Ori and the Will of the Wisps (2020)

I didn't realize how much I missed the Bash ability. I was having a not so great time with the beginning of the game. It felt oddly heavy on dialogue and the level design wasn't really doing it for me either.

But then I got the Bash ability I'm not sure if the level design drastically improved or the fun of the ability in and of itself revolutionized the game but I was having a much better time all of a sudden. I'm glad they seem to be pushing the abilities from the first game in early on rather than spreading them really late into this sequel for padding.

Every single mechanic and upgraded iterated on the last so well and built a control toolset so versatile it rivaled the best of the metroidvania genre. I am so overwhelmed by the creative whimsy bursting from this game. I literally dropped it for 2 months and came back to it like it was nothing; that's how fun this shit is. Any other game I would've meandered around lost with half of my controls forgotten, not Ori though. Her controlset is so flexible and free-flowing that she would feel good to control through quicksand (ofc they have a mechanic for that too) Progression through the world is seamless and fun, and the platforming challenges make me feel unstoppable when chaining everything together. I surprisingly found myself enjoying many of the bosses too. Combat felt like an afterthought in the first game and I'm glad they expanded upon it here. The story beats, while emotionally resonant, failed to leave much of an impact on me unfortunately. Tbh the setting and character designs are a little too generic for me to get attached, but the soundtrack works overtime to overwhelm me. My god what an ost. Other issues are of no fault of the game itself, but rather the limitations of the switch. Frequent stuttering, resolutions way below 720p even, long load times. This game is not very well optimized for this platform, but I'm guessing those were the compromises needed to have it run at a smooth 60fps. If that's the case, I'm willing to accept the downgrade for portability, thus is the story of the switch.

Sidenote aside, this really is peak indie platformer. Doesn't get much better than this, and I'm very looking forward to my next replay on PC.

It seems rare when game developers take a previous game and then just improve on it leaps and bounds beyond the first one with a sequel, but Moon studios did just that. They took all of the amazing and great things from the first game and then kept the same feeling and added so much more to it.

Will of the Wisps brought new challenges, fun new abilities and an AMAZING cinematic story to the second. This game had me crying on multiple occasions because the story is that good and such a heartwarming story with heart wrenching sections, but it is all worth it for the amazing story that is told.

It is SUPER rare that I actually take the time to 100% the map areas and get all the extra collectables, but I wanted more of this world and the game. Find all the extras and figuring out how to get them and solving the puzzles was so much fun.

Highly recommend this game, it grabs you fully and pulls you into to the world fully. It's a gorgeous game, amazing characters that have depth, and you won't want to leave this world. Love, love, LOVE this game.

Just finished this game and wow. This is simply put one of the best platformers I've ever had the pleasure of playing. I beat this game in a a little over a week and it was the perfect length. I honestly could've played for hours upon hours more, but I pretty much 100% this one. Got all the collectibles, side quests, and main story done. 100% all of the areas in the game too. Here's my review.

The artstyle here can't be matched. The first game looked beautiful, and they doubled down on their environment and beauty of the game here. Everything I loved about the first game is just improved upon in the sequel. More fun platforming, more addictive exploration, and better combat/boss fights. I said it in my previous review for the first game, but bash is one of my favorite features ever put in a platformer. It's so simple, but works so well. I had so much fun platforming and exploring this game's world. I think overall, the first one might be a tad bit harder in the platforming department? There's just more tools to utilize in the sequel, but I'm not complaining. Also the music here was stellar, even better than the original imo. The story was again., not the main pull for me, but I was engaged and it feels like it tied everything up nicely. This and the first game feel like a complete story. I'm satisfied with my time spent with Ori. The ending was sad, but the theme of cycles and nature are so powerful in these games.

