For anyone else like me who wondered what the other 6 principles of the original oddworld designs were, since they weren't covered in this video, they are the following : - All images must: 1) Be realistic. 2) Have solidity. 3) Be original. 4) Be cool. 5) Evoke emotion. 6) Look ALIVE!
Hence why when you start Oddysee and Exodus, it's backed with an A.L.I.V.E Experience. And that's what made those two games so juicy. The fact that it seems so life like...as if you were literally right there and it's not a game you're playing.
@@Kakashi713 If you guys haven't played rainworld I strongly suggest giving it a try (on normal, the white slugcat). The world in rainworld feels like it exists even when you are not playing. The animals have a life of their own and aren't there just to be an obstacle for the player and can be quite unpredictable. It's a very hard platformer with controls that feels sluggish and heavy weighted (compared to things like super mario etc) until you start to master it, kinda like abes oddyssey, flashback etc.
This review gives such a good explanation on what a difference in art direction philosophy can do. Both share the same characters, same world, etc. but one game focused on conveying themes through the art, and the other focused on just looking nice.
It's a bit of a bummer because I'm sure a lot of work went into rebuilding this game. They just missed the mark. The art director looked at the environments and characters and thought 'oh, wow this stuff is really cool! I want to make it stand out.' They missed out on the important aspect of environmental lighting and leaving things in mystery. It is kinda like what happens when they remake horror films. It's not what you see, it's what you don't see.
It's funny, a lot of these same criticisms can apply to Spyro: Reignited Trilogy. While that game benefits from a few genuinely convenient tweaks here and there, and is overall more commendable than Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty, Toys for Bob definitely missed the point of many aspects of those games, from the delivery of jokes to the tone and atmosphere of each level.
Bufudyne Haha. Hot damn. I was silently thinking the same thing but I wasn't going to say it out loud on my own. (I've done it enough, I got nothing new to say, the Spyro remake exists...). I also HATE the constant energetic, smiley, nice tone in the delivery and the animations and there's no break from it. Remember when Spyro 2 actually had bite and atmosphere? Lol. Someone called Nerrel I think has a good video about the MM3D remake that has a lot of the same kinds of points too, more looking nice, more sanitized, too bright etc. GamingBrit's video about the R&C remake mentioned how the original had a more (intentional, good) clunky junky retro-tech feel and the new one is just shiny. Even the Crash remake has a similar "trying to look nice" issue in rounding out all the character models and some animation issues (being too literal, fluid but more cheap and lacking). B-Mask had a damn agreeable video about that game. Wew look at me just advertising other good videos whoops. They said it all. I absolutely hate these game remakes that are constantly trying to look nice. As in constantly invoke the mood that they're pretty. It kills so much of the originals and becomes samey and tiresome. It's just less interesting to look at. I'm so sick of seeing these remakes that clearly have some care and clearly have graphical fidelity but forgo fundamental mood and aesthetics and go for more generic stuff and often simpler stuff too and usually turn out much much weaker. The manual work in better games up to like last gen still shines through. There are still plenty of games with that kind of effort, actually I think the CTR remake is already a considerable improvement from NST, but I'm also very tired of seeing the artists just plop things in the engines and try to fill the gaps with that tech. It happens a lot with remakes especially, and I feel like it started to happen more during the last gen. I really appreciate the more clear, confident and consistent manual work in older games. Bloom not being as much a thing. No nauseating motion blur. Some better art at a better FPS. And again, crappy looks there too and really good shit now too, but I find I can still appreciate the crappy old stuff at least in the sense there's less automatic engine junk. Like again, with remakes in particular, a lot of particles and blooms and motion blurs and stuff are added but just in a meaningless way pretty often. Anyways, nice to see someone else who isn't my one friend call out Spyro? Lol. I wish there was a good heavily critical video of that game (not just for the sake of shitting on it, but because there's always so much shutting down of any criticisms with all these remakes, and Spyro has had a lack of this in particular imo), but B-Mask's was closest, and I think it still missed a lot and wasn't as comprehensive or confident as his Crash one. It was still good though. If I had the skills I'd do it myself honestly because hell I can rant about that game for years and then I think I'd finally be done. Sorry if this was a little bit incomprehensible, sorry to rant on, didn't sleep last night and it's almost 8pm here so I'm kinda going with dumb gutstuffs.
I'm amazed you didn't mention one of the most significant changes. The difference in movement positioning. In the original each step was binary thing, you could only be in about 20-30 places in a screen, meaning that you could move exactly up to a mine without any risk of stepping on it unless you took that last step. In the new version the movement is continuous rather than distinct binary positioning, resulting in you running into things all the time.
After getting both good endings i can say that you are right, everytime i made a mistake in the original i blamed myself, in the remake it was also the slippiness of the movement. I like the remake too but tight controls are a must
This is absolutely true. I can myself attest to this, after completing the original a few years ago. I do wonder how the remake feels for someone who didn’t play the original. Does it stick out as much, compared to contemporary platformers.
@@ElTequilla New players will probably just play in "normal" mode with the health system, which I think is there as the new default specifically to address the fact that you now keep running into things because of the positioning change. Can't blame them, dying in one hit from everything and bad controls don't mix.
And that actually makes ALL the difference, because it goes from list of EXACT steps to make to additional luck required, because there's now an element of entropy...Even if I didn't like how to save every Mudokon you'd need to follow an exact list of steps, it's at least fullproof given you follow the steps in a "monkey see, monkey do" way. The new version just gives that one middle finger...
Wait, so the Mudokons talk even when a Slig is around them? That doesn't make sense. It's clear that the atmospheric intention was: "no talking, work!". If you said "hello" to them, and a Slig noticed it, even if he didn't see you, the Mudokon responding got shot, so how does that work if they just chat some one liners amongst themselves? Seems like this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the original content.
Only Just Add Water and Lorne Lanning might know why THIS happened. Regardless, all of us would know simple, quiet humming or even sad exhaltions wouldn't conflict with the restriction against talking on duty.
Completely agree. Was just thinking this myself. The sheer brutality of their situation down to the point where they weren’t even allowed to speak to one another.
The sound mixing during those cutscenes is inexcusable. I'm not sure how it is in the film industry, but in the music industry a basic rule of thumb is that you should be able to (no matter what) understand every word of the vocals. I would imagine when it comes to narration over video, the same rules would apply. How that got past quality control is beyond me.
Yes it's the same rules. Balancing of sound effects, atmosphere, music, and voices is the very key to sound design in movies. Sound design is too overlooked, and it always saddens me to see to see so many cutscenes in games that brush through it so sloppily.
***** There was an exclusivity deal but no money exchanged. Sony let them on the E3 2013 stage show along with many other indies in exchange for those 30 days.
It literally sounds like they didn't have a sound engineer and every track was put at the same volume. Sound much like color can benefit greatly from sharp contrasts, not like you have sponges over your eardrums.
Morgan Rose I was taught it in a sound mixing class, I assume it mostly meant in general you want to understand what the singer is saying but yeah there is plenty of music that distorts,muffles, etc, vocals to a great effect.
These days it seems like every game drowns out the voice track with the music/sound. I automatically boost the voice volume (if available) whenever I start a new game.
Like the matte paintings of old films. You might have noticed it wasn't a real background but it just looked so good you couldn't even focus on what was meant to be happening in the scene
The originals were dripping in atmosphere, they were dark, grim and yet charming. You couldn't help but immerse yourself into the world. New 'n' Tasty erases all of this and I hate it with a passion. Just add water have done exactly as their name implies; all they've done is water it down.
Well said and well put, sir. I'm still obsessed with Oddysee's imagery, both logos and landscapes, both wilderness and industrial. I think that level of perfection is really hard to reach, and I will personally never enjoy anything that much, not even close. It amazes me.
+thomas garrett (Pokemastertomm) Exactly, because WWHD has the visual style that bloom works well with (I think it was cell shading?). While New n Tasty is certainly a very nice game to look at, I think that JAW were antsy to show just how good the game could look on newer hardware, and the most obvious (not necessarily the best) way to show graphical style change is to increase the lighting so that the player can see the change better. :/
+TheEpikak That one was second in my opinion, his tone of voice wasn't as bitter as it was in the Infinite one. He gives Infinite nearly no credit at all, whereas he states early on in the DSII review that he'd still play it over most other games released nowadays.
It surprises me here how many people disregard these criticisms, thinking they're petty. They're not. When you build a world and create as story, you set a tone, and the visual direction contributes to this in subtle but important ways. Things don't just 'happen'; they are chosen to occur by real people so they consciously choose to have them happen for one reason or another. All the points raised in this video are very legitimate complaints that highlight a lack of undemanding of, or respect for, the original game.
brokenSCART Couldn't say it any better! It's obvious New 'n' Tasty has many, many problems, but the fact that a lot of people just disregard what Matthewmatosis says on this video worries me. I'm glad Oddworld Inhabitants are back (I hope?) but JAW did a terrible job with this game. It's fun at times, but it just feels like a poor fan game more than anything.
@brokenSCART from a guy from the creative media industry, I agree. to sell a game, it needs a in depth story, Style, theme. not consumerism. Not the kind of things I'd do in my games.
The original game was far more scarry. I remember there were levels and rooms where I experienced real fear. And there was something cruel in the original game. I could feel the death in the air. The whole world was built to exploits and abuse everything it can. I honestly never felt like this in any other games. Rupture Farms was a place of living hell in my imagination. The new game just not deliver that horror that the original one.
This is 100% correct. That remake is just totally different game, they not even comparable imo. Atmosphere itself in og game is just masterpiece - scary and intriguing!
the original felt more creepier and the voices were better, i like when you tell elum to wait he makes this weird moan, in the new version elum has no personality
Wow, there's a lot to chew on in this video. I've got some thoughts about the art critique. I've been doing art and design in videogames for 20 years now and I think you're doing a great job of nailing a lot tendencies that have developed in digital art over the past decade. Not just in games, but film and TV as well. One thing I disagree with is your diagnosis that the real-time engine has a lot to do with the problems you've identified. It looks to me like they used Unity for the game, and while I don't have a lot of experience with that particular engine (I mostly use a proprietary company engine and Unreal) I would be shocked if it was incapable of reproducing the exact look of AO if the art director wanted to. Every modern lighting system has so many dials and sliders and options, as well as how much they drive the post-processing such as bloom and lens flair, etc. There's nothing inherent to real-time lights that make them look so overbearing. That's 100% a factor of the art direction. (In fact, I see in the credits that they used two post processor lighting plugins that do just that.) And that art direction is not out of line, in fact, it's directly in line with modern art direction of sci-fi in all mediums. I think this goes to the heart of the issue you're having, and it's one I share. I see three primary reasons for the current state of art in entertainment. 1. As the competition for eyeballs has heated up over the past 10-15 years that has driven a war of spectacle. And spectacle is very very easy to emphasize while forgetting theme. 2. As the gamble on tent-pole releases has gotten bigger, the number of sequels has ballooned to offset the risk. And in each sequel there's enormous pressure to make everything bigger and more amazing than the last one. While this doesn't directly impact every game and movie out there, it does raise the bar of what's expected of a AAA product, meaning the natural impulse is to prioritize bells and whistles over fundamentals. 3. As the tools for creating unprecedented levels of spectacle and detail have gotten better, it's become easier and easier for more and more creators to make that kind of stuff, leading to a glut of really incredible looking art. And the competition to get a job making those incredible art assets for film and games is intense, leading artists to focus on making 'hero' assets to get noticed. The problem being explained in this video is not in the individual pieces though. The problem is in unifying those pieces into a coherent whole that reinforces a theme. A light bloom is easy eye candy. The decision to make ALL lights blown out all over the place is the problem. Cool details on some tech armor is great. The decision to coat every square inch of the suit with detail that leads to an incomprehensible mass of visual noise is the problem. Then the further decision to make 20 different characters all have equally elaborate and detailed outfits and you end up with Transformers, and Jupiter Ascending where the level of visual information is beyond Rococo and you are left with a juxtaposed jumble of shapes and colors and movement. This atmosphere makes the very few examples where detail was purposefully excised in favor of fundamental art principles all the more refreshing. If you've seen Arrival you probably know what I mean.
Thank you for taking the time to write all of this. I'm turning 30 next week and sometimes I feel like a grumpy old man talking about how I prefer my retro games...but you made great points here.
Yeah you've made a very very good point there,it was a lot to take in but otherwise meaningful. Time flies though cos I remember playing this game when I was 8 or 9 year old boy and now I'm a 28 year old man who got the game given back to me for my birthday from one of my friends as it's a mark of nostalgia for me
I hope this doesn't happen with Doom Eternal. Very well said. Looks like they are adding a lot of spectacle, and I hope it does not ruin the perfect fundamental's copy they achieved with DOOM 2016.
Yup, It doesn't fit the tone of the original, or oddworld for that matter. It didn't bother me too much as i knew it was in there before i bought the game to play, but yeah... it was a strange move to input such a song into the credits.
The whole remake comes across more as a comission to a developer who might have played it in the past, but were just told to make a modern version, and not really think of the asthetics or the meaning behind the game. Ironically like rupture farms, just turning ports into a sausage factory. Also Matt, please do a review on A Link to the Past. Just feels so odd you never covered that as that was really the first "modern" Zelda game.
It was the five 3D games which are easily compared and contrasted with each other. Putting 2D games into this mix isn't to easy to quantify, the Zelda spirit can transcend, but something that works in 2D might be terrible in 3D and vice versa. By sticking to the 3D games it becomes much easier to highlight certain characteristics being better or worse between games because they share a baseline context across all of them.
What I don't understand however is why the slig in the opening cutscene wears the original visor, whereas all the other ones in the game wear the pilot masks.... It's like they recreated the cutscene with a slig model that had the original visor, but later in developement decided to change the slig model to the pilot mask model. This pretty much says they where probably to lazy to adjust the cutscene to fit with the change they made later on.
***** Maybe there is only one model on the console? I mean, PC version came out like half a year after the PS4 version. I also heard that other games ads in-game were removed from PC version.(I did play on PC and haven't seen them)
For anyone interested, they eventually did update the game to allow for a toggleable movement speed and a button press for a short hop, but these control updates are about as lazily implemented as the control updates were in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5. There's still no rebindable controls.
I cannot actually believe the music used for the end credits. Im actually in disbelief is that literally just an evanescence song they bought the rights to or some shit? Good lord.
Nah, it was a fan of Oddworld. They used the song because New n Tasty was being promoted as including the fans. The fans named the game, fans play Mudokons IN the game, they reached out to the fan communities and stayed VERY active with them throughout, and included this song. It may be a tonal misstep but it's coming from a different place than people think it is.
HolySok It's so incredibly god awful... I think that should have had gone into consideration and the fact that it got through shows the level of intellect of the developers on this one.
