We immerse ourselves in the nature of Ori and the Will of the Wisps, as beautiful as it is oppressive, to be part of a new chapter that gains ambition, epicity and a taste for design playable in the first part of the saga.
You are going to have to forgive us for various reasons. The first one is not new: we want to make a special introduction to the Ori and The Will of the Wisps Reviews. Yes, before getting into the matter and analyzing in detail each of the elements that make up this platform adventure. The second, obvious: we have a bit more to publish the review because we felt that the game deserved to be squeezed calmly.
And we do it moved by the sensations, those that we have had in a personal way when crossing the sinuous places that constitute its universe, because they escape from the horizontal line to not only project vertically as few achieve it, but they do of the organic displacements through the stages (we rarely run on completely flat surfaces) the usual trend.
Meanwhile we are accompanied by wind, fire and snow. They do it in unison together with the charming landscapes, complementing the playable experience, accompanying the delicious control of Ori to, as we have commented at the beginning of this text, transmit feelings that only the Rare Donkey Kong or the beautiful Aladdin and The Lion King achieved Virgin Interactive for the novelty of its audiovisual presentation. Not only the fun and the challenge are manifested; so do nostalgia, excitement, and fear of dying at the hands of a powerful — and unpredictable — final enemy. And, while sometimes we are enraptured by a giant hydraulic mill that adorns the bottom of a stage full of water, vegetation and arabesque branches in the foreground, others oppress us through decay, making the choking soundtrack another reason for which we want to overcome the challenge for the sake of escaping from such darkness.
It is the moment to brandish the sword of light, moment in which we exclaimed: Now yes! With it we will cut the fire, melt the snow and tame the wind, accompanying us with our new bow and making the combos and impulses with the jump come together in an almost magical way. As if it were a choreography. As if we were enjoying a picture book where, suddenly, we noticed that the little hand-drawn character in the corner of the sheet began to move. And it does it by following our commands!
Of wind, fire and water
In this world it is not all perfect – we will analyze it in a dedicated way later – and in the game we also notice it is the titanic effort of a study that, despite staying close, it would have been good for a few months to further polish the experience . Imperfect —like most great works— but with enough strength at the playable design level so that we can forgive some small flaws in favor of being able to continue enjoying the title that, for the first time in this young saga, offers us an adventurous charisma whose potential is glimpsed glorious.
The Will of the Wisps story begins after the events of the first part. Ori placidly coexists with his makeshift family in the Nibel forest while every glimpse of darkness is sensed far away. Together with the little owl Ku, they learn how important it is to help each other to achieve a greater end: in this case, the baby of Kuro learns to fly despite his ill-fated right wing.
It is in one of the young couple's first air rides when they enter a mysterious place, falling prey to a darkness that brings back heartbreaking memories. From here, our protagonist duo separates, and the game puts before us a new location that is being devoured by darkness in which, fortunately, multiple species inhabit that can help us find our partner. Meanwhile, we try to fight to re-impregnate the valley of light that characterizes us.
From the wind, its momentum
There was a moment playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps that remains engraved in our memory: we are playing on a windy day, this one hits our windows and slightly moves the blinds when – fact that in some way we sensed – it begins to rain lightly . In the game the trees move violently by the wind, the environmental sounds in 5.1 surround us and, as we run at full speed, jumping from branch to branch, leaning on small rods to take momentum, and delivering accurate blows to our enemies while hitting with the arc on the most distant, the environment (both the real and the magic that the game offers us) come together to generate a satisfaction difficult to express.
The first thing we would like to analyze about the video game at hand is its delicious control. It improves the first part, enriches it by including a robust combat system supported by the platform's title design, and transports it to the player through fluidity of response, perfectly coordinated with the animations. Few games achieve this, and Ori does it following his own style although, beware, while looking at franchises like Donkey Kong, trying to overcome those achieved in Rayman Legends, and learning from titles like Hollow Knight or Celeste for the sake of thriving towards higher. He is aware that the base has it – we are talking about the first Ori – as well as being realistic about what they needed to improve: among other things, the combat system.
