Following up to one of the big games of the PSX era, Munch shoots for 3D and fails, creating something miserably boring.
An underwater species known as the Gabbit are on the decline, and one of the last of their kind, Munch, must team up with the savior from the previous game (Abe) to save the last batch of Gabbit …
Following up to one of the big games of the PSX era, Munch shoots for 3D and fails, creating something miserably boring.
An underwater species known as the Gabbit are on the decline, and one of the last of their kind, Munch, must team up with the savior from the previous game (Abe) to save the last batch of Gabbit eggs by possessing bigwigs and making them pay out an auction. It's the type of silly but serious environmentalism that gives Oddworld its edge.
As for the gameplay though, it mostly devolves from its previous puzzle fare into some odd platforming and RTS action hybrid. Abe still talks and recruits his fellow Mudokons and Munch recruits small, irritating puffballs known as Fuzzles, and can use them to attack in a small squad to dispatch enemies, along with drinks that give special powers. As for resources to power your troops, you get this spherical herb called Spooce that is limited, but Abe can repeatedly regenerate ad nauseum, rendering the strategy of getting the most Spooce where you can worthless. Most of the time you'll be cheesing your way through or past enemies, desperately keeping most of your troops out of the way as a good ending requires most of your rescues to remain unharmed.
The visuals are drab and the music is forgettable, and the progression of stages can be extremely tedious - some involve the player just slowly picking off enemies one by one and then mowing them down with ridiculous amounts of troops. Sometimes a whole bunch of creatures to be saved are just lying in the same place, as if the designer wasn't trying too hard in the 25 levels that the player goes through. There's absolutely no puzzle element to these stages, making it feel like an empty and hollow sequel.
Munch's Oddysee extends the Oddworld story in an interesting (if repetitive) angle, and makes the jump to 3D. We sure regretted it.