While I agree that the New 'N' Tasty version of Mudokon Pops makes much more sense in regards to the game world, I feel that the original image serves a much more favourable purpose in incentivising players to escape the facility and save fellow Mudokons. The original image was so striking that it effectively embodied the horrible nature of the Glukkons, yet appeared so briefly that any detriment to the player's immersion was negligible.
The modukon pop image was changed in the original game in 1997 for the Japanese market after a decapitation case soon before release of the game there. All other releases in 1997 other than Japan had the head on a stick. However, all subsequent games surrounding Oddworld, including Abe's Exoddus, the new pop image had been adopted instead. This is not a new change.. This is a change that happened 20 years ago..
It might interest you to know that the new image for Mudokon Pops was actually used in the original PS1 Japanese version of the game, for some reason. Mudokons also lacked the small pinkie finger on their hands in the Japanese version as well, so it's all jumbled up there.
+AnOddGhost Not surprised. Japan can be a little touchy about their gore, especially when it comes to 90s video games, even the horror ones they themselves made!
+AnOddGhost It's actually quite common for Japanese releases to redesign four-fingered characters. This is due to connotation of them with the burakumin.
If you played Abe's Exoddus you would notice that Abe went from have 4 fingers in Abe's Oddysee to 3 fingers, making it easier for Oddworld Inhabitants and GT Interactive to distribute the game to all parts of the world. The same goes for the cut-scene when Abe travels to Fee-co Depot and falls off his cart when he is startled by the Mudokon Pops poster. The Japanese design from Abe's Oddysee of the Mudokon Pops was also used in Abe's Exoddus for the same reason as the fingers.
+SSGmaster It would be a great option for F2P games. Instead of making them pay 2 win, just get money from ads. I don't mind playing an arena shooter like Quake, with billboards with ads of real world brands.
Having just played and beaten the remake on PC, I agree with everything said on this video. The original game was a cinematic platformer, with tight and responsive controls, realistic animations and highly detailed backgronds. The devs of the remake made it a generic 2D platformer with cartoony looks and where they couldn't add more detail, they used bloom and lightning effects to get away with it.
I literally just bought this game yesterday. As somebody who doesn't often pay much attention to these kinds of details and enjoys games for what they are, I now have a sense of "what has been seen cannot be unseen". Another truth is that I was young when Odyssey came out - I was very impatient and found the difficulty of this game to be a smidgen beyond my capabilities at the time - I've never actually completed it. However, I have completed Exodus several times - the quick save feature being the main difference that helped get through some of the more taxing parts of the game. I will be keeping a keen eye on the remake of Exodus, in the hope that the same mistakes aren't made. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that even if these observations were made to the team at Just Add Water, with Odyssey having been done the way it has been, Just Add Water will likely feel invested in their own take on the game, and will probably want to remain consistent with their own game rather than the original. I thank you for making these observations, as I feel it is necessary to hold developers up to certain standards for the integrity of the industry, but at the same time I wish I hadn't watched this.
I can see the developers sitting around thinking how could they make the game more accessible and bluntly deciding "well, first of all, it's too dark, kids these days don't like dark games, gotta have some bloom and a neat lens flare effect" which is as you said is simply not getting the main point of the abe graphics or the game atmosphere in general. All it was missing was some blood on the screen when you got injured... I highly respect developers these days that stick to a more "unorthodox" artstyle rather than just oversaturating and riddling everything with every possible effect just it because it looks "prettier". Most them are afraid to even make nights or caves dark that's ridiculous, try crating a gameplay system around that don't just cop out and boost the enviroment brightness.
You forgot a key thing about the talking Mudokons: THEY HAVE THEIR MOUTHS SEWN SHUT Obviously Abe shows they can still talk as move his mouth perfectly, but gives the message that they aren't allowed to. Is the same with Exoddus and the blind Mudokons, which have their eyes shut so they can't see they're digging out corpses.Making them say oneliners breaks the entire art direction of their position in the game.
Vero NeroreN Lorne Lanning actually described how Abes mother literally sewn his mouth shut when he was a screaming infant, so that he wasn't beaten to a bloody pulp as a kid. I could imagine on a screen without a slig the mudokons might say something or grumble perhaps as a little way of building up their innocent nature.
+Kipah if you remember, abe is referred to as stitch lips by other mudokons. according to the lore, his lips were stitched because he cried too much after birth. it's not done to all mudokons. i think the pop art is an oversight.
Adam Smasher Upon investigation, this seems to be correct, with regard to his backstory, at least in as much as I can find where this story originated. I've also found reference to Alf, once of the characters from Exoddus, suggesting other mudokons also have stitched lips which is what the wiki seems to reflect. I am not familiar with character's informative role outside the game, but he apparently "frequently answers letters from fans", according to the wiki. Who knows. It may be a detail that was never set in stone, leading to conflicting answers such as these (which you're under no obligation to read, I just thought I would provide them if you're interested): Q: I've always wondered why Mudokon's mouths are 'sewn' together. If the Glukkons wanted them to shut up, it didn't work very well. They should've stapled them. :) Why does Abe have stitched lips? Alf: Well, they worked pretty well at first, but Glukkons aren't much for long-term thinking or quality control. With the headlock they have on management on Oddworld, they don't really have to be. So, after a while, the stitches get loose, and Abe and the other workers can talk again, some. Q: Why is Abe's mouth stitched up, all the other Mudukons' mouths aren't? Alf: Abe's lips were stitched up to keep him from chanting. It didn't work, and Abe could have removed his stitches a long time ago, but he keeps them as a reminder of what he once was, and what awaits us all if he fails. Q: why is abe blue and why is his lips stitched is it because he couldnt shaddap Alf: Abe’s lips were stitched to stop him from crying all the time. You can’t work in a slaughterhouse if you’re going to spook the livestock with your loud wailing. His stitches may have loosened over the years, but that forced vow of silence taught Abe to keep his emotions to himself, or at least keep them quiet. Abe is blue because he’s sad. This doesn’t affect his job. Color is silent. Q: Is Abe the only Mudokon with Stitch-Lips? Alf: Good ol’ Stitch Lips! I gotta start calling Abe that more often. Honestly? I’m not sure if he’s the only one. Surely he couldn’t be the first or the last Mudokon that cried so much as a baby that Sam sewed his mouth shut to keep him silent for the guards. But who knows? We’ll have to find that one out together… And finally, according to oddworldlibrary, we get Abe's backstory from: "in an appearance on G4TV in April 2005, Lorne stated that Abe cried a lot as a child (supporting an earlier answer by Alf), and that Sam stitched his lips up to prevent Abe from being killed. Unfortunately, Abe’s biography states that he was hatched in RuptureFarms, while Sam is kept by the Vykkers."
My thoughts exactly. Talking seemed like a chore to Abe in the first game and he always spoke in rhyme, like he planned every word carefully. From the 2nd game on, he became a blabbermouth, stopped rhyming and frequently said things like "Ummm...I dunno" or "Oh no, look out!". (His accent also required bigger lip/jaw movements than in the original)
please send this video to lorne lanning, seriously bro, this is so well done, this is EXACTLY what i think but you put it so well together, fuck the neon lights
The mudokon Pops advertisement picture is actually 20 year old work, albeit originally this change was made only for Japanese version. I think it was not the violence but symbolism of decapitated head that made original oddworld team to make this change for japan only, and apparently the same mudokon pops logo is seen in original Abe's Exoddus internationally as well. So the one improvement was there in the original game already. In Japan.
Whynona - I found this information on the game's Wikipedia article regarding the graphics change in this cutscene that replaced the severed Mudokon head with the popsicle image. Really interesting: "In the Japanese release, the image of the Mudokon Pops was changed to resemble a cartoon-like Popsicle with eyes and mouth, considered a 'happier' image by Oddworld Inhabitants. It was not until 2011 that Lanning revealed just why the image was changed for Japanese audiences. A week before press was to begin in Japan to market the game, a Japanese middle-school student murdered a peer, severed his head, and hung it on the fence of a school. Lanning saw that this was 'very, very distressful to the country of Japan that this happened... so they said that it would probably be a good idea to change it. We were asked and we weren’t stupid, so we complied.' The altered image remained in the sequel released in all territories. Said Lanning, 'I never liked the first one. But that was just what came out from the artists and I... try to give [them] some room and not change everything to my liking.'"
Listen to the original soundtrack with headphones, in bed, in the dark. If you hadn't seen the original game and the way it is designed, you'd definitely picture something very close in your imagination. Nothing like the remake. I enjoyed them both though.
The back to back comparison of the credits just sums it up for me. New n Tasty: big, bombastic, "Look at we can do! This song is like what you'd get in a movie!", sounds nothing like the rest of the game. Original: understated, ambient. Does what it needs to do and reflects the tone of the game. Also incorporates sfx from the rest of the game. Kinda of a shame, especially since Stranger's Wrath was a far better addition to the series than Munch was. The series was starting to go in a better direction (although, that was over a decade ago!). Honestly, if another Oddword game was made, I'd like to see it NOT be another platformer. Maybe tackle a different genre altogether. Even a walking sim/first person puzzle adventure would be appropriate for the setting. I really don't trust JAW to make a platformer sequel, at least. Hopefully they will have learned from N&T, but I don't have high hopes.
JAW didnt make Soulstorm, but it looks disappointing nonetheless - from the streamlined mudokon looks to the generic hollywood setup to the generic as FUCK looking graphics. I looked at the trailers and they created exactly 0 mood
@@scarymonkeylover My favorite Oddworld game. Not the best; I understand the gameplay could’ve been better. But I love it. It’s what got me into the series.
It's always a fuckin dilemna when Matthew releases a video for a game I haven't played, being torn between playing the game first so it doesn't get spoiled or just watching the video anyway. It's as good a compliment I can give Matthew that his critiques are so good that they make me want to play games I would be otherwise unininterested in just so I can enjoy his video.
Dread Naught That is where some minds may differ. I can watch a thousand gameplay videos of games I've never played and still get a completely different feeling from actually playing the game. For example, Dark Souls, a game I love to death, isn't quite as overwhelming and marvelous when viewed from a perspective you have no control over. Someone like me, who stops to enjoy rich environments and tests the weight and design of each weapon, armor, ring, etc., can't truly enjoy the experience through gameplay videos. Possibly a simple game like Diablo 3 or any modern FPS that is almost solely designed as quick entertainment may be watched and enjoyed to its fullest (I know I never have to play Minecraft again due to this), but not often games that are so rich and have so much attention to detail.
Well, the bundled Oddworld games on GOG.com are only $12.98. And if we are so cheep as to deprive ourselves of classics that will work on newer systems, then I don't know what's wrong with us. Here's a link (scroll down a bit to see the offered bundle): www.gog.com/game/oddworld_abes_oddysee
The original one was such a good game. A lovely game! Deep, charming and a little bit creepy. I think it has definitely been the best game of my childhood. It'll always be a part of myself.
I can kinda see where he's coming from, guys. Clearly, the visuals are a huge part of the enjoyment one would get out of this game, so, yeah, they're kind of important.
Paintamaster2000 I dunno. I've never played either version, but I find the original slightly more powerful for its utter bleakness. New N' Tasty looks just a little too... lively to convey whatever it's trying too.
Actually, I'd recommend also watching Caddicurus's review, it's really good but has a very different (and more positive) outlook. I haven't played through either, but I like how both opinions are valid in their own ways yet differ greatly.
One of the worst things was one of the new designers, who also seems to be on the Soulstorm team, at a conference talking about how the old game felt "rigid" and new gamers "don't like that". This is stupid. The old game ran on a grid system. Once you mastered it, you mastered the game. New 'n' tasty doesn't have this same precision, meaning sometimes the game fudges jumps you're not quite near enough, or conversely you fall to your death whilst thinking you're obeying the "rules" of the engine. For a game like Batman this works. But this is a game that needs that precision, as the puzzles are designed around that. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for modernisation. I'm not saying this from a point of view of "the old days were better". I'm saying it because there's literally no reason for the change. It now makes it harder for old players, whilst new players again rely on these systems, so they're not actually learning to play the game - and these systems aren't that reliable.
I think the old way was much better. Same system in Another World, Flashback, etc. I'd be happy if it stayed this way in any new game as well. It just works.
roller coaster of emotions Nostalgia, stumbled upon a video of the original Oddworld. Excitement, found this video and learned they remade the original. Disdain, saw enough in this video to never want to buy the remake. +1 on your video though.
The one flaw I find unredeemable is the advertising, everything else I could have overlooked if a bit miffed (and some have been patched as of now) but having a games already heavy handed message be squandered by its own idiotic game designers in such a soulless way almost feels like the gamer designers are trying to piss me off.
Charlie Brown and that's one thing that bugs me most. patches. fucking make a game and not a patchwork that needs to be patched constantly to get it into the state it should have been at release. well atleast they fixed it...
Veijo Takku I kinda agree. I do think a game should be ready for prime time when its released but I do think having the freedom to allow such a mass repair when its needed is a worthwhile tool. Its just that some people abuse it a little.
At least the official Oddworld Inhabitants twitter account responded to Matthew, thanking for the feedback. Dunno if it was Lanning himself, but at least some of the official people are aware, which is nice.
James King Well, Twin Snakes was developed by Silicon Knights, but I don't know how good that actually is. Some people say that it's excellent, and some people say that it's shit compared to the original.
Nukle0n I remember reading some article on Silicon Knights and I remember hearing that Kojima spent a lot of time hands-on with the devs, often they were guided by him iirc. Game was pretty faithful to the original, had some nice improvements too.
Great and very detailed assessment. The brightness alone stopped me from ever bothering with New 'N' Tasty in the first place, but (to me) grit has the keyword when describing what's wrong with so many remakes/reboots/sequels. They tend to be too clean and smooth, totally breaking the original, smudgy atmosphere.
This is an old video that I watched before, but nonetheless want to commend it on it's thorough observation and well balanced critique. I cannot help but agree with all of it, which in a way is a shame because as you say, we want to like the game because it's the return of Oddworld after such a long period of time. I do want to point out the Slig masks though. This is NOT a mistake. The Slig masks were intentionally changed as far back as Abe's Exoddus to the 'two-eyed' model to make them more personable/sympathetic, deliberately trying to get away from the stereotype of faceless goons you believe was for the better with the visor mask, which is more de-humanising. The grounded Sligs in Exoddus simply re-used original sprite assets (the game was made in just under a year) which is why they don't share this mask with the flying Sligs, but when they appear in the CG cutscenes they do have the two-eyed mask design. Whether you agree with this change or not is up to you, but it's no accident at the very least. At least they did get round to adding a Classic control set, IIRC. If you read this, I'd like to hear your opinion on something: I like playing the original Oddworld games on the PS1, but I tried them as the PC ports and they seem to run at a slightly quicker framerate, which in my opinion makes the animations feel too fast and not heavy enough, something you criticised for New N Tasty. Do you notice the same thing?
