attempt completely different means to resolve them. One different key function of the sequence is gaining followers and in contrast to Social Media followers, these are one thing which you can order round that can assist you clear up puzzles as soon as you discover them scattered all through the hidden areas of every stage.
And visually, it’s not a very handsome recreation exterior its cinematic sequences neither is it a very dangerous one. Whereas yow will discover your self glued to all of the finer particulars of Abe and the gang throughout a cinematic, when you’re on the helm of this entire wacky journey, it drops it down a bit within the high quality in some circumstances the place a few of the areas are bland, washed out and splashed with simply almost the identical coat of paint making it much less interesting to play when the discrepancy from the cinematic and the graphics is incomparable. Paired with its points like enemies getting caught within the partitions at one cut-off date or the truth that after dying, Abe respawned at a checkpoint like regular however as an alternative of with the ability to proceed the extent, he was caught in place stopping progress even in case you restart from the checkpoint. Although returning to the principle menu and going again to the checkpoint once more did the trick however for a recreation to even have this sort of drawback particularly when deaths are aplenty, it undoubtedly questions the Oddtimized Version’s touch-up from final yr’s model which supposedly tried to repair most points the vanilla Soulstorm had.
Conclusion
Oddworld: Soulstorm regardless of having the Oddtimized Version slapped onto it by no means actually felt like a recreation that matches the trendy period and whereas it does have a couple of notable designs and quirks on the way it works and performs, the clunky controls particularly with the motion and aiming undoubtedly hurts its potential success amongst a couple of others that it might’ve tried to make higher. Its story regardless of my feeling misplaced at what Abe is or why he turned such a central determine to its narrative, offers this distinctive attraction that type of makes you wish to proceed increasingly more. In lots of regards, it has its flaws and weaknesses however the journey must you attempt to trek it places you in distinctive conditions that just about by no means seems like a tune on repeat with how a lot it introduces new mechanics to maintain it attention-grabbing but difficult.
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