amphibious_ReViews

One could paraphrase my review of Ori and the Blind Forest by saying that, while I enjoyed it, it just didn't have the same magic that other Metroidvanias have had for me in the past. Ori and the Will of the Wisps, on the other hand, absolutely has that magic. Building off of the narrative and gameplay foundations of the previous game while taking everything up a few notches, this ended up being one of the most gripping experiences I've had with the genre yet! While the first game had a particular few design choices that really stood out to me, Ori and the Will of the Wisps went a different direction with pretty much all of them. I was skeptical of these changes at first, but I think they were ultimately the right move for this game. Instead of being able to manually save anywhere with one of Ori's spells, the game relies on generous auto-saves and save stations. I was worried about trusting my fate to auto-saves, but there were far fewer instant-death traps than there wer...

When I first learned about Ori, I was thoroughly impressed by its art style, but was actively disinterested in playing it for a couple of reasons. First, it was only on Xbox, a platform I had no access to at the time. Second, I knew it was a Metroidvania and my only experience with the genre thus far was a frustrating DNF of the NES original Metroid. Neither of those original roadblocks persist today, and I suddenly found myself very excited to give this series a try. After talking about it with my brother, he scrounged up a copy of the two-game collection for me to borrow, and I ended up buying both games within the next few days. While I wasn't head over heels for it like I was with other big-name Metroidvanias, I had a lot of fun with Ori and the Blind Forest and I was a big fan of its unique approach to genre staples like upgrading your character. Starting with a semi-interactive cinematic, Ori and the Blind Forest puts you in control of a little light spirit named Ori as he gr...