I don't think Soulstorm looks, gameplay-wise, nearly as bad as New N Tasty - although the double-jump doesn't seem 'right'. It's developed in-house again too by OWI; I think JAW just weren't up to the task of making a good adaptation in the end. Although that said, their work *did* fund this new game, so I guess some sort of thanks is in order.
how do I even start? this guy has become one of my favorite video game critic I hope there's a feedback system on UA-cam rather than just like & dislike ''would you like to rate this video......?'' and there's 1 to 5 stars not gonna lie, all of his video deserves 5 stars in my opinion
UA-cam did have a 5 star rating system and it was useless. People usually rated videos with either 1 or 5, making it virtually the same as likes and dislikes.
The level of detail you provide in your analysis of New 'n' Tasty, and the excellence of your examples, is so astoundingly impressive. I was awed by your discussion of the use of light and I even laughed in amazement when you offered the distinction between "fluorescent" and "incandescent". Your critiques were THAT specific. This review is expansive, insightful, compelling, and highly rewarding - you have earned yourself a new subscriber, sir. Fantastic work.
New 'N' Tasty was just tacky, there's no other way of putting it. The fact that Just Add Water were trying so hard to get the rights to remake the original Metal Gear Solid *_while_* *_they_* *_were_* *_still_* *_in_* *_development_* *_of_* *_NnT_* shows to me that they didn't actually care at all about making a good game - they just cared about the idea of remaking a game from a classic franchise. They just leech off of established franchises. I'm so glad Oddworld Inhabitants have ended their relationship with them; they were just horribly unprepared to make a game like this. I desperately hope that they've listened to this video and are taking it on board for SoulStorm.
They should've just done a "remaster plus" like what Vicarious Visions is doing for the Crash trilogy. Don't fuck with anything unless it's objectively an improvement. (not that their efforts are perfect either)
If they wanted to change things, they should have done something similar to the Monkey Island remakes, where you could choose between the "classic" version and the "remixed" version. Blue Abe shambling down dirty corridors while talking like Donald Duck... ...or Green Abe zipping down brightly lit corridors while talking like Goofy...
this is the video i always come back too, it confirms to me why the original games are the best, and the remakes just dont get the originals vision as of writing cough dead space remake!
The animations look a bit fake to me in the new one, especially dropping from a ledge. I prefer the grittier look and screen-by-screen platforming of the original. I'm enjoying New n Tasty but not on the level of the originals. Still, it's hope that Oddworld can be revived.
It's really nice seeing you compare remakes like this. I would be interested to see you review MGS1 and it's Gamecube remake The Twin Snakes sometime too.
Its the same problem again with that game. All of the grit is lost in the artstyle and the revamped gameplay doesnt quite mesh with the way the games designed (Eg the Ocelot boss battle)
As someone who is trying to get into the MGS series and can't decide on which version of MGS1 to favor, I'd like to see this deconstruction too. Though I'll probably end up playing the PS1 version anyway because it's more accessible and the video would probably require/recommend that I play the game first.
I waited 9 years before playing New 'N' Tasty, upon release I kinda knew it was going to be bad, I bought in on steam for like 3 bucks and holy shit, you nailed everything. The meme of ""soul vs souless" describes how I feel about this game.
Being a fan of Oddworld since Oddysee, I completely and whole-heartedly agree with everything this video points out. There was an update at one point in time that fixed the jumping mechanics, but still no option to change the entire button layout altogether. Hopefully the PC version will allow controller configuration.
In 1997, I received a PS1 with Final Fantasy 7 for Christmas. With the console I got “Demo One”, with a lot of demo games. One was Abe’s Oddysee, and it was unlike anything I’ve seen, and became the second game I bought. Playing the remake, I noticed Abe didn’t have the characteristic look in his face in the menu. His face was blank. I later started noticing more and more, like his running wasn’t that heavy and organic. Beyond that, I agree with you on every point.
This video is living rent free in my head, so I will continue. Regarding the moon and bigface movie; there are so many things off with the remake, it breaks my he heart; - The lighting - The music timing when the bigface appears - Tribal vibe of the original music has been changed into rock - The ghosts of Paramites and Scrabs do not convey them in their natural inhabitat. When I saw it as a kid, I was excited to visit their lairs. The game doesn't really build any excitement here. But tbh, then Munch's Oddysee got released, I felt like they dropped the magic of the game and made it way too cartoony.
This video brings up a point about art direction is games nowadays. That the art for a game with a realistic message is just matched with "lets add some bloom to make the scene pop!" And with the addition of that ending theme, really implicates that any speculation about them not giving any attention to detail for the game's original message and tone, is probably true.
This is a really thoughtful and intelligent review offering a deep understanding of both game-play and game development. You are obviously a huge fan of the original (as am I) and so this game had an awful lot to live up too, its such a shame that it misses the mark due to bad decision making (the motions tracking beams being an excellent example). You mentioned everything I've been thinking and more. I really hope 'Just add water' listens to people like you, (and maybe, even asks for your involvement in development?!) before releasing their next addition to the franchise. Fingers crossed for Abe's Exoddus
ironically remaking abe's oddysee into a worse game is in it self a critique of consumerism, it's like "oh you own this game? how about you buy it again but worse and look at adverts while ingame?"
Just Add Water got on my bad list after the debacle of them launching their PC port of Stranger's Wrath. It was an immensely sloppy, hacked-together port, and I remember seeing screen grabs going around of JAW employees mocking people who were struggling to run a six year old Xbox game on PCs that were significantly more powerful. In particular, users with AMD graphics cards (such as myself) found the game a completely unplayable mess of poor framerates and graphical bugs. It took them just a few months shy of two years before they eventually patched the PC version of Stranger's Wrath to fix these problems, and even now, I hear it's still kind of a crummy port. I haven't bothered to try it myself, because the problems were so massive and took them so long to fix that I don't even want to bother with it anymore. I thought New 'N' Tasty was probably them getting "back on their feet", so to speak, but hearing you talk about it, I'm glad I never bought it. These guys are hacks.
Oh, they finally fixed Stranger's Wrath? I bought it on GOG a few years ago and it was so broken I immediately uninstalled it again. Got no refund either... I'm gonna download it again, hopefully I'll finally get to play it.
Azariachan I've heard it's KIND of fixed, but also kind of not? I had people leave comments on my blog a few months ago saying it's still really stutter-y and bad. I haven't touched it, myself.
The old version looked pretty much like a direct port of the Xbox game, now they seem to have upgraded it to the HD version that's available on consoles. The installer files on GOG are over 3 GB so the download is gonna take a while, but I'll let you know if it's any better once it's downloaded.
BlazeHedgehog So yeah, it's actually playable now. The controls still feel kinda off, but at least there are no graphic glitches anymore and the game looks good.
BlazeHedgehog I don't know about Stranger's Wrath, but JAW went out of their way to make sure New N Tasty was a good port. I didn't hear of any compatibility issues and the small complaints people had were quickly patched.
Goddamn! What a crazy comparison. Amazing job putting this analysis together in so much depth. It's so disappointing to see how bad the remake is compared to the original, how many things it missed or overlooked which gave the original so much depth. It says a lot about the carelessness that sometimes comes with HD remakes and readily available graphics in the gaming industry these days compared to back then. Really interesting stuff, looking forward to more of your videos!
The original is one of my fave games of all time. They should have just done a HD remake instead of making this half assed pile of shit. They couldn't even balance volume levels properly
Did you ever get the problem when the Mudokons were meant to be talking but their was no noise? That happened a lot for me, especially in The Return to Rupture Farms part.
Spot on. I couldn't complete New 'n' Tasty, nothing compares to the grit and grime of the first two. Wish there was a remaster of those two original games...
Just to add to that, I mean a remaster of the game *exactly* as they are. The only thing I would add is autosave in Oddysee and a map editor, like they did in Portal 2 where you can edit puzzles and share with the community.
Matthew, when you brought up the in-game advertisements, I was genuinely confused as to what you were talking about. At first, I thought I was just missing them when I had played through the game. After playing the game again and watching one of the in-game billboards for 10 literal minutes, I still did not find them. Then I found that the advertisements were cut from the Wii U version of the game entirely.
Well researched, relevant and very eye opening critique. I think Lorne Lanning and J.A.W. would have wanted to apply the same attention to detail as seen in the original but they were working on this project for a long time, had less money to make it with and had a bigger, more specialized team the first time round. Particularly, art direction/execution would have been stronger because of the industry Lorne worked in and the people he knew in it (SFX/VFX). That combined with the fact that the unity game engine doesn't have a compositor to fine tune mood/tone probably helps explain a lot. My point I suppose is that I don't think the developers were being lazy, but rather acting within their means.
I don't understand why you believe him it just a song and a guy speaking bad things about new n tasty (he is missing something) Just at water is a indie company they don't have all the money to make a good remake and this ... (New 'n' tasty) it was make with love on the franchise
23:43 I liked how quiet they were in the original because it helped set the scene. Clearly they weren’t allowed to even speak to each other and that added to the brutal situation they were in.
34:48 Hold on, hold on. I mean, yeah the credits song is absolutely abysmal and tone deaf, but can we just take a moment to appreciate that selection of Unity plugins that's scrolling by? Lens dirtiness? Glow 11? Modern Gun Effect Pack? This just adds a whole new dimension to the amateurishness of this production and I think it explains where a lot of the problems are coming from. Ya really need that dirty lens? Ya really can't make your own muzzle flash texture and spawn two plumes of smoke and a shell casing? Glow 11? Glow turned up to 11 more like. With these shortcuts, it's pretty clear why the textures and art design look a lot less grimy and detailed and a lot more... "safe"? Vanilla? Industry-standard?
Eh, there's nothing inherently wrong with using plugins and assets as long as you don't rely on them for everything and still have mostly original content. Lot's of AAA games uses plugins and assets.
@@erik_arman How strange. I remembered this comment last night and was mulling over the same point - is this really an indication of incompetence or is it just hand-waving what the devs thought to be unimportant parts of the production? The reason is, I've recently acquired an SFX pack that's been used in some measure in almost every game since Doom came out and was very surprised that Sligs' "voice lines" are in there, filed under flamingoes, there's rusty old valves turning, Abe's fart is in there, etc. - there's a lot that the original game (and a lot of other games) used from the same pack, because it includes everything from air conditioners and trains to needles dropping on concrete. Makes you question things when a game gets praised for its "excellent sound design" when it was all aped from pre-built packages. I guess the difference is in how well disguised/integrated it happens to be. It's one thing to use an obscure flamingo sound for your villainous mooks (which now happens to be iconic), and it's a different thing to apply a bloom and lens filter over the entire screen for the duration of the game, of which the previous iteration used hand-crafted assets with a very different grimy tone. If they'd used something like "dirt and rust pack 7" to make their textures more faithful to the original it'd make for a different context than using modern post processing effects just to make the game look more shiny and appealing. Adding to that, basic fx like muzzle flash can be put together in Photoshop in under 20 minutes by a competent artist and look better than a pack that was meant for a first person shooter, for example. Nobody's really going to care about _Progrids_ or _Cutscene Creator uSequencer_ because it doesn't compromise the original artistic vision, and they're most likely very useful tools that sped up production immensely. What I've got a problem with is sticking random crap on there without a second thought because it's thought to be a shortcut to "better graphics", or whatever, just to push the game out faster. Bottom line is, New 'n' Tasty could've done without the gun fx pack, the replacement would not have taken more than a single day to accomplish, and the final product would look better as a result. Or in the case of lens dirt, you could take it out completely and it'd be better as a result. I know you could make that argument about every facet of the game - I guess it's about where you want to cut your losses, and the cuts went too far in this case. It's still got me thinking, though...
Now that I've actually played this game.. it goes wrong on so many things that coud have been averted with a little bit of attention. Most noticeable is that the audio is complete shit.
The original SFX could not be used because the sound quality is lower to what it is nowadays and would therefore sound weird. If anything, they should have re-done the original sounds instead of replacing them with entirely new sounds. Another problem that I immediately saw even in the very first trailer was that Abe and the world around him looked extremely cartoony.
jUppers THIS! i didnt have a problem until i realized all the grit had been taken out. the sligs exploding didn't even have a sound? like wtf? I hate the sound design i cant play the game with it
Arthounot i dont think you understand what i mean. the sound effects for when abe gets blown up by mines, or when he uses his chant to kill a slig, or when a boulder crushes him. they all had weight. the sound effects here are soft. no real grit to them. which, in a world thats supposed to convey harshness, is a failure to deliver on the developers part.
So, I literally heard about you an hour ago after watching a podcast where someone shouted you out. I didn't even know that this remake existed and it makes me sad seeing how they massacred it. I have very fond memories playing this game on my father's old playstation when i was a kid. The heavy themes that were kind of mellowed b y the brief amount of comical relief pops into my nostalgic mind when I hear this game and this seems like they took that magic out in exchange for pretty colors. It makes me sad.
One of the many things that I enjoyed about the original games is how every screen felt like a self-contained piece of a wider puzzle. That feeling is lost with the remakes due to the scrolling camera. It also takes away the elements of surprise and anticipation that you would get as you crossed screens, not knowing what you’d find.
I finally got around to playing New n Tasty this week after almost 10 years, but I hadn't played the original in so long that the nuance of the original world wasn't present in my mind. It was always my favorite series growing up because it inspired me so much and gave me such a distinct feeling. But while playing NnT, I remember consciously thinking about how I'm not getting that same feeling, and maybe being an adult means I just don't get inspired or immersed as much anymore, feeling like the suspension of disbelief was no longer as accessible, which was a sad feeling that crushed a bit of my soul, to be honest. But watching this, I'm reminded of what exactly made the originals impact me so much. Upon seeing the first clip of the original, it all came back, and as you explained further, I realized exactly why NnT didn't evoke those feelings. It's not me. I'm still fully capable of being impacted by this universe, of being in awe of a strange alien world. NnT just overlooked all of the most important nuances that made the original so incredibly compelling. I know it's been 9 years and you probably don't read these comments, but in case you do, I want to say this: This video didn't just illuminate the issues with this game. It genuinely spared me from some pretty grim feelings about not being able to enjoy art as much as I did when I was a child. The Oddworld universe was my first experience being completely intoxicated by an artistic vision. I would ride my bike several miles to the library when I was 10 just to use the computer and consume everything I could about Oddworld, and try to find updates. It had a massive impact on my taste in art, and my deep feelings of inspiration about art and narrative. Had I not watched this, I likely would have walked away from this game with a deep part of my identity eroded away. But thankfully, you've reminded me of where those feelings came from, and why I shouldn't let them fade away. So with all of that said, thank you for this video! It was exceptionally well done, and I genuinely appreciate the work that went into it.
I'm in a bit of a dilemma here. I want to support Oddworld and see the full realization of the planet and the stories Lanning wanted to share with us. But if these games have the same problems New & Tasty has (advertisments, poor sound mixing, lighting issues, a general lack of polish) I'm not sure I'd want them to be made. What should I do?
He's wrong about the ads. Maybe executed wrongly but Matthew really should have looked up why they were included in the game and why thinking they contradict Oddworld's message doesn't make sense.
