Forums seem a little lacking in terms of love for Oddworld, eh? Only one other thread in the Soulstorm section about it’s announcement from five years ago...

Anyway, it’s out now, after those five long years! Epic on PC and PS4/PS5 on consoles, with the latter getting it as a PS+ title.

I’ve played it for maybe two hours by now and it’s certainly Oddworld, in both good and bad. This time around it does control better though, so some of the platforming is a lot less frustrating. But it still has some antique design choices like Danny mentioned on the Bombcast, like at times rough checkpointing.

The style that always drew me to Oddworld, even when the gameplay would make me quit, is still fortunately there and I was actually kinda amazed that the cutscenes that I early on thought would be CG, are actually(?) running in engine. The game doesn’t look quite as dazzling outside of those, but I wouldn’t call it ugly either. Runs a solid 60 on PS5, except for the occasional drop during big explosions or such.

I’m not sure I would drop the asking price of 50€ on this, based on my previous experiences with Oddysee, Exoddus and New n Tasty (all which I quit at some point due to difficulty), but as a PS+ offering? Sure! Now if they were to make a sequel to Stranger’s Wrath? I’d buy that digitally *and* physically.

P.S. Rest Mode has made the game crash twice by now on my PS5, so maybe don’t use it for now or at least use it after you’ve passed a checkpoint?

I’ve never been able to get into these games and I don’t know if this will convince me to try again. The aesthetic and general weirdness are right up my alley but the gameplay portion always seemed like the weakest link. With time I thought they could realize their vision in a more modern way since technology allows for so much more but, understandably I guess, they seem to have very much stuck to the original formula. I can’t fault it since that is what makes Oddworld, but I can’t help but feel the story would be served better in a different style of game.

EDIT: To clarify about style. I'm specifically thinking of an Oddworld game in the style of like an Inside or more recently Little Nightmares 2. Striking visuals and some decent mix of puzzle solving and evasion but mainly have the levels feel more like real places instead of these very distinct platforms.

I'm another person in the "love the idea of Oddworld and the aesthetic but do not really enjoy the gameplay" boat. I bought the original Oddworld when it came out and I tried to play it and really wanted to like it but the checkpointing, stiff controls, and instant death combined to make the game frustrating. I tried New 'N Tasty recently and I basically felt the same way.

I'd be interested in knowing whether this game is more engaging from a gameplay perspective especially for those who were frustrated by the first, and also whether the narrative works if you didn't finish the first game. I'm probably going to go back and try to finish New 'N Tasty (A game that I pre-ordered towards the beginning of this generation) because of Vinny Syndrome but if others skipped that one and still feel like Soulstorm works well in a self-contained way that might convince me to skip it.

It looks like a really cool version of Oddworld. I liked the original games and enjoyed the remake despite its legacy limitations. This looks like a fully realized, modern take on those PS1 games. Looking forward to digging in this weekend.

I'll play it next year when it comes to Steam (maybe), i'm a huge Oddworld fan and it's one of the few games i'm looking forward to.
Jeff's disrespect toward the original games on the bombcast made me furious.

Oddworld is not for me, but control-wise, I hear Soulstorm's a lot more responsive than the original games. The streams I've seen of it from fans seem positive!

You can still definitely mess up the platforming, but in general it feels much better! Not having to line up Abe perfectly in the style of Prince of Persia for most jumps and also having a double jump right from the start goes far.

I never played the other entries because oddworld's gameplay always looked tedious to me. But since this is on ps+, I gave it a try.

I like it more than I expected but I'm also not far in. Second actual level or something, but I'm curious to see where it goes and how it expands once I save the homies.

I am already running into the issue of knowing* what I need to do but not being able to accomplish it on some screens.

*I never actually know if it's what I'm supposed to do, really. Am I okay to kill all the guys with guns I come across? Because I certainly am doing that. I genuinely don't understand how I'd get past some of these sections without murdering everyone.

I still don't know if I'll even try to finish Soulstorm (Like Oddworld, hate puzzle platformers), but I can already tell that this is a good one. Smart of them to make it a PS+ title, too, because this is a tough sell for the price.

Oddworld might be the only franchise I like where I don't actually like playing any of them, lol

Oddworld is one of those franchises that just keeps ticking, huh?

I got up to the disarming mines part and decide this game probably isn't my thing. Slow moving, puzzle platformers just aren't for me. Figuring out the puzzles, only to die over and over again on execution isn't very fun for me.

@brian_: Yeah the timing on those mines seems off or it could be a colorblind thing (for me) but I just cannot consistently disarm them. I can't tell if I need to take into account the amount of time it takes Abe to move his hand to the mine, or if it is just literally "press the button when it turns green." Either one seems to result in me blowing up most of the time.

It's one of the things that I feel like I know what I need to do there, but having to restart a puzzle over and over because I couldn't disarm the mine at the end can be pretty frustrating.

