[Review] Ori and The Will of The Wisps - Strong Indie Candidates of The Year

I don’t know what caused it, but the metroidvania genre has suddenly become popular in the indie scene since 2015. One of the games in question is Ori and the Blind Forest, a game from Moon Studios published by Microsoft. Combining metroidvania design with difficult platforming like Super Meat Boy, Ori attracts the hearts of many gamers because of its challenges and moving stories.

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5 years after the game’s release, Moon Studios released the sequel – Ori and The Will of The Wisps. As a sequel, many new things were added and changed from the previous series, but did the developers manage to maintain the quality of the first game or even make this sequel better? We’ll see right away.

New Character, New Setting, Same Heart

Ori and The Will of The Wisps continues the ending of the story of the first game. Ku, the son of Kuro who is the main enemy in The Blind Forest, is now adopted by Naru and Gumo. Because of the broken wings from birth, Ku is unable to fly like other birds. With the help of the mother’s wings that Ori had used on previous adventures, Ku tested her new wings with Ori. Unfortunately because of the storm, the two have to be separated and have to meet each other and find their way home.

The storytelling of The Will of The Wisps is arguably too similar to The Blind Forest, it can be considered as a positive or negative thing depending on your opinion. But in this second game, more characters fill Ori’s adventure. The majority are merchants of sorts which is unfortunate, but many of them give their own background and influence on the world around them, giving the story in the game a “more dense” and not just about Ori and her responsibilities.

Despite being a new character with a background of being the son of the antagonist, Ku is a good character to the point of being a motivational booster for you to finish the game. You and I have very little interaction, but you will be made to care like he is your brother. So when he is hurt by the new antagonist, you feel his revenge. But it turns out that the antagonist also has its own background, creating a sense of sympathy when you have to fight it. Despite the lack of dialogue in the game, Moon Studios has succeeded in creating a story that feels like an emotional roller coaster.

More action-packed gameplay

The first game focuses on difficult platforming with a few series of combat moments in it. The Will of The Wisps is more of a 50:50 of those two. Combat is no longer just using spirits, but Ori now has its own fighting system. Starting with an ordinary attack that looks like a sword, slowly but surely you will continue to add to the skill set whether it’s from exploration or buying it directly from the merchant. Here comes the biggest change in the game, the yellow spirit that you get during playing no longer functions like EXP, but currency in the second game which can later be used to buy skills or shards which are passive buffs in this game.

Many old skills are brought back, but strangely you have to look for those skills again as if Ori has forgotten everything. Of course, new skills were introduced through the sequel and the majority of them were skills focused on combat, in contrast to the first game which prioritized platforming.

With new directors that add more action, the combat system in the game isn’t that special and the majority of your time will only be spent spamming the attack buttons, but each hit feels very satisfying because of the particle effects and sound effects that come out when your attacks hit the enemy. When you have all the skills, you can do the wildest combos possible by switching skills to the 3 action buttons, or if you’re too lazy, you can always rely on the main attack.

Platforming in this game is arguably easier than before. Soul Link, which is basically a quick save from The Blind forest, is no longer available, but this is compensated with a better damage system forgiveable. Projectiles and other dangerous obstacles are created to possess fixed damage in the sense that you will not instantly die when you hit them. There were many moments where I failed my timing or didn’t make the right jump, but I was still able to continue the level because now you can tank damage generated by thorns or lasers.

With Ori’s agile movements and varied movesets, exploration and platforming is still a fun experience. While easier could be a bad thing for many gamers as well as longtime fans, I’m a little more appreciative of the new design that Moon Studios has put into this sequel. The game may not be as difficult as before but it is still challenging because the design levels are fixed tricky to pass.

As Metroidvania, Ori and The Will of The Wisps is a bit more linear than its competitors. Your destination is always marked where and not so much backtracking you have to do in this game. You could even say the game reminds me of the exploration of the Zelda game, especially Breath of The Wild, rather than the exploration of the Metroidvania game. Yes, many areas can only be accessed when you have certain skills and many spaces cannot be accessed until you find the right gap like in Metroid, but there are a few moments where I get lost in this game.

Visuals Like Moving Paintings

Visuals are indeed the strongest aspect of Moon Studios. Every custscene looks like a high quality animation and every screenshot I take looks like a painting especially if no HUD is showing.

Not only focusing on the main screen seen by players, the details in the background add an atmospheric impression and look as if they really happened and blended with the ground where Ori was. Many games fail to offer this kind of thing, sometimes many of them actually make players confused about which ones can be interacted with and which ones can’t or also confused about deciding which floors can be stepped on and which are not, Ori and The Will of The Wisps managed to avoid this. something like that.

To accompany the beautiful natural world, Ori and The Will of The Wisps is accompanied by melancholic music that really describes the sadness behind the beautiful setting of the game.

Behind the beauty offered by Ori and The Will of Wisps, technical problems also haunt. In the duration of 13-14 hours I regretted the game, there were many bugs and glitches ranging from problematic geometry that made Ori stuck on the floor, a pool that when touched a little immediately sent Ori bouncing to another location, and the game failed to load the correct background and platform, and the in-game music or audio suddenly stops until the game is restarted. Of course this can all be fixed in a future patch, but I feel it deserves to be mentioned as this happens quite often during game completion.

Conclusion

Ori and The Will of The Wisps is a beautiful game full of heartwarming moments that will stir the emotions of players. Moon Studios managed to take the experience from the previous game and make the sequel even better. Imperfection is bound to happen especially for small indie studios, but Ori and The Will of The Wisps has the potential to be one of the best indie games of the year.