This is going to be long! :) Lorne Lanning explained it before we knew it was these in game ads (which only appear in secret areas) -- "What's nice, working with other indie guys, is that they believe that quality is going to be their lifeline," he said of his partner studios. "These guys are like, 'if we're going to succeed it's because we build really superb quality products'." The indie community as a whole is something he's keen to embrace. He spoke enthusiastically about cross-promotion plans with developers 17-BIT (Skulls Of The Shogun, Galak-Z: The Dimensional) and Switchblade Monkeys (Secret Ponchos), pointing to an almost union-like spirit of mutual co-operation and support among independent studios. The sort of interactions, he pointed out, that are impossible for studios hitched to major publishers. Among indies, he says, it's not about competition. "It's funny, because people ask me, for New 'N' Tasty, 'who do you see as your competition out there, what titles?'," he said. "It's interesting, because if you'd have asked me that for an Xbox release it would be a very specific answer and I'd be trying to convince you why we're a better offer for your money. But we're not looking at it that way anymore. We're looking at it like if you like this type of game, and there's another type of game like this, we want to be recommending it to you!" -- So, yes, it's fine to dislike these ads because one thinks they break immersion for the player but it isn't some sort of hypocrisy. Oddworld has an anti-capitalist message but this isn't a pro-capitalism action. And, if you think it is, then creating Oddworld games AT ALL would be hypocrisy wouldn't it? Creating any sort of product and selling it? Lorne has never been anti-product and he's using his more popular IP to help out other indies excited about these ideas of cross-promotion. And yes, that includes both JAW & Matt Glanvilles small indie games Lum & Gravity Crash Ultra. Mostly likely because they were instrumental in bringing Oddworld back from the dead. This isn't about JAW or Matt shamelessly taking advantage of a more popular title - but getting excited about Lorne's ideas of indies helping each other out. And the cynic will say that "Of course they're excited! They're piggybacking off Oddworld!" Now, obviously the execution has been a problem. Esp since people like Matthew *do* think these are shameless business practices. And the argument about immersion is certainly not a bad one - even though Matthew misrepresented their inclusion in the game as being everywhere. But where he seems to have a good grasp on the themes of Oddworld and Abe;s Oddysee he misses out on a very important one. Oddworld is about the little guys banding together in a world ruled by the big guys. The indies banding together in an industry ruled by the big publishers. And this is totally in line with that philosophy
I'm not sure if a comparison between indie devs and big budget studios to slavery can really be made in this case. And the billboard advertising still seems a bit dirty to me, although I always thought Oddworld was anti-extreme unsustainable capitalism than anti-any capitalism. I'd have felt better if the other games were referenced in homages or something less subtle than a literal advertisement board. And isn't advertising the games of the people who as you say were instrumental in bringing the game back a conflict of interests?
homersimpson90210 It cannot be compared literally but it's that theme that runs through the series. Munch and the fuzzles, Stranger and the natives. It's just a philosophy and he uses exaggeration in oddworld to put it forward. Do these anti-consumerist, and anti-dirty business practices then also not count since they are very exaggerated in Oddworld to make a point? Also, I don't understand how it's a conflict of interest? Since Lornes point is for indies to support each other rather than compete against one another. So instead of competing against one another - including JAW's non-Oddworld games competing against Oddworld - and getting blasted by the big publishers they support one another even though the big publishers are still dominating the market. But it' the fact that they thought, since the boards already advertised the Tasty Treats, it would be relatively subtle to slip a few of the games in that way - and only in secret areas. It obviously didn't work for everyone but the idea that this is some sort of disgusting business practice doesn't ring true. And the fact that we're discussing this because I commented, and not because of the video, is a problem. Matthew should have given the data even if he still disagreed with the practice and still thought it stunk. But at least it would allow some commentators to draw their own conclusions rather than go "Yeah, the ads suck ass!" because Matthew painted them as hypocritical. See is argument against the stylized aesthetic has a leg to stand on because the dug up the Oddworld visual bible. It's why I find it weird that he didn't bother to look up why his biggest grievance with the game, seemingly contradicting Oddworld's philosophy, was actually in the game. The only thing that annoys me about this video is that he goes into great depth with a lot of his analysis - but leaves out things for others - which then misrepresents their inclusion in the game (same thing goes with the Slig visors).
I HATED new & tasty, i'm glad other people noticed the issues, too many people aren't familiar with the original version and think this is how the game has always been
The original game (and Exoddus) to this day probably has the best art style I’ve ever seen in a game. As a kid I was blown away by it. I was obsessed with drawing as a kid (I still do) and I think this game was a big reason why. NnT doesn’t live up to the original at all. PS1 version was like a beautiful painting while NnT... well you can tell they used Unity to make it.
"CAUSE I WAS BORN TO LOVE YOU.... I FEEL" why this music??? they have so much CREATIVE AND UNIQUE music throughout... why have these lyrics? this singer???
15:18 I never thought about this. "natural" slicks have no legs and no guns so they are probably prey in the natural world. which is why they join rupture farms to become the hunters for once
Also, why do the sligs explode from death by electricity? The old death of just sort of buzzing and fading out was much more bleak and unique. The death explosions seem off in New'n'Tasty anyways
I'd argue talking to multiple mudokons at once is basically nothing. In the OG game there were only 100 instead of 300 and the puzzles were designed around getting each one of them one by one. And it was also exoddus that introduced the talk to all mechanic. New n Tasty did nothing new other than bloating the number of mudokons you need to rescue and maybe trivializing some puzzles that were meant to be difficult in exchange for reducing some tedium by having to go back to get all mudokons. But then again that shows effort, and usually once they were together a bird portal was nearby so you never had to talk to them again. I give 0 points for new n tasty for introducing an exoddus mechanic in a game where it was not needed. They made it needed because they also added more mudokons, they created a problem which they fixed with a solution that isn't even their idea. The one and only "good" thing they did is the bomb throwing, but then again the OG PS1 controller, and PC, didn't and doesn't have a thumbstick, and the old game worked on a grid so all you had to do is remember where the bomb landed with each key held down. Again, they created a problem by deviating from the original game, then made up a solution that is ugly. This game was a clear foreshadowing of how bad soulstorm was going to be
I really like how you put the ending creditsat the end of the video, so we can know who made that amazing game in first place. It was a really nice touch.
Hate the mentality these days that everything has to look more 3D than 2D .. I love the original look WAY more .. Even in Ducktales Remastered they had great 2D animation visuals but for some reason added 3D objects that looked out of placed next to the great 2D animation
***** Just because you dislike or have issues with a game doesn't mean that going into another team with completely different philosophies and approaches (assuming that the reviewer is even capable of interesting game design) is necessarily going to work. In fact I'd say it's quite retarded. I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your comment. It shows such an atrocious lack of thinking that dedicating any significant amount of time attempting to parse its stupidity is so utterly futile that I can't even equate it to anything else that's anywhere near as outlandish.
***** . . . which has nothing to do with what I was even saying. If all you can do is regurgitate other people's ideas without even beginning to understand them, don't bother replying. "thought provoking impulse" Not a chance buddy.
***** What he was saying was someone should not be hired by a studio just because they can pick faults with the game, even if those faults are legitimate. They should be listened to feedback, but now just take people on board based on that. If Matt designed a game, it too would have faults as well, there are some faults only over people can see, and as observant as he is, he is still no different.
I'm so happy that someone with excellent video editing and narration skills was able to put this into words that I could never find to express my own disappointment with New 'N' Tasty. You've gained a subscriber from this, my good sir. :)
Wow man you hit a lot of nails on the head. I consider myself somewhat of a superfan of the old oddworld games and I grew up in the same town as oddworld studios. I toured the studios as a kid sometime between Exodus and Munch's oddysee, and my mom was always excited to tell me days when Lorne Lanning stopped in the restaurant she worked at. I totally believe those original PS1 games had a huge influence on me and how I came to see the world. And yet, a lot of the points youve made I remember feeling as a wee lad when Munchs oddysee came out and the general sort of change of art direction came into the gameworld... As I understand it, oddworld from the very beginning was founded on the idea of pushing the limitations of game software and storytelling. I think they executed so much more than they give themselves credit for with those original games, and even though this 'new n tasty' wasn't so much an in house development I listened to an interview with Lorne saying how a lot of what this reboot or soulstorm is doing is capturing what he wished he could've done at the time with the techology. I don't know how much of that desire kind influenced just add water, but even when I heard that interview I felt a bit of a shudder, a bit of a 'oh no man, I don't think that's what you're all about'. I came to this video after buying the oddworld collection for switch wanting a trip down memory lane, but had to stop halfway through and look up some comparison videos because something felt 'off'. And everything you say is true. I'm writing this 7 years after this videos been posted mostly hoping someone from the current development team will run across it and head this message! Those old games were powerful and fun because of some of those limitations! And I think focusing on trying to be an industry pusher isn't really were oddworld shines. If anything a storytelling pusher in all forms of media suites them much better. I loved these games when I was a kid because they were so dark, creepy, and mirrored our real world in a terrifying way, while being the right amount of fantasy and humour to be digestible. The themes and presentation didn't insult or question my intelligence as a a wee child of 7 or 8 and gave me a really fun, engaging and memorable 'tough pill to swallow'. And looking at this review I realize so much of that has to come down to dedication to art style, theme, and perhaps some of the differences of the industry and limitations at the time. I hope oddworld can give us something of what those old games gave us on their next release, but I do think some of thier tendency to want to create the most 'sophisticated' game has to be let go to focus on what they really succeeded in. Hey I may be a less in more kind of person too. Check out 'the last door' on steam or switch shop if you haven't already. Its a point n click Edgar Allan Poe / Lovecraft inspired puzzle game totally done in 8 bit graphics, and man is it spooky! It's one of my favorite games of the last ten years and it's using the equivalent of sticks n mud with it's technology but for me was more memorable than most AAA releases. Great storytelling and vision doesn't need bells, whistles, and bloom, it's about crafting your world around what let's the most amount of 'feeling' come through
Very well written comment and while I never had the privilege of seeing them in their prime nor did good ol Lorne went to anywhere I was living at, I can completely feel your comment. When I have first seen Abe's Oddysee I was 6 years old. I was completely mesmerized, and I couldn't think about anything else at the time. A year later, when I finally got my PS, I had to have it. The joy of playing with something so unique made me appreciate art much more than ever before. It shaped who I'm today. Seeing New N Tasty and ESPECIALLY Soulstorm being so lacklustre really made me depressed.
Totally agree, and i really hope they wont screw up abe oddworld soulstorm and i hope they have seen this video to learn from there mistakes. Great video
Your videos are always a treat! I've never played Abe's Oddysee, I don't even remember how I found out about it, but these points are quite convincing. I'm not sure if the original is my kind of game, but it looks like a lot of good effort was put into it. It's a shame about the changes they made. That audio mixing is horrendous. Haha, those glitches. That credit music. Why.
For anyone else like me who wondered what the other 6 principles of the original oddworld designs were, since they weren't covered in this video, they are the following : -
All images must:
1) Be realistic.
2) Have solidity.
3) Be original.
4) Be cool.
5) Evoke emotion.
6) Look ALIVE!
Hence why when you start Oddysee and Exodus, it's backed with an A.L.I.V.E Experience. And that's what made those two games so juicy. The fact that it seems so life like...as if you were literally right there and it's not a game you're playing.
@@Kakashi713 If you guys haven't played rainworld I strongly suggest giving it a try (on normal, the white slugcat). The world in rainworld feels like it exists even when you are not playing. The animals have a life of their own and aren't there just to be an obstacle for the player and can be quite unpredictable. It's a very hard platformer with controls that feels sluggish and heavy weighted (compared to things like super mario etc) until you start to master it, kinda like abes oddyssey, flashback etc.
I hope they followed these principles for Soulstorm and listened to the criticism from Mathew, otherwise I don't see myself returning to the franchise
@@ShakeITyEA oh...
@@pawlogates hm?
This review gives such a good explanation on what a difference in art direction philosophy can do.
Both share the same characters, same world, etc. but one game focused on conveying themes through the art, and the other focused on just looking nice.
It's a bit of a bummer because I'm sure a lot of work went into rebuilding this game. They just missed the mark. The art director looked at the environments and characters and thought 'oh, wow this stuff is really cool! I want to make it stand out.' They missed out on the important aspect of environmental lighting and leaving things in mystery. It is kinda like what happens when they remake horror films. It's not what you see, it's what you don't see.
It's funny, a lot of these same criticisms can apply to Spyro: Reignited Trilogy. While that game benefits from a few genuinely convenient tweaks here and there, and is overall more commendable than Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty, Toys for Bob definitely missed the point of many aspects of those games, from the delivery of jokes to the tone and atmosphere of each level.
Bufudyne Haha. Hot damn. I was silently thinking the same thing but I wasn't going to say it out loud on my own. (I've done it enough, I got nothing new to say, the Spyro remake exists...). I also HATE the constant energetic, smiley, nice tone in the delivery and the animations and there's no break from it. Remember when Spyro 2 actually had bite and atmosphere? Lol.
Someone called Nerrel I think has a good video about the MM3D remake that has a lot of the same kinds of points too, more looking nice, more sanitized, too bright etc.
GamingBrit's video about the R&C remake mentioned how the original had a more (intentional, good) clunky junky retro-tech feel and the new one is just shiny.
Even the Crash remake has a similar "trying to look nice" issue in rounding out all the character models and some animation issues (being too literal, fluid but more cheap and lacking). B-Mask had a damn agreeable video about that game.
Wew look at me just advertising other good videos whoops. They said it all.
I absolutely hate these game remakes that are constantly trying to look nice. As in constantly invoke the mood that they're pretty. It kills so much of the originals and becomes samey and tiresome. It's just less interesting to look at. I'm so sick of seeing these remakes that clearly have some care and clearly have graphical fidelity but forgo fundamental mood and aesthetics and go for more generic stuff and often simpler stuff too and usually turn out much much weaker.
The manual work in better games up to like last gen still shines through. There are still plenty of games with that kind of effort, actually I think the CTR remake is already a considerable improvement from NST, but I'm also very tired of seeing the artists just plop things in the engines and try to fill the gaps with that tech. It happens a lot with remakes especially, and I feel like it started to happen more during the last gen. I really appreciate the more clear, confident and consistent manual work in older games. Bloom not being as much a thing. No nauseating motion blur. Some better art at a better FPS. And again, crappy looks there too and really good shit now too, but I find I can still appreciate the crappy old stuff at least in the sense there's less automatic engine junk. Like again, with remakes in particular, a lot of particles and blooms and motion blurs and stuff are added but just in a meaningless way pretty often.
