[Holy Sock]

I'm actually genuinely interested in seeing criticism for a game I love. I can totally see an argument structured around Oddysee beinga a natural progression of storytelling and gameplay while Exoddus is almost like a DLC expansion pack that uses its story to loosely justify its progression. I’m gonna split this in two because I got carried away.

Story progression

I haven't watched the whole video, yet. I started at 24:00 as suggested but, so far, his criticism of Exoddus' narrative progression isn't holding up. It seems like he actually didn't pay attention to the game or ignored all the story stones you read throughout.

Now that's a possible critisim. That the game relied on story stones to inform Abe/and thus the player on what his goal is. But the goals are still clear.

For example he says the goal of healing your sick Mudokon buddies trapped in the Necrum Mine ruins to progress from Necrum to the FeeCo Depot is poorly telegraphed. That the goal comes out of nowhere without any setup. However this isn't true. When you first arrive in Necrum you use a bird portal which teleports you to your sick buddies. There you are told that you need to heal them to progress and shutdown SoulStorm Brewery and are teleported to Necrum. In Necrum you are told you need to free the trapped spirits to get this power.

Then you are informed you need the access from the three Executive Glukkons to get into SoulStorm brewery. Not JUST in that cutscene - which is largely there to introduce the villains. All they say is that they're gonna lock the place up tight. It's in the actual FeeCo hub that the player (and thus Abe) learns they need to disengage the main gates.

And, then, there's still the overall goal of shutting down Brew Production. The three acts of Exoddus are much more distinct than Oddysee. Unlike Oddysee there isn't a main antagonist. Perhaps that's another criticism worth exploring? The progression of Abe's goal is what drives the tale - stop the Glukkons digging up Mudokon bones, learn that it's SoulStorm Brew they're making, free their spirits, then tasked to personally shutdown SoulStorm brewery yourself, gain access to the Brewery, destroy the boiler.

In the cutscene with the Three Weirdos Abe also says that "but I've gotta save the Mudokons there first". Which, I guess, justifies the idea of these random smattering of puzzles - each one has Mudokons to rescue which is Abe's secondary goal.

So, yeah, I think there's definitely a clear progression for Abe and justification for the game's structure.

Hubs

Now in regards to hubs. I think he’s missed the mark a little here – or perhaps it comes down to personal preference. I think the FeeCo hub is a perfectly justifiable hub since it’s a train station and I think there’s actually a certain amount of satisfaction returning there after taking down a Glukkon executive. Now you return there 3 times in the game which I don’t think is gratuitous.

Now his criticism of the hubs in Exoddus is problematic, I think, because he gives Oddysee a free pass. Why? Because a couple of the hub levels have their own interior mini-hubs. But this is only a couple of the levels out of how many exactly?

The hub level structure is definitely overused in Exoddus. Nep’s said this before. I’ve never had a problem as, like others have said, nostalgia. I think when you’re a lot younger grinding and repetitive structures aren’t really a problem. If I played the game for the first time today perhaps I’d get tired of it – but it’s certainly a lazy way to progress a game. I can see that.

Slig Barracks, Bonewerkz and the Brewery could have had more of a linear progression in this regard. Although I do wonder if the Hubs give the player a better sense of progression? If there were no hubs in the Brewery would players get frustrated that they have no indication of how far they have to go? Particularly since Exoddus isn’t segmented into levels. There’s no clear The hubs would be a way to do this but keep the game continuously flowing.

Perhaps this is just the problem then. Exoddus has too many hubs. You can only get away with so many (like Oddysee did) but Exoddus just doubled that number without much thought. It’s an interesting question. Games like Limbo work well without hubs. I guess it takes more thought to keep the player interested as opposed to the artificial progression. I’m rambling here. But the point still stands. I think the problems with Hubs extends to Oddysee. There’s just more of them.

Ending

His final summary is good. I certainly think there’s something to be said about that and perhaps the first 24 mins does a better job at putting that across! I’ll actually watch that later cause it’s interesting to see perspectives like this. But after the 24 min mark I don’t think his two main arguments about actual story progression and his problem with the hubs were that interesting. I hope this reads half as decent as it sounded in my empty head.

EDIT: formatting