Ori and the Will of the Wisps

I can’t say enough good things about Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel. Both games look and sound absolutely gorgeous. If you asked me to name a game that I’d consider to have perfect controls, they’d be the second titles to come to mind, after Super Meat Boy. It’s not an exaggeration to say that just moving around in Ori feels better than most games’ primary gameplay loops. To go along with that, they both feature stellar Metroidvania level design supporting finely-tuned platforming. They’re flawless in so many respects that they’re actually kind of uninteresting to talk about.

If there’s a criticism that could be leveled at both games, it’s that they’re fairly conventional, featuring very basic themes and broadly-defined characters. Even then, that doesn’t prevent the story from connecting; there’s one scene in Will of the Wisps that might genuinely be the saddest thing I’ve ever seen in a game. WotW’s comfort zone extends deeper into its gameplay than Blind Forest’s, however. The first game introduced a handful of distinctive mechanics, including minimalist combat that characterized the protagonist as an agile pacifist. This one heavily involves a conceptually unremarkable combat system with mechanics very obviously copied from Hollow Knight. It’s admittedly full-featured and tactilely satisfying, but it discards most of the game’s identity. The only unique feature now is that major traversal techniques are attached to optional equipment – a novel implementation of organic difficulty settings that also opens up extensive speedrunning possibilities.