Ori and the Blind Forest (2015)

IT'S AN ARTISTIC MASTERPIECE. AN ULTIMATE LOVE-LETTER TO ART ITSELF.

Despite the fact that it's a platformer, which the game is also good at, you don't go to play it because you expect good gameplay... You find a beautiful picture on the Internet that looks just like digital art and you find out that it's a game, you find gameplay, you hear music... You're buying it.

I love everything about this game, really. The story is just beautiful and not devoid of morality and sense, it is not that background, it is touching (unlike the sequel, but I'll forgive it for that in my next review), the picture, the MUSIC, the MUSIC, the MUSIC. This is the most distinctive thing, there WAS NO more appropriate and melodic music in video games. Given the artistic image of the game, they complement each other perfectly. This is a game that gives EMOTIONS, pure and sincere.

If you haven't played it yet, I can tell you that I'm ready to add you to my Steam library so that you can do it. The game is just beautiful, a real fairy tale you want to return to.

I bought this game back when it released in 2015 on a steam sale and played it for about 2 hours. Life got busy and I got into some other games and just never picked it back up. Here it is 2024 and I reinstalled it, started over, and played it again with the intent of finishing it. I have rarely ever cried during a video game playthrough (the ending of Skyward Sword had me like 😢) and this game had me tearing up in the first 5 minutes of the story. The music on it's own is probably forgettable, but paired with the story evokes a lot of emotion. I absolutely loved the platforming in this game. It felt varied so that I never felt like I was really grinding the same type of stuff over and over again. Each new area changed the way the platforming performed, in my opinion. The skills you obtain throughout your journey also served to mix things up a bit too. I love a platform game that can give you enough of a challenge that you get your feet wet and have a little bit of struggle, but not so much that it's frustratingly hard, and this game delivers with a good balance of difficulty and progression in the platforming area. Each new area brought with it some really cool added mechanics like water, wind & fire. And the artistic style of the environments are pretty breathtaking. The game's fairly short - I completed it in just under 8 hours, but it felt like I played it for much longer than that. When I was done I felt good but sad at the same time.. kind of like that feeling you might get if you visit your family over the holidays and you're sad to leave them, but you feel good that you get to be back in the comfort of your own home. I know some people in the Steam reviews complained that there was too much backtracking to get to other areas, but I really didn't see an issue with this at all. I felt like any backtracking I did allowed me to find a few areas that I had left unexplored as I was traversing through the first time, because now I had a new skill that would allow me to reach that other spot. Apparently if you pick up the definitive edition it has fast travel, but I'm glad I played it the original way it was intended to be played.

I'll probably pick up Ori and the Will of the Wisps on a sale sometime and play through it.

One of my favorite experiences in entertainment is when you think you know what you're going to experience and wind up still being surprised. Despite having heard vague descriptions and impressions, I had never actually seen Ori and the Blind Forest in action and just thought of it as "some metroidvania everyone seems to like". Well, after about 8 hours and almost 300 deaths, I have a good idea why.

One of the most important parts of any platformer is the ease and responsiveness of the controls. Ori is one of the more complex and elaborate games you will ever play when it comes to the number of abilities you get and the rapid way you must orchestrate their deployment. A large majority of the time, traversing obstacles and puzzles using your abilities together feels smooth and satisfying. Occasionally, it becomes frustrating if you know exactly what you need to do but have issues tying everything with your hands. Additionally, the fact that you can create your own save points works well but prepare to accidentally set yourself back when you forget to set them or in some sequences where you are forced to replay, without saves, until you finish the entire bit. Overall, Ori controls well and feels satisfying despite occasional frustrations with so many abilities and the dynamic save system.

So with the core out of the way, let's talk about the what really surprised and blew me away about Ori - the sights, the sounds and the aesthetic. Ori and the Blind Forest is BEAUTIFUL. The music is fantastic, the effects are brilliant and there is such an extreme level of polish on the experience. Even the most beautiful games usually have some level of jank or little issues that remind you you're just playing a game. Ori is so consistently smooth, clean and polished that you're almost never pulled out of the game by anything that isn't gameplay related. The world is interesting and connected in a way that makes it feel like a real place - perhaps not as large or convincing in this respect as Dark Souls or Hollow Knight but not far off. NOTE - It's possible I'm benefiting from playing the polished Definitive Edition six years after the original release. Doesn't matter to me, I just review what I play.