Anyways, nice to see someone else who isn't my one friend call out Spyro? Lol. I wish there was a good heavily critical video of that game (not just for the sake of shitting on it, but because there's always so much shutting down of any criticisms with all these remakes, and Spyro has had a lack of this in particular imo), but B-Mask's was closest, and I think it still missed a lot and wasn't as comprehensive or confident as his Crash one. It was still good though. If I had the skills I'd do it myself honestly because hell I can rant about that game for years and then I think I'd finally be done.
Sorry if this was a little bit incomprehensible, sorry to rant on, didn't sleep last night and it's almost 8pm here so I'm kinda going with dumb gutstuffs.
I'm amazed you didn't mention one of the most significant changes. The difference in movement positioning. In the original each step was binary thing, you could only be in about 20-30 places in a screen, meaning that you could move exactly up to a mine without any risk of stepping on it unless you took that last step.
In the new version the movement is continuous rather than distinct binary positioning, resulting in you running into things all the time.
After getting both good endings i can say that you are right, everytime i made a mistake in the original i blamed myself, in the remake it was also the slippiness of the movement. I like the remake too but tight controls are a must
This is absolutely true. I can myself attest to this, after completing the original a few years ago. I do wonder how the remake feels for someone who didn’t play the original. Does it stick out as much, compared to contemporary platformers.
@@ElTequilla New players will probably just play in "normal" mode with the health system, which I think is there as the new default specifically to address the fact that you now keep running into things because of the positioning change. Can't blame them, dying in one hit from everything and bad controls don't mix.
@@ElTequilla Even as a new player the controls felt very sloppy. I didn't really understand why until seeing this.
And that actually makes ALL the difference, because it goes from list of EXACT steps to make to additional luck required, because there's now an element of entropy...Even if I didn't like how to save every Mudokon you'd need to follow an exact list of steps, it's at least fullproof given you follow the steps in a "monkey see, monkey do" way. The new version just gives that one middle finger...
Six years after this review was posted I still can't believe that ending theme.
It really is shockingly godawful.
I really wish I could be in the board meeting for this choice
7 now, actually.
yeah, it feels like one of those living tombstone fnaf songs, only difference being the living tombstone songs are actually good
It sounds like something where the person who put it in the game must have known the people who made the song
Wait, so the Mudokons talk even when a Slig is around them? That doesn't make sense. It's clear that the atmospheric intention was: "no talking, work!". If you said "hello" to them, and a Slig noticed it, even if he didn't see you, the Mudokon responding got shot, so how does that work if they just chat some one liners amongst themselves?
Seems like this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the original content.
Only Just Add Water and Lorne Lanning might know why THIS happened. Regardless, all of us would know simple, quiet humming or even sad exhaltions wouldn't conflict with the restriction against talking on duty.
Oh wait, I misunderstood something, sry
Completely agree. Was just thinking this myself. The sheer brutality of their situation down to the point where they weren’t even allowed to speak to one another.
The sound mixing during those cutscenes is inexcusable. I'm not sure how it is in the film industry, but in the music industry a basic rule of thumb is that you should be able to (no matter what) understand every word of the vocals. I would imagine when it comes to narration over video, the same rules would apply. How that got past quality control is beyond me.
Yes it's the same rules. Balancing of sound effects, atmosphere, music, and voices is the very key to sound design in movies. Sound design is too overlooked, and it always saddens me to see to see so many cutscenes in games that brush through it so sloppily.
***** There was an exclusivity deal but no money exchanged. Sony let them on the E3 2013 stage show along with many other indies in exchange for those 30 days.
It literally sounds like they didn't have a sound engineer and every track was put at the same volume. Sound much like color can benefit greatly from sharp contrasts, not like you have sponges over your eardrums.
Morgan Rose I was taught it in a sound mixing class, I assume it mostly meant in general you want to understand what the singer is saying but yeah there is plenty of music that distorts,muffles, etc, vocals to a great effect.
These days it seems like every game drowns out the voice track with the music/sound. I automatically boost the voice volume (if available) whenever I start a new game.
I loved pre-rendered backgrounds in the Ps1 days, they looked so good.
Like the matte paintings of old films. You might have noticed it wasn't a real background but it just looked so good you couldn't even focus on what was meant to be happening in the scene
The originals were dripping in atmosphere, they were dark, grim and yet charming. You couldn't help but immerse yourself into the world. New 'n' Tasty erases all of this and I hate it with a passion. Just add water have done exactly as their name implies; all they've done is water it down.
Well said and well put, sir. I'm still obsessed with Oddysee's imagery, both logos and landscapes, both wilderness and industrial. I think that level of perfection is really hard to reach, and I will personally never enjoy anything that much, not even close. It amazes me.
what is it with remasters and bloom?
+Zitz the battletoad
To make them "shiny"... and that's not bad per se. Some games aren't meant to be shiny. i.e. Oddworld.
+Zitz the battletoad becuase dumb people like shiny things :P
+Nick871203 It worked really well for Wind Waker HD, but it doesn't work for a game like this
+Mr Eye Because, for some reason, remasters fear grit and would rather things stay clean and smooth.
+thomas garrett (Pokemastertomm) Exactly, because WWHD has the visual style that bloom works well with (I think it was cell shading?). While New n Tasty is certainly a very nice game to look at, I think that JAW were antsy to show just how good the game could look on newer hardware, and the most obvious (not necessarily the best) way to show graphical style change is to increase the lighting so that the player can see the change better. :/
I've never heard matthew this audibly mad before
Go back and watch the Bioshock Infinite critique then.
+Mystic Purge he is more mad here lol
Samuel Garcia No way dude, the Infinite review was read with piss and vinegar.
dude, the dark souls 2 critique...
+TheEpikak That one was second in my opinion, his tone of voice wasn't as bitter as it was in the Infinite one. He gives Infinite nearly no credit at all, whereas he states early on in the DSII review that he'd still play it over most other games released nowadays.
It surprises me here how many people disregard these criticisms, thinking they're petty.
They're not.
When you build a world and create as story, you set a tone, and the visual direction contributes to this in subtle but important ways. Things don't just 'happen'; they are chosen to occur by real people so they consciously choose to have them happen for one reason or another. All the points raised in this video are very legitimate complaints that highlight a lack of undemanding of, or respect for, the original game.
Listen to this guy ^^
brokenSCART Couldn't say it any better! It's obvious New 'n' Tasty has many, many problems, but the fact that a lot of people just disregard what Matthewmatosis says on this video worries me. I'm glad Oddworld Inhabitants are back (I hope?) but JAW did a terrible job with this game. It's fun at times, but it just feels like a poor fan game more than anything.
brokenSCART that's just the go-to response when you criticize a game someone else likes. "n-nitpicking!!"
brokenSCART It's a cinematic plat-former. You'd think people would realise "cinematic" is a important part of the genre,
@brokenSCART
from a guy from the creative media industry, I agree. to sell a game, it needs a in depth story, Style, theme. not consumerism. Not the kind of things I'd do in my games.
Those end credits wtf 😂
I bet that end credits song was a friend of the developer and he shoehorned it in.
@Rayla Kame it will be better if it was friend of the developer...
The original game was far more scarry. I remember there were levels and rooms where I experienced real fear. And there was something cruel in the original game. I could feel the death in the air. The whole world was built to exploits and abuse everything it can. I honestly never felt like this in any other games. Rupture Farms was a place of living hell in my imagination. The new game just not deliver that horror that the original one.
This is 100% correct. That remake is just totally different game, they not even comparable imo. Atmosphere itself in og game is just masterpiece - scary and intriguing!
the original felt more creepier and the voices were better, i like when you tell elum to wait he makes this weird moan, in the new version elum has no personality
Though I do appreciate that they change up the dialogue a bit for every button you press
Wow, there's a lot to chew on in this video. I've got some thoughts about the art critique. I've been doing art and design in videogames for 20 years now and I think you're doing a great job of nailing a lot tendencies that have developed in digital art over the past decade. Not just in games, but film and TV as well. One thing I disagree with is your diagnosis that the real-time engine has a lot to do with the problems you've identified. It looks to me like they used Unity for the game, and while I don't have a lot of experience with that particular engine (I mostly use a proprietary company engine and Unreal) I would be shocked if it was incapable of reproducing the exact look of AO if the art director wanted to. Every modern lighting system has so many dials and sliders and options, as well as how much they drive the post-processing such as bloom and lens flair, etc. There's nothing inherent to real-time lights that make them look so overbearing. That's 100% a factor of the art direction. (In fact, I see in the credits that they used two post processor lighting plugins that do just that.) And that art direction is not out of line, in fact, it's directly in line with modern art direction of sci-fi in all mediums. I think this goes to the heart of the issue you're having, and it's one I share. I see three primary reasons for the current state of art in entertainment.
1. As the competition for eyeballs has heated up over the past 10-15 years that has driven a war of spectacle. And spectacle is very very easy to emphasize while forgetting theme.
2. As the gamble on tent-pole releases has gotten bigger, the number of sequels has ballooned to offset the risk. And in each sequel there's enormous pressure to make everything bigger and more amazing than the last one. While this doesn't directly impact every game and movie out there, it does raise the bar of what's expected of a AAA product, meaning the natural impulse is to prioritize bells and whistles over fundamentals.
3. As the tools for creating unprecedented levels of spectacle and detail have gotten better, it's become easier and easier for more and more creators to make that kind of stuff, leading to a glut of really incredible looking art. And the competition to get a job making those incredible art assets for film and games is intense, leading artists to focus on making 'hero' assets to get noticed. The problem being explained in this video is not in the individual pieces though. The problem is in unifying those pieces into a coherent whole that reinforces a theme. A light bloom is easy eye candy. The decision to make ALL lights blown out all over the place is the problem. Cool details on some tech armor is great. The decision to coat every square inch of the suit with detail that leads to an incomprehensible mass of visual noise is the problem. Then the further decision to make 20 different characters all have equally elaborate and detailed outfits and you end up with Transformers, and Jupiter Ascending where the level of visual information is beyond Rococo and you are left with a juxtaposed jumble of shapes and colors and movement.
This atmosphere makes the very few examples where detail was purposefully excised in favor of fundamental art principles all the more refreshing. If you've seen Arrival you probably know what I mean.
Thank you for taking the time to write all of this. I'm turning 30 next week and sometimes I feel like a grumpy old man talking about how I prefer my retro games...but you made great points here.
Yeah you've made a very very good point there,it was a lot to take in but otherwise meaningful. Time flies though cos I remember playing this game when I was 8 or 9 year old boy and now I'm a 28 year old man who got the game given back to me for my birthday from one of my friends as it's a mark of nostalgia for me
finally someone that gets it
Well said, Josh! Much respect :)
I hope this doesn't happen with Doom Eternal. Very well said. Looks like they are adding a lot of spectacle, and I hope it does not ruin the perfect fundamental's copy they achieved with DOOM 2016.
Wow, the change made to the credits. Why would they make a change like that?
Yeeeeah, I don't get that.
Yup, It doesn't fit the tone of the original, or oddworld for that matter. It didn't bother me too much as i knew it was in there before i bought the game to play, but yeah... it was a strange move to input such a song into the credits.
The whole remake comes across more as a comission to a developer who might have played it in the past, but were just told to make a modern version, and not really think of the asthetics or the meaning behind the game. Ironically like rupture farms, just turning ports into a sausage factory.
Also Matt, please do a review on A Link to the Past. Just feels so odd you never covered that as that was really the first "modern" Zelda game.
It was the five 3D games which are easily compared and contrasted with each other. Putting 2D games into this mix isn't to easy to quantify, the Zelda spirit can transcend, but something that works in 2D might be terrible in 3D and vice versa. By sticking to the 3D games it becomes much easier to highlight certain characteristics being better or worse between games because they share a baseline context across all of them.
Mastu Denton
He could still review it on its own, without comparing it to the 3D games.
Although I still think that would work.
He has a Twitter account. You can tell that to him there.
I like you. I see you on a very high portion of videos I like and watch.
Personally, I'd rather a video like this comparing A Link to the Past to A Link Between Worlds.
What I don't understand however is why the slig in the opening cutscene wears the original visor, whereas all the other ones in the game wear the pilot masks....
It's like they recreated the cutscene with a slig model that had the original visor, but later in developement decided to change the slig model to the pilot mask model. This pretty much says they where probably to lazy to adjust the cutscene to fit with the change they made later on.
Joey Asagiri were* too*
***** Maybe there is only one model on the console? I mean, PC version came out like half a year after the PS4 version.
I also heard that other games ads in-game were removed from PC version.(I did play on PC and haven't seen them)
im with you on everything you said man, those end credits really screw it up.
For anyone interested, they eventually did update the game to allow for a toggleable movement speed and a button press for a short hop, but these control updates are about as lazily implemented as the control updates were in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5. There's still no rebindable controls.
Oh, nice, even though it is flawed I'm thinking of buying it later. No rebindable controls period, or no rebindable controls for controllers?
I cannot actually believe the music used for the end credits.
Im actually in disbelief
is that literally just an evanescence song they bought the rights to or some shit?
Good lord.
Nah, it was a fan of Oddworld. They used the song because New n Tasty was being promoted as including the fans. The fans named the game, fans play Mudokons IN the game, they reached out to the fan communities and stayed VERY active with them throughout, and included this song.
It may be a tonal misstep but it's coming from a different place than people think it is.
HolySok It's so incredibly god awful... I think that should have had gone into consideration and the fact that it got through shows the level of intellect of the developers on this one.
Very good criticism. Very thoughtfully constructed, and very valid.
sup jeff
VERY good comment, Jeff. I love your videos VERY much. They're VERY funny.
Hey Jeff. Didn't think you could even become this serious.
Indeed
WHOA... it's hammy
yaaaay
While I agree that the New 'N' Tasty version of Mudokon Pops makes much more sense in regards to the game world, I feel that the original image serves a much more favourable purpose in incentivising players to escape the facility and save fellow Mudokons. The original image was so striking that it effectively embodied the horrible nature of the Glukkons, yet appeared so briefly that any detriment to the player's immersion was negligible.
The modukon pop image was changed in the original game in 1997 for the Japanese market after a decapitation case soon before release of the game there. All other releases in 1997 other than Japan had the head on a stick. However, all subsequent games surrounding Oddworld, including Abe's Exoddus, the new pop image had been adopted instead. This is not a new change.. This is a change that happened 20 years ago..
It might interest you to know that the new image for Mudokon Pops was actually used in the original PS1 Japanese version of the game, for some reason.
Mudokons also lacked the small pinkie finger on their hands in the Japanese version as well, so it's all jumbled up there.
+AnOddGhost Not surprised. Japan can be a little touchy about their gore, especially when it comes to 90s video games, even the horror ones they themselves made!
+AnOddGhost It's actually quite common for Japanese releases to redesign four-fingered characters. This is due to connotation of them with the burakumin.
+Kitschy Ghost The wiki for the series claims that Japanese versions redesign was due to some murders.
According to Wikipedia, it actually relates to a specific issue with workers in a similar industry...
