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dkirschner's Ori and the Will of the Wisps (PC)

[May 24, 2020 10:44:03 AM]

Another breathtaking game. This takes everything from the previous one and adds layers. The levels are bigger and more distinct, there are more enemy types, more abilities, more upgrades, they added quests, tons more characters, etc., etc. It's Ori turned up to 11.

All that is to say that bigger is not necessarily better, as the game feels a bit bloated. An example: quests. The game has a heavier story focus, adds a handful of named characters whom you encounter, and adds quests to tell you about the characters. Quests are nearly all of the "fetch an item and return it" variety. You'll complete most of them just in the course of playing, but it necessitates looking in all the nooks and crannies (I generally did that anyway for pickups). For one, you find seeds and return them to a gardener so he can plant things. For another, someone asks you to find a hat for him.

One big quest is to help a character build a village. To do this, he needs ore, which is hidden throughout the world. In total, there are probably 50 pieces of the stuff, and I'm pretty sure that you need to find every piece to complete every building project (I completed all but one). Finding and returning ore to complete building projects generally yields light conversation with another character, some spirit orbs (experience), and maybe a life or mana fragment. These interactions and quests are all kind of cute--the characters and creatures are very likable--but they're very shallow too.

One huge improvement over the first game that I didn't know I wanted is 3D backgrounds. Stop and look as you play, or look at a screenshot. Every frame looks like concept art. It's beautiful. Sometimes, especially early in the game, the 3D backgrounds can be a little distracting or obfuscate what you are looking for (I used a walkthrough at the very beginning of the game because a movable stone blended so well with the environment that I couldn't see it), but you get used to it after a while.

Another neat improvement is varied environments. In the previous game, the environments looked differently, but generally played the same. In this one, there are new movement abilities that make sense for each environment (e.g., a drill to travel through sand in the desert level; a fireball to warm braziers in the ice level). This means that, to some extent, each level forces you to think a bit differently. This could be annoying, but I think that's only my "I just want to use what I already learned!" brain talking. Really, it makes you figure out new abilities and ways of progressing through a level. At the very end of the game, you can go in an extra area or two, which I declined to explore, but my guess is that it (is really hard and) forces you to use all the abilities you have learned to master tough challenges. At least that's what I hope it was.

So, if you're like me, you loved the first game and are happy for more. Most of the additions are welcome (I've talked to other people who disliked the combat addition, but, although combat was generally easy, I enjoyed it), but some are unnecessary and make the game feel overly packed with things. To that point, it took me 50% longer to finish this than the original. Maybe in another 5 years there will be a third!