The biggest issues I encountered were actually not with Ori and the Blind Forest itself, but with playing the PC Gamepass version. I consistently had the game fail to log in to Gamepass properly and then completely freeze up until I killed it via the Task Manager. It also does not have PS4 DualShock support which required me to always have DS4Windows running before I started the game. If I failed to remember this, I had to restart Ori or it would not recognize my controller. Most sessions, I had to restart the game and the PC Xbox app one, two or even three times until everything lined up and the game would start properly. It's disappointing that a wonderful experience once running was always bogged down by the usual Gamepass nonsense.

I don't usually use this word to describe video games but Ori and the Blind Forest is lovely. It's beautiful to experience, fun to play and the fantastical / nonsense story might even tug on some parents emotions. Highly recommended if you're in the mood for a polished chill-yet-challenging few hours.

Ori and the Blind Forest is an extremely beautiful game. Any comment about the graphics and the animations are redundant.

Overall, the gameplay is great. It consists of combat elements and platforming elements. The combat itself could have been better. The main attack are light projectiles that home in on an enemy that is close enough. If there is no enemy, it vanishes in thin air as soon as it is fired. The strength and firing rate can be improved through abilities. Other combat abilities are unlocked later in the game, but I didn't find them very useful or fun. On the other hand, the platforming is superb. The platforming abilities make it extremely fun to move around in the game.

However, there is one big downside (for me), and I will describe it with spoiler tags.

The game is a metroidvania, and it holds up to that genre for the most part. But, almost all obstacles faced in the game are platforming obstacles. Even worse, the unlocked platforming abilities are seldom anything original, they're just abilities that override past abilities. Unlocking the climb ability renders the wall jump useless. Unlocking the high jump renders the double jump useless. Sure, some new power-ups have additional functionality as well, but overall, you get the feeling that you're not progressing in power at all. As far as the expected metroidvania world design is concerned, it's there, but it's far from perfect. The world isn't as interconnected as you'd like it to be.

Overall, fun, beautiful game that lacks in metroidvania elements, which prevents it from being a 5/5. I would still wholeheartedly recommend it. Have fun.

This games ratings histogram is indeed as beautiful as it is. Ori is colorful and pleasant nature-oriented abstract aesthetic. It recalls to mind the sort of style that Miyazaki works are known for (and one cannot help but think this game is indeed inspired by Princess Mononoke) It's no wonder people like this so much.

The definitive edition includes two new areas, one accessible near the beginning (though quite difficult) and quite nice. Overall this is a very good game and it has some really creative puzzle platforming concepts in it. I am way behind on this genre as I haven't played a ton of stuff in a span of a decade. I'd easily imagine this game emulates some games before it and inspires more to come.

This game isn't perfect though. Some aspects of the gameplay are a bit quirky and odd. Various interactions with objects and enemies, and attacks at times don't feel that smooth or fluid, and the game becomes a game of saving from one point to the next and trying again. Fortunately this save-on-the-move aspects is a boon that helps smooth out what would otherwise be a frustratingly gated experience.

I found that the controls are awkward regardless of whether you play it on keyboard or gamepad. The keys are also hardbound so you cannot change them. This is a game that I feel is best played on a controller, however some of the keys on a PS3 style controller did not bind right for me which led to me doing some odd things while playing to make use of both keyboard and gamepad.

In closing this is a unique and artsy game. It has a most interesting way of presenting a simple/abstract story and merges this with rather satisfying exporation of a not overly large world. It also delivered one of the biggest jumpscares I've had in a very long time (The bird eating me almost made me have a heart attack) as well as a few very intense action sequences: (escape from the god damn deku tree from hell)

Play it!!

OVERVIEW

• Rating: 9/10
• Hours played: 8
• Pros: art style, music, level design, platforming
• Cons: combat, trial and error, lack of incentive to explore

I played the PC version of the Definitive Edition of Ori and the Blind Forest on Normal mode, which took me almost 9 hours to beat.

REVIEW

Ori and the Blind Forest is one of the best platforming games I've ever played. In addition to excellent mechanics, it presents incredible artistic work, combining music and beautiful environments to tell a moving and memorable story.

Ori's gameplay principles are quite common in 2D metroidvanias. The protagonist is controlled in a very natural and fluid way, and during the game he will acquire new movements that will allow the game to become more complex, in addition to offering access to some secrets in pre-explored areas.

