If there is one word that I can describe the Ori series, that word would be beautiful. Ori and the Will of the Wisps is the mesmerizing follow-up to Ori and the Blind Forest. Moon Studios created another amazing game filled with heartfelt moments, gorgeous environments, and an upgraded combat system. It also comes with plenty of secrets, challenges, and bigger boss fights.
*Note: Be sure to check out some of my general and combat tips.
Journey To Save A Friend
Ori and the Will of the Wisps take place a little bit after the last game. With Ori and his small group of friends, Naru and Gumo, taking care of the owl-like creature named Ku, found at the end of the last game. When you start the game you get a quick glimpse of how their bond has grown as a family. It is a short prologue, but it is sweet and heartwarming.
Before you get to know the little thing a bit more, Ori and Ku separated. Soon Ori must traverse beautiful, yet treacherous lands to find her. But along Ori’s travels, it will meet a few characters along the way, as well as discover what its true destiny is, while discovering a bunch of horrifying new enemies.
Metroidvania At Its Finest
The basic gameplay mechanics are similar to the first game. Explore and learn plenty of new skills. Also, much like many Metroidvania games, backtracking is essential to uncover all of the secrets the game has to offer. Skills that you receive later in the game, will grant you access to new areas that were blocked early in the game.
One of the biggest changes between the two games is that Ori and the Will of the Wisps has a combat system. The first game’s combat revolved around kicking back enemy’s projectiles, kicking them, or using the small wisp to attack. Ori and the Will of the Wisps feature 2 weapons and many different abilities.
Some abilities will be acquired playing through the story, while the rest will need to be bought with spirit light. Spirit light is the main currency of the game. Collect them by defeating enemies, completing spirit trials, and finding them in hidden areas.
Gotta Find’em All
There are plenty of secrets to search for. Finding these secrets might yield spirit light, spirit shards, life fragments, energy fragments, or Gorlek ore. All of these are essential to making your adventure easier. Life and energy fragments work like the first game. Finding two of the same fragment will increase your maximum life or energy.
Spirit shards are equipable modifiers for Ori. Some will increase damage output, or decrease damage received. Others allow Ori to triple jump or stick to walls which can make things a bit easier. The system is simple but allows for every player to have a different build than one another. I mostly went with a damage build along with some traversal options. The great thing is that you can swap them out freely at any time.
Rebuilding A Home
Gorlek Ore is new. It is a new type of currency that is used to help rebuild a city. The city works as the main hub to buy items and warp to. This place has most of the characters you meet throughout your journey. Rebuilding the place will open up more of the area to collect secrets or unlock quests. It is a nice little addition to the game, but if it was left out, I don’t think it would make much of an impact. You can’t do much other than to buy stuff or turn in quests.
Smooth Like Butter
One of the best things about Ori and the Will of the Wisps is how smooth the game runs. As I progressed through the game and unlocked more movement abilities, I immediately became high on the movement. With the smooth animation, impressive backgrounds, and captivating traversal options, I became sucked into it every single time.
This becomes easily apparent when trying to complete spirit trials, which is a race against the game’s “ghost”. At first, it can be easy to blame the game, but by the third time, it will click in your mind that the Ori and the Will of the Wisps is all based on finesse and skill.
Bugging Out
When the game runs so smoothly it can be annoying when glitches and technical issues happen. I had a huge glitch at the beginning of the game. I needed to grab my first ability. But the game didn’t register it. A cutscene played before and I notice none of the characters appeared on the screen.
Right then! I knew something was wrong. After it was done, the game kept telling me to use an ability I never acquired. What makes the matter worst is that it autosaved during it and the game had no backup saves. I had to delete my save and start all over again. It was only about ten minutes worth of my time, but still, it left a big sour taste in my mouth.
I had few glitches evolving the hanging spider creatures where they would get stuck near a ceiling halting my combat challenge. Other than that I had a few frame drops in certain locations, nothing too major.
Summary
In short, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is better than the first game in almost every way. It has better combat, customization, and plenty of quests to complete. The smooth controls and platforming along with stunning environments make this a truly great game.
Originally published at https://gamingnitemare.com on March 29, 2020.
