Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Release: 2020

Developer: Moon Studios

Publisher: Microsoft

Genre: Metroidvania, Platformer

Gameplay Stats: 14 hours, 100% completion, normal difficulty, 30/37 Steam achievements

Fresh of the heels of the first adventure I was gifted this game by a good friend of mine. I waited a little bit to play it so hopefully my hype for the game didn't color my views to an absurd degree. Did I wait long enough? Did the wait even matter? Let's find out.

Visuals: The original, Ori and the Blind Forest, was a beautiful game. It was colorful, albeit a bit dead. Will of the Wisps is even more colorful and way more full of life. Given the differences in the lands where the games take place, it really seems like the first game should have had more of the "lived-in" feel. I really can't say enough about this, the game is absolutely gorgeous. The creatures and monsters all feel like they belong in the world together which is really nice. Except maybe the ground tentacle thingies, those are weird. I didn't have many issues understanding the visual language of the game and the issues that I did have disappeared quickly. Some of the boss hitboxes were a little nebulous at first, but they are quickly understood.

Audio: The music here is beautiful as well! Moon Studios really kept up their strengths between their Ori titles. I hope they keep these up for any future titles! The enemies make pretty unique noises and the abilities make the sounds they should. It's all really strong here. I think looking at a trailer you would think that the visuals are the strongest element of this game, but reflecting a bit on the game I honestly think the sound design is even stronger. Other games should takes some notes here.

Plot: I think the plot in this game actually seemed a lot like a Zelda game, or at the very least a Nintendo game. The big motivations were to save the land, preserve friendship, and establish a home for some refugee squirrels. The team kept up with making almost every character to be relatable, even the big-bad. I do think that the way the game is communicated to the player kind of undercuts the emotional gravity of the story, but it's a better effort than most others in the genre. The game is shown, not told, apart from a narrator that shared some poetic bits from time to time. The weirdest thing here though is that Ori has become a silent protagonist. In the first game, there weren't really NPCs to interact with, but Ori's silence in the sequel kind of undercut the feelings in my mind. I may just be too annoyed with silent protagonists.

Gameplay: Holy crap this game plays like butter. Delicious, complex butter. I think this may be some of the strongest platforming I have experienced in a game in quite some time. I think that the game could use a little bit more challenging platforming though, something like the White Palace from Hollow Knight. This game took a lot of notes from Hollow Knight, including a re-vamped combat system and a new charm system. I think these were interesting parts of Hollow Knight, so I am really glad to see these systems gaining hold in another game. I really think that the improvements that they made to the combat were necessary. Now the game has the same kind of button mashing as other combat oriented games which is a welcome addition instead of just mashing your one homing attack over and over again. The difference this makes can't be understated!

Lessons: The pacing here really fits with the gameplay. Everything is quick and snappy. It is a little at odds with how much the plot tries to tug at your heart strings to be honest, but the way that it fits the traversal pacing at an absurd degree. It created a little bit of harmony and joy that I didn't know I was missing in other games.

I really enjoyed this game! It's like the original Ori and Hollow Knight had a baby, and that baby is gorgeous. You do need to play the first game to fully understand what's going on here and I think that kind of works against this game. That being said, judging this game on it's own merits, it's a very easy recommendation from me [9.5/10]