My name is Abe and I have to save my friends.
I am locked in a two-dimensional room on several levels. In the distance, I see my friends, all 200, climbing a ladder that will take them to safety and where. I can reach the lock that will set me free. Suddenly, a loud noise warns me of the presence of an enemy. He can’t see me, but he can see my friends. I quickly cast a spell on him, but more slings are coming. I take control of one and use it to kill another, then another. I can’t keep up. Sliga knows that something is wrong with his so-called companion and kills my avatar, interrupting my control. I continue to chant to quickly take possession of another, but I’m too slow. Sluts see my friends. They aim and start firing. Number 36 bodies falling.
I have seven hours in Oddworld: Soulstorm and the game is a kind of fun I didn’t expect. The decision of Oddworld Inhabitants to create a completely new Oddworld adventure turned what was once a simplistic puzzle platformer into a rich narrative experience that connected me to characters that I have always liked, but now love.
Oddworld: Soulstorm, now released on PlayStation 4 and 5 and on PC, is a new generation reimagining of 1998 Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus, continue to Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee. Following Oddworld: New N Tasty, Oddworld: Soulstorm is the second time that the developer Oddworld Inhabitants has given one of its older titles a state-of-the-art revival. But instead of creating a simple HD, get back on track We N Tasty was, Soulstorm is a new game with new mechanics, new levels and a new story.
Oddworld: Soulstorm is a “2.9D“Platform with side scrolling. Like Abe, you have to navigate treacherous terrain, avoiding traps, enemies and even local wildlife. To accompany state-of-the-art graphics updates, Soulstorm He also improved the way Abe moves by adding more complex actions to his repertoire than he had in Exodus.
I played the first two Oddworld, Abe’s Exoddus and Abe’s Oddysee games when I was a kid and I remember we both bothered the shit. Crowded, dark and dirty environments created a feeling of foreboding that moved and terrified me. In each room there was a puzzle to solve or a secret to find, and my brain liked training. After playing and 100 percent completing We N Tasty, I looked forward to Soulstorm to re-experience the same thrilling terror. Soulstorm, with all its new features and improvements, seemed to increase the difficulty level and I was excited to play. But in a few hours Soulstorm, I’m still waiting to feel the same scary emotion I felt playing the initiator.
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Abe’s Exoddus and saving all the Mudokoni it was difficult because of the limited actions available to mean that you have to plan meticulously how to safely navigate a room full of traps with your friends. With all the new elements, much of that planning was removed in favor of simple to have the right amount of items to create the right tool for the job. Into the Exodus was, “Okay, I have to go down, run for my life, jump, hope to catch the edge, get on and pull the lever before the rope sees me and shoots me to death.” Now it is: “I can use the smoke bomb or the stun bomb and move in my will.” The difficulty that made it Exodus stressful but rewarding was flattened into a sort of generic adventure action platform.
That being said, Soulstorm still scratches my itch on the puzzle platform. I miss the challenge of the originals, but Soulstorm is not without some difficulty. Abe’s improved movement options and new level models create totally new challenges that I enjoy, analyzing them. At the beginning of the game, Abe is forced to cross black caves clogged with dog-like creatures called slogans. You only have a limited number of missiles to light your way, and changes in your ability to weigh make you search ahead for any dangers. However, you do not have weapons to deal with the slogans, so the best bet is to stay as calm as possible. Singing, talking to other Mudokoni or running, they will wake up the slogans and they are hungry for dinner. Do you remain silent and risk falling into an invisible bottomless pit? Or do you use the research ability of your song and let the slogans of war slip?
Most of my enjoyment of Soulstorm is despite the new article offerings, rather than because of it. For me, collecting items is tiring and I tend to ignore the collection if I can help it. But in Soulstorm, you can’t help it. Abe can look for cabinets, open wooden boxes, track clay jars, or pick up various objects from the ground that he can use on his travels. In the first hand of levels you are introduced to Soulstorm Brew. Throw a bottle of it at the nearest fire and it explodes, removing any unfortunate slice, wooden barricade or Mudokon worker caught in the explosion. Some of the elements are interesting. The tape, for example, can be used to bind a removed lamella, permanently incapacitating it. But one of the elements, moolah, I absolutely hate. There are doors called moolah gates that hinder Abe’s progress, unless he pays the amount of moolah marked on the gate. I faced situations where I successfully completed a room full of traps and enemies, but I found myself unable to progress because while running for my life, I neglected to check every closet and dumpster for the moolah that I had it later, I have to go on. I’ve never been the kind of player who obsessively checks every corner for every little object – it’s a waste of time. The fact that this game sometimes requires this – forcing me to remake the cameras I’ve already made, is annoying.
As in New “n” TastyI still wanted to save all my Mudokon friends, but I had already started dreaming. UI Soulstorm will tell you how many Mudokoni are at a certain level, but as far as I know, it lacks visual clues as to where. Exodus revealed the secret hiding places of Mudokon with the presence of small piles of Soulstorm beer bottles.Soulstorm it has no equivalent, so I obsessively checked every stone that stood out and always checked for hidden workers in the vents. There have been several occasions when a wandering roll on a solid-looking wall reveals a hidden area where the Mudokoni are waiting for their savior.
I like that the game rewards you because you took an extra moment to kick in front of any fake walls and fake bottoms. There is never an occasion when the deviation from the obvious path does not produce a collector or a Mudokon to be saved. But still, all my tricks and tips from playing the original Oddworld the games were not enough to save everyone.
There is an early moment in the game that made me realize that I will not be able to save everyone. Abe is locked in a room, unable to escape until enough Mudokoni climbs a huge ladder to hit the button that will unlock the room. As you climb, you need to distract the waves of sanders from knocking them down. Is difficult. There are so many slits and you can own only one at a time. While you have control over one shot over another, a third, fourth and fifth round dozens of Mudokoni. After countless attempts to save all 200 Mudokoni, I had to give up otherwise, I would not see the rest of the game. It made me think that maybe this works according to the intention, that this was the game that taught me that this time, Abe will not be able to save everyone. I wrote down the 36 Mudokoni I had lost in my heart and moved solemnly … to another room that made me repeat the meeting.
What was so enjoyable about the older Oddworld games was that you looked at a problem – say a room designed to be nothing more than an elaborate death trap – and learned how to orient yourself and your instinct to zero survival with safe friends. This experience with the scale has somewhat diminished and made the challenge less in terms of your ability to plan wisely and more in terms of the ability to button mix. I’m not a pushbutton, so I failed.
Another moment similarly forced me to accept victims, but this time it was due to a bug and not a puzzle design. The portals you use to send your Mudokons to freedom are made up of small birds that scatter when you get too close. Usually, when this happens, you wait a moment and the birds reappear or you can go through the screens and come back to reappear the portal. The bug I encountered permanently peeled off a portal and nothing I did could bring it back. I was forced to leave the Mudokons I had gathered in the area because they could not follow me to the next area where they could wait for another portal. I have already resigned myself to a second piece of the game later in the year, when travel solutions are available.
I haven’t finished the game yet, which is why it’s not a complete review. It’s about six or seven hours. And, although I initially feel overwhelmed by the lack of a challenge, I have fun. I always loved the first two Oddworld games, so having a supplemented version of Exodus it’s a cat for my teenage self. I hope the story finds the right balance between Abe’s search for the chosen one and the crazy humor that made the initial games so charming. I also hope that the later levels will be built with the old ones Oddworld in mind – it depends more on your problem-solving ability than having the right number of doohickies in your backpack.