Visually beautiful, with plenty of passive skills and a big map, Ori and the Blind Forest is quite fun and its story might melt some hearts, while providing a quite easy but fun gameplay loop.

Wikipedia summary:

Ori and the Blind Forest is a platform-adventure metroidvania video game developed by Moon Studios and published by Microsoft Studios. Players assume control of Ori, a small white spirit, and Sein, the “light and eyes” of the Forest’s Spirit Tree.

Review

Setup

  • Version: PC (Definitive Edition)
  • Difficulty: Hard
  • Total playing time: 9h 50min

Comments

I initially found the movement a bit strange. It seemed as it had some drag, and that control was not immediately responding. I got used to it for most of the game, but still found it giving me some troubles when very precise movement was needed.

The ability tree was cool, and I was looking forward to explore as much as possible to eventually unlock most or all of it. However, I finished the game with only around half being enabled. This probably means the game can be quite easy in lower difficulties and if you farm enough abilities.

I found the pacing of the game quite strange. I can not quite put my finger on it, but it felt as if the map was big, but at the same time I explored all of it so fast. It felt like moving between different map areas was happening really fast, even though the minimap looked way bigger. It felt like Ori was getting too many skills too fast, and the game was not adding big areas just to extend its length. You were constantly moving and growing and getting new abilities to open up the next area and continue this cycle. While there was some backtracking, it mostly was not very repetitive, and it did not feel like I had to farm anything at all. Just the normal progression through the game was enough to give Ori everything it needed.

I did not particularly like the mountain area for the Water Element. I felt like it was mostly trial and error but without finding it fun. The Wind Element mountain, however, was cool in this regard. But the Warmth Element volcano was the nicest one, with several mini areas and mini challenges, and a race that had its trial and error side, but was also fun to run through.

Overall, I felt like the game ended out of nowhere. I was not exactly expecting Kuro’s “last fight” to just be the final pursuit scene, so it caught me off-guard. But it kind of made sense story-wise.

Difficulty

I played on Hard difficulty, but other than some specific map areas challenges, the game was not very challenging. I think the amount of abilities you get at the beginning is quite high, and it gives you everything you need from the start. Most of the abilities I got were just nice to haves and quality of life.

There were no specific hard puzzles to figure out, not so much backtracking that you had to keep a lot of information about the map in mind, and no big boss fights. So it was very focused on exploration.

Story

Starts with a sad story, where Ori falls from the Spirit Tree, and is taken and cared for by another strange creature, named Naru. After growing together, eventually the Spirit Tree makes an event to call out for Ori to come back home. It sends a light pulse to reach out to Ori, but Naru hides/protects Ori, who misses the call. The light pulse was so strong that it inadvertently causes some damage. After a while, the forest starts to decay, making Ori and Naru run out of food. Naru passes away due to starvation. Ori tries to explore the forest further, but eventually dies as well due to being too weak.

Sensing that Ori had died, the Tree uses the last of its powers to revive it. The Spirit Tree is a powerful entity that is responsible for keeping elemental forces in balance. We learn that it revived Ori to entrust it to fix what is wrong in the forest and restore the balance of the elements. After being revived and exploring the world a little, we find Sein, a floating light ball, that help us recover the power of elements and return them to their altars, which would restore the Spirit Tree to its full power and enable it to bring back balance.

During the exploration of the map, in search for the lights of the elements of Water, Wind, and Warmth, we eventually cross paths with Kuro, a giant owl that is very aggressive, attacking Ori at any chance it had if trespassing its territory. During the exploration of some ruins to restore the Water Element, we meet Gumo, a member of the ancient Gumon race. At first, Gumo is an adversary and stands on the way of Ori restoring the Water element, but becomes a friend after an event in which Gumo gets stuck in a rock-slide but is saved by the kindness of Ori. The Water Element is then restored.

When exploring how to restore the Wind Element, we eventually find the Gumons Seal, in a place where the Gumon race used to live before the decay. They are now all frozen to death, leaving Gumo as the last member of the race. Gumo takes a Light Vessel, which was invented by the Gumon Race, and uses it to help Ori restore the element of Wind.

After Water and Wind are restored, during exploration, Ori finds the nest of Kuro with a single egg, and we learn what is the reason Kuro is so full of hatred through a cinematic: when Ori was lost, the flash of light the Spirit Tree sent out burned alive Kuro’s baby owls, who had recently hatched from their eggs, leaving only the single unhatched egg behind. Upon finding its babies dead, Kuro is filled with wrath and attacks the Spirit Tree, stealing the light core from its top, breaking the balance, and inadvertently throwing the forest into decay. Kuro arrives shortly, and Ori has to escape.

With only the element of Warmth left, Ori continues its mission by exploring a volcano. While this is happening, Gumo has decided to use the Light Vessel from the Gumon race to revive Naru, calling it to come to the volcano to help Ori. As Ori overcomes the challenge of the volcano and restores the element of Warmth, the volcano heat starts to spread and the forest catches fire. Kuro arrives and pursues Ori relentlessly. Eventually, Kuro finally catches them, capturing Sein. As it prepares to attack Ori, Naru and Gumo arrive, with Naru immediately jumping in to embrace Ori and protect it. Surprised with this show of motherly love, Kuro looks back at its nest to see the fire slowly catching up to its last unhatched egg. In a decision that shows both its intention to save its last egg, and to remedy its wrath after seeing the expression of love from Naru, Kuro takes Sein and flies away, putting it back to the top of the Spirit Tree. Sein restores the Spirit Tree, which immediately sends a wave of energy that puts out the fire. Unfortunately, Kuro was too close and is destroyed by the light wave.

We see the terrain of the forest slowly being to bloom again with roses and green leaves. The scene transitions to show Naru and Gumo living in Naru and Ori’s old cave. Naru checks that Kuro’s egg is safe and warm within the cave, and the game ends as the egg starts to hatch.

Graphics

The graphics were simple but quite beautiful. The art in each map area was nice, and each of the elements area had a colour palette related to its element, and was very well done.

The cinematics/landscape views, specially the one at the end where the forest grows back to life, was very beautiful.

Pros

  • Short game, around ten hours on hard difficulty
  • Visually beautiful
  • If you follow the story, it can be quite touching

Cons

  • Movement was a bit off, but perhaps this is personal preference
  • There is no big boss fight or harder puzzles, so there is not as much mechanical or “intellectual” challenge