I haven't played Soulstorm yet, but this is consistent with the original Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exodus. The landmines have a blinking color animation that's either out of sync with the audio or has a weird framerate (or both). After dying constantly during my first playthrough, I eventually learned to use just the audio cues and only disarm mines during a specific moment in the pattern. That method meant I had to let the pattern repeat fully before disarming every single mine, which probably isn't what the developers intended.

Unfortunately that method became a habit, and now I can't disarm them any other way. I played through the New & Tasty remake last year and couldn't even look directly at the blinking lights without getting thrown off.

(In case it's unclear, I love this series)

@serryl: alright I'll try and pay more attention to the beeps and whatnot next time.

I also saw it briefly mentioned in a Eurogamer article that they may be patching the mines? It didn't say what exactly needed patching, but maybe they'll finally update the timing window or something since I imagine more folks will be playing this on account of ps+.

Oddworld is a wild series and I'm glad it keeps chugging along. I've only ever enjoyed Stranger's Wrath but I'm always very intrigued by what they do.

I'm always dissapointed when i see that they're making an Oddworld game in the style of those 90's games. Tried it a handful of times, but the 2d puzzle platforming is just not all that great in my eyes. It also somewhat reminds me of that time when i was a little kiddo and rented Heart of Darkness from the library multiple times despite not having much love for it.

Now Strangers Wrath, that's a game that i played through like 3 or 4 years ago and still had a blast with. That's the kind of game that i keep wishing they would build on from.

I'd even rather take a myst-like or a point & click adventure.

Tried out Heart of Darkness again recently-ish and I feel like that thing’s still few notches above Oddworld in difficulty. I don’t know how I had the patience for it as a kid...maybe the same as with Oddworld, where the style and visuals drew me in. That game’s surprisingly grim when offing your character.

@onemanarmyy: Yeah, every time a new Oddworld game comes out some weird chemical in my brain releases and tells me to get it and play it because I'll like it because I have such fond memories of the style and story, and then I play it and I...I don't know. I don't hate it, but I never enjoy it and I've never finished one.

As a long time series fan im really torn. I love Abes Exodus and the idea of a version of Exodus that actually gets to put everything in that they had to cut (for those who don't know, Exodus was originally going to be a few years after Oddysee but GT Interactive had all their big christmas releases got hit with delays so they put a 9 month mandate on Oddworld Inhabitants leading to the GDD being more of a general reference piece than a proper outline of the game). But as a whole, i really dunno. The first few levels to me feel bad. Especially the level "The Blimp". The randomness of the mortars hitting you/maybe 1 shotting you, maybe just flinging you to the side really annoyed the hell out of me. I saw a review (i dont remember where, but i did see it on the actual critics side of Metacritic) that describes it as a evolution of the normal Oddworld 2d formula for better and worse, and i have to agree. I found myself wishing more often than not that i could use the directional buttons to move Abe (Something i wanted in New 'N Tasty too. Analogue sticks just don't feel precise enough for me), the Monkey Bars that show up in levels just outright don't work and feel random if you grab them (i spent literally over an hour and 120+ deaths to grab the final secret in a level). The 2.5D style doesnt work well when you need to throw things and instead of following the path around a corner, they just go off a freaking cliff. They also removed the Quik-Save function which is just... why? It was introduced in Exodus and was in New 'N Tasty. All of this said however. There are some levels that are fan-freaking-tastic. The level after "The Blimp", i forget its name, all the way to the level where you are trying to stow away on a train are all awesome and feel right out of a classic Oddworld game and utilize the new mechanics perfectly. Crafting, as overplayed as it is in games, really complements Abe and his limited ability set. This game feels like it just needed a few more months of pollish. Ive clipped through walls as a flying Slig, the Monkey Bars don't seem to want to let me grab them unless i bash my head against them for hours etc. Its all stuff play testers & QA would have found. I hope they fix it to where it should be. Also just to briefly touch on it. I hope the story gets better. There has been hardly anything so far, and looking online at the number of levels i appear to be halfway through. It also feels WAY too serious. I loved Oddworld for its serious stories with the mix of dark humor and the most humor I've had is 1 joke in a cutscene, and the hint boxes in game.

TL:DR Its a good 2d Oddworld game but it has serious flaws that i hope can be fixed.

And a tip for anyone playing. For the love of god, when you beat a level, on the results screen, hit the button to progress to the next level, even if you want to replay it. If you replay without actually going to the new level, the new one WON'T appear in the level select until you beat the level before it again. I assume this doesn't affect people who have beaten the game/ a later level and gone back. Would be dumb if it did, but wouldn't shock me

Exodus defined my childhood, but my ps4 hates being on these days...might have to wait. I pay good money for a quick look right away though, I need to see this thing!

Still playing this, though the difficulty is ramping up, as expected. Have ran into some frustrating bugs on the way and the checkpoint based saving is at times really tiresome, but it hasn't made me quit - yet.

Haven't listened to the latest Bombcast, so I don't know if they're still talking about it (can't see it in the tags). I think Jason at least had played a bit of it when it came out...hope someone gets a Quick Look going. Probably can't be Danny, since that'd be a lot of work for someone not working on the site.