If you played Abe's Exoddus you would notice that Abe went from have 4 fingers in Abe's Oddysee to 3 fingers, making it easier for Oddworld Inhabitants and GT Interactive to distribute the game to all parts of the world. The same goes for the cut-scene when Abe travels to Fee-co Depot and falls off his cart when he is startled by the Mudokon Pops poster. The Japanese design from Abe's Oddysee of the Mudokon Pops was also used in Abe's Exoddus for the same reason as the fingers.
The lack of commentary over the original credits before the sudden ending cut is a thing of beauty.
I can accept many things but the in game ads are just the dumbest thing ever.
***** This is more true than anything else.
Arthounot 10:35 says it all
Arthounot Agreed, that's the point I remember (and everyone should remember) most of all. It really is truly embarrassing.
+SSGmaster It would be a great option for F2P games.
Instead of making them pay 2 win, just get money from ads.
I don't mind playing an arena shooter like Quake, with billboards with ads of real world brands.
For a F2P it's kinda logic to do that to earn money... That's also why I rarely play F2P games ^^ .
Having just played and beaten the remake on PC, I agree with everything said on this video. The original game was a cinematic platformer, with tight and responsive controls, realistic animations and highly detailed backgronds. The devs of the remake made it a generic 2D platformer with cartoony looks and where they couldn't add more detail, they used bloom and lightning effects to get away with it.
I literally just bought this game yesterday. As somebody who doesn't often pay much attention to these kinds of details and enjoys games for what they are, I now have a sense of "what has been seen cannot be unseen".
Another truth is that I was young when Odyssey came out - I was very impatient and found the difficulty of this game to be a smidgen beyond my capabilities at the time - I've never actually completed it. However, I have completed Exodus several times - the quick save feature being the main difference that helped get through some of the more taxing parts of the game. I will be keeping a keen eye on the remake of Exodus, in the hope that the same mistakes aren't made. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that even if these observations were made to the team at Just Add Water, with Odyssey having been done the way it has been, Just Add Water will likely feel invested in their own take on the game, and will probably want to remain consistent with their own game rather than the original.
I thank you for making these observations, as I feel it is necessary to hold developers up to certain standards for the integrity of the industry, but at the same time I wish I hadn't watched this.
***** that is quite worrying.
Don't worry, it's just a game.
Just Add Water have also been shitcanned in favour of another studio for the remake of Exoddus.
Mark Richardson liked reading your comment!
I can see the developers sitting around thinking how could they make the game more accessible and bluntly deciding "well, first of all, it's too dark, kids these days don't like dark games, gotta have some bloom and a neat lens flare effect" which is as you said is simply not getting the main point of the abe graphics or the game atmosphere in general. All it was missing was some blood on the screen when you got injured... I highly respect developers these days that stick to a more "unorthodox" artstyle rather than just oversaturating and riddling everything with every possible effect just it because it looks "prettier". Most them are afraid to even make nights or caves dark that's ridiculous, try crating a gameplay system around that don't just cop out and boost the enviroment brightness.
You forgot a key thing about the talking Mudokons: THEY HAVE THEIR MOUTHS SEWN SHUT
Obviously Abe shows they can still talk as move his mouth perfectly, but gives the message that they aren't allowed to. Is the same with Exoddus and the blind Mudokons, which have their eyes shut so they can't see they're digging out corpses.Making them say oneliners breaks the entire art direction of their position in the game.
Vero NeroreN Lorne Lanning actually described how Abes mother literally sewn his mouth shut when he was a screaming infant, so that he wasn't beaten to a bloody pulp as a kid. I could imagine on a screen without a slig the mudokons might say something or grumble perhaps as a little way of building up their innocent nature.
I'm pretty sure only abe had his mouth sown.
+Kipah if you remember, abe is referred to as stitch lips by other mudokons. according to the lore, his lips were stitched because he cried too much after birth. it's not done to all mudokons. i think the pop art is an oversight.
Adam Smasher Upon investigation, this seems to be correct, with regard to his backstory, at least in as much as I can find where this story originated. I've also found reference to Alf, once of the characters from Exoddus, suggesting other mudokons also have stitched lips which is what the wiki seems to reflect. I am not familiar with character's informative role outside the game, but he apparently "frequently answers letters from fans", according to the wiki. Who knows. It may be a detail that was never set in stone, leading to conflicting answers such as these (which you're under no obligation to read, I just thought I would provide them if you're interested):
Q: I've always wondered why Mudokon's mouths are 'sewn' together. If the Glukkons wanted them to shut up, it didn't work very well. They should've stapled them. :) Why does Abe have stitched lips?
Alf: Well, they worked pretty well at first, but Glukkons aren't much for long-term thinking or quality control. With the headlock they have on management on Oddworld, they don't really have to be. So, after a while, the stitches get loose, and Abe and the other workers can talk again, some.
Q: Why is Abe's mouth stitched up, all the other Mudukons' mouths aren't?
Alf: Abe's lips were stitched up to keep him from chanting. It didn't work, and Abe could have removed his stitches a long time ago, but he keeps them as a reminder of what he once was, and what awaits us all if he fails.
Q: why is abe blue and why is his lips stitched is it because he couldnt shaddap
Alf: Abe’s lips were stitched to stop him from crying all the time. You can’t work in a slaughterhouse if you’re going to spook the livestock with your loud wailing. His stitches may have loosened over the years, but that forced vow of silence taught Abe to keep his emotions to himself, or at least keep them quiet. Abe is blue because he’s sad. This doesn’t affect his job. Color is silent.
Q: Is Abe the only Mudokon with Stitch-Lips?
Alf: Good ol’ Stitch Lips! I gotta start calling Abe that more often. Honestly? I’m not sure if he’s the only one. Surely he couldn’t be the first or the last Mudokon that cried so much as a baby that Sam sewed his mouth shut to keep him silent for the guards. But who knows? We’ll have to find that one out together…
And finally, according to oddworldlibrary, we get Abe's backstory from:
"in an appearance on G4TV in April 2005, Lorne stated that Abe cried a lot as a child (supporting an earlier answer by Alf), and that Sam stitched his lips up to prevent Abe from being killed. Unfortunately, Abe’s biography states that he was hatched in RuptureFarms, while Sam is kept by the Vykkers."
My thoughts exactly.
Talking seemed like a chore to Abe in the first game and he always spoke in rhyme, like he planned every word carefully.
From the 2nd game on, he became a blabbermouth, stopped rhyming and frequently said things like "Ummm...I dunno" or "Oh no, look out!".
(His accent also required bigger lip/jaw movements than in the original)
please send this video to lorne lanning, seriously bro, this is so well done, this is EXACTLY what i think but you put it so well together, fuck the neon lights
Soulstorm ...
That ending credits music is so disgusting......
i dont get what does it have to do with oddworld... it is like james bond movie with harry potter music
Agreed I didn’t know why they chose it
@@shadelight310 shit taste in music
Its like the end credits of all anime ever, overwrought nonsense
walmart brand evanesence
The mudokon Pops advertisement picture is actually 20 year old work, albeit originally this change was made only for Japanese version. I think it was not the violence but symbolism of decapitated head that made original oddworld team to make this change for japan only, and apparently the same mudokon pops logo is seen in original Abe's Exoddus internationally as well.
So the one improvement was there in the original game already. In Japan.
Whynona - I found this information on the game's Wikipedia article regarding the graphics change in this cutscene that replaced the severed Mudokon head with the popsicle image. Really interesting:
"In the Japanese release, the image of the Mudokon Pops was changed to resemble a cartoon-like Popsicle with eyes and mouth, considered a 'happier' image by Oddworld Inhabitants. It was not until 2011 that Lanning revealed just why the image was changed for Japanese audiences. A week before press was to begin in Japan to market the game, a Japanese middle-school student murdered a peer, severed his head, and hung it on the fence of a school. Lanning saw that this was 'very, very distressful to the country of Japan that this happened... so they said that it would probably be a good idea to change it. We were asked and we weren’t stupid, so we complied.' The altered image remained in the sequel released in all territories. Said Lanning, 'I never liked the first one. But that was just what came out from the artists and I... try to give [them] some room and not change everything to my liking.'"
Listen to the original soundtrack with headphones, in bed, in the dark. If you hadn't seen the original game and the way it is designed, you'd definitely picture something very close in your imagination. Nothing like the remake.
I enjoyed them both though.
The back to back comparison of the credits just sums it up for me.
New n Tasty: big, bombastic, "Look at we can do! This song is like what you'd get in a movie!", sounds nothing like the rest of the game.
Original: understated, ambient. Does what it needs to do and reflects the tone of the game. Also incorporates sfx from the rest of the game.
Kinda of a shame, especially since Stranger's Wrath was a far better addition to the series than Munch was. The series was starting to go in a better direction (although, that was over a decade ago!).
Honestly, if another Oddword game was made, I'd like to see it NOT be another platformer. Maybe tackle a different genre altogether. Even a walking sim/first person puzzle adventure would be appropriate for the setting.
I really don't trust JAW to make a platformer sequel, at least. Hopefully they will have learned from N&T, but I don't have high hopes.
Duuuuuude no Munch was classic! That game was effing epic!
JAW didnt make Soulstorm, but it looks disappointing nonetheless - from the streamlined mudokon looks to the generic hollywood setup to the generic as FUCK looking graphics. I looked at the trailers and they created exactly 0 mood
@@scarymonkeylover My favorite Oddworld game. Not the best; I understand the gameplay could’ve been better. But I love it. It’s what got me into the series.
It's always a fuckin dilemna when Matthew releases a video for a game I haven't played, being torn between playing the game first so it doesn't get spoiled or just watching the video anyway. It's as good a compliment I can give Matthew that his critiques are so good that they make me want to play games I would be otherwise unininterested in just so I can enjoy his video.
That's an excellent compliment actually.
I wouldn't buy the game though, I'd just watch someone else play it on youtube lol
Dread Naught That is where some minds may differ. I can watch a thousand gameplay videos of games I've never played and still get a completely different feeling from actually playing the game. For example, Dark Souls, a game I love to death, isn't quite as overwhelming and marvelous when viewed from a perspective you have no control over. Someone like me, who stops to enjoy rich environments and tests the weight and design of each weapon, armor, ring, etc., can't truly enjoy the experience through gameplay videos. Possibly a simple game like Diablo 3 or any modern FPS that is almost solely designed as quick entertainment may be watched and enjoyed to its fullest (I know I never have to play Minecraft again due to this), but not often games that are so rich and have so much attention to detail.
Well, the bundled Oddworld games on GOG.com are only $12.98. And if we are so cheep as to deprive ourselves of classics that will work on newer systems, then I don't know what's wrong with us.
Here's a link (scroll down a bit to see the offered bundle): www.gog.com/game/oddworld_abes_oddysee
wtf are those end credits, lol, I never played oddworld and even I could see how wrong it was with the whole feel the game was supposed to convey.
That credits song... What in the actual fuck?
The original one was such a good game. A lovely game! Deep, charming and a little bit creepy. I think it has definitely been the best game of my childhood. It'll always be a part of myself.
i still can't believe how good those FMV cutscenes were in the original games for their time
I can kinda see where he's coming from, guys. Clearly, the visuals are a huge part of the enjoyment one would get out of this game, so, yeah, they're kind of important.
NickonAquaMagna Which version do you prefer?
Paintamaster2000
I dunno. I've never played either version, but I find the original slightly more powerful for its utter bleakness. New N' Tasty looks just a little too... lively to convey whatever it's trying too.
Actually, I'd recommend also watching Caddicurus's review, it's really good but has a very different (and more positive) outlook. I haven't played through either, but I like how both opinions are valid in their own ways yet differ greatly.
Paintamaster2000 Thanks for the tip of the review. I only played the original, and i got lost in the world. You should try it, ;)
That end credits song. *facepalm*
One of the worst things was one of the new designers, who also seems to be on the Soulstorm team, at a conference talking about how the old game felt "rigid" and new gamers "don't like that".
This is stupid. The old game ran on a grid system. Once you mastered it, you mastered the game. New 'n' tasty doesn't have this same precision, meaning sometimes the game fudges jumps you're not quite near enough, or conversely you fall to your death whilst thinking you're obeying the "rules" of the engine. For a game like Batman this works. But this is a game that needs that precision, as the puzzles are designed around that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for modernisation. I'm not saying this from a point of view of "the old days were better". I'm saying it because there's literally no reason for the change. It now makes it harder for old players, whilst new players again rely on these systems, so they're not actually learning to play the game - and these systems aren't that reliable.
1. Change controls so veterans complain controls are less precise
2. New players say controls are sloppy
3. ???
4. Profit
I think the old way was much better. Same system in Another World, Flashback, etc. I'd be happy if it stayed this way in any new game as well. It just works.
roller coaster of emotions
Nostalgia, stumbled upon a video of the original Oddworld.
Excitement, found this video and learned they remade the original.
Disdain, saw enough in this video to never want to buy the remake.
+1 on your video though.
The one flaw I find unredeemable is the advertising, everything else I could have overlooked if a bit miffed (and some have been patched as of now) but having a games already heavy handed message be squandered by its own idiotic game designers in such a soulless way almost feels like the gamer designers are trying to piss me off.
That and the ending theme. There is a special place in hell for whoever's idea it was to add that kind of music in a game like Oddworld.
and half the things this guy said for example the movement, cant even make precise movements anymore ? fuck that shit
Veijo Takku
Well they patched that out, the accurate jumps are back.
Charlie Brown and that's one thing that bugs me most. patches. fucking make a game and not a patchwork that needs to be patched constantly to get it into the state it should have been at release. well atleast they fixed it...
Veijo Takku
I kinda agree. I do think a game should be ready for prime time when its released but I do think having the freedom to allow such a mass repair when its needed is a worthwhile tool. Its just that some people abuse it a little.
I hope Lorne Lanning sees this.
Apparently Just Add Water wants to remake Metal Gear Solid. I hope they won't get the chance.
At least the official Oddworld Inhabitants twitter account responded to Matthew, thanking for the feedback. Dunno if it was Lanning himself, but at least some of the official people are aware, which is nice.
No way Kojima would let them touch his baby.
James King Well, Twin Snakes was developed by Silicon Knights, but I don't know how good that actually is. Some people say that it's excellent, and some people say that it's shit compared to the original.
Nukle0n I remember reading some article on Silicon Knights and I remember hearing that Kojima spent a lot of time hands-on with the devs, often they were guided by him iirc. Game was pretty faithful to the original, had some nice improvements too.
Z. Saber
They did? I can't find it.
Wow I didn't know it was possible to butcher a games end credits.
Great and very detailed assessment.
The brightness alone stopped me from ever bothering with New 'N' Tasty in the first place, but (to me) grit has the keyword when describing what's wrong with so many remakes/reboots/sequels. They tend to be too clean and smooth, totally breaking the original, smudgy atmosphere.
This is an old video that I watched before, but nonetheless want to commend it on it's thorough observation and well balanced critique. I cannot help but agree with all of it, which in a way is a shame because as you say, we want to like the game because it's the return of Oddworld after such a long period of time.
