Oddworld: Soulstorm

Despite how much I love the world of Oddworld and its quirky characters, I did not enjoy most of my time at Soulstorm. Clunky controls, repetition, and peaks in difficulty turn this into a tedious experience and drop any sense of accomplishment. Because sometimes, when you finally achieve it... a bug kills you and all your Mudokons.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is a good platformer that could have been even better if the developers had maximized it's potential, but it still can definitely entertain the fans of the genre.

I can’t say that what I played is a bad game, but saying that the audience for this isn’t somewhat narrow in scope would be doing it a disservice. Then again, Inhabitants just wanted to make something that’s serviceable, and I feel safe in saying that it succeeded on that front. It’s not very often you find yourself doing stealth in a 2.5D game these days, but it’s here and it’s doing its thing with reckless abandon. If you don’t mind the slow burn pace of the gameplay, you’re going to find yourself helping Abe stick it to the man to be an enjoyable experience.

Oddworld: Soulstorm refines a lot from the previous games, but it comes at the cost of adding in new mechanics that never really click. The core element has improved, and it’s easy to see the franchise continuing to improve going forward, without needless additions. Soulstorm just falls that little short of great this time around, sadly.

Oddworld: Soulstorm took Oddworld Inhabitants over two decades to fully realize so it’s disappointing that it came out in the state that it did. Numerous bugs are just one part of the problem as its lack of a quicksave and unwieldy controls cause a lot of easily avoidable irritation. Solving its one-of-a-kind sneaky puzzles can be fairly gratifying at times and its impeccably animated cutscenes are nothing short of amazing, but this is a mixed batch of Soulstorm brew that deserved more time in the production factory.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is rather a mixed bag. On one hand there's plenty of great gameplay mechanics, some innovative gimmicks, and a dramatic story to boot. But at the same time you'll have to deal with a boring color scheme for most of the game, that pairs with some unintuitive and chaotic levels.

Abe's return in Oddworld Soulstorm is far from being a perfect experience but it's still an enjoyable mix of action, puzzles and platform. The game needs more polish on the I.A. side to become something special.

Oddworld: Soulstorm clearly comes from a very passionate, dedicated group of developers. Although it is very rough in places, there are parts of it that really do stick out as excellent examples of both gameplay and storytelling. With more refinement this could have been a shining example of what ground-up remakes could be, but it just falls a little short of the high standards set elsewhere. It’s still charming and funny, just like the Mudokens you’re trying to save, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

If the original games were part of your childhood, then Oddworld: Soulstorm deserves your visit, especially if you have a PlayStation 5, as it is one of the PS Plus offers. The journey is long and hard, loaded with moments of frustration caused by forces that exceed our expertise. But if you are willing to overcome these countless barriers you will find a title filled with good puzzles and excellent cutscenes, led by a strangely relatable protagonist.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is a fantastic modernized remake of one of those side-scrollers that we remember as great but the original doesn’t hold up. Although it can be an aggravating slog to get through its escort quest-heavy levels, it’s also a unique, delightfully bizarre, and utterly rewarding experience with a fantastic story and a lot of heart. Of course, it also has far too many bugs that force restarts to circumvent, and that can turn the frustration of a good challenge into the bad, controller-throwing kind, and the sound design is all over the place.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is an adventure platform of yesteryear, which manages to modernize its playful formula only at times, with the addition of some guessed tricks aimed at perfecting the framework of Abe's Exoddus. Not everything flows with the right fluidity, and the consistent difficulty of the game is aggravated by unfortunate game design choices: yet, when it works, the work of Oddworld Inhabitants manages to guarantee a good dose of satisfaction, thanks to a substantial amount of content and of Abe's immortal grotesque charm.

Even with some technical issues and a lack of originality, Oddworld: Soulstorm is still one of the ideal games of what Abe's adventures should be. Good.

This is a wild ride with ups and downs, cheering and cursing. Fascination and disenchantment are constantly fighting for dominance, so in the end this is merely a mediocre experience.

Oddworld: Soulstorm's repetitive gameplay doesn’t make it a bad game, but it does limit the demographic of players that will thoroughly enjoy the game all the way through. Its story and visuals are very impressive and help carry a lot of the game's weight, but playing through hour-long levels with little story elements in between can make Oddworld: Soulstorm a very slow burn. Fans of the Oddworld franchise and 2D platforming games won't be disappointed, but Oddworld: Soulstorm won't keep everyone hooked for very long.

A highly enjoyable platform puzzler, with some cleverly complex set pieces and great presentation – but it lacks that final layer of polish that could have made it something really special.

A modernized update of classic gameplay, Oddworld Soulstorm should've been a homerun. Technical issues and annoying checkpoint placement, however, keep the game firmly stuck at second base.

Oddworld: Soulstorm should have been the definitive version of the second entry in the Oddworld quintology, while the new story and characters hold their own, the gameplay lets it down. A plethora of bugs make the game far more difficult and frustrating than it should be, ranging from inconsistent enemy movement and teleportation to traces of elements no longer in the final product. There are more than 1300 Mudokons needing your help, but it might be worth waiting a while before you take on this mammoth task.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is a big and beautiful puzzle platformer, set in a masterful world with cool characters. Unfortunately, the game has messy gameplay, clunky controls and many technical flaws.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is a big, beautiful puzzle platformer with the spirit of Abe's adventures intact and some interesting new ideas, but it's all very quickly undone by imprecise controls, tedious level design and a shocking lack of polish. Oddworld fans will definitely want to check it out, but they may be better off waiting for a few more updates before investing their time, and even then might come away just a tad disappointed.

Oddworld: Soulstorm's bugs are a huge downside and keep the game from reaching the same heights as its predecessors. The original version of the game, Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, is a much more polished experience and it may be best for players to check out that one instead while they wait for Oddworld Inhabitants to fix the many issues that Soulstorm is currently dealing with.

This is a truly beautiful, varied platformer with a great story and a fascinating world. It also boasts some of the worst controls I’ve come across in recent years, it’s heavily buggy and the sound design is a mess. This is a game for those of you who are both patient and forgiving.

In that image lies the appeal—and for some the off-putting twinge—of Oddworld: a bleak and black-hearted concoction, laced with snickering humour and shot through with hope.

The setting of the game is beautiful and makes us want to contemplate the universe of Oddworld. The cinematics are also outstanding and the game is very generous in terms of content. The gameplay first seems more modern and nervous, yet the overall experience is as frustrating as frustration can get. The crafting elements combined with the 1st-time only activated check point force us to loot lockers and dumpsters as we die (so again and again and again). The game has a lot of bugs and the repetitiveness of some segments of the game can make the overall experience dull instead of fun.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is clearly a labour of love, and I can see that in everything it does. The ambition that bleeds into its story, characters, and gameplay are all evident, but the execution is just sorely lacking everywhere it matters. Perhaps my perspective on past games is warped by nostalgia, but this isn’t the road I imagined Abe and company going down. It’s in the right direction, but they’ve veered off course and landed themselves in a ditch.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is an advancement on previous games in the series in every way, but that’s both its biggest achievement and the source of its problems. The complexity and variety in its locations is commendable, as is the wealth of tools at your disposal for dealing with its many tricks and foes. But many of its systems don’t work together reliably, or don’t respond with the necessary speed, which leaves an experience that’s rarely as entertaining as it promises to be.

While that means Soulstorm works - accidentally or otherwise - as a metaphor for the struggle of the working classes, all that toil rarely makes for a particularly engaging game. [Issue#359, p.112]