As the lovable and reluctant, Abe clumsily escapes the brutal
industrial, factory environments of Rupture Farms and makes his way through the
beautiful but deadly wilds of the Oddworld I was constantly in awe of the incredible
art design. As we played through the game the locations and characters filled
me with a sense intrigue and wonder only previously matched by the Donkey Kong
Country trilogy. Furthermore, the 13 year old me was blown away by the fact
that there was dedicated fart button; truly gaming had reached a new peak. Soon
after I picked up the game for my Playstation and my love the series has never
waned since.
The Oddworld series is undoubtably best known for its
Playstation and Xbox titles, so it may come as a surprise to some to learn that
there have also been three lesser known titles released onto Nintendo handhelds
over the years.
The first of these was simply titled; Oddworld Adventures. Released
in 1998, Oddworld Adventures aimed to bring a loose port of Abe’s Oddysee to the
Gameboy, much like the Donkey Kong Land games had done for the Donkey Kong
Country trilogy a few years earlier. However unlike Donkey Kong Land, Oddworld
Adventures was drastically reduced to contain only a small section of the original
game; namely the Paramonian Temple.
Here Abe must prove himself through a series of dangerous
and puzzling trials in order to the reach the mysterious ‘big face’ who can
bestow him with the power to take down the greedy Glukkon Empire that has been
ruthlessly turning the once sacred animals of the Oddworld into junk food.
The game begins with a short, hands-on, tutorial where the
player can learn the basics of the game. Abe controls very similarly to his 32-bit
counterpart, as he can jump across gaps, climb up and down ledges, roll through
narrow gaps, and sneak past sleeping enemies.
Due to the game taking place
outside of Rupture Farms (where in Abe’s Oddysee, Abe could interact with and
instruct his fellow Mudokons to safety) the ‘game speak’ is mostly absent with
only the ability to recite passwords with high and low whistles remaining. And
of course the fart button; they couldn’t exactly leave that out.
After completing the tutorial stage, Abe is presented with six
open doors, and one larger locked door. This area serves as the central hub
with each of the six doors leading to a separate stage. The stages can be
tackled in any order and the objective is the same in each; to find and light
the flintlock and escape through the exit.
It sounds simple enough but within each stage Abe must
overcome treacherous leaps, falling rocks, explosive mines, angry bees, killer
bats, machine gun wielding sligs, and the creepy spider-like creatures known as
Paramites.
Being a somewhat hapless and fragile fellow, Abe is unable
to defend himself directly and so must use his limited wits and agility (and a
large amount of lot of trial and error) to make it past the various dangers that
stand before him.
Mines, can detonated with rocks or disarmed with careful
timing. Sligs can be possessed and forced to commit suicide or even kill other
sligs. Paramites can be distracted by tossing meat, or led into traps. Nevertheless,
even with careful progress deaths are a common occurrence throughout the game,
with Abe suffering from a variety of terrible fates. Somewhat mercifully, Abe can respawn infinitely
with the only consequence being to have to start the current stage again from
scratch.
Although they share many similar obstacles, each stage feels
like its own unique puzzle to solve.
Some involve careful planning and slow and steady progress, whereas others
involve fast reactions and perfectly timed button presses. The latter type of
stage can certainly prove the more frustrating of the two as the limitations of
the Gameboy’s button layout can prove awkward when having to execute several
commands one after the other. The cinematic platformer style of the game also
means that the controls don’t feel as responsive as a more traditional
platformer, with each command resulting in an uncancellable animation (try
saying that fast, five times in a row). This means that each button press has
to be very deliberate for Abe to make progress, which can make levels where you
are forced to act quickly a particular challenge.
The most noteworthy example of this is found after lighting
all the flintlocks in the first six stages. At this point Abe can enter the
previously locked large door which leads to an all-out mad dash of a stage through
a Paramite nest. Here your timing has to be perfect with any mistake almost
certainly leading to instant death; it’s punishingly difficult and at times leaves
you with a feeling of battling the controls rather than the game itself.
Nevertheless, despite these few moments the game for most part does feels fair,
with every death serving as a valuable lesson to be learnt from. It also makes
the eventual perfect run incredibly satisfying to pull off when it finally does
happen.
The graphics are fairly basic, even for a Game Boy game with
very little in the way of detail in the environments. The empty backgrounds and
boring rock faces are certainly a far cry from the gorgeously detailed
environments seen in Abe’s Oddysee. The characters haven’t fared much better
either, though Abe does at least animate well which helps retain the some of
the slapstick charm of the original.
Unlike Abe’s Oddysee which had a mostly ambient soundtrack,
Oddworld Adventures does have music throughout. It fits the action well enough
but there’s certainly nothing that will keep you humming along after turning
off the game. The sound effects are decent enough though with some digitized
speech thrown in every now and then.
Overall Oddworld Adventures is difficult game to definitively
review. When viewed from the perspective of a port of Abe’s Oddysee the 8-bit
game was always going to fall a long way short. When viewed in isolation
however the gameplay is definitely solid and enjoyable throughout with a great
blend of puzzle solving and platforming to enjoy. If nothing else it proves
that Abe’s Oddysee was always more than just a pretty face.
Even so, the game left me with a feeling that it had been
released unfinished rather than the developers having reached any kind of
technical limitations. Taking the majority of the puzzles directly from Abe’s
Oddysee feels like a strange approach for the developer to have taken and at
times it led to some noticeable oddities (pun intended). For instance the entire
gamespeak mechanic is only used in one instance in the entire game. This feels particularly
strange as I can’t think of another game that has an entire mechanic dedicated
to such a brief one off situation.
As such the game can feel more like a tech demo than
anything. It’s almost as if it was presented at some point as a proof of
concept to show that a somewhat faithful port of Abe’s Oddysee for the Game Boy
was technically possible but then instead of being put into further development
it was released as it was.
All in all, I think Oddworld Adventures is best recommended
as an interesting novelty for fans of the series. Ultimately I feel that the
game would have been better if it had contained more new, unique puzzles
specifically designed for it, rather than them having been lifted from the home
console game. Earlier I referred to the Donkey Kong Land games as a perfect
example of a portable companion game; the levels are different enough to keep
fans who have played the original entertained whilst the overall experience and
gameplay is close enough to satisfy those that haven’t. Oddworld Adventures
sadly doesn’t quite do either of these things and as a result, I’d have to recommend
skipping it and playing the superb Abe’s Oddysee instead.
Nevetheless, if you like what you’ve heard, why not seek out
a copy of Oddworld Adventures for the Game Boy and guide Abe through the
Paramonian Trials to save the sacred creatures of the Oddworld from certain
extinction.
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