I’ve been a fan of the Oddworld games since I was a kid. As such, I’ve been excited to play and enjoy the new entries in the franchise, starting with Oddworld New ‘N’ Tasty and now with Oddworld: Soulstorm. Oddworld: Soulstorm is a remade version of Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus, made from the ground up in line with the dev team’s original vision of the game.

Because of this, Oddworld: Soulstorm’s story somewhat follows the original, but there are a variety of new mechanics and elements at play. The first of these mechanics that jumped out at me was the usage of environmental consumables such as water or a flammable brew. If you throw flammable brew at a surface, then ignite a campfire in proximity to it, the brew will catch fire. This will kill enemies, burn wooden obstacles, and more.

Another mechanic is crafting, which allows you to take ingredients and make things like stun mines. In each level, you’ll have a variety of objectives you can reach, which give you medals. Strangely, the only thing that affects what ending you get is how many Mudokons you save. You have to save at least 80% in each level to get the best ending, which is no easy feat.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is a Puzzle Platformer that puts you in the shoes of Abe. As in previous entries, Abe can run, jump, roll, and chant. Chanting allows him to take control of certain Mudokon switches, possess enemies, and do a variety of other things as you progress. Additionally, he can issue orders to Mudokon allies once he rescues them.

The puzzle and platforming sections by themselves are fun, but I found that adding enemies into the mix gave a very uneven difficulty. In fact, because there’s very little margin for error, the stealth segments sometimes became so hectic that it became frustrating to just figure out how to progress. The autosave at each checkpoint happens often enough that the game is fairly forgiving if you need to restart a section, but the difficulty spikes and prevalence of stealth can be frustrating if you’re just in it for the puzzle elements.

Another problem I had is that the Mudokon AI is obnoxious. Sometimes controlling them works, but sometimes they’d get themselves killed for stupid reasons, requiring me to restart a whole section. It also doesn’t help that with the Quarma (Karma) mechanic, the game punishes you (and can affect the ending) based on killing Sligs. Abe is intended to be a pacifist, but apparently, this means pushing the stealth angle way too hard.

The controls are also a little on the weird side. You can go up or down ledges by moving the stick up or down near one. However, sometimes the stick doesn’t register that you want to go up or down and just moves you sideways, which can really cause problems. On the upside, there are various accessibility options for font sizes and other things that might be helpful.

Overall, I love the visual style, the cutscenes, and some of the additions to the gameplay. However, between the harsh difficulty, the janky control scheme, and some of the bugs I ran into, Oddworld: Soulstorm isn’t quite on par with the rest of the recent entries. If you love Oddworld games and are willing to tolerate some issues, then Oddworld: Soulstorm could be up your alley. Otherwise, wait for a sale or maybe think about it a little more.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Oddworld: Soulstorm was provided by Microids for this review.

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Oddworld: Soulstorm

$49.99 USD

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Gorgeous Visuals
• Accessibility Features Such as Font Size Options
• Interesting Puzzles and Level Design

Cons

• Controls are Rough to Use
• Mudokon AI is Terrible
• Too Much Emphasis on Stealth
• Too Many Sequences With Buggy Enemies