About the franchise

Soulstorm is the sequence of Oddworld: New N’ Tasty, a 2014 game that brings back the original franchise of 1997 developed by Oddworld Inhabitants, with the title Abe’s Odyssey. The new game follows a line of similar reasoning, redoing the second chapter of the adventure, Abe’s Exoddus, released in 1998.

Oddness is a characteristic of these games, to be honest, is a charm, a mix of fun with bizarreness. The mission of our main character, Abe, is to save his people, the Mudokon, from slavery by the Glukkons, and this is going to take us into a gameplay that combines puzzles to escape and strategies to run away from the enemies.

Combination of fragile and danger

Abe and his people are fragile, one mine, some gunshots or little fire is enough to kill them and you return to the last checkpoint, Mudokons have brains that are probably of the size of an olive and they depend on our character for everything, that means, possibly every time that we’ll need their help is going to be quite challenging. Even so, besides the game presenting simple locomotion, it’s possible to walk only to the sides, jump and scratch, in a progression system equally simple with basic controls and easy to learn, there are also mechanics well-tested and elaborated, which is expected for a game that despite not having been so successful in Brazil, it has been on the scene for a long time.

In the beginning, we have to make a huge effort with the bottles of water, throwing them to put out little fires, and with other drinks that we use to spread the fire to destroy obstacles or burn enemies. As we advance some phases, some very long, counting around 50 minutes, forming extensive gameplay with 15 main phases and 2 other possible phases, we unlock other mechanics such as throwing rocks, mines, turning on the generator, and my favorite, the corner.

This ability allows us to open gates guiding a produced light until the portal that helps our passage in a place that was blocked before, and allows us to “possess” the enemies and control them, we can stun and explode them, and use their weapons, turning Abe in a dangerous person.

Cutscenes tell a history, but don’t show the truth

During phases, at the beginning, middle or final, some scenes are going to appear to show the main narrative of Soulstorm, and these scenes are unchangeable, Able’s people need to run from the evil Glukkons to not be enslaved again. But there is more than one possible ending for this gameplay, in other words, according to the players’ actions, you’ll be directed to one of these endings, but don’t worry, the saving system allows us to explore all the other possibilities. Including, one of the endings is something melancholic, deservedly to be honest since to reach this ending the player has to decide to not save any Mudokon during the journey.

When the firsts cutscenes appeared, I got too excited regarding the graphic quality combined with the audio, because the art delivered is really beautiful and polished. However, isn’t something ugly or badly built, but since it’s come to a consolidated franchise and inside a platform with so much potential as PS5, someone could certainly expect more, unfortunately, it disappoints with the illusion of the visual beauty of the scenes.

Regarding the sound, the game doesn’t have dubbing in Brazilian Portuguese, only subtitles, but it’s well played in these cutscenes moments during the phases, with noises according to the environment, fire, gunshots, bombs, etc.

Required Systems

Besides the mechanics that we talked about, some are extremely dispensable (you’re hardly going to disarm landmines), others are innovators like the old franchise games (double jump is essential), Soulstorm offers a crafting system, that can be used as a facilitator, but sometimes it is needed to be able to progress in the narrative, for example, to create an antidote to cure several Abe’s companions, where we need several ingredients found in the mines with deadly dangers.

And that’s not all, the game also has a help system of other Mudokons, that is, when we rescue them, they can perform some functions to help us, but let me warn you, you’re going to need them, to overcome challenging moments among several puzzles, traps, and strategies.

Soulstorm is available for PS4, PS5, and PC.