The foundations of combat are the worst aspects of gameplay. There are few types of enemies, which are mostly uninteresting, and the basic way of attacking them with projectiles leads to a boring button mash. However, at many times enemies are used more as obstacles than effectively as opponents, so that by using unlocked navigation skills, you can ignore fights or use enemies as tools to explore the map. This integration of platform mechanics with enemies significantly reduces the discomfort caused by early game combat.

The most interesting platform mechanic is Bash, which allows Ori to use enemies, projectiles and some objects to get propulsion, launching himself in any direction indicated by the player. In addition to being creative, Bash generates some of the most enjoyable gameplay sequences, in which it is possible to keep Ori in the air for long periods of time, avoiding enemies and hazards in a fluid way.

Ori is not a very long game, so the map is relatively short. Because of this, the levels were developed in an extremely rich way, being easily distinguishable from each other due to the soundtrack, ambient sound, visuals, enemies and challenges presented by each one. Each area has secrets and regions that can only be achieved with upgrades acquired in the future, but I must confess that the game never gave me much incentive to return and fully explore these places. I believe this weakens Ori as metroidvania, but considering that the game experience was developed to be a little more linear and cohesive, the end result remains acceptable. It's worth noting that the Definitive Edition added 2 new optional areas that are very well designed and add a bit of story context to a side-character. They also include 2 new moves for Ori that are only required to use during this new content, but can be helpful during the last dungeon.

The highlights of the game are the 3 main dungeons. Though I’m not a big fan of the second one, they were by far the most creative and challenging parts of Ori. Each has unique challenges to go through, combining platforming with combat and puzzles that were constantly engaging and provided me with massive satisfaction from completing them. They usually ended on set-piece escape scenes that were memorable and very intense, but could also be very frustrating at times, since they relied on a bit of trial and error to get through and there are no checkpoints during them, except for the easy mode.

Something that helps to minimize the difficulty of some sequences is the save mechanic, through which Ori can create his own checkpoints, at the cost of in-game resources. This allows the player to quickly make another attempt, keeping the experience fluid and minimizing frustration (in part). In addition, Ori has a small RPG system, in the form of an ability tree. They allow the player to improve Ori in basic mechanics, including combat (causing more damage, greater areas of attack), exploration (revealing secrets on the map, reusing checkpoints) and platform (triple jump). These abilities are not necessary to complete the game (there is even a trophy for reaching the end without any upgrade), which makes me see them as an organic way to allow the player to adjust the difficulty, making upgrades that he deems necessary to make his experience more accessible.

In addition to excellent gameplay, Ori was very successful in presenting its narrative. The story is very simple, told like a fairy tale, but in its simplicity I managed to get involved and moved in more than one moment. This was possible thanks to the wonderful art style and one of the most brilliant soundtracks I have ever seen in a game.

CONCLUSION

Ori and the Blind Forest is not a perfect game, something that it shares with every other game I played. The underdeveloped combat system, the little incentive to explore past areas and the frustration in some sequences are problems that I hope the sequel has solved. However, the strengths of the game are significantly greater than its problems, so I have no trouble recommending Ori to pretty much every gamer I know. Not everyone is gonna like it, but it deserves that you try.

Ori and the Blind Forest, while now seemingly outmatched by the second game, still manages to be one of the best platformers I've ever personally played through. It had a significant impact on my life for a bit and ended up being my introduction to the speedrunning community as a whole.

It's certainly not perfect. The combat is garbage, inferior to almost every game adjacent in genre to it in that respect. Thankfully it's never a focus but it's still a problem that you have to tolerate. The platforming difficulty curve moves from seemingly casual experience to more hard hitting actual tests of the mechanics and not in a very smooth way. The first half in general has too much downtime and ultimately takes a hit to pacing that can end up breaking people's experience.

Despite this, Bash and Dash is the best platforming movement to date other than now Ori 2, and that's where all of the fun comes from. In fact, Bash conserves your momentum in this game unlike the sequel, which allows for some incredible speedruns that utilize the full extent of the speed you can build up. It's one of the most deep mechanics out there and the game makes great utilization out of it to the ending runtime.

The platforming levels themselves are pretty good in other regards, being excellent one stop challenges and the escape sequences are a wonderful concept done mostly well. The idea is to crystallize Castlevania 1-era level design, "don't just do these individual sections well, do them all CONSISTENTLY" in a way that's compelling although somewhat unpolished. There's certain parts of these level tests that reach the end of bullshit with certain things that, while they might be reactable, blend in with the visual design leading to some trial/error moments.

