Publisher: Oddworld Inhabitants
Developer: Just Add Water
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
ESRB: T
The more I play of Oddworld: New โnโ Tasty, the more I get the sense that itโs a whole lot better if youโre looking at it through nostalgia goggles. After all, I missed the original Oddworld: Abeโs Oddysee (I was too busy being a Nintendo-only gamer at the time), which means Iโm going into this recrafted version without any prior experience with the game. Andโฆwell, I canโt say Iโm a huge fan of it.
Before I say anything else, I should emphasize that I donโt think itโs a bad game. Weโre not talking about some RBI Baseball-level atrocity, wherein the corpse of a once-great game has been revived just to be desecrated. No, much like the last few Oddworld remasters, New โnโ Tasty was developed by Just Add Water and published by series creators Oddworld Inhabitants, which means that it was created every bit as lovingly as youโd hope. This is most apparent in its looks, which are utterly fantastic; if you didnโt know that it was a recreated game from 20 years ago, you wouldnโt be able to guess.
Unfortunately, the same level of care doesnโt seem to have been put into the controls. Now, some of this may just be my bitterness talking. Oddworld: New โnโ Tasty is mind-bogglingly hard, even on the easiest difficulty settings, and it challenges you right from the get-go. Youโll die frequently and in incredibly gory ways if youโre not playing with the utmost care, and Iโll freely admit that my style of playing games tends to be a little reckless (to put it mildly).
Having said that, however, the controls donโt seem to do you any favours. The formerly-titular Abe is perhaps a little too sensitive, prone to running at full speed into things or off ledges the moment you even nudge a thumbstick โ which, obviously, is a pretty big deal in a game that relies heavily on stealth and finesse. Again, Iโll admit my lacklustre abilities have at least a little to do with my ineptitude, but at the same time, for such a demanding game, it doesnโt seem like much to demand a little help in return.
Then again, maybe thatโs intentional. Speaking of both the gory deaths and the love that Oddworld/Just Add Water have put into the game, nowhere is this clearer than in the death animations. I lost track of the number of times my head went flying off and my guts were splattered everywhere, but I always noted that said head and guts were way, way more detailed than anything Iโve seen in most other games. (I should add that this level of detail is also found in the environments and other characters โ itโs just most noticeable when your on-screen character is being ripped apart by spinning blades.)
Still, lovingly designed or not, itโs hard to really get into a game where you die constantly and feel like youโve got no chance โ which is where the nostalgia goggles come in. I suspect that if I had fond memories of Oddworld: Abeโs Odyssee from my childhood, then it would be a lot easier to look past all those deaths and see a game Iโd once loved looking fresh and shiny and new (and, perhaps, tasty). As it is, to my more critical/less nostalgic eyes, Oddworld: New โnโ Tasty just ends up looking like yet another hard-as-nails platformer without the precise controls to match.