And here it shines: our main weapon will be the luminous sword, which we will wield to link simple combos, being able to attack up or even down if we are in the middle of a jump. Its scope is considerable, making it very rewarding to start assembling our choreographies while combining some of the special techniques.
For not going into too much detail (we all deserve to be surprised by the game) some groups of enemies will require quick attacks (the standard ones), against others they will serve us more forceful and slow hammer-style attacks (a skill that we will assign to another of the main buttons) and aerial beings will succumb to our pulse by grasping the arc of light (a third button will help us do this).
There are other special abilities that, although they do not offer an offensive scheme per se, they do absolutely enrich the combat system: we are talking about being able to push ourselves on projectiles launched by enemies (we will even have the option of doing it on some of our adversaries) to go further, make them bounce off other monsters and, during the second and a half that the action slows down, fly away towards that mosquito of hell that is giving us more problems than we would like. Using them will consume energy points, so we will have to be aware of both our green and blue bars, even more so if we decide to abuse the option that allows us to recharge life by sacrificing the aforementioned energy points, in a similar way to what we do in Hollow Knight in the most adverse moments of the game.
This combat system is reciprocated by new enemies that, this time, have well-differentiated routines: armored beetles that attack without compassion, giant mosquitoes that launch pecks at high speed, piranhas and lethal aquatic snakes, plants that launch projectiles while hitting you A good bite if you get close… The presence of several of these adversaries at the same time complicates the contests: we recommend starting the first game in normal mode, since the difficult one requires being very familiar with Ori's handling.
From the water, its power
The good news is that this combat system is homogeneously linked with the interactive approach of Ori and the Will of the Wisps. The game at hand, being in its main playable pillar a platform title, has a complex two-dimensional displacement structure whose semi-linear skeleton (as we go through the story we are guided, although there are points where we can tackle objectives in different order) It gives us moments of continuous backtraking and a progression system that encourages exploration in order to reveal all the secrets of each area.
As a novelty, the world of Ori is more alive than ever, with animal species that coexist according to the different ecosystems we visit, secondary characters that will allow us to improve our skills or unlock advantages, small missions and commissions that the inhabitants of this world of fantasy, rumors that serving them will unlock speed challenges and combat arenas… The content surpasses that of its predecessor, both in number and variety, and in general it makes us feel more participants in this little adventure.
Of course, do not expect large side missions, since most are quite simple and do not last too long. From here we would like a hypothetical new title in the series to thoroughly explore this aspect of the adventure that, as happened with some elements of the first part, still has room for room for improvement. Taking into account all the hidden secrets, the skills and the aforementioned secondary tasks, the title at hand moves between the margins of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. according to our desire to complete and, also, contemplative: there are many areas that deserve a Second visit just to see Moon Studios' precious taste for detail.
In this Ori we travel by land, jump and glide through the air (both alone and accompanied by our winged friend) and swim with refined control, which reminds us again of how Rayman Origins created an underwater system that is already canon in the series. mentioned, the one in question and the one starring the apes recovered by Retro Studios.
In addition, in the organic design of the scenarios we find another of the most ambitious points of the game: we will move with Ori through winding branches, surfaces of all kinds and platforms that, this time, take many forms. Thanks to different abilities we will feel like a Cirque Du Soleil acrobat, propelling ourselves on the wood, grabbing onto the moss that invades a vertical wall, using our hind legs to reach a small branch that barely supports itself, finally landing on that platform It seemed impossible to conquer: the feeling of learning precedes that of mastery, which is as rewarding as conquering the perfectly connected overall mapping of the title.
Multiple elements united as a whole of exception, which is always presented in the form of level design masterclasses in real time. Despite the fact that the brighter notes are accompanied by some less inspired chords in this sense (they are few, there is tranquility), the ensemble clearly surpasses the opening chapter.
