- Oddworld Munch's Oddysee Review
- Oddworld Munch's Oddysee
- Oddworld Munch's Oddysee Switch
- Oddworld Munch's Oddysee Remaster
- Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee Meet Munch, hero of the Oddest Oddysee of all. His luck is about to change - for the worse. How would you feel if you broke your leg in a scrab trap, were abducted.
- Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee. Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee. Summary: Play as both Abe and Munch in the newly 3D Oddworld as you solve puzzles and defeat enemies and overthrow the Glukkons.
Meet Munch, hero of the Oddest Oddysee of all. His luck is about to change - for the worse - in Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee from Microids for the Nintendo Switch.
*Review based on the updated Steam release of Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee*
The Oddworld series has had a turbulent development history. Originally envisioned as a five-part 'Quintology,' the series quickly expanded to include 'bonus games,' after the success of the first entry in the series, Abe's Oddysee, lead to the development of an unplanned direct follow-up, Abe's Exoddus. The second 'proper' installment in the Quintology, Munch's Oddysee, would then see a number of road bumps in its own development. Originally planned as a Playstation 2 exclusive, all the work developer Oddworld Inhabitants made for that version of Munch went out the window and had to be rebuilt from the ground up when the game transitioned to the Xbox. And with the pressure of releasing Munch's Oddysee as a launch title for Microsoft's then-new home console, many of the ideas and concepts series creator Lorne Lanning and company had for Munch had to be trimmed down, cut short, or removed entirely.
It should be no surprise that Munch's Oddysee is widely accepted as the worst entry in the series by both fans and critics then. Even Lorne Lanning has publicly expressed his disappointment with the finished product on numerous occasions. Munch's reception would shift Oddworld Inhabitants' focus onto a bonus game once again, as the next Oddworld entry, Stranger's Wrath, was created with the intention of separating itself from Munch's Oddysee as much as possible.
That was the end of the line for Oddworld for a good while. The series would end up having more cancelled and unrealized games than it did actual releases. Squeek's Oddysee, the planned third entry in the Quintology, was never released, nor were multiplayer title The Hand of Odd or the spiritual sequel to Stranger's Wrath, The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot. It wasn't until 2014 with the release of Oddworld: New ‘N' Tasty – a remake of the original Abe's Oddysee – that the series would return. At that point, Oddworld Inhabitants chose to reboot the series, using the remake as a launching pad to start things over. 2021 will see the release of SoulStorm, a 'complete re-imagining' of Abe's Exoddus which is now being reworked as the second installment of the Quintology, effectively making Munch's Oddysee completely non-canon (Stranger has hopefully escaped this fate, given how little it had to do with the previous games anyway).
It probably didn't help the game's reputation when the four Oddworld titles were bundled together on Steam in 2010, with the port of Munch suffering from so many bugs and glitches that it continued to receive patches and updates all the way into 2016. Garageband iphone.
Playing Munch's Oddysee today, twenty years after it debuted alongside the original XBox in 2001, its shortcomings have only been magnified. It's a shame, because in terms of ideas, Munch's Oddysee has no shortage of creativity. But it's now more obvious than ever at how all these ideas were only partly realized. The sacrifices made in its development make Munch's Oddysee feel like a series of missed opportunities and lost potential.
The titular Munch of the game is a Gabbit, an amphibious creature with a large head and a single leg. Drama 2020. Actually, Munch is believed to be the very last Gabbit, as the species became popular hunting game for their eggs (considered a delicacy by the Glukkons, Oddworld's dominant species of businessmen), and for their powerful lungs, which are compatible with most of Oddworld's other species (with Glukkons being such heavy smokers, Gabbit lungs come in handy). Gabbits were also used for experimentations by Vykkers (who are under Glukkons but above most other creatures in the Oddworld pecking order, filling the roles of scientists and doctors).
Unfortunately for Munch, he ends up kidnapped by a couple of Vykkers, who perform a series of experiments on the poor Gabbit, installing a sonar device onto his head. Munch manages to escape the lab with the help of the Fuzzles – small, round creatures that look like fuzzy versions of those old chicken McNuggets characters – another popular subject of Vykker experimentation.