Another major pillar that brings this game up tremendously though is the aesthetic, which is personally one of my favorites in vidya in general. The excellent soundtrack sells each individual scene, and the heart-pulling emotional story works alongside that. It manages to all turn into a cohesive aesthetic experience with a fantastic speedrun underlining that the game encourages with its achievements and RTA compliant tech.

Despite that it's not the most polished game with very quite visible cracks, I've speedran this game for weeks on end, and I can't deny how fulfilling each run has been for me that practically no other game touches for me. Even other than that, the movement is incredible on its own to be recommendable. I encourage trying out Ori 1 to any extent, and even if you dislike this game, there's Ori 2 to pick up which is better in every single way (except for not conserving bash momentum, a change i still don't get). Still one of my favorite games of all time. (9.5/10)

I just want to see if this works. This would be the second review I've written for Ori and the Blind Forest. This one is for the Switch version, which I do own, but I haven't played yet. The only reason I bought it is because this is one of my favorite games, and I wanted to support them!

As you can see, there is no * next to the title of this review, so it isn't my main review for a game. Only someone's "main" review counts towards the game's average and ability to climb up the top 250 list.

I finally got around to playing Ori and the Blind Forest thanks to the Xbox Game Pass, and I'm so glad I played the Definitive Edition! I wasn't planning to obtain 100% completion, but I found it hard to stop myself from spending a few extra minutes going out of my way for that extra power up. The puzzles were satisfying, and usually only took a little bit of exploration or creativity to solve, and by the end of the game I had unlocked everything with 8 levels to spare.

Almost everything about this game is spectacular: tight controls, gorgeous art style, wonderful soundtrack, loveable characters. The story was a little basic, but it was still beautifully told, and I cried openly after the opening sequence, sobbing "I wasn't ready for this. How dare you make me feel my own feelings."

A very respectable 7/10 from me.

It has been years since I have had to put down a controller simply because of how beautiful a game is, but I had to do that at 3 separate points in Ori.

It has the structure of a Metroid game (explore, find new powerups, go back through the same areas to explore new things), but with the mechanics of a platformer rather than an action title. It's HARD, even on easy mode, but also extremely forgiving.

But the true draw of the game is the aesthetics. Every single screen of the game is hand-drawn, and the soundtrack is one of the best I have ever heard. The story is basic, but touching. It gets my highest recommendation. If you enjoy video games at all, this one is worth playing.

And why im not finishing it

Well, to be fair, it's Metroidvania, it's kinda hard to mess it up after thirty years. It doesn't really do anything new or interesting, it's about getting powerups, platforming, and killing blobs of indeterminate shape and/or color. About the only thing that makes it different is the artstyle and the weird story with an unfocused focus.

I'll wait for guacamelee 2 for my metroidvania fix

Ori and the Blind Forest is just stunning. The quality of the artwork and animations, the background scenery and visual effects, the forest of Nibel visual design as a whole is superb. But Ori's sound department it's also incredibly well done. The music fits the narrative and the action, even more so the momentum of the action, perfectly. The result is a extremely pleasant audiovisual presentation for the setting of the game that delivers consistent quality throughout the whole adventure.

Moving on to the gameplay side of things we have a solid platformer with responsive controls and fast pace action. The learning curve is pretty well done with maybe some difficulty spikes at the escape scenes (4 or 5 of these) that punctuate key events in the world and are important milestones in Ori's journey. I also felt that the game took maybe a bit longer than necessary to trust the player with the initial movement skills that allow for fast and smooth traversal of the maps. The core mechanic here is pretty much that of a metroidvania formula. You start in maps that usually have more than a few pathways locked by different skills that Ori will learn progressively as you advance the main story of the game and successfully complete different areas. The game encourages backtracking and exploration, with a good number of secret areas and little extras spread around. For this purpose, it provides you with several teleport devices that you can activate to quickly get around previously visited areas of the world. Getting through the levels gets more complicated the more you advance but I feel like the launching skill that you unlock pretty soon-ish is kind of overpowered since it doesn't have any cooldown and you can use it to impulse yourself forward skipping almost every enemy and obstacle pretty easily. Combine that with the gliding and double jump (and later triple jump) skills and you begin to breeze through most of the content if you so choose, at least at normal difficulty. At this point the challenge shifts towards the traps and passive hazards of the world rather than the enemies themselves. The last third of the game or so does still prove to be challenging requiring fast reactions and precise timing, specially in those escape sequences mentioned before. The combat is probably the weakest part of the game while still being acceptable. But it's mostly basic attack spam and it's more the active dodging and projectile reflection rather than the aggressive component of it what I personally found more enjoyable.

