OddWorld: Soulstorm Review (PS5 PS Plus)

After many years in hiatus, the spiritual remake of Abe’s Exoddus has been released. Does Oddworld: Soulstorm modernize the series enough to justify its existence in 2021 or should this series have remained a memory from 90’s like hypercolor shirts, devil sticks and pogs.

In the first 48 minutes of a game, you should be able to know enough about the visuals of the game, the story, the mechanics, the gameplay loop and many other things. Even better, within the first 48 hours, you will know if the game has done enough to get its hooks into you whether or not you are going to come back, because we both know that if we don’t return or want to return to the game in the first two days, we likely aren’t coming back after that

Memory Lane

I remember back in 1997 and 1998 playing Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee and Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus with my brother in our basement gaming area where we would bring back so many hidden gems from the rental store. This was well before the time where the internet was an essential service like elecrticty, water and sewer. This means there was no marketing cycle that started the hype train years before the games release. There were only a few magazines and TV shows but they usually focused on the big hitters. This meant that the discoverability factor for amazing games was high. The dud factor was also very high but as a kid a bad game is still a good time.

One of the best gems we ever discovered was Abe and the Oddworld series. It felt like a grown up platformer at the time when the rest of the market seemed bright and colourful. The amount of times you die in the Oddworld series was high as well which meant that passing the controller back and forth often led to equal playtimes and the puzzles kept the watcher engaged.

Oddworld and its early PlayStation days easily one of my favourite gaming memories I have. However, we grew older and Oddworld left PlayStation for a while going exclusively to Xbox with Munch’s Oddysee in 2001 and in 2005 with Stranger’s Wrath, which was a far departure from what the series was known for. With the direction the series took, this meant we forgot about the series.

Soulstorm Brewin’

Oddworld: Soulstorm looks and plays like how my mind remembers the two original games on the PlayStation. Obviously, looking back on those late 90’s titles, they don’t look so great but the important thing is that Soulstorm has managed to capture the same essence with simple, effective and sometimes frustrating controls along with visuals that are more than what they appear to be despite being overly brown.

The “2.9D” looks great and gives the game a Shadow Complex vibe. It gives the levels an grandiose scale that typical platformers don’t achieve by rotating the camera at times which gives you glimpse into the size of the level and the world. It manages to explain just how small and insignificant Abe is in this world trying to create a revolution.

Just like Oddworld: New and Tasty from 2016 was a reimagining of the original Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, Oddworld: Soulstorm is a reminagining of the sequel, Abe’s Exoddus. Despite playing them and having some great memories with them back in the late 90’s, that was almost 25 years ago, which means that I don’t remember nearly any of the story beats. Similar to how Mario has slowly evolved since Super Mario Bros, Soulstorm evolves what the series has been known for with great looking cinematics, strong visuals, and clever level design.

One area where the series has failed to live up to the standards of gaming today is in the controls. The controls don’t ruin the game but they do hold it back from being more accessible to all and less frustrating. There are a lot of times where you’re fighting the game to do exactly what you are trying to do. It lacks the precision that a platformer needs to excel. Precison with the water and brew bottles can become a little frustrating, perhaps a bigger explosion radius would have alleviated some of the headaches associated with the bottle throwing mechanic, which seems to be a core pillar of the game. There are also areas where you jump incorrectly or go too far or trying to use the weapon feels very imprecise.

Near the end of the first 48, I encountered the slap mine mechanic. Abe has the ability to disarm these mines on the ground if timing is right on the red/green light cycle. I remember this from the original games but I don’t remember it being as unforgiving as it is in Soulstorm. The window of opportunity is extremely small on most of the mines which can lead to death, starting at a checkpoint that is farther back than it should be and this leads to frustration, which could push a lot of people away.

Retro With Modern Influences

Soulstorm is very compartmentalized which each level being its own segment. This design philosophy harkens back to how the original games were created. At the end of the “First 48”, I was able to finish the lengthy tutorial and the first level, which should only take about 20-25 minutes but learning the ropes and doing a little searching for collectibles it rounds up a little extra.

If you ever played either of the first two games from the late 90’s then you this game will be a fanstasic trip down memory lane. Soulstorm modernizes the series just enough to make it fresh, but lacks in certain areas that keep it from being a great game. If you own a PS5, Soulstorm is on PlayStation Plus for a limited time for free, so you owe it to yourself to at least give it a try. I think if you ever played the series you will like SoulStorm and if you didn’t, you might bounce off due to the dated aspects of the game.