I do want to point out the Slig masks though. This is NOT a mistake. The Slig masks were intentionally changed as far back as Abe's Exoddus to the 'two-eyed' model to make them more personable/sympathetic, deliberately trying to get away from the stereotype of faceless goons you believe was for the better with the visor mask, which is more de-humanising. The grounded Sligs in Exoddus simply re-used original sprite assets (the game was made in just under a year) which is why they don't share this mask with the flying Sligs, but when they appear in the CG cutscenes they do have the two-eyed mask design. Whether you agree with this change or not is up to you, but it's no accident at the very least.
At least they did get round to adding a Classic control set, IIRC.
If you read this, I'd like to hear your opinion on something: I like playing the original Oddworld games on the PS1, but I tried them as the PC ports and they seem to run at a slightly quicker framerate, which in my opinion makes the animations feel too fast and not heavy enough, something you criticised for New N Tasty. Do you notice the same thing?
The devs just recently shown some gameplay from the sequel, I think you'll be busy
Dear god...
I don't think Soulstorm looks, gameplay-wise, nearly as bad as New N Tasty - although the double-jump doesn't seem 'right'. It's developed in-house again too by OWI; I think JAW just weren't up to the task of making a good adaptation in the end. Although that said, their work *did* fund this new game, so I guess some sort of thanks is in order.
@@ealing456 cant wait for SoulStorm since Lorne said that it will be the darkest
how do I even start?
this guy has become one of my favorite video game critic
I hope there's a feedback system on UA-cam rather than just like & dislike
''would you like to rate this video......?'' and there's 1 to 5 stars
not gonna lie, all of his video deserves 5 stars in my opinion
UA-cam did have a 5 star rating system and it was useless. People usually rated videos with either 1 or 5, making it virtually the same as likes and dislikes.
eboot
that's sad
except the video about the dream with Miyazaki. that was really weird >.
kldmax Are you fucking joking? That video had me in stitches.
*****
it is.
The level of detail you provide in your analysis of New 'n' Tasty, and the excellence of your examples, is so astoundingly impressive. I was awed by your discussion of the use of light and I even laughed in amazement when you offered the distinction between "fluorescent" and "incandescent". Your critiques were THAT specific. This review is expansive, insightful, compelling, and highly rewarding - you have earned yourself a new subscriber, sir. Fantastic work.
New 'N' Tasty was just tacky, there's no other way of putting it. The fact that Just Add Water were trying so hard to get the rights to remake the original Metal Gear Solid *_while_* *_they_* *_were_* *_still_* *_in_* *_development_* *_of_* *_NnT_* shows to me that they didn't actually care at all about making a good game - they just cared about the idea of remaking a game from a classic franchise. They just leech off of established franchises. I'm so glad Oddworld Inhabitants have ended their relationship with them; they were just horribly unprepared to make a game like this.
I desperately hope that they've listened to this video and are taking it on board for SoulStorm.
Fantastic comment. I completely agree.
The name says it all. They diluted the old game.
PENGUN STUDIOS Oh shit! That's on point.
They should've just done a "remaster plus" like what Vicarious Visions is doing for the Crash trilogy. Don't fuck with anything unless it's objectively an improvement. (not that their efforts are perfect either)
If they wanted to change things, they should have done something similar to the Monkey Island remakes, where you could choose between the "classic" version and the "remixed" version.
Blue Abe shambling down dirty corridors while talking like Donald Duck...
...or Green Abe zipping down brightly lit corridors while talking like Goofy...
Man I would like to see a video of you reviewing oddworld soulstorm!
this is the video i always come back too, it confirms to me why the original games are the best, and the remakes just dont get the originals vision as of writing cough dead space remake!
The animations look a bit fake to me in the new one, especially dropping from a ledge. I prefer the grittier look and screen-by-screen platforming of the original. I'm enjoying New n Tasty but not on the level of the originals. Still, it's hope that Oddworld can be revived.
I have seen this video like 300 times. Great content. Can you please address Oddworld soulstorm in comparison to exodus? Thank you
I second this... I'm too afraid to play Soulstorm myself (afraid of it being baaaaaad >.
It's really nice seeing you compare remakes like this. I would be interested to see you review MGS1 and it's Gamecube remake The Twin Snakes sometime too.
Its the same problem again with that game. All of the grit is lost in the artstyle and the revamped gameplay doesnt quite mesh with the way the games designed (Eg the Ocelot boss battle)
I despise Twin Snakes and would very much enjoy a similar take down of that game.
Given his history with the MGS series, I too would love a Twin Snakes deconstruction.
As someone who is trying to get into the MGS series and can't decide on which version of MGS1 to favor, I'd like to see this deconstruction too. Though I'll probably end up playing the PS1 version anyway because it's more accessible and the video would probably require/recommend that I play the game first.
expcake Please do not play the remake. It is an aesthetic tragedy.
The bloody head on a stick ad was more of a joke between glukkons imo and wouldn't have been the final design.
I waited 9 years before playing New 'N' Tasty, upon release I kinda knew it was going to be bad, I bought in on steam for like 3 bucks and holy shit, you nailed everything. The meme of ""soul vs souless" describes how I feel about this game.
Being a fan of Oddworld since Oddysee, I completely and whole-heartedly agree with everything this video points out.
There was an update at one point in time that fixed the jumping mechanics, but still no option to change the entire button layout altogether. Hopefully the PC version will allow controller configuration.
In 1997, I received a PS1 with Final Fantasy 7 for Christmas. With the console I got “Demo One”, with a lot of demo games. One was Abe’s Oddysee, and it was unlike anything I’ve seen, and became the second game I bought.
Playing the remake, I noticed Abe didn’t have the characteristic look in his face in the menu. His face was blank. I later started noticing more and more, like his running wasn’t that heavy and organic. Beyond that, I agree with you on every point.
This video is living rent free in my head, so I will continue.
Regarding the moon and bigface movie; there are so many things off with the remake, it breaks my he heart;
- The lighting
- The music timing when the bigface appears
- Tribal vibe of the original music has been changed into rock
- The ghosts of Paramites and Scrabs do not convey them in their natural inhabitat. When I saw it as a kid, I was excited to visit their lairs. The game doesn't really build any excitement here.
But tbh, then Munch's Oddysee got released, I felt like they dropped the magic of the game and made it way too cartoony.
This video brings up a point about art direction is games nowadays. That the art for a game with a realistic message is just matched with "lets add some bloom to make the scene pop!"
And with the addition of that ending theme, really implicates that any speculation about them not giving any attention to detail for the game's original message and tone, is probably true.
This is a really thoughtful and intelligent review offering a deep understanding of both game-play and game development.
You are obviously a huge fan of the original (as am I) and so this game had an awful lot to live up too, its such a shame that it misses the mark due to bad decision making (the motions tracking beams being an excellent example).
You mentioned everything I've been thinking and more. I really hope 'Just add water' listens to people like you, (and maybe, even asks for your involvement in development?!) before releasing their next addition to the franchise.
Fingers crossed for Abe's Exoddus
ironically remaking abe's oddysee into a worse game is in it self a critique of consumerism, it's like "oh you own this game? how about you buy it again but worse and look at adverts while ingame?"
Just Add Water got on my bad list after the debacle of them launching their PC port of Stranger's Wrath. It was an immensely sloppy, hacked-together port, and I remember seeing screen grabs going around of JAW employees mocking people who were struggling to run a six year old Xbox game on PCs that were significantly more powerful. In particular, users with AMD graphics cards (such as myself) found the game a completely unplayable mess of poor framerates and graphical bugs.
It took them just a few months shy of two years before they eventually patched the PC version of Stranger's Wrath to fix these problems, and even now, I hear it's still kind of a crummy port. I haven't bothered to try it myself, because the problems were so massive and took them so long to fix that I don't even want to bother with it anymore.
I thought New 'N' Tasty was probably them getting "back on their feet", so to speak, but hearing you talk about it, I'm glad I never bought it. These guys are hacks.
Oh, they finally fixed Stranger's Wrath? I bought it on GOG a few years ago and it was so broken I immediately uninstalled it again. Got no refund either... I'm gonna download it again, hopefully I'll finally get to play it.
Azariachan I've heard it's KIND of fixed, but also kind of not? I had people leave comments on my blog a few months ago saying it's still really stutter-y and bad. I haven't touched it, myself.
The old version looked pretty much like a direct port of the Xbox game, now they seem to have upgraded it to the HD version that's available on consoles. The installer files on GOG are over 3 GB so the download is gonna take a while, but I'll let you know if it's any better once it's downloaded.
BlazeHedgehog
So yeah, it's actually playable now. The controls still feel kinda off, but at least there are no graphic glitches anymore and the game looks good.
BlazeHedgehog I don't know about Stranger's Wrath, but JAW went out of their way to make sure New N Tasty was a good port. I didn't hear of any compatibility issues and the small complaints people had were quickly patched.
Goddamn! What a crazy comparison. Amazing job putting this analysis together in so much depth. It's so disappointing to see how bad the remake is compared to the original, how many things it missed or overlooked which gave the original so much depth. It says a lot about the carelessness that sometimes comes with HD remakes and readily available graphics in the gaming industry these days compared to back then. Really interesting stuff, looking forward to more of your videos!
The original is one of my fave games of all time. They should have just done a HD remake instead of making this half assed pile of shit. They couldn't even balance volume levels properly
Did you ever get the problem when the Mudokons were meant to be talking but their was no noise? That happened a lot for me, especially in The Return to Rupture Farms part.
I completely agree with you my friend. =\
Totally agree, like Nintendo Zelda link's awakening
Hopefully the devs watch this before they make soulstorm
uuuuhhh i don't know about that m8, have you seen the latest soulstorm gameplay? the new game still looks bright & bloom.
@@syaredzaashrafi1101 Soulstorm gameplay looks like garbage.
I mean ffs.
Bad Quarma for killing sligs!?
@@nemanjamilivojevic9551 yeah, i am only excited for strangers wrath on switch
*sigh* they didnt...
they didn't :( my heart fucking sank when i saw that e3 demo.... it looks horrendous.
Spot on. I couldn't complete New 'n' Tasty, nothing compares to the grit and grime of the first two. Wish there was a remaster of those two original games...
Just to add to that, I mean a remaster of the game *exactly* as they are. The only thing I would add is autosave in Oddysee and a map editor, like they did in Portal 2 where you can edit puzzles and share with the community.
@@FranksMuseumOfGaming you couldnt complete a very good game because the original one was better?
There's the steam version though
Matthew, when you brought up the in-game advertisements, I was genuinely confused as to what you were talking about. At first, I thought I was just missing them when I had played through the game. After playing the game again and watching one of the in-game billboards for 10 literal minutes, I still did not find them. Then I found that the advertisements were cut from the Wii U version of the game entirely.
Well researched, relevant and very eye opening critique.
I think Lorne Lanning and J.A.W. would have wanted to apply the same attention to detail as seen in the original but they were working on this project for a long time, had less money to make it with and had a bigger, more specialized team the first time round. Particularly, art direction/execution would have been stronger because of the industry Lorne worked in and the people he knew in it (SFX/VFX). That combined with the fact that the unity game engine doesn't have a compositor to fine tune mood/tone probably helps explain a lot.
My point I suppose is that I don't think the developers were being lazy, but rather acting within their means.
oh god...that end music...I'm not sure I want a remake of Abe's Exoddus anymore.
I don't understand why you believe him it just a song and a guy speaking bad things about new n tasty (he is missing something) Just at water is a indie company they don't have all the money to make a good remake and this ... (New 'n' tasty) it was make with love on the franchise
23:43 I liked how quiet they were in the original because it helped set the scene. Clearly they weren’t allowed to even speak to each other and that added to the brutal situation they were in.
34:48 Hold on, hold on. I mean, yeah the credits song is absolutely abysmal and tone deaf, but can we just take a moment to appreciate that selection of Unity plugins that's scrolling by? Lens dirtiness? Glow 11? Modern Gun Effect Pack? This just adds a whole new dimension to the amateurishness of this production and I think it explains where a lot of the problems are coming from.
Ya really need that dirty lens? Ya really can't make your own muzzle flash texture and spawn two plumes of smoke and a shell casing? Glow 11? Glow turned up to 11 more like.
With these shortcuts, it's pretty clear why the textures and art design look a lot less grimy and detailed and a lot more... "safe"? Vanilla? Industry-standard?
Eh, there's nothing inherently wrong with using plugins and assets as long as you don't rely on them for everything and still have mostly original content. Lot's of AAA games uses plugins and assets.
@@erik_arman How strange. I remembered this comment last night and was mulling over the same point - is this really an indication of incompetence or is it just hand-waving what the devs thought to be unimportant parts of the production?
The reason is, I've recently acquired an SFX pack that's been used in some measure in almost every game since Doom came out and was very surprised that Sligs' "voice lines" are in there, filed under flamingoes, there's rusty old valves turning, Abe's fart is in there, etc. - there's a lot that the original game (and a lot of other games) used from the same pack, because it includes everything from air conditioners and trains to needles dropping on concrete. Makes you question things when a game gets praised for its "excellent sound design" when it was all aped from pre-built packages.
I guess the difference is in how well disguised/integrated it happens to be. It's one thing to use an obscure flamingo sound for your villainous mooks (which now happens to be iconic), and it's a different thing to apply a bloom and lens filter over the entire screen for the duration of the game, of which the previous iteration used hand-crafted assets with a very different grimy tone. If they'd used something like "dirt and rust pack 7" to make their textures more faithful to the original it'd make for a different context than using modern post processing effects just to make the game look more shiny and appealing. Adding to that, basic fx like muzzle flash can be put together in Photoshop in under 20 minutes by a competent artist and look better than a pack that was meant for a first person shooter, for example.
Nobody's really going to care about _Progrids_ or _Cutscene Creator uSequencer_ because it doesn't compromise the original artistic vision, and they're most likely very useful tools that sped up production immensely. What I've got a problem with is sticking random crap on there without a second thought because it's thought to be a shortcut to "better graphics", or whatever, just to push the game out faster.
Bottom line is, New 'n' Tasty could've done without the gun fx pack, the replacement would not have taken more than a single day to accomplish, and the final product would look better as a result. Or in the case of lens dirt, you could take it out completely and it'd be better as a result. I know you could make that argument about every facet of the game - I guess it's about where you want to cut your losses, and the cuts went too far in this case. It's still got me thinking, though...
Can you review Oddworld Soulstorm?
Now that I've actually played this game.. it goes wrong on so many things that coud have been averted with a little bit of attention. Most noticeable is that the audio is complete shit.
95maszi Should have been original sfx just sayin...