To wrap this up, Ori and the Blind Forest is a very solid game and a beautiful work of art that will provide at the very least 10 hours of joy to get to the end and some more in the way of replayability for completionism or harder difficulty level runs.

Recommended.

“If light is scarce then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty.” -Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows

Moon Studios released Ori and the Blind Forest upon the world in March 2015, where it shook up the Xbox One and Steam communities with its general awesomeness. An instant critical sensation, its blend of beautiful graphics, stirring music, and challenging gameplay propelled it to the forefront of the year’s best releases. Heck, it was the best game of the year! The Witcher 3? Pfffffft!

I’ve picked it as a first review on this here glorious website but, back on my blog, I’ve ranted and raved about what I consider to be a masterpiece. It is just that – a masterpiece. Running through it for the first time in December of ’15, it was like an outer-body experience. By the end, I knew I’d played one of the best games of all time – in joy, I rushed out into the streets and began shouting this at everyone I met. I was arrested shortly afterwards for disturbing the peace and released on bail the next day.

So why review this now, after I’ve written about it multiple times already, and ended up in jail because of it? After E3 2017, the news is there’s a sequel on the way – this made one vlogger burst into tears in bloody delight (no, it wasn’t me, I merely sneezed in general acceptance). The aim for me here, then, is to convince you this thing is a lovely slice of genius and well worth your time. Read on, Macduff!

Moon Studios was formed in 2010 and signed up with Microsoft Game Studios in 2011 after Ori and the Blind Forest was successfully pitched, with the dev team made up of former AAA employees – head honcho Thomas Mahler, for instance, worked for Blizzard. Uniquely, the indie team is dotted across the planet – its respective staff members work remotely and rarely meet up (surely a hint at the future for us all?).

The concept for its first game was born out of Mahler’s love for SNES title Super Metroid – he noted in an interview with Polygon: “I want games like that again.” There’s a clear divide of interests in modern gaming, with the new generation of younger gamers treated to spectacular 3D open worlds which were impossible to achieve 20 years back when I was growing up. So, aren’t these 2D platformers anachronistic? Why play a 2D game when you can go and annihilate stuff in the Witcher 3, for example?

Despite technological advancements, it’s arguable the SNES remains the best games console of them all, powered along by behemoths such as Super Metroid, Earthbound, Super Castlevania, Chrono Trigger, and A Link to the Past – the sheer quality of these titles is timeless. Why should similiar games not continue being made, just because the technology available means we can now wipe out NOOBS in vast MMORPGs and the like?

FIttingly, many of the kids who played the likes of Super Metroid are now all grown up and making their own games, taking inspiration from legendary titles to build a glorious new genre: Metroidvania. This has sprung up with the advent of the indie scene and has already created a wealth of classics, but I believe this to be the finest of the lot.

For clarity, before I continue ranting: Moon Studios added DLC to the original and released the Definitive Edition in March 2016. This is the version I’m reviewing. The screengrabs below, incidentally, are from my Steam account, so marvel at the work of an imbecile in action!

Now! Many Studio Ghibli fans have wanted to play one of the animation giant’s films in game form and, whilst the recent effort Breath of the Wild took inspiration from sweeping masterpieces such as Princess Mononoke, Ori and the Blind Forest is the closest this dream has come to being realised. The imagination and confidence displayed in the concept is masterful, but it’s a world which is tinged with a genuine atmosphere and sense of purpose and history.

In short, the plot is this: Baby Ori, a disgustingly cute white tree spirit thing, is blasted from his tree during a storm and is adopted by a Totoro-type creature called Nabu. Some sort of dodgy event then occurs which decimates the once lush region and Ori is left to find sanctuary through what is known as the Spirit Tree. Energised, he goes off and soon finds Sein (who sounds remarkably like Midna from Twilight Princess), before heading off on his adventure to restore equilibrium.

Click here for the full review... https://thewellredmage.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/ori-and-the-blind-forest-definitive-edition/