This game is so close to getting 5 stars. I'm honestly probably selling it short. There's more to do in this game than the previous game, and I beat it in under 20 hours. The only thing holding it back from a perfect 5 stars for me is due to the Mouldwood Depths lol. I hated that area, and the boss fight. It's probably not fair to knock my review down a whole star for ONE area in the game, but hey it's MY review. This area and a slight wanting for more difficulty in platforming are what hold it back from a perfect game. I played on normal because that's what the game told me to play on for my first time, so I know I can make it harder on myself, but this really only pertains to the combat in the game. Enemies hit harder on higher difficulties which I totally respect. I just wanted to experience the game mainly for the exploration, platforming, and visuals as that's what I enjoyed most about the original game. The combat is improved here, but it still takes a backseat compared to visuals and platforming. The escape sequences in this game were much easier compared to the escape sequences from the first game. I'm thrilled to say Ori and the Will of the Wisps is the perfect sequel. Glad to have finally played these masterpieces after all these years. I hope to remember these games for years to come. Some of the most fun platformers I've ever played.

P.S. I once again saw some of the achievements for this game that are locked, double yikes. Similar to the first game like beating the game without dying, no power ups, in under 4 hours, etc. Definitely have to look up some of these wild challenges up on YouTube.

I’m conflicted about this game. I think Moon Studios definitely improved on the first game in some ways, but a fair amount of critical sticking points I have about the first one are still present in this game. And I think that many of the additional elements layered into the sequel lead to an overall clunkiness. Thanks to an overabundance of active skills versus a forth of passive one, there is a level of micromanagement that takes away from the flow of the game.

It also mixes what I might call some of the best 2D platforming with some of the worst I’ve experienced in the genre, which was a problem I had with the first (having to switch from the reliability of the D-pad to the imprecision of the analogue stick mid platforming because the bash ability requires 360° control selection never feels good).

Sadly my least favourite part of the first game, lengthy chase sequences, are back and what’s worse is that even some of the boss fights are punctuated by chases. While they make for aesthetic showpieces, they are seldom enjoyable and still feature a frustrating lack of checkpoints, a fact that sits in stark contrast to the fact that Moon Studios was willing to add checkpoints to boss fights, for some odd reason.

And yet, I still walked away from the experience happy. It’s a very pretty game, possibly even prettier than the first. It delivers on its themes in a satisfying way, a feat given its thematic elements are well trodden territory for games at this point. It does have enjoyable platforming and combat when you’re not bogged down by superfluous systems, and I had fun hunting down items to help rebuild Kwolok’s Hollow. It could be a tad longer, it could be a tad more challenging but I still got a lump in my throat at the end, so I can’t say I didn’t take anything of value away from the experience.

While I can say I’m mostly enjoying this, there are some things that still bother me about this series and they all come down to some form of clunkiness. From clunky chase sequences with abysmal checkpointing that Moon Studios can’t seem to let go of, to a fundamental clunkiness that permeates almost every aspect of the UI/UX of the game, the game continually presents itself as something that’s nearly exceptional but never quite manages to push beyond just being good. Thankfully basic combat and platforming feels good (before you layer in a lot of the superfluous systems that needlessly overcomplicate that which is good), which is why I’m still having fun.

But seriously, stop with the chases. Even boss fights have pointless chases shoehorned in the middle of the combat phases, and I could seriously do without it.

Enjoying this one even more than the original. There's lots of quality of life updates and the new abilities (particularly the water-based ones) are a ton of fun. The platforming is far more challenging (for me, at least) and I find myself dying a lot more. Fast-travel from anywhere is a game changer, and it makes knocking out quests feel a lot more fluid when you can just zip around, nab collectibles, and work on quests.

The boss fights too have been a lot more fun. Battling Kwolok was a ton of fun, jetting through and out of the water feels so fluid and never gets boring!

I've got 1 week left to wrap up this game so that I can immediately jump into Metroidvania #5 of this year - Metroid Prime Remastered!---- err I guess that's just a Metroid game, and not a "metroidvania" :) And if Silksong ever gets a release date, that would be sweet.

Metroidvania 2023 Progress:

• Haiku the Robot
• Hollow Knight
• Ori and the Blind Forest
• Ori and the Will O the Wisps
• Metroid Prime Remastered
• [HOPEFULLY] Hollow Knight: Silksong

My feelings about Ori didn't change that much from the first one. Granted, I played both basically back to back, but that also speaks of the continuity of some sorts that they gave to the franchise. The game itself is beautiful, the world is full of colour and the npcs give it some life. Still, it does kind of feel empty, and not the good empty feeling that drives you to explore every single nook and cranny, just empty.

