I don't think any of us are under the impression that Exoddus is more than Oddysee 1.5. I mean OWI were always clear that this was a bonus game rather than the next installment.
The biggest issue I can think of with Exoddus is it's story. It's a retread of Oddysee plotwise without the Quintological significance (great word eh?
). BUT this time around OWI decided to flesh out the characters, define their personalities, and actually write a pretty good script. This, in my opinion, trumps the fact that Exoddus doesn't take the series to new places. And compared to Munch - which
was supposed to take the story somewhere new - you can see how Exoddus succeeds in telling it's retread of a story.
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The problem I have with Abe's Exoddus is not explicitly to do with the length of the game, but the length of the areas. For example, the Necrum Mines section is at least 3x as long as the first RF sequence from Oddysee, which would be fine if it was kept interesting, but it wasn't, and the gameplay would become boring very quickly until you reach the next segment.
I mean, can't everyone agree that as awesome as the Brewery is, they could have cut its length in half and it would have been much better? I guess then it would be even more obvious that it's just the Rupture Farms finale from Oddysee, but timestretched.
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I can not agree. Maybe the hub structure of the entire game feels a little played out for some but I've played the game so much I can't remember if I thought this initially (I certainly don't now). The more puzzles the merrier... the puzzles...
I personally don't think the Brewery overstays its welcome at all - and the variety in puzzles keeps things paced well. And the Brewery is comparable to Zulags 2-4 of Rupture Farms. Not the final level. Similarly the Necrum Mines isn't too long either and it introduces new concepts as a good pace - how the game works, blind Mudokons, flying Sligs, Mine cars.
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The Scrab and Paramite sections feel forced and shoehorned in, because Oddworld so we need Paramite and Scrab sections. They didn't have to do the exact same thing again, they could have done something new. I know they were on a tight deadline, but they managed to add lots of other new stuff so there was no excuse for them to copypaste that exact segment and add nothing new except slapping fucking ghost locks.
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And possessing the creatures. Which stopped those areas feeling like a complete redundant retread. The most obvious example of sequelitis but I think they hold up gameplaywise.
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This leads me onto my biggest issue with the game: it's just Oddysee again. Sure, they add new gameplay elements every now and again to keep it (somewhat) fresh but you can't argue that AE is just a more polished Oddysee. Note the fact that when I say polish I'm referring to it in a purely technical manner. The gameplay improvements like being able to move a platform while looking in either direction and being able to talk to multiple Mudokons at once were all welcome changes which would have made AO much better, but it follows the exact same structure as the first and the timestretching is really obvious, and really grating.
Oddysee is short and sweet. It doesn't continuously introduce new gameplay mechanics as frequently as AE does, but that's because it doesn't need to do that in order to keep the gameplay from becoming stale, something AE fails at (it's like Abe's Exoddus is trying to keep a child entertained by showing it new toys and tricks every two seconds, but they're all uninteresting and the baby just liked the key-jingling it was doing before). Mainly because we saw the exact same thing done a year earlier and then it was fresh, fun and interesting enough to keep us entertained for a couple of hours. How did AE think it could do the same thing while making it nearly 3 times as long and not adding anything substantial?
AE is a great game, and it looks stunning. I'm not sure if I prefer its visuals to AO's, but it certainly is something to look at. I love them both, and from a technical standpoint AE probably stands up better, but from an artistic standpoint AO vastly outperforms it, though I guess you could say that's purely subjective. I just think AE's flaws stump it from being the sequel they wanted it to be, and had it been shorter it would have been much better.
Tl;dr: Game's fucking boring as shit I already played Oddysee don't need a fuckin nother one mate!
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See man, completely wrong. I mean, technically, your first paragraph is what AE is. Not a proper innovative sequel.
But the new concepts aren't uninteresting. Blind Mudokons, Flying Sligs, posessing Scrabs n Paramites, Greeters, Glukkon puzzles all work very well. The game's not actually as long as you think it is (if AO is like 3-4 hours long AE isn't 9-12 hours long) which, personally, stops every area from overstaying its welcome. The art direction in the industrial envrionments are a lot better than in Rupture Farms. They're not as pixelated and there's a lot more visual variety between screens throughout (except the Bonewerkz - it kind of sucks a bit).
This is like Arkham Origins to Arkham City. But where Origins sort of just expanded things without really bringing new design with it - and thus feeling like an unnecessary retread for some - Exoddus did bring it both on the story front and the gameplay front. Which stops it from feeling like the unnecessary sequel no one wanted. But more like the game we wish Oddysee was.
I know I prefer some of Oddysee's more mysterious atmosphere - and at its core the journey of Abe has more weight to it. But Exoddus really holds it own and trumps the original in many respects.