Few forces in gaming are more powerful than word of mouth. If the discussion turns on you, look out, because you are in for a proverbial shitstorm of trouble. Bad word of mouth can be largely to blame for the massive head start the Ps4 got over the Xbox One when both consoles launched. It's an immense force, and that's why a game that generates a burst of positive word of mouth is really heading places, and usually for good reason.
Enter Ori and the Blind Forest, a game that I'd heard nigh an unflattering word about heading into my time with it. A game that had been described with exuberant adjectives like stunning, heartfelt, and gorgeous. With a dearth of quality AAA releases we as a community can sometimes get a little hyperbolic when we get too excited about a smaller game, so did Ori live up to the hype?
In my experience, yes. Absolutely. Ori and the Blind Forest is aesthetically nothing short of a work of art. The visuals are mind-blowing. The music is fantastic, and the gameplay is vastly more varied and interesting that I had imagined. On top of all that, Ori starts you off with a prologue sequence that will have you nearly in tears and completely hooked emotionally before you've even really started playing.
When talking to others about this game I've heard many comparisons, most commonly to Super Meat Boy, Dust: An Elysian Tale, and Castlevania/Metroid. All those comparisons have definite merit. All platformers going forward will always be compared to Meat Boy as they rightfully should. Meat Boy set the standard for control tightness in a platformer. Does Ori control as tight as Meat Boy? Absolutely not, but there's a lot of wiggle room there. A game's controls can be worse than Meat Boy and still pretty good. Ori's controls are almost always as responsive as you need them to be. They're not perfect, in many cases I found myself over-shooting very short distance jumps, but they're pretty good overall. It's not really a fair comparison either, because there's much more variety in Ori's gameplay than their was in Meat Boy.
In Meat Boy largely you ran, sprinted, jumped, and slid. That's it. It did those things perfectly, but it did only those things. Ori and the Blind Forest is far more complex than I imagined. Over the course of the game you learn to double-jump, wall climb, wall run, stomp, launch, float, and several more. Once given a new power you're almost immediately required to put it to practical use in very difficult sequences. For all its gorgeous looks, touching story, and cutesy looking characters, this game is actually pretty darn difficult. Things get pretty challenging pretty quickly and only escalate from there.
The Catlevania/Metroid comparisons are fairly obvious, this is a classic case of Metroidvania. You go through areas the best you can, but there are doors, ledges, and collectibles you can't reach on your first trip through. Only after having gained a new power or ability will you be able to go back and get everything or access a new area. It's handled well here. They make you work for valuable upgrades to your health and energy, but putting points in certain areas of the ability tree can make tracking these upgrades down much easier. The art is so unique in this game as well that you never feel like you're going through the same bland areas over and over again.
The art is the main thing that reminds me of Dust: An Elysian Tail. It has a similar style, and the fidelity of both almost took my breath away. It's just so sharp and so vibrant. This is certainly an early contender for best looking game of the year, and I wouldn't hesitate to nominate is as one of the best looking games of the decade. Another aspect it shares with Dust is having a rather innocent looking setting, but underneath lies a deep and unexpectedly dark story. I won't get into specifics, but it definitely blurs the lines between good and evil and really makes you consider the motives and justifications of all the characters. It also has some absolutely heart breaking moments.
In the end, control responsiveness are what holds Ori and the Blind Forest back. It sounds almost ridiculous saying that, because the controls are pretty darn good. When I say they hold the game back, all I mean is they knock it down from Game of the Year favourite to only a serious contender. The story seems like it's missing a couple small pieces to make it feel a bit more complete and the controls are only very good and not phenomenal. Those are the biggest complaints I can make about Ori, a game that I absolutely recommend you give a try.
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