Meanwhile, original Oddworld hero Abe returns, being instructed by a being known as 'The Almighty Raisin' to find the last Gabbit. With the help of Munch, Abe can rescue more of his enslaved Mudokon brothers. And with Abe's help, Munch might just be able to track down the last known can of 'Gabbiar' (Gabbit eggs), and save his species from extinction.
Munch's Oddysee obviously continues the series' environmental themes, but it's pretty apparent early on that much of the story didn't make it into the final game, with a number of plot elements feeling rushed or forgotten. The plot also gets a little silly later on, with Abe and Munch trying to make a particularly 'lazy and incompetent Glukkon' wealthy, so that Abe can use his telepathy on said Glukkon to win the Gabbit eggs at an auction (why Abe and Munch can't just sneak into the auction and possess whoever happened to win it is a detail that maybe needed some explanation).
It seems Munch's Oddysee fully embraces the more comical and cartoonish aspects of Oddworld, which isn't a bad thing in an of itself, but it's a bit sad to see the series' darker and more gruesome elements disappear, as it's that combination of grimness and cartoonish antics that help make Oddworld feel so unique. Even the environments look brighter and more colorful than in Abe's solo outings.
Whereas the 'Abe' titles were 2D puzzle-platformers, Munch's Oddysee took things into the 3D platformer route. Perhaps the shift to 3D was another hurdle for Oddworld Inhabitants (aside from Nintendo with Super Mario 64, can you name a developer who got 3D right in their first go?), though credit where it's due, Munch's Oddysee had some innovative ideas for the genre that still feel unique all these years later.
Notably, both Abe and Munch are distinct characters not just in appearance, but in gameplay as well. Abe can move faster and jump higher on land, but is unable to swim. Meanwhile, Munch may be slower by default, but he can find wheelchairs to move faster, and is a capable swimmer to boot. Abe can once again possess enemies, while Munch – using the sonar device in his head – can hack into machines to control them. Abe still communicates with his fellow Mudokons, with the native Mudokons becoming soldiers that can go into battle in place of the defenseless Abe, and can even be upgraded to have melee and ranged weapons (giving the game a light RTS twist). Munch, meanwhile, can free Fuzzles from their cages, and can similarly command the vicious creatures against enemies.
I love all of the gameplay ideas in concept. Sadly, none of them feel like they reach their full potential. What's even worse is that, despite being Munch's game, he definitely feels like he gets the short end of the stick between the playable duo.
Due to the shift in 3D, Abe's chanting now works differently here, requiring the use of 'Spooce Shrubs' to produce a telepathic light, which the player then controls until it finds an enemy or runs out of time (you can use up to 10 Spooce to make the light last longer). Not only is the Spooce found everywhere, but Abe can instantly regrow a shrub after picking it up, which Munch can't do. And even though there are still moments that prevent Abe from chanting, there are far more opportunities for him to possess enemies than there are for Munch to hack into machines, which only happens on a few occasions. There are even more than a few moments where you can cheese your way through a stage by using Abe's possession abilities to clear an area of its foes, instead of working through the level the way I think it was intended given the layout (I can't help but feel Oddworld Inhabitants intended to include the drones that prevent Abe's chanting in these segments, but just forgot to include them).
Oddworld Munch's Oddysee Review
There are also more levels that include Mudokon soldiers than Fuzzles, and as stated, you can upgrade the Mudokons (once again using Spooce), but the Fuzzles lack variety or advancements. The Fuzzles also have trouble keeping up with Munch when he's on his wheelchair, nor can they follow him into the water, effectively making his soldiers much less useful than Abe's, on top of already being less interesting.
It's things like this that make Munch feel underdeveloped from a gameplay standpoint. He's a cute little fella (well, as cute as anything in Oddworld could possibly be, anyway), but I feel like Oddworld Inhabitants could have done the character better had they settled on one idea for him, like his preference for water. If Munch had some kind of aquatic soldiers and had water-based puzzles to solve, his gameplay would probably feel a lot more fleshed out. The developers should have leaned into the idea of Munch's amphibian nature, instead of throwing in the sonar device and hacking and Fuzzles. Munch is a Jack of all trades, but a master of none, whereas Abe's gameplay is more concrete (albeit his jumping feels pretty awkward this time around). As a result, Munch feels like the sidekick of his own game.
