I was too annoyed by my first playthrough of this supposed classic cinematic platformer to engage with it on its own terms, but now, years later, I've cooled off, replayed the game, and left no Mudokon behind. Unfortunately I was right the first time; Abe's Oddysee is strangely player hostile, and it's not just its age.

The intended experience is clearly to not be able to solve most of the puzzles on your first playthrough because they involve mechanics that are tutorialised much later or are harder versions of late content, get the bad ending (which is so mean spirited that it would fully justify quitting), replay the endgame for the good ending, then restart and go through the entire game with a fine-tooth comb, praying you don't miss a Mudokon because the game sure won't tell you until far too late. Unfortunately this means that your first playthrough is likely going to be miserable, and it turns out that the 100% run isn't great either.

Spoiler warning for the rest of the review: some information about secrets and game mechanics normally discovered in a first playthrough.

Secrets rant: why does the diegetic map of Zulag 1 of RuptureFarms omit so many screens? Why for that matter aren't any of the other secret rooms you warp to throughout the midgame present on the map? What's even the purpose of most of the secret rooms? It sure doesn't look like any work's getting done. Yes obviously they're just secret rooms for the sake of secrets but OI are the ones who put that map in the game.

The controls are awkward even by genre standards, fiddly and less fluid than, say, Flashback, and the delay between inputs and actions is unusually irritating. Mudokons take a good two seconds before they start moving after directing Abe to say "follow me", rendering the precise timing only possible by experimentation, and deactivating bombs being on a delay just feels wrong because you're doing exactly what Abe is doing in game: pressing a button.

The level design is about 70% gotchas, killing you on screen transitions, pulling levers, or just walking past invisible triggers. Even when you can clearly see all the elements in play, it's often impossible to reason about them because enemy AI appears inconsistent, e.g. Sligs sometimes shoot other Sligs on sight but on other screens are unfazed by their partner being possessed in front of them.

The trial and error gameplay is married to a save system that's straight up designed to waste your time. You can only save progress up to when you last touched a checkpoint, which would be fine except that you don't get checkpoints on completing secret areas, and you have to backtrack to a previous checkpoint before your last checkpoint can be used again. I'm not necessarily opposed to replaying content on death, but executing puzzle solutions in Abe's Oddysee is usually just tedious.

It's a shame because the endgame is mostly good, with better checkpointing, rooms that are on average more forgiving of minor mistakes, and the best atmosphere in the game.

As far as the port goes, it was fine when I first played but FMVs don't play smoothly these days, and there are some other graphical bugs and crashes. A DirectDraw wrapper or the R.E.L.I.V.E. engine rewrite is a must. Controller support is functional enough with the help of steam input.

This doesn't really reflect on the game, but Sherry McKenna gets a dishonourable mention for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on video games as a whole in interviews I checked after finishing, while looking for insight into development to help decide whether the unpleasant game design had artistic merit. (As far as I know she had no creative role, it's just sad to hear someone working in video games deriding the medium as a whole. Lorne Lanning seems great, and I acquired no insight into why these decisions were made.)

I adore this game and its world more than almost every other I've experienced. To me, this game along with the sequel Abe's Exodus are still the greatest platformers ever.

- This version has issues with Ultrawide monitors, but works well on 16:9 with gamescope.
- The atmosphere in this game is a bit dark.