It’s no surprise that Nintendo dominated the gaming industry back in the day. Many of Nintendo’s practices became mainstays for the trade as a whole. Their success is thanks in part to their massively popular game library. Nintendo consoles are notorious for housing some of the greatest 2D platformers of all-time. Games like Super Mario Bros., Castlevania, and Mega Man come to mind. Nintendo was undoubtedly king! That didn’t stop the competition from throwing their hat in the ring.
Independent development team Just Add Water noticed the lack of odd in the world and developed a remake of Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey. This remake, dubiously named Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty, initially released on the PlayStation 4 in 2014. Ports to other consoles slowly trickled down as the year went on. Yet New ‘n’ Tasty only found its way onto the Nintendo Switch just this past Tuesday. How well does this 6-year-old side scroller run on the Nintendo Switch and, more importantly, how does it hold up?
All Stories Must Have A Beginning
Our story begins with the unlikeliest of heroes: Abe; an odd human-like creature, known in-game as a Mudokon. Abe’s species is enslaved by the world’s biggest meat processing plant, RuptureFarms. While out and about waxing floors, Abe overhears his boss Molluck’s plan to process all of the enslaved Mudokons into their New ‘n’ Tasty food product. Terrified, Abe sets off on a mission to escape Rupture Farms and save his people.
Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty’s story is portrayed through pre-rendered cutscenes. These cutscenes are identical to those found in the original Abe’s Odyssey except that they were redone from the ground up. While these cutscenes look much better than those found in the original game, the Switch version suffers from heavy compression. The visual difference between the cutscenes and actual gameplay is pretty drastic. While it does take away from the experience a bit, the cutscenes have a ton of personality and are really well done.
Throughout his “odyssey,” Abe meets many Mudokons. While most of the Mudokons Abe comes in contact with are held captive in RuptureFarms, he also meets others in the wild. Those free Mudokons are very spiritual beings and believe Abe to be their prophet. These Mudokons aid Abe throughout his journey, by providing him access to certain areas and granting him new abilities. The further he progresses throughout the story, the more of the Mudos continent’s deep lore we learn. Many of his discoveries include the importance of his own newly-discovered legacy.
What’s The Gameplay Like?
Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty plays from a 2.5D perspective. It features very detailed 3D visuals but controls like a traditional 2D platformer. The world of Mudos is rich with puzzles that Abe must solve, in order to progress through the levels. I found throughout my playthrough that the difficulty level is fairly unbalanced. While some puzzles present a strict, but fair challenge, many are frustrating. More than half of the world’s areas feel artificially difficult to prolong the game’s length. The difficulty curve is partially due to the level design, as the objective in many areas is unclear. This is a shame, as the fairer sections of the game are incredibly fun and engaging.
Initially, Abe’s abilities are incredibly limited, leaving him fairly defenseless. New ‘n’ Tasty’s levels are filled to the brim with adversaries trying to kill Abe. In many areas, Abe has the option to avoid enemy contact by running or sneaking. Many sections however will require that he take them out first-hand. As you play, Abe will find various usable items such as rocks and explosives. While these objects are implemented into solving puzzles, these can also act as weapons.
“Follow me!”
One of Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty’s titular gameplay elements is GameSpeak. GameSpeak acts as a command system, which allows Abe to communicate with both enemies and allies. These actions vary from simply saying “hello” to recruiting allies to follow along. This ability is incredibly important, as one of Abe’s main goals is to escort the enslaved Mudokons to safety. There are a total of 299 Mudokons in need of rescue. Many of them are in plain sight, whereas others are cleverly hidden. The number of Mudokons saved will reflect Abe’s outcome at the end-game.
GameSpeak is also a much-needed ability when navigating puzzles. There are many times Abe is required to repeat a series of whistles and noises. These actions act as a password system to unlock doors and navigate through specific areas. Many passwords from earlier on are told to the player, yet down the road, Abe will be required to find stone tablets and memorize the codes inscribed there.
“My whole life has changed in just one day.”
Another major ability Abe receives is his chant. In the beginning, it is mainly used to open up portals which act as an escape for freeing the enslaved Mudokons. In addition to opening portals, Abe’s chant can replenish his own health. As Abe progresses further in his journey, he will be unlock further skills which augment his chant.