The original SFX could not be used because the sound quality is lower to what it is nowadays and would therefore sound weird. If anything, they should have re-done the original sounds instead of replacing them with entirely new sounds. Another problem that I immediately saw even in the very first trailer was that Abe and the world around him looked extremely cartoony.
jUppers THIS! i didnt have a problem until i realized all the grit had been taken out. the sligs exploding didn't even have a sound? like wtf? I hate the sound design i cant play the game with it
wesley hollis What? No exploding sound? This was never a kids game, although evbery kid played it back in the day!
Arthounot i dont think you understand what i mean.
the sound effects for when abe gets blown up by mines, or when he uses his chant to kill a slig, or when a boulder crushes him. they all had weight. the sound effects here are soft. no real grit to them. which, in a world thats supposed to convey harshness, is a failure to deliver on the developers part.
So, I literally heard about you an hour ago after watching a podcast where someone shouted you out. I didn't even know that this remake existed and it makes me sad seeing how they massacred it. I have very fond memories playing this game on my father's old playstation when i was a kid. The heavy themes that were kind of mellowed b y the brief amount of comical relief pops into my nostalgic mind when I hear this game and this seems like they took that magic out in exchange for pretty colors. It makes me sad.
Sad indeed
One of the many things that I enjoyed about the original games is how every screen felt like a self-contained piece of a wider puzzle. That feeling is lost with the remakes due to the scrolling camera. It also takes away the elements of surprise and anticipation that you would get as you crossed screens, not knowing what you’d find.
I finally got around to playing New n Tasty this week after almost 10 years, but I hadn't played the original in so long that the nuance of the original world wasn't present in my mind. It was always my favorite series growing up because it inspired me so much and gave me such a distinct feeling. But while playing NnT, I remember consciously thinking about how I'm not getting that same feeling, and maybe being an adult means I just don't get inspired or immersed as much anymore, feeling like the suspension of disbelief was no longer as accessible, which was a sad feeling that crushed a bit of my soul, to be honest.
But watching this, I'm reminded of what exactly made the originals impact me so much. Upon seeing the first clip of the original, it all came back, and as you explained further, I realized exactly why NnT didn't evoke those feelings. It's not me. I'm still fully capable of being impacted by this universe, of being in awe of a strange alien world. NnT just overlooked all of the most important nuances that made the original so incredibly compelling.
I know it's been 9 years and you probably don't read these comments, but in case you do, I want to say this: This video didn't just illuminate the issues with this game. It genuinely spared me from some pretty grim feelings about not being able to enjoy art as much as I did when I was a child. The Oddworld universe was my first experience being completely intoxicated by an artistic vision. I would ride my bike several miles to the library when I was 10 just to use the computer and consume everything I could about Oddworld, and try to find updates. It had a massive impact on my taste in art, and my deep feelings of inspiration about art and narrative. Had I not watched this, I likely would have walked away from this game with a deep part of my identity eroded away. But thankfully, you've reminded me of where those feelings came from, and why I shouldn't let them fade away.
So with all of that said, thank you for this video! It was exceptionally well done, and I genuinely appreciate the work that went into it.
I'm in a bit of a dilemma here. I want to support Oddworld and see the full realization of the planet and the stories Lanning wanted to share with us. But if these games have the same problems New & Tasty has (advertisments, poor sound mixing, lighting issues, a general lack of polish) I'm not sure I'd want them to be made. What should I do?
He's wrong about the ads. Maybe executed wrongly but Matthew really should have looked up why they were included in the game and why thinking they contradict Oddworld's message doesn't make sense.
Why were they included?
This is going to be long! :)
Lorne Lanning explained it before we knew it was these in game ads (which only appear in secret areas)
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"What's nice, working with other indie guys, is that they believe that quality is going to be their lifeline," he said of his partner studios. "These guys are like, 'if we're going to succeed it's because we build really superb quality products'."
The indie community as a whole is something he's keen to embrace. He spoke enthusiastically about cross-promotion plans with developers 17-BIT (Skulls Of The Shogun, Galak-Z: The Dimensional) and Switchblade Monkeys (Secret Ponchos), pointing to an almost union-like spirit of mutual co-operation and support among independent studios. The sort of interactions, he pointed out, that are impossible for studios hitched to major publishers. Among indies, he says, it's not about competition.
"It's funny, because people ask me, for New 'N' Tasty, 'who do you see as your competition out there, what titles?'," he said. "It's interesting, because if you'd have asked me that for an Xbox release it would be a very specific answer and I'd be trying to convince you why we're a better offer for your money. But we're not looking at it that way anymore. We're looking at it like if you like this type of game, and there's another type of game like this, we want to be recommending it to you!"
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So, yes, it's fine to dislike these ads because one thinks they break immersion for the player but it isn't some sort of hypocrisy. Oddworld has an anti-capitalist message but this isn't a pro-capitalism action. And, if you think it is, then creating Oddworld games AT ALL would be hypocrisy wouldn't it? Creating any sort of product and selling it?
Lorne has never been anti-product and he's using his more popular IP to help out other indies excited about these ideas of cross-promotion. And yes, that includes both JAW & Matt Glanvilles small indie games Lum & Gravity Crash Ultra. Mostly likely because they were instrumental in bringing Oddworld back from the dead.
This isn't about JAW or Matt shamelessly taking advantage of a more popular title - but getting excited about Lorne's ideas of indies helping each other out. And the cynic will say that "Of course they're excited! They're piggybacking off Oddworld!"
Now, obviously the execution has been a problem. Esp since people like Matthew *do* think these are shameless business practices. And the argument about immersion is certainly not a bad one - even though Matthew misrepresented their inclusion in the game as being everywhere.
But where he seems to have a good grasp on the themes of Oddworld and Abe;s Oddysee he misses out on a very important one.
Oddworld is about the little guys banding together in a world ruled by the big guys.
The indies banding together in an industry ruled by the big publishers.
And this is totally in line with that philosophy
I'm not sure if a comparison between indie devs and big budget studios to slavery can really be made in this case. And the billboard advertising still seems a bit dirty to me, although I always thought Oddworld was anti-extreme unsustainable capitalism than anti-any capitalism. I'd have felt better if the other games were referenced in homages or something less subtle than a literal advertisement board. And isn't advertising the games of the people who as you say were instrumental in bringing the game back a conflict of interests?
homersimpson90210 It cannot be compared literally but it's that theme that runs through the series. Munch and the fuzzles, Stranger and the natives. It's just a philosophy and he uses exaggeration in oddworld to put it forward. Do these anti-consumerist, and anti-dirty business practices then also not count since they are very exaggerated in Oddworld to make a point?
Also, I don't understand how it's a conflict of interest? Since Lornes point is for indies to support each other rather than compete against one another.
So instead of competing against one another - including JAW's non-Oddworld games competing against Oddworld - and getting blasted by the big publishers they support one another even though the big publishers are still dominating the market.
But it' the fact that they thought, since the boards already advertised the Tasty Treats, it would be relatively subtle to slip a few of the games in that way - and only in secret areas. It obviously didn't work for everyone but the idea that this is some sort of disgusting business practice doesn't ring true.
And the fact that we're discussing this because I commented, and not because of the video, is a problem.
Matthew should have given the data even if he still disagreed with the practice and still thought it stunk. But at least it would allow some commentators to draw their own conclusions rather than go "Yeah, the ads suck ass!" because Matthew painted them as hypocritical.
See is argument against the stylized aesthetic has a leg to stand on because the dug up the Oddworld visual bible. It's why I find it weird that he didn't bother to look up why his biggest grievance with the game, seemingly contradicting Oddworld's philosophy, was actually in the game.
The only thing that annoys me about this video is that he goes into great depth with a lot of his analysis - but leaves out things for others - which then misrepresents their inclusion in the game (same thing goes with the Slig visors).
I HATED new & tasty, i'm glad other people noticed the issues, too many people aren't familiar with the original version and think this is how the game has always been
The original game (and Exoddus) to this day probably has the best art style I’ve ever seen in a game. As a kid I was blown away by it. I was obsessed with drawing as a kid (I still do) and I think this game was a big reason why. NnT doesn’t live up to the original at all. PS1 version was like a beautiful painting while NnT... well you can tell they used Unity to make it.
"CAUSE I WAS BORN TO LOVE YOU.... I FEEL"
why this music??? they have so much CREATIVE AND UNIQUE music throughout... why have these lyrics? this singer???
15:18 I never thought about this. "natural" slicks have no legs and no guns so they are probably prey in the natural world. which is why they join rupture farms to become the hunters for once
Also, why do the sligs explode from death by electricity? The old death of just sort of buzzing and fading out was much more bleak and unique. The death explosions seem off in New'n'Tasty anyways
I'd argue talking to multiple mudokons at once is basically nothing. In the OG game there were only 100 instead of 300 and the puzzles were designed around getting each one of them one by one. And it was also exoddus that introduced the talk to all mechanic. New n Tasty did nothing new other than bloating the number of mudokons you need to rescue and maybe trivializing some puzzles that were meant to be difficult in exchange for reducing some tedium by having to go back to get all mudokons. But then again that shows effort, and usually once they were together a bird portal was nearby so you never had to talk to them again. I give 0 points for new n tasty for introducing an exoddus mechanic in a game where it was not needed. They made it needed because they also added more mudokons, they created a problem which they fixed with a solution that isn't even their idea.
The one and only "good" thing they did is the bomb throwing, but then again the OG PS1 controller, and PC, didn't and doesn't have a thumbstick, and the old game worked on a grid so all you had to do is remember where the bomb landed with each key held down. Again, they created a problem by deviating from the original game, then made up a solution that is ugly.
This game was a clear foreshadowing of how bad soulstorm was going to be
Many of the hidden rooms where you find Mudokons have additional trap settings but also more solutions now. That ain't trivializing anything.
Someone please just re-render old abe with modern day resolution.
I really like how you put the ending creditsat the end of the video, so we can know who made that amazing game in first place. It was a really nice touch.
Hate the mentality these days that everything has to look more 3D than 2D ..
I love the original look WAY more .. Even in Ducktales Remastered they had great 2D animation visuals but for some reason added 3D objects that looked out of placed next to the great 2D animation
Some call this nitpicking, I call it the right way to cirticise something that's wrong.
Amazing work once again.
The Watcher respect
JAW needs to hire you. You could do Oddworld a lot of justice. I think we should start a petition.
I hate these comments. Criticism and game design are mutually exclusive when the critic has designed a game themselves.
*****
Just because you dislike or have issues with a game doesn't mean that going into another team with completely different philosophies and approaches (assuming that the reviewer is even capable of interesting game design) is necessarily going to work. In fact I'd say it's quite retarded.
I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your comment. It shows such an atrocious lack of thinking that dedicating any significant amount of time attempting to parse its stupidity is so utterly futile that I can't even equate it to anything else that's anywhere near as outlandish.
***** . . . which has nothing to do with what I was even saying. If all you can do is regurgitate other people's ideas without even beginning to understand them, don't bother replying.
"thought provoking impulse"
Not a chance buddy.
***** How. . . how can you be this moronic?
*****
What he was saying was someone should not be hired by a studio just because they can pick faults with the game, even if those faults are legitimate. They should be listened to feedback, but now just take people on board based on that. If Matt designed a game, it too would have faults as well, there are some faults only over people can see, and as observant as he is, he is still no different.
I would have paid to see your reaction to the credits' music
Wow. I never even noticed the sloppy main menu abe head animation. Especially in such an important element of the game, That's just inexcusable.
I'm so happy that someone with excellent video editing and narration skills was able to put this into words that I could never find to express my own disappointment with New 'N' Tasty. You've gained a subscriber from this, my good sir. :)
Wow man you hit a lot of nails on the head.
I consider myself somewhat of a superfan of the old oddworld games and I grew up in the same town as oddworld studios. I toured the studios as a kid sometime between Exodus and Munch's oddysee, and my mom was always excited to tell me days when Lorne Lanning stopped in the restaurant she worked at. I totally believe those original PS1 games had a huge influence on me and how I came to see the world. And yet, a lot of the points youve made I remember feeling as a wee lad when Munchs oddysee came out and the general sort of change of art direction came into the gameworld...
As I understand it, oddworld from the very beginning was founded on the idea of pushing the limitations of game software and storytelling. I think they executed so much more than they give themselves credit for with those original games, and even though this 'new n tasty' wasn't so much an in house development I listened to an interview with Lorne saying how a lot of what this reboot or soulstorm is doing is capturing what he wished he could've done at the time with the techology. I don't know how much of that desire kind influenced just add water, but even when I heard that interview I felt a bit of a shudder, a bit of a 'oh no man, I don't think that's what you're all about'.
I came to this video after buying the oddworld collection for switch wanting a trip down memory lane, but had to stop halfway through and look up some comparison videos because something felt 'off'. And everything you say is true. I'm writing this 7 years after this videos been posted mostly hoping someone from the current development team will run across it and head this message! Those old games were powerful and fun because of some of those limitations! And I think focusing on trying to be an industry pusher isn't really were oddworld shines. If anything a storytelling pusher in all forms of media suites them much better. I loved these games when I was a kid because they were so dark, creepy, and mirrored our real world in a terrifying way, while being the right amount of fantasy and humour to be digestible. The themes and presentation didn't insult or question my intelligence as a a wee child of 7 or 8 and gave me a really fun, engaging and memorable 'tough pill to swallow'. And looking at this review I realize so much of that has to come down to dedication to art style, theme, and perhaps some of the differences of the industry and limitations at the time. I hope oddworld can give us something of what those old games gave us on their next release, but I do think some of thier tendency to want to create the most 'sophisticated' game has to be let go to focus on what they really succeeded in. Hey I may be a less in more kind of person too. Check out 'the last door' on steam or switch shop if you haven't already. Its a point n click Edgar Allan Poe / Lovecraft inspired puzzle game totally done in 8 bit graphics, and man is it spooky! It's one of my favorite games of the last ten years and it's using the equivalent of sticks n mud with it's technology but for me was more memorable than most AAA releases. Great storytelling and vision doesn't need bells, whistles, and bloom, it's about crafting your world around what let's the most amount of 'feeling' come through
Very well written comment and while I never had the privilege of seeing them in their prime nor did good ol Lorne went to anywhere I was living at, I can completely feel your comment. When I have first seen Abe's Oddysee I was 6 years old. I was completely mesmerized, and I couldn't think about anything else at the time. A year later, when I finally got my PS, I had to have it. The joy of playing with something so unique made me appreciate art much more than ever before. It shaped who I'm today.
Seeing New N Tasty and ESPECIALLY Soulstorm being so lacklustre really made me depressed.
NEVER STOP MATHEWMATOSIS. you set a great example.
Totally agree, and i really hope they wont screw up abe oddworld soulstorm and i hope they have seen this video to learn from there mistakes.
Great video
the people who worked on soulstorm did not watch this video
they should have
Your videos are always a treat! I've never played Abe's Oddysee, I don't even remember how I found out about it, but these points are quite convincing. I'm not sure if the original is my kind of game, but it looks like a lot of good effort was put into it. It's a shame about the changes they made. That audio mixing is horrendous.
Haha, those glitches. That credit music. Why.