What a difficult game to review. Yes, yes, you’re thinking. It must be so hard for you to review a well-received remake of a beloved classic. But, you see, it is, because Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty does so much wrong and is in many ways so utterly redundant that it’s difficult to keep a cool head when approaching it.
Here’s the thing; there was no reason to remake the original 1997 Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee. At the time New ‘n’ Tasty originally launched (the halcyon days of 2014), its source material was widely available on PlayStation 3 and Steam. And it still is. But, no, folks wanted their Abe action to get some sort of spit-shine, so in comes New ‘n’ Tasty “fixing” everything that wasn’t broken and stripping the game of a good deal of its precision, atmosphere and general appeal.
Is it bad, then? Should we cut to the chase and just give it a low score? No, no, no. New ‘n’ Tasty doesn’t deserve that. It’s fun to play and the basic components that make Abe’s Oddysee so good are here. Some of the quality of life improvements are smart ones, most crucially the implementation of Abe’s Exoddus’ valuable “All o’ ya” command, which allows you to engage multiple Mudokons in Gamespeak at once, meaning no more painstakingly ferrying them back and forth one at a time.