Of course, the concept of 'too many ideas and not knowing what to do with them' kind of sums up Munch's Oddysee as a whole. Abe's Exoddus also had a rushed development, but because Oddworld Inhabitants knew what it was (a bigger, better sequel to Abe's Oddysee), the end result was fantastic. Munch's Oddysee feels like Lorne Lanning and company had a lot of ideas for the game, but didn't settle on any one of them by the time development was pressured into meeting the XBox's launch.
I can't help but feel the way to go for Munch's Oddysee was to build on the '3D platformer meets RTS' aspect (with Abe on land and Munch in water). The game just isn't nearly as interesting in the levels that are absent of the Mudokon and Fuzzle soldiers. It tries to implement puzzles like in Abe's titles, but these puzzles quickly become repetitious. One notably lackluster stage is literally just Abe doing some platforming to reach switches to open doors so Munch can pass through repeatedly. Another requires Abe to possess a 'Big Bro Slig' to take out the other Slig soldiers in the stage, without informing the player that the Sligs in this particular stage respawn numerous times, and you have to exhaust their respawns in order to make things safe for Abe and Munch. That's just tedious and cryptic.
There are other examples of shortcuts and cut corners taken: Paramites and Scrabs reappear for one level apiece, but they feel like token appearances this time around, instead of part of Oddworld's unique setting (they even act identical in this game, further devaluing their appearance). Even the stages and their progression feel unfinished, with levels ending simply by having Abe and Munch stand on pads with their faces on them, which takes players directly into a loading screen and then immediately throwing them into the next stage (I have nothing against linear structures in games, but surely a world map at the very least would make the game feel far less fragmented).
Despite the years of fixes and patches the PC version of Munch's Oddysee went through, I still experienced some notable bugs during my playthrough for this review. Three in particular stood out: the camera in the game is already more than a little messy, but when it was meant to focus on a particular object for a key moment in a stage (like unlocking a door after solving a puzzle), it would seemingly lose all control before only kind of focusing on the intended object. The second involved possessing enemies, as the ball of light that Abe conjures when he chants would sometimes (not all the time, but sometimes) only move when jumping. Finally, the most confusing bug involved the run button. Perchik wawe teil 4. Normally Abe and Munch just walk when using the control stick, and you need to hold a button to make them run. But in some stages, it was the opposite, and the characters ran by default, and walked when I held the run button.
Whether or not bugs such as those were present in the original Xbox release, I can't remember. Either Munch's Oddysee was always a much more technically flawed game than I remembered, or the PC port is still a mess after years of fixes. Either way, it doesn't help the game's reputation as the low point in the Oddworld series.
Oddworld Munch's Oddysee
I love all of the gameplay ideas in concept. Sadly, none of them feel like they reach their full potential. What's even worse is that, despite being Munch's game, he definitely feels like he gets the short end of the stick between the playable duo.
Due to the shift in 3D, Abe's chanting now works differently here, requiring the use of 'Spooce Shrubs' to produce a telepathic light, which the player then controls until it finds an enemy or runs out of time (you can use up to 10 Spooce to make the light last longer). Not only is the Spooce found everywhere, but Abe can instantly regrow a shrub after picking it up, which Munch can't do. And even though there are still moments that prevent Abe from chanting, there are far more opportunities for him to possess enemies than there are for Munch to hack into machines, which only happens on a few occasions. There are even more than a few moments where you can cheese your way through a stage by using Abe's possession abilities to clear an area of its foes, instead of working through the level the way I think it was intended given the layout (I can't help but feel Oddworld Inhabitants intended to include the drones that prevent Abe's chanting in these segments, but just forgot to include them).
Oddworld Munch's Oddysee Review
There are also more levels that include Mudokon soldiers than Fuzzles, and as stated, you can upgrade the Mudokons (once again using Spooce), but the Fuzzles lack variety or advancements. The Fuzzles also have trouble keeping up with Munch when he's on his wheelchair, nor can they follow him into the water, effectively making his soldiers much less useful than Abe's, on top of already being less interesting.