One of Abe’s most useful learned skills is his possession ability. In certain areas of the game, Abe’s chant can be used to take control of enemy characters. Players can either communicate with enemy characters, via GameSpeak, or attack them. Different puzzles will require different strategies. Some may require that you leave a certain number of enemies alive to distract one another. Other times, you may be required to defeat all enemies in order to move forward.
Throughout the levels, Abe will come across his almost loveable companion and loyal mount, Elum. In these sections of the game, Abe must ride Elum in some precision platforming sections. Elum allows Abe to jump gaps he typically could not cross. While riding Elum, actions such as stopping and jumping are very delayed, which resulted in many deaths. As much as I liked Elum as a character, these sections of the game were some of my least favorite.
Old Dog, New Tricks
In the original title, Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey, levels were split into sections. Traversing from one side of the screen to the other would result in a jump cut into a new area. This was a workaround Oddworld Inhabitants used to circumvent the limitations of the original PlayStation. Thanks to the major advancements in technology, New ‘n’ Tasty features more typical side-scrolling. This definitely helps modernize the game as well as maintains the level’s flow.
As a remake of a ’90s game, New ‘n’ Tasty has some much-needed quality of life changes. The first change is an Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty selection. Let me be clear, New ‘n’ Tasty is not an easy game by any means. While Easy and Medium are more forgiving than Abe’s Odyssey, they are still incredibly challenging. Hard mode offers up a much more difficult experience, akin to the original.
The next big change is an optional quick save and quick load. From the pause menu, players can save their progress at any point, ignoring any checkpoints. They can then load that save at any time, which was a thoroughly welcome change. When used correctly, it becomes another handy tool in combating the game’s difficulty. While I enjoyed the challenge the game gave me, I used this feature quite often.
Ugly And Pretty In Perfect Harmony
The biggest change this remaster has to offer is in its graphics. Visually, Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty is a gorgeous game. The developers had time to rebuild every single visual asset before release. The character design is incredibly ugly and I mean that in the nicest way possible. All of the inhabitants of this world are intentionally grotesque. Even our protagonist’s mouth is stitched shut. Being a former slave, having his mouth stitched together makes sense. Again, this is unsightly, but it works wonderfully within the game’s world.
The landscapes range from industrial settings to tropical jungles to ancient civilizations’ ruins. Each of these is vastly different in style, but equally pretty to the others. It’s very easy to forget Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty’s lineage as a remake of a 1997 PlayStation game. If I didn’t know any better, I would think it was an all-new game.
Unfortunately, as visually appealing as Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty is, I did come across some further issues. Besides the heavy compression mentioned earlier, I noticed a weird flash on loading screens. For what’s supposed to be a simple black screen, it was noticeably persistent. This could be an issue for those with neurological disorders, such as epilepsy. I also noticed minimal amounts of screen tearing throughout some of the earlier levels. These mostly appeared when I was traveling upward via pipes or in congested areas. Surprisingly, they were less frequent further along in the game.
How’s It Sound?
The music in Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty isn’t anything too special. Each of the different themed areas have music that fits the environment, but, while the soundtrack isn’t bad, it’s just not very memorable. Cutscenes are fully voiced, which is incredibly well done, and I can’t say for certain if the voices were re-recorded or remastered. I can say that the cutscenes were largely as enjoyable as they were thanks to a great voice cast.
That great voice cast can overstay their welcome, however. Abe’s chant is one of the most used abilities in-game. Every time it’s used, he chants out loud. The first few times I heard him chant, it was mildly charming. After a dozen or so times, I was already sick of it. While this is a minor nitpick for sure, it was still something I felt tainted the overall experience.
“The truth, it turned out… Now that would blow my mind.”
Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty’s characters manage to pull off being hideous and charming at the same time. The story was well done and kept me engaged throughout my playthrough. Visually, Oddworld has never looked better, despite taking a minor downgrade when compared to other platforms. While challenging at times, many other sections felt excruciatingly difficult. Despite that imbalance, overall I enjoyed the challenging puzzles. While the Oddworld franchise may be unknown by many, and beloved by some, this remastered classic is rough, but still fun.
Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty is available now on Nintendo Switch, in addition to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. For another difficult platformer on Nintendo Switch, check out our review of Spinch.
A digital copy of the game was provided for the purpose of review.
