I played Oddworld when I was around, 6-8 years old, if I remember correctly. My first Oddworld game was the demake of Abe's Oddysee - Oddworld Adventures on the Game Boy. I then got Abe's Oddysee for the PS1 and I loved it. I hold Abe's Oddysee close to my heart as one of the best platforming games I have ever played and due to the fact it was a special gift from my dad, because of the "farting" mechanic in the game it would always make me and my dad laugh. He then got me Abe's Exoddus and my love for Oddworld grew even stronger.

Time went on and I slowly moved on, like we all do but the memory was always there. I sadly missed out on Oddworld New n Tasty. I was not missing out on Oddworld: Soulstorm. I completed my first run in only 8 hours 10 minutes. I am going to get the rest of the achievements but I am going to follow a guide. I really wish I did not touch this game. Below I will explain why, but first, a small disclaimer.

This review is MY opinion, MY own personal experience and MY thoughts. I am brutally honest when it comes to reviewing games. If you do not like my opinion, my time or respect my personal experience, please move on.

⚫The main thing that broke me was the ability to "FART". You might think this is stupid but it holds sentimental value for me. The days my dad would watch me play a game and I would hear his laugh when I farted over and over again all while giggling.... that feeling... completely gone.
⚫The other thing that I disliked the most was the cut/missing content. Where are "THOSE DUDES NOW DEAD"? (Three Weirdos). I loved them and the how the story played out. I now hate it. There is just so much content missing that I would need a small book to list them all and tell you what they were. Like the Invisibility Ring(s) that make Mudokon invisible OR he SCRABS and PARAMITES... feared wildlife of Oddworld, WHERE ARE THEY?!?!
⚫Completing levels didn't feel rewarding at all. If anything, they're tedious as you're FORCED to do specific tasks to get "badges" such as - break X amount of objects in one mission, spend X amount of moolah, search X amount of items in a singular mission. I felt more relieved when the mission was over. Not only that, I basically never died at all in my mission's. I think I died 4 times in total due to bugs and quit then restarted the game just so it did not count.
⚫The game is full of bugs, glitches and issues. Several times I fell out of the map. The "Shout mechanic" to tell your "MUDS" to stay or follow broke on me over and over again, I had to spam shout over and over to issue a command.
Due to the game not having a quick save but only "CHECKPOINTS", with the bugs and issues I encountered... I was sent back to my last checkpoint over and over.
⚫The Monkey Bars are just stupid to grab onto. I do not know if this is "poor" mechanics being implemented or not but the majority of time when I jumped to "GRAB ON" my character just bonked his head off of the monkey bars and died which led me to quit and reload. (edited)

"If you’re a completionist, you’re looking at “over 100 hours” to collect everything"

This statement, is a bold face lie. Take it from someone that played the game to 100%, under 20 measly hours.

This is how I feel. You might be different. You might like it. A NEW player to Oddworld: Soulstorm might like it but as someone that knows the Oddworld games, knows what is missing... it is a disaster of unknown proportions.

As a fan of Oddworld, hardcore or not, and how much I cherish the memories I have with my dad when I was young, hearing his laugh when I laughed farting over and over... to see the game now, the cut content, the missing mechanics... the sense of joy fleeting... I hate to say it but I HATE Oddworld: Soulstorm.

I also want to say that Lorne Lanning is an excellent creator and artist, but sadly he does not take criticism very well and lacks the ability to read a room.

I dont know why the hate! this game is pretty great, beautiful levels, ans great story! The soundtrack as usual is also great!

Wait for a major discount. Not worth the full price. And only if youre interested in the story. You will be disappointed in the game mechanics and unskippable cutscenes!
Im sure my majority of "playtime" is that I got fed up, tab'd out and done anything else, but steam counts runtime instead of playtime.

Cutscene animations seems clunky and voice acting in this day and age is just unaccaptable if you sell it as "cinematic platformer"

The game is filled with bug and glitches even at summer 2024. If they havent fixed it in 2 years, doubt they will ever will...

The games difficulty comes from figuring out the ONE and ONLY way to solve the "puzzle", because if you fail, everything will falling apart:
- guards can and will shoot behind covers
- walk through closed doors
- if you get caught snipers will 360-no-cope you out of existence even if you take cover
- jumps are clunky, no clue how they managed to downgrade controls from previous games

In previous games you could possess 4 different species (8 if we count much)
now its limited to ONE

and instructions are non existent, theres only follow/stop. I think there was only 2 level where I had to even split the group... So level designers didnt even utilized this mechanic.

when possessing a slig, communication is absolutely pointless, since you have two purpose by being a slig: pull a lever yourself or go full genocide.
What happened the "giving instuctions" puzzles? Or shouting "take cover" so you can shoot?

The save system can be annoying. Too often I hit a point of no return, and had to restart a level to fix an issue. At least have 2 save file: one for a previous checkpoint.
A good advice: do NOT use select level feature before you finish your current level, because according to some weird logic, if you complete it there before you finish in story mode, you wont get access to the next level. And this supposed to be intented!
C'mon! At least only allow level select once you finish it, not when you unlock it then... -_-

I read some walkthroughs because naively thought the true ending would be to kill all sligs AND save all mudokons.
Saving all mudokons are too easy. The 2 group I missed was due to the silly save method again: ie: the end level was a door while it was obvious there was more level after it.
At least give a warning that "do you want to end the level". This just makes things tedious, not fun.

I thought slig kills would be the extra difficulty, since it involves crafting, material management and some tricks, but read that you supposed to be a full pacifist, but that was removed at least.
Thankfully, because the level achievements contradicts that: aka, how could be a pacifist, when the challange of the level is somethink like molotov 30 sligs?

Still... I hope they learn from this and the next game we will at least step back to the mechanics of Abe2.

I am still interested in the continuation.