As expected, we are faced with a pleasant sensation of learning, through a mastery acquired in a way very consistent with the difficulty curve proposed by the game. We have to recognize that there are certain confrontations that pose a great peak of difficulty (if we choose the highest level, they become real challenges), although the feeling of learning and overcoming the routines of the enemy makes victory taste like glory. Also, the review of the automatic save points makes the frustration come through other scopes, not the one of the repetition of great fragments of the game.
At this point we must return to one of the aspects that we mentioned at the beginning of the Reviews: within this quasi-masterpiece there are some problems that, although they have been mostly solved, are still present during the game. Some audio glitches, enemies that behave strangely, times when collision detection fails and we get caught between elements of the stage, or stops that freeze the image when moving to a new area.
Fortunately, they happen on very rare occasions, but when they do they stand out due to an obvious case: the game looks so good at 4K in HDR, it moves so smoothly at 60 fps per second and is so artistically pampered, that when this happens our The brain “clicks” and momentarily cuts off the magical sensation that Ori and the Will of the Wisps transmits.
The good news is that we are quickly forgotten when epicity takes over the screen: there are moments that highlight the game's great budget, its status as a two-dimensional advance triple AAA and the feeling that “they have not spared any expenses” , when we participate in playable scenes where the enemies chase us while the stage is destroyed in our path, while we try to maintain balance within a choreography "scripted" with mastery. As if it were an Uncharted, when we managed to overcome the danger we can do nothing but sigh ojipláticos while we let out a "wow" with a broken voice.
Of the fire, its spell
And it is in its audiovisual section where everything begins – the game enters through the eyes from its first bars – and ends – both at the animation level and in the chords that accompany us, there is an exalted union with its playable approach – generating a whole almost miraculous. Moon Studios' taste for detail is only comparable to studios at the height of Playdead: if we step on grass, it will move, if we pass through an ill-fated bridge, we will feel it stirring accordingly.
The title in question surpasses its predecessor in numbers and in art: dozens of scroll planes, a combination of 2D and 3D elements (the characters, parts of the stage and final enemies have exquisite hand-painted modeling and texturing), a system of improved movement (inspired by the smoothness of traditional North American animation, with not a few Ghibli remnants), and a fairytale setting that takes us from The Lion King to the darkness of the Grimm brothers, of the luminous scenes that remind of Rayman Legends, to the dark depths where we will meet our beloved Hollow Knight. The legacy of Johannes Figlhuber reaches its maximum splendor here.
On the sound plane, we can only praise the excellent score of Gareth Coker. From melancholy to epicity, from wind instruments to forceful percussion, from sweet flutes to solemn choral voices with nuances of a certain soundtrack by Hans Zimmer and Elton John. It is true; Despite the almost perfect audiovisual facet of the game, there are graphics that some zooms do not support during cinematic scenes and are seen at less resolution, we will have certain frame stops that contrast with the almost total smoothness of the game, and some characters do not enjoy animations as incredible as those of the main ones. Despite everything, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is an interactive work of art.
CONCLUSION
Magic, a simple but exciting story, an audiovisual section that rises up to the Olympus of the gods and an outstanding playable facet. Ori and the Will of the Wisps is presented to us as one of the best platforming adventures of the generation. Pure fun emanates from its interactive dynamism, from its new combat system the challenge we were looking for, and from the mix of its skill system the playable wonder. It has some technical flaws, certain side missions are too simple and there is room for improvement for an upcoming iteration of the saga. Despite this, we are facing one of those games in which you can not stop thinking about the office or the university, because the unstoppable desire to put ourselves at the controls of this little spirit is constantly manifested.
THE BEST
- As a whole, everything that this new adventure offers us
- At an artistic level it is a milestone in the video game industry
- We love your new combat system
WORST
- We have missed more elaborate secondaries
- Some technical flaws
Excellent
A benchmark title in its genre, which stands out above its competitors and that you will enjoy from start to finish, surely several times. A game destined to become a classic over the years.
