Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Icon - Calendar Released: 11 Mar 2020
Icon - Edited Reviewed: 23 Jan 2021
Platform: PC
Ori and the will of the wisps

Hollow Knight 2 is very similar to the first game in a lot of ways, but the design is all over the place. The visuals have been upgraded, but at the expense of gameplay. Hang on... wait, this isn't Hollow Knight? You're sure? Ok... so apparently this is an Ori game, but they've copied multiple mechanics from Hollow Knight. The badge system. The map maker. Even the summary screen where you can track game progress has the same caterpillar homes even though there are no caterpillars. Overall, it feels like the art direction took priority over gameplay. Really it should be 4 stars, but it's difficult to rate it that highly with ripped off mechanics, quick time events and odd design decisions.

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Pros

  • Extremely pretty, with all sorts of things in the environment waving, wobbling and full of life as you pass by
  • Really beautiful soundtrack
  • New mechanics from the first game like platforms covered in blue moss & new combat abilities
  • Amazingly fluid animations, especially on Ori. He flips around sticks when he grabs on, handstands on top of poles, spins around when double jumping
  • Traversal is really smooth once you unlock all his abilities

Cons

  • Heavier focus on combat. Tons of new abilities, which you can't use because you only get 3 buttons for abilities. One of them needs to be your main attack, and you probably want to be able to heal - leaving one button, and several different ones needed for platforming
  • Platforming is far easier because of new movement abilities. The game is full of cheap tricks designed to kill you, like portals dumping you on top of spike pits, or pits you're meant to jump down with poison at the bottom. Deadly things slightly off-screen that you'd have to know were there to avoid them
  • Less focused than the first game. The map is littered with side quests and irrelevant icons (Moki that don't offer quests are still marked on the map)
  • The controls are good, but still a bit 'floaty'. Not nearly as tight as Hollow Knight
  • Ripped off Hollow Knight's charm system, the map NPC & the quest summary screen
  • Boss design is sub-par. This was something they actually could have improved by copying Hollow Knight. Show what the boss is going to do. Provide a way to avoid damage. Don't give the boss 10 different abilties. Don't put chase quick-time events in the middle of boss fights.
  • The quick time events / scripted pieces get really tiresome, really quickly. One of the bits where you have to move from hiding place to hiding place I had to do about a dozen times because I couldn't tell where the next hiding place was, because the game focuses on 'pretty' rather than giving you visual hints on which parts of the scenery are background, and what's needed for gameplay
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