Ori and the blind forest takes the player through an emotional journey in a fictional world crafted by Moon Studio studios. The game takes place in the forest of Nibel during a strormy weather. In the mmiddle of the forest there is a giant tree which is called the Sirit tree, which is set to keep the forest safe and healthy. As a result of the storm
a leaf was blown away. The players are then introduce to a new character called Naru who was sitting on a rock watching the storm. Naru notices the leaf flying on top of her and she decides to follow the leaf. Once the leaf landed, a shining light struck it down and it revealed a small guardian spirit known as Ori. Naru makes the decision of taking the
newly born creature and raise it as her own. The two then live together in the forest collecting food and spent time together. One day while returning back from collecting food a weird phenomenon occured. The spirit tree called Ori back to it by shinning bright, making the night sky day. In fear of their safety and unaware between Ori's connection to the tree rushes to
Ori and takes them back to their safe house. Since The incident the duo continue to live in their cave as days gone by. When the heroes run out of food, Naru decides to step out in order to collect more food. The once upon a time green forest was now a shadow of it's former shell as the forest got burned, old and rusty. After awhile, Naru spots some food ontop of a tree
and tries her best to capture them. Ori wakes up and sees that they do not have much food left and tries to share it with Naru in which she declines as Ori needs the food more. Naru then falls asleep and Ori sees this as his opportunity to go and get food himself. On his way back with some new food, Ori tries to wake Naru but it was in vain. naru was not asleep but instead
she passed away. Ori was devestated and he lied down on Naru to sleep with her one last time.
With nothing left to him, Ori sets on jourey to find the spirit trees lights. Without food or any energy left in him Ori passes away. The spirit tree saw its child's last moments and uses what ever lefts of its power to revive Ori. A small spirit light arrives to Ori and explains to him how he is Sein, the spirit's tree Essence. Sein Reveals that The a few days ago the
spirit tree began the ceremony to call Ori back in which he didnt. On that same night an enormous owl named Kuro attacked the tree and stole Sein causing the balance of all elements to be shifted. Sein then requests Ori to team up, travel in the forest in order to restore the lights of water, wind and warmth. In doing so they would succesfully restore the forest to
its prime. On the quest the heroes will come across other habitands and heroes. There main concern is locating the light guardians on time and also not to be spotted by Kuro who has a very good reason as to why it attacked the guardian spirit in the first place.
Ori and the blind forest is a 2D platforming Metroidvania where the player controls a little spirit guardian named Ori. From the start of the game all the way till the end the player is free to explore the forest of Nibel. However the game being a metroidvania means that although some areas can be accessed relatively early, the hero will not be able to proceed after a certain point duo to
the fact that they will need an ability which can be found somewhere else. E.g The player reaches a new area where they have to go left or right. By going left the player will reach a dead end which requires double jump to proceed and double jump can only be acquired by heading right. By default Ori does not have many abilities to use, but the more the players progress the more abilities
they gain that help them to both manuver around and to fight off enemies. Although the game allows the player to move around freely, there are objectives that the player needs to reach. By checking on the map, the player will notice a giant bubble which represents the location that the player needs to reach one way or another. The game is filled with various locations filled with different
challenges. Ori is very vonurable and thus any spikes, fire or enemy projectile can kill Ori easily.
Skills are unlocked by default by progressing the story and other skills are unlocked by simply leveling up and openning Ori skills Board. Abilities unlocked through the story are manuver abilities such as swimming, wall bounce, wall climbing and others. On the other hand abilities gained by leveling up and absorbing orange spheres are more like buffs to already established attacks. For
example, attack more than just one enemy at the time, deal more damage when attacking/or groundbouncing etc. Furthermore Ori's skills board has skills relating to explorations. This can be pinning significant locations in maps, see secret locations that are hidden behind walls etc. Last but not least there are abilities that can allow Ori to restore more health when saving the game, restore
more energy when killing enemies and magnetise items when dropped. The skill board can always be accessed by the player as long as they re ontop of their save point. They can always obtain points and always spent them on the board. On the other hand skills obtain from story can also be skipped but the most important ones will be given to the player by default. For example on my playthrough i
finished the game without obtainning the dashing ability which would ve made plenty of challenging platforming sections easier.
Ori and the blind forest focused mostly in the platforming part of the game and placed combat as second. This can be easily noted when playing the game and it can also be seen from all the reviews done on this game. The combat has the hero walking around using Sein as the main means of attack. With a tap of a button Sein will attack the nearby enemies. When powered up through the skill tree
Sein can deal more damage and also attack multiple targets. This attacks can happen with a tap of a button. Holding down the button can cause a major blow however it will consume an entire energy orb. Furthermore another way of attacking enemies is through the stomp ability where Ori ground pounds and deals AoE attacks. Moreover another way of attacking enemies is through slingshot. Once this
ability is unlocked ori can freeze time and choose which direction will Ori take and which one the enemy. The same ability can be used in projectile attacks in order to redirect the enemy attack. Hitting enemies with their own attack deals alot of damage.
The combat of the game is not on par with the rest of the game as in the beggining Ori feels very powerfull but the more the player progress the less effective his attacks feel. Additionally at times the combat is too flashy which can make Ori to dissappear from the screen due to the sparking effects. As mentioned above, Ori is very squeeshy thus, being lost in flashy effes during combat can
cause an easy death.
The game does not have an autosave feature as often as others game. It does offer a few, but the majority of saves are done manually through the player. Ori has the ability to create a save location anywhere in the map unless its on a dangerous spot or during a rush moment. All the players need to create their save spot is by spending a blue bar energy. The players can create thespot when they
passed a hard challenege, when they find a boss room or even during a hard area filled with one shot items. There are also save stones placed by the game where the players can rest and restore all of their health, save their game and also use as a fast travel. Dying will respawn the hero on their last place save spot.
Collectables:
The game has plenty of collectables but they re in the form of collecting green and blue orbs. Green Orbs represent the life orbs and the blue re used in order to use Ori's abilities. Around the maps there are stones that when placed on Map stones they unlock the map. Last but not least Orange orbs can be found around which will reward the player with plenty of energy.
Music & Animation :
The music of the game as mentioned before is very good and really suits the games atmosphere. Throughout the game the music sets the mood for the current map, events and cutscenes. The animation combines 3D models rendered in 2D which allows from more expressive characters and well detailed models.
Amiibo
The Amiibo do not have any use in Ori.
Overall Ori and the blind forest is a fantastick game which is very well design with the purpose of being challenging and rewarding. When the player succesfully passes a challenge it can be very satisfying. The maps and locations are all well