The areas, while prettier, feel also similar to the ones in the first game, only with the colours taken to the max. The single level that was really good both in graphic and level design was the spider one. The movements in the background are an incredible touch once you get the time to move past the fireflies. Those same fireflies that are also the best single addition to this game platform-wise.

What I disliked the most (and I believe I'm in the minority here) was the shift towards an rpg-esque game. Quests that don't mind because they give you currency that you don't need, developing a place that does not matter because you're still saving the world and making it inhabitable again, nothing has a point besides the main quest. The main quest was so important during my playthrough that I felt at some point that my only motor to keep on playing was to know what happened to the little owl. The transformation of the game style is even more noticeable by adding a combat that makes no sense. Yeah, you have so many options but none of the options matter when you get that swordy thingy that can chain combos infinitely, a healing spell, and a way to get mana from your swordy meelee hits. All the boss fights are a grindfest, with the exception of the giant spider one where they take out your healing by flooding the ground. But that takes to the second issue, bosses hitboxes. You have to be basically flying on top of the bosses -taking damage in the process- to hit them. I think they acknowledge this issue by making them deal you basically no damage and then this is really weird because the small spiders that hit you with a ball of some crap deal you three times more damage than the final boss. And when many of the little enemies appear, the game transforms into a mashing button contest, so why adding many different options in the first place if it's going to be the same thing?

The worst part is that they actually vastly improved the game in the platforming sense. Grappling to enemies opens a new world and grappling itself is a really good tool except for those little blue things that eject you when you fly to them and work very unintuitively. Ori moves more consistently than in the first game. Probably my only issue is that being able to buy the third jump so early makes the initial parts of the game way too easy. The bosses, when they are a platforming challenge and not a battling grindfest nonsense, are also great and dashing through sand, water and air is cool and feels natural as well. It might be mechanically overcomplex to have to press several different buttons in very short times but at some point you realise "wow, I'm pressing all of these without thinking and it works!" and you feel good about it for a second.

While better in some aspects and worse in others, I would like to value both games equally. The first one was for me a solid 3.5 stars, this one is as well but as I gave 3 stars to the first, it's only fair to give this 4 to have the franchise its well deserved 7/10, decent one and I would probably play another game from this devs.

But what summarises my experience with this game the most is that I thought about finishing the handing over stuff quest, but then decided to let go and uninstall it to free some space for Tunic.

Full disclaimer: I don't play a ton of platformers. I like the genre, but don't love it. A platformer has to come highly recommended for me to look into giving it a try, and that was what happened with both Ori games. I played the first Ori game about a year ago. Liked it enough to want to play its sequel - and appreciated its whimsy and charm - but I wasn't head over heels in love with it.

In this game, though, it clicked. I fell in love with this game. And I can't put my finger on why. It's not very different than the first game, but everything about it also somehow seems like an improvement. The first game looked beautiful, this one was drop-dead gorgeous. The first game had buttery smooth gameplay and so did this one, but with enough new abilities (and fantastic scenarios in which to use them) that the resulting sandbox was obnoxiously fun. The first game had a charming, yet straightforward story, but at the end I merely just thought of the story as "cute." By the end of this one, I felt genuinely touched even though its story is also pretty straightforward. It doesn't tell a literary masterpiece with themes that go seven layers deep, but somehow I was moved all the same.

Its hard to put it all into words. This game just clicked. The gameplay is smooth and intuitive, the graphics are gorgeous, the soundtrack is masterful, and the total overall vibe gelled completely with my soul. I didn't even get angry playing this game, like I often do with frustrating platformers, even though this game certainly got VERY hard at times. But every death felt fair and it always felt like I learned something with each death that I could use next time. When I died I didn't feel frustrated. I felt excited to try it again. I also think this game's overall calming atmosphere plays into that as well.

I have my wife playing the first game now. She's a sucker for this kind of cutesy art style and likes platformers that don't get too frustrating. It makes me want to play the first game again as well and see if it clicks for me better now that I've played the sequel.

