Ori and the Blind Forest Review – The Feels of Frustration

Ori and the Blind Forest

Developer: Moon Studios

Publisher: Microsoft Studios

Platforms: Xbox One (version reviewed), PC

MSPR: $19.99 (US)

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Ori and the Blind Forest tells a touching, hopeful and, at times, grim story, without a word of understandable dialogue (the game does have light narration which is accompanied by subtitles as language spoken is unintelligible). Told through wonderful animation, an evocative score and sound design, and a world so seamless and full of wonder and incredible danger. A classic platformer at its core, it employs some welcome and some not so welcome tropes, as well as heaps tons of smart environmental puzzles, and design choices and offers hours of rewarding exploration. It also, quite frankly, has large sections of frustrating trial and error gameplay that distracts from the obvious amounts of care and love poured into the game.

The game begins with a gust of wind that carries an infant Ori, a Forest Spirit, to the forest home of Naru, a bear-like creature. Naru raises and nurtures Ori until the forest decays and Ori must venture out into the world of Nibel to discover what has caused the decay. Early on, Ori takes up with the Spirit Flame, Sein, who becomes Ori’s main attack. She is also a multipurpose tool of light as she is able to retrieve “keys” and trigger world events. Through their travels, Ori goes from one end of Nibel to the other, gaining new abilities and rekindle the light to three distinct areas in the world, while encountering all manner of enemies that seem hell bent on killing Ori. Most notably is Kuro, a giant Owl, who can end Ori’s life instantly and remains the main threat (of which there are many).

Ori’s narrative seems typically Campbellian, but beneath the surface I found a truly touching, and dark coming-of-age tale where things are not exactly as they initially seem. The narrative doesn’t shy away from death, and instead uses it as a tool to understand the severity of what is at stake. A foe becomes a friend, and Kuro’s motivations are not nearly as nefarious as one would believe from the outset, while she remains a reminder that death can come to Ori at any time.

Oh, how I died.

A lot.

513 times, to be exact. That’s right – 513 times. Looking at the leaderboards in the game, the lowest death count I saw was 223 (there is now someone who died zero times!) And I hate that person for being better than me. Significantly so, but I digress.

Why would I include my death total in my review of Ori and the Blind Forest? Quite simply, it happened so often during my eight or so hours of playing, that it became a distraction. Instead of enjoying the game for all of the things it was doing so wonderfully, I became distressingly aware that I cared almost as much about my death count, if not more. And how do I know exactly how many times I died? Well, it seems that Moon Studios knew that players will die a lot because they decided to track of it and detail it in the pause screen along with play time, percentage completed, as well as collectables, and so on.

Ori and the Blind Forest is as deep mechanically as it is challenging. All of the pieces come together in one of the most fluid and varied mix of jumping, combat and timing I’ve played in recent memory. It should be noted that Ori is very much a “Metroidvania” style game in which exploration grants Ori new abilities so he can access areas previously blocked by obstacles and enemies. The world of Nibel is quite large and each area flows into the next without a single load screen. To that effect, each area is impressively unique and each has its own theme and unique enemies. Too many to name, really. It was hours before I saw every enemy type on display.

The abilities Ori accrues over the course of the game soon become so instrumental to survival that many have to be used in tandem or quick succession. From double jumps, to gliding, to climbing up flat walls, Ori’s basic skills all worked impressively well for any challenge Moon threw at me. On top of the basic skills, there are three ability trees that can be filled once you have collected enough “Ability Points.” These abilities affect anything from energy consumption to the Spirit Flame’s attacks to Ori’s Life Cells (health meter).

While Ori’s skills and abilities change up the gameplay and open up more areas to explore and secrets to find, they are also puzzle-solving tools. Using them to navigate environments is a puzzle in and of itself, as the game never tells you how to use these abilities beyond when you first acquire them. And just when you think you’ve figured it all out, the game introduces new mechanics, pats you on the back and says, “Here you go, now figure it out!” Some solutions are so seemingly opaque that I say with great confidence that more than once I stumbled into the solution and then exclaimed an audible “OH!” when it finally did happen. Throw in some gravity defying, directionally mindbending set pieces, and you have the recipe for insta-death.

To mitigate death and frustration (for a decent amount of  the time anyway), the player can save nearly any time if they have Energy Cells. Holding down the “B” button in a safe area will create a “Soul Link” (checkpoint) where Ori will respawn after death. Its nigh instantaneous, so provided you save smart and often, you should be OK. However, each time you save uses up an Energy Cell that can take a while to replenish, so there is a bit of a risk reward in the early portions of the game where slots for stored cells are scarce. Creating Soul Links all willy-nilly will put you at risk moments later. Trust me when I tell you, getting through a particularly harrowing section with a sliver of your life left and finally landing on safe, solid ground only to find you can’t save will send you to the Dark Side with the quickness.

The most infuriating portions of the game are the latter areas that require not only incredibly quick timing but also an almost precognitive sense to know where you will land or what kind of death device or hurdle is coming next. This is especially egregious when the game would thrust me into sections where I had to escape instant death as it chased me from below or behind with the single minded purpose of snuffing out my light. And the “best” part about these sections? The game gives you one checkpoint at the start of the section so you have once chance to get it right, otherwise, regardless of your progress, you will spawn right back at the beginning to do it all over again. As someone who can’t stand repetition, challenge can give way to the opposite of fun incredibly fast. Death permeated  so much of my experience that the difficulty genuinely got in the way of my enjoyment at times.

Ori’s presentation is truly stellar. Vibrant level design and color pallets, where each frame looks like a painting or a beautiful hand-drawn cartoon. Nibel is so richly detailed and realized, that as huge as the game is, the backgrounds give the impression that there is so much more world to explore. Later sections of the game can get incredibly chaotic, with all of the ways death wants to claim you surrounding you on all sides and never once did the game suffer from framedrops or slowdown. You can expect actually playing the game to be a silky smooth 60fps and a crisp 1080p throughout every moment where Ori is moving.

The audio is also truly astounding. The sounds of Nibel are as rich as its environments, with ambient and subtle cues to let the player know exactly where they are at any moment. From the woodland creatures, to the bubble a crackle of lava, every area sounds alive and real. The score, by Gareth Coker is, truly remarkable, elevating the game beyond it’s old school roots, creating something truly cinematic, grand, melancholy, and sweet.

Oddly enough, the one area where the game’s presentation falters is during cutscenes. It seems as though they’re done in 30fps as opposed to the main 60fps. Without any load times, the juxtaposition between gameplay and the camera panning to show some sort of premade action happening or cutscene is more noticeable and jarring. Hardly a deal breaker, but with everything else being so close to impeccable, it is worth noting.

Despite my frustrations, Ori and the Blind Forest is undeniably a remarkable game. It’s beautiful to look at and listen to. The story is elegant and touching as well as surprisingly dark. It offers a wide variety in terms of enemies, challenges, and mechanics, while staying true to its fundamental roots as a platformer. While it does offer plenty of new and smart design choices, it also uses frustrating tropes that require a heavy amount of trial and error and memorization. Overall, it’s a wonderful experience for those willing to meet it on it’s own terms and accept it’s challenge.

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A digital copy of the game was provided by Microsoft Studios for review purposes.