Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee - New 'n' Tasty! (PS Vita) Review

By Sandy Kirchner-Wilson 08.02.2016

Review for Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee - New

Developed by Oddworld Inhabitants and published by GT Interactive in 1997, Oddworld Abe's Oddysee very quickly became a cult classic. In early 2014, the company Just Add Water, which had teamed up with Oddworld Inhabitants, released Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee - New 'n' Tasty on the PlayStation 4 to generally favourable critique. This new version sported a heavily upgraded game, built from the ground up in a new engine, with fancy new rendering techniques. Furthermore, gameplay and structure was tweaked significantly. The Vita has seen many games try and fail to be ported over from more powerful consoles; Mortal Kombat was weak graphically, Resident Evil Revelations 2 had loading issues. It's 2016, and Oddworld comes on to the PS Vita platform. The question is: how does this port stand up?

Abe's Oddysee follows the unfortunate and amusing Abe as he ventures forth to save his fellow Mudokons from extinction. One day, while waxing the floors of Rupture Farms meat processing plant, he comes across a secret meeting. His boss, Mullok, has come up with a plan to save the company from a crippling decrease in profits; a plan to make the "New 'n' Tasty" out of the Mudokons.

New 'n' Tasty, aside from being a witty self-reference, is a very polished remake and reimagining of the original Oddworld title which was released on the Playstation, MS-DOS and windows. It takes the series staple puzzle/cinematic platforming, and brings it into the current era of gaming with minor tweaks to the gameplay along with major changes to the visual design.

Overall it runs really well, with hardly any frame drops, even though the graphics are there in an almost untouched form. When the game does slow down it's usually quite a frantic scene with lots of animated characters or traps on screen. Most of the game's elements have been reduced in number to help preserve the performance, yet not so much that it affects the experience, and because key intractable environments are 3D it is still magnificently attractive on the small screen.

Screenshot for Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee - New 'n' Tasty! on PS Vita

Gameplay-wise, everything has been transferred extremely well to the Vita, with most functions having been remapped to the physical buttons, assuring that there isn't any lag between input and output. Unfortunately, the twitchy analogue stick movement is also present, meaning it's possible to fail a puzzle unintentionally. The vita's rear touchscreen has been used for simple little touches; as an example, in the loading screens, and when the screen is black with a quote, if it's touched coloured lights appear on the screen.

Other cool changes were both the additional Mudokons to save in the game and the fact that Abe could interact with multiple NPCs at one time, something that originally came round in the sequel, Abe's Exodus. Their increased numbers actually helped to reinforce the feeling that Mullok had a large workforce, since the original's 99 didn't project the same feeling of scale.

Retaining the quick-save feature was a great move. Quick Save is mapped to the select button (tap to save and hold to load), which makes it easy to drop a player controlled checkpoint in the middle of the level. This is fantastic in the portable version, as quick loading upon making a mistake instantly returns Abe to the Quick Save point, but if he dies and the action starts from a fixed checkpoint, it has to commit to a 10-to-20 second load. Saving that time is crucial to the whole experience being enjoyable during a commute.

Screenshot for Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee - New 'n' Tasty! on PS Vita

Cubed3 Rating

7/10
Rated 7 out of 10

Very Good - Bronze Award

Rated 7 out of 10

New 'n' Tasty is a great port of Abe's Oddysee, and really shows why it's sad that the Vita is basically unsupported these days. Just Add Water has achieved something great with this product, with undamaging optimization choices, and by keeping the game fully featured under the limitations. Oddworld itself stands up for having some of the best setting, atmosphere, character and gameplay for a cinematic platformer. The only downfalls are the occasional frame-rate drops, and the way it interfered with the puzzling. The experience overall is fantastic and this purchase comes highly recommended to all who haven't played the game already.

Developer

Just Add Water

Publisher

Oddworld Inhabitants

Genre

2D Platformer

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  7/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  8/10 (1 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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