With the noted exception of Metroid and Vania, of course, Ori may be the most well-designed and fun Metroidvania series out there.

I absolutely loved Ori & the Blind Forest and really wondered what they could even do to top that experience. Such a vast, cinematic world with such an agile main character. Even though he never speaks, there's still a huge amount of emotion in the story. And while there were punishing parts (particularly the escape sequences) where you might die dozens of times before you figure out and properly execute the right combination of mechanics well, it never felt unfair.

Ori & The Will of the Wisps goes even bigger. More characters, interactions, and quests. More mechanics -- by the end of the game your maneuverability is off the charts. And Ori is no longer just running from his foes...this iteration puts up quite the fight, killing various foul beasts and smacking bosses in the face with giant hammers, slashing light swords, arrows, and massive spears. Or he could light them on fire, or summon spirits that attack them, or encase himself in a light sphere that does AOE damage...

I felt like this game did a great job of giving you perspective on how huge the world is vs. Ori. Ancient creatures that are 30 times Ori's size can be enemies or allies. The zones are large enough that traversing the world takes substantial time (until you have fast travel and the best mobility skills). Gareth Coker's score once again adds to that sense of scale and epicness, and the story does not fail to provide emotional sequences that keep you invested.

Even if there are some spots where the game sputters here and there (I played on the Switch, so it could just be the Switch), and even though I definitely pounded on a desk on some of the optional spots I've gotten stuck on, I think this is an excellent series that any Metroidvania fan would do well to give a chance. I've enjoyed every minute and will probably keep playing to finish the last time trials that are bothering me.

A sequel that improves upon its original in pretty much every way. As a Metroidvania, it's one of the best in recent memory. As a narrative experience, it's poetic and heartfelt in the way that Thatgamecompany and Team Ico manage with their titles, and a really excellent conclusion to a superlative duet. My only real knock against it echoes a complaint I had with the first game—that for all that this team understands pacing, they do not understand how narrative and emotional momentum are impacted by sudden spikes and shit necessitating myriad do-overs. In the previous game it was the escape sequences, which in this are a lot more interesting and less fuck-up-even-slightly-and-you're-screwed than the first game; in this entry, it's specifically the final phase of the final boss fight—it is such a momentum killer and relies on a) a lot of luck re: the chaos raining down on you, and b) that you can even fucking see/make out your character in among the detail (which is gorgeous, but you also lose sight of your character -constantly- whenever things are really popping off).

The above, however, is not enough to deter me from giving this my highest recommendation. Metroidvanias are my favourite genre and this is a shining example of not only doing that sort of game right but also improving on what came before, mostly in terms of layout and accessibility but also movement and flow. The controls especially are a great deal more precise.

I played on the Switch, and it did hard crash a few times, chugging periodically throughout, but none of this sufficiently took away from what this game accomplishes on an artistic level (and I haven't even touched on the score, which is haunting and beautiful in the same breath).

Absolutely worth the time in every respect.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a killer metroidvania with phenomenal platforming and a moving story. Done. This game has been almost universally praised by this point, and I agree with most of the good. So let me gripe about some things that felt off to me so someone out there who plays this can know at least one other player out there feels the way they do.

MY COMPLAINTS

My complaints break down to a few specific ideas:

1. Visual Flair over Clarity and Readability
2. Improved but still not GREAT combat
3. Lack of Optional Platforming Challenges to Test your Skills

• Visual Flair over Clarity and Readability

The art style in Will of the Wisps is a very impressive artistic and technological showcase, increasing the realism, detail, and life of its world over the first game. My issue is that I simply don't prefer it to the first. Ori and the Blind Forest's art was groundbreaking at the time with it's story book like aesthetic, soft pallets, and flexible 2D animations. In Will of the Wisps, the art team decided for some reason to crank the contrast to the point where I spent the first few hours of my game periodically going into the video settings to try and adjust the brightness and contrast because I couldn't make out anything that was happening in the dark shadows and brightest areas of my screen. Even just focusing my eye's on Ori was difficult for a good amount of the game due to his pure white appearance and overabundance of bloom, I ended up feeling like my character was mostly just a bright blob. The animation work is insane, and the lighting engine is very impressive, but my previous complaints combined with what I feel is an overabundance of particle effects makes the game a little too busy to me and I would have much preferred an option to pair it all back.