It's things like this that make Munch feel underdeveloped from a gameplay standpoint. He's a cute little fella (well, as cute as anything in Oddworld could possibly be, anyway), but I feel like Oddworld Inhabitants could have done the character better had they settled on one idea for him, like his preference for water. If Munch had some kind of aquatic soldiers and had water-based puzzles to solve, his gameplay would probably feel a lot more fleshed out. The developers should have leaned into the idea of Munch's amphibian nature, instead of throwing in the sonar device and hacking and Fuzzles. Munch is a Jack of all trades, but a master of none, whereas Abe's gameplay is more concrete (albeit his jumping feels pretty awkward this time around). As a result, Munch feels like the sidekick of his own game.
Of course, the concept of 'too many ideas and not knowing what to do with them' kind of sums up Munch's Oddysee as a whole. Abe's Exoddus also had a rushed development, but because Oddworld Inhabitants knew what it was (a bigger, better sequel to Abe's Oddysee), the end result was fantastic. Munch's Oddysee feels like Lorne Lanning and company had a lot of ideas for the game, but didn't settle on any one of them by the time development was pressured into meeting the XBox's launch.
I can't help but feel the way to go for Munch's Oddysee was to build on the '3D platformer meets RTS' aspect (with Abe on land and Munch in water). The game just isn't nearly as interesting in the levels that are absent of the Mudokon and Fuzzle soldiers. It tries to implement puzzles like in Abe's titles, but these puzzles quickly become repetitious. One notably lackluster stage is literally just Abe doing some platforming to reach switches to open doors so Munch can pass through repeatedly. Another requires Abe to possess a 'Big Bro Slig' to take out the other Slig soldiers in the stage, without informing the player that the Sligs in this particular stage respawn numerous times, and you have to exhaust their respawns in order to make things safe for Abe and Munch. That's just tedious and cryptic.
There are other examples of shortcuts and cut corners taken: Paramites and Scrabs reappear for one level apiece, but they feel like token appearances this time around, instead of part of Oddworld's unique setting (they even act identical in this game, further devaluing their appearance). Even the stages and their progression feel unfinished, with levels ending simply by having Abe and Munch stand on pads with their faces on them, which takes players directly into a loading screen and then immediately throwing them into the next stage (I have nothing against linear structures in games, but surely a world map at the very least would make the game feel far less fragmented).
Despite the years of fixes and patches the PC version of Munch's Oddysee went through, I still experienced some notable bugs during my playthrough for this review. Three in particular stood out: the camera in the game is already more than a little messy, but when it was meant to focus on a particular object for a key moment in a stage (like unlocking a door after solving a puzzle), it would seemingly lose all control before only kind of focusing on the intended object. The second involved possessing enemies, as the ball of light that Abe conjures when he chants would sometimes (not all the time, but sometimes) only move when jumping. Finally, the most confusing bug involved the run button. Perchik wawe teil 4. Normally Abe and Munch just walk when using the control stick, and you need to hold a button to make them run. But in some stages, it was the opposite, and the characters ran by default, and walked when I held the run button.
Whether or not bugs such as those were present in the original Xbox release, I can't remember. Either Munch's Oddysee was always a much more technically flawed game than I remembered, or the PC port is still a mess after years of fixes. Either way, it doesn't help the game's reputation as the low point in the Oddworld series.
Oddworld Munch's Oddysee
Oddworld Munch's Oddysee Switch
I love Oddworld. It's one of gaming's most unique settings, as interesting as its creatures are ugly. And it delved into deeper lore and worldbuilding long before that became commonplace in popular culture. But it's also a series whose creative ambitions have often been out of reach for what its developers could realistically achieve (and what its publishers were willing to do). That's evidenced by the unfinished nature of the original Quintology, and the numerous cancelled games besides. But it's perhaps epitomized through Munch's Oddysee, a game chock-full of brilliant concepts that end up haphazardly realized.
Oddworld Munch's Oddysee Remaster
4
