Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD Nintendo Switch Review

"Strangest Wild West"

Campaign

January 23, 2020 at 3:56pm
By Jason Stettner

This is an interesting choice for a title to port, and a unique game at that. We don’t often see too many western type gaming experiences, and this one sort of emulates that genre perfectly. This does take place within the Oddworld universe, so prepare for wacky and weird situations throughout.

In the game you’re playing as a bounty hunter, you’re working in order to get enough Moolah in order to buy a life saving surgery. This has you taking on a variety of bounties, and then going out to hunt those folks. It’s a largely linear experience, with a sense of freedom to the environmental tasks. I note this as some areas allow a certain degree of choice in how you tackle them, it’s interesting for that era of gaming.

The narrative is generally fine, it’s certainly humorous and bizarre almost too. It’s definitely fun, and that aspect has held up throughout the years. There’s a good amount of time to be spent here, and it does embrace the western style with sci-fi elements perfectly well.

Gameplay

This is a very odd game when it comes to perspectives. While exploring you’re largely using a third person camera, whereas combat is presented in first person. There are awkward shifts between the two, especially when going into a state of sucking up bounties like Luigi does when he’s hunting ghosts. You’re going from 1st to 3rd and then back again which is sort of awkward quite honestly. Past that, the mechanics are very basic when it comes to exploration for modern times.

It’s largely climbing ropes and rarely jumping gaps. They do have neat movement mechanics, and you can run like a dog would and then shake in a spot to heal (which is hilarious). There are a few difficulty options and with that upgrades to collect from general stores with the bounty money you earn. The shooting elements are very neat, you can collect critters from the world to use. Some give a sting, others will rabidly attach themselves to enemies.

There’s also a good sense of variation within the enemies based on where you’re headed. Keep in mind there are towns you visit, and smaller segments from there you’ll head towards. While this is fun to play, there are some issues. The performance faces a number of FPS drops, and there’s an acceptable level of pop-in. Past that, I did find the aiming and shooting to feel somewhat cumbersome as it could have used some tweaks for modern times. There are gyro aiming options, and this is a full 1080p 60fps when it does hit those marks.

The Conclusion

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD is a very unique title for the Nintendo Switch, the experience holds up while some mechanics have aged a bit too much. I had a good time visiting this title, and hopefully it does get ported to other modern platforms down the road. The visuals do hold up, as does the story and the lead character.

It brought some laughs, action and a bizarre sense of a western. It has such a rich world to it, and it would be nice to have that explored further in the future. You really don’t see many games like this, especially with the perspective switching. Not all elements hold up entirely well, but it’s still very much a worthwhile experience if you’re looking into it.

Read our The Outer Worlds Review
View our Oddworld Hub

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD Review on Nintendo Switch
Review Code Provided by Redner Group

Rating Overall: 7.0