I thought maybe my issues were just to do with my own eyes, but I then came across two videos that confirmed my suspicions on the visual changes. The first was a comparison between the first game and the second's visuals using like for like locations.

Pay special attention to Ori's figure, and the overall color pallet. The contrast has been ramped up, and Ori is harder to make out in the sequel because of his intensified luminosity.

The second video that supported my opinion was this comparison of the game at launch VS it's Day 1 patch.

For some reason, the dev's must have decided close to the end of development that the soft contrast and pallet wasn't the vision they wanted for the game, and cranked it at the last second, crushing some of the blacks and creating white out spots across the brightest objects. Pay attention to background and foreground objects, and how much detail is lost in the shadows with the Day 1 patch. And these are not simply contrast sliders, even when adjusting the sliders in the visual settings these objects maintain their lack of detail and cannot be brought back.

These might sound like nitpicks for a game with so much going well for it in terms of its aesthetic, but I really would have preferred a cleaner and softer pallet than what they ultimately ended up going for.

• Improved but still not great combat

The combat in Ori is a great improvement over the first, and incorporates all of it's platforming and movement prowess into it's arenas. But compared to other games of a similar vein like Guacamelee and Hollow Knight, Ori is still missing the secret sauce that brings it all together. It's hard to put into words, but the enemies in Ori aren't as readable in terms of their tells or patterns, which leads to a kind of frantic button mash in arenas rather than a satisfying intentional test of pattern recognition, strategy and reflex timing. Some sort of counter, parry, or deflect system would have gone a long way to making all the pieces fit in place. I don't want Ori to just be every other game, but I just never felt like it totally clicked for me and I wasn't asked to invest my time trying to actually get better at the fighting.

• Give me a Platforming Gauntlet

With games like Celeste and Guacamelee, platforming sections are regularly introduced in self-contained rooms to ask the player "Can you even do this?", and Ori just doesn't match the intensity. Ori's movement system is top notch and feels great even just bouncing around a room with a few platforms, and the difficulty for many secrets in the game are tough "enough" for the main game, but with all this experience by the end, I want B-sides and C-Sides to really put my experience to the test. Unfortunately, increasing the games difficulty simply raises the amount of damage enemies put out, keeping the platforming stagnant.

I'm not trying to be some impressive tough guy here, I think the main games platforming difficulty is well tuned even for an experienced audience, I just want some way to test myself by the end that isn't just time trials.

• Conclusion

So these were my complaints. By my score and intro, I hope that I can get across to you reading this that Will of the Wisps is a very good game that most fans of metroidvanias should give a go. I just needed to throw out into the ether my criticisms that hold it back from being an all time great that I'd feel compelled to return to years down the line.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is quite literally one of the best games I've played in recent memory. The team over at MOON was able to take all the aspects that made the previous game amazing, and take it up a notch. The most impressive feat that this game manages to accomplish is doing everything a game sequel should do in spectacular fashion:

• Create more of what made the previous entry great
• Expand on it
• Differentiate enough to make the sequel stand on it's own

The idea to make Ori more combat-focused is definitely something that MOON Studios got a bit of influence from Hollow Knight to create, but damn did they do it in a way that makes me enjoy it more than Hollow Knight. By the end of the game, your combat has so many options that you could go through a line of enemies and take each one of them out in a different way, diversifying the gameplay something fierce.

It's funny, one of my least favorite genre's in the past has been metroid-vania games, as I have a horrible sense of direction and get lost easily, and more often than not, the games I'm playing don't have a map system that caters to my lack-of-awareness. Ori fixes that by having one of the simplest and easiest-to-read maps in a game of it's kind I've ever seen. With warping, simple map markers that don't clog the screen too much, and side quests that don't start to make looking at your map feel overwhelming, not once did I get lost in this game, and I have to appreciate it for that.

If you're currently an Xbox Game Pass subscriber and you HAVEN'T played both/either of the Ori games, you're doing yourself a disservice. MOON Studios has created a masterpiece of a franchise here, and I can't wait to see what they do next.

4.5 out of 5 stars -- Played on Normal difficulty

To be honest, this game is a whole lot like Ori 1 -- which is a good thing.

Both games have incredible visuals. Ori 2 takes the graphics of the first game, and gives everything an even more organic feel.

• Everything you touch just seems "squishy" or "springy" or whatever characteristic that piece of environment feels like it should exhibit.
• The standard enemies have a lot more character this time around, and aren't just slightly different takes on amorphous blobs.
• The bosses look amazing, and are awesomely animated.
• Even the slightly-blurred backgrounds in all of the levels (which are often easy to overlook) are intricately detailed. The fact that those backgrounds are so easy to forget about can be problematic in the rare instances when you actually need to interact with the background scenery. (There was a particular stealth sequence about one-third to halfway through the game where I had no idea that you needed to utilize a certain piece of background scenery to clear the area)

Much like Ori 1, the music in this game complements the beautiful scenery just perfectly. Even random sound effects have a good "oomph" to them on a good home theater or pair of headphones.

Gameplay-wise, you start to see more changes from the original game.

• Saving your progress is no longer something you need to spend resources to do -- it's now automatic. As a result, not once did I feel like I needed to make an effort to conserve energy cells (used for healing & certain weapons or abilities), which is very different from Ori 1.
• You find many, many different perks and abilities throughout the game, but you're limited to the number that you can actually equip. There are several ability shards that I never used at all. Some (like Overflow, plus the ability to convert melee damage to Energy) make the game maybe a bit too easy, since I found myself beating most of the final bosses in a single attempt.
• You collect a currency by killing enemies and finding secret areas. That currency is used to buy maps, upgrades, and abilities. At first, I really disliked this change from Ori 1. It grew on me, though.
• There are several optional speed trials and combat trials you can complete. The speed trials award you currency, so I mostly skipped those. The combat trials allow you to equip more perks/abilities at once, so those are pretty nice to complete (and they aren't particularly hard).

When I first played the game on release, it was a little buggy, but not bad. I mostly just had audio issues in cutscenes, where every time the camera would cut to a different angle, the sound would glitch out for about a second. Those issues now appear to be fixed on the Windows Store version of the game.

Like Ori 1, platforming is tricky. I actually had the mistaken impression that I'd gotten all of the traversal abilities I would ever want by the time I finished the first hour of the game. I was super wrong. Eventually, I had so many traversal abilities that I think I sometimes Skyrim-Mountain-Climbed my way into areas that I maybe wasn't supposed to be able to reach.

Also like Ori 1, they really try to tug on your heartstrings with the story. In doing so, they unfortunately hit a lot of 100% identical story beats as they did in the original game. This is not to say that the story is unsatisfying by any means.

I fully expect an Ori 3. Though, much like how the basic premise & advertising of Ori 2 partially spoils the ending of Ori 1, anything Ori-3-related will likely spoil the ending of Ori 2. What I'm saying is: don't waste your time waiting to play this game. Play it now. It's good.

The second game by Moon Studios manages to surpass everything done in the game prior. With continued effort and passion from all ranges of its crew, extending out to the designer of AM2R, to Gareth Coker's continued musical excellence, all the way to the head designers, Ori and the Will of the Wisps offers an amazing cohesive action platformer experience that to me, has no conceivable equal in the ways it excels.

The combat is practically DMC meets platforming, with similar gravity and a whole customizable moveset that extends and prioritizes air time, spacing, and bashing enemies to and fro. You're able to play both defensively and offensively at any moment, and all these options have their own costs and benefits. Each of the enemies are well done in terms of moveset and forcing you to be wary of their movements and danger zones. To extend this further, the combat also supplements the already amazing movement taken straight from Ori 1 (minus bash momentum no longer being conserved, which is really the only negative I have here). Using enemies to construct more air time gives you several ways to sequence break the game at any point. And finally, the bosses are spectacular, every single one having perfectly speedy ways to kill them and their movesets themselves being worthy challenges to master and fight around. Even if you're tired of those, the overworld has several combat trials for you to bash your head on, of which can be retried even after completion.

The level design itself is nothing short of exceptional, with challenges in spades and atmospheric delights at each doorstep. While I wish there was a more path of pain-esque area to fully utilize what you can do with moveset swaps, what's here is still excellent. The escape sequences are also way better now, with most of the trial/error bullshit taken out and keeping the grueling challenge and one-shot nature that is a perfect encapsulation of Ori's speed systems.

I can't talk about the levels of course without acknowledging how absolutely beautiful the art is, with each area having a wonderful color palette and distinct tone. The story and music is just as well supplemented , with what I believe to be Gareth Coker's best work as he makes exceptional emotional moments with Luma Pools and every escape sequence and boss battle. I was brought to tears more than once by just how well executed each moment was.

There are a few miscellaneous things to discuss, I really enjoy the "dungeons" of Ori 2 over the original, I like how upgrades and collectibles work with clear benefits to the latter and each upgrade being very distinct for the former. The Hollow Knight charms system is a worthy thing to grab to utilize here. Lastly, I want to cover my one and only issue, of which might date this review (since there's a patch forthcoming) but needs to be said. The performance bugs as well as optimization is almost awful. For a cohesive artistic experience like this, having sound buzzing if you're not running on a SSD and complete stuttering in a couple areas can really just break the whole thing at times. It's a tightrope you don't want to fall off of, so I hope the patch comes as soon as possible.

Either way, I can't wait to go back and 100% this game several times over, and start speedrunning this game to hell and back. I'm already practicing the boss times to fight as fast as possible. Despite the current issues, I'm giving this one of my best scores. (9.5/10)

Ori and the Blind Forest is one of my favorite games that I have played in 2018. I thought the game was amazing aside from some nitpicky flaws. When I saw trailers of Ori 2, I felt like this was going to be one that expands upon the original and one that will be an improvement. Turns out, I got what I wanted.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is already better than the first. The ways to traverse are even more fun to use than the first game and feel even more satisfying to handle as each and every one feels impactful with just the right amount of "oomph". I got the triple jump early in the game and decided to travel all over the Wellspring Glades without planting any of the seeds and I felt like I was doing things that were not only top tier, but banned from tournament. Ori 2 is the best looking game on the Unity engine. The visuals are so good that I could cry. I usually hate backtracking in games, but Ori 2 is one of those very rare exceptions as it's just fun to move. The combat has been massively improved and feels even more satisfying to hit enemies and requires more strategy. For example, there are these shielded enemies. You can just bash them to get behind them and strike them from behind or you can throw a light burst to destroy the shield so you can go in and start attacking. We also have the healing system similar to Hollow Knight. The chase scenes are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than the Blind Forest as they require less trial and error. They are more predictable and fair, yet they still remain intense.

As for problems, there was a bug that I felt like I had lost 6 hours of my progress until I solved it. When I was at the Luma Pools, I dashed into those sea plant doors and one of them started spazzing out like it was having a seizure that it randomly teleported me into a wall and killed me. Once I died, I ended up getting a black screen. I went into my previous saves so see if I won't see this screen again and it still was the same problem. I solved the problem by rebooting the game again. There was another time where the screen turned black. There was another bug where the screen was fading into white for no reason. The "Hand to Hand" quest feels very contrived as you give things to other people in other areas of the map. The quest is optional, but it just doesn't feel natural. There is one cryptic puzzle to enter an area that isn't mandatory. There were 2 collectible items that I couldn't find even though I can see them in the map, but they weren't there. There is one cryptic puzzle to enter an area that isn't mandatory. They were the only hindrance to my 100% completion. We don't even get this minecart level that was shown in the E3 2018 trailer which would've been fun.

Those were just small hiccups to this excellent game. This is a Game of the Year contender, without a doubt. I have 99% completion on the game if it weren't for 2 items not showing up. As a sequel, it does things much better than the first, but has its own problems. This Metroidvania is a must play; my second favorite one behind Hollow Knight. It's worth getting Xbox Game Pass for this game alone.

FINAL RATING: 9.5/10

P.S. I did not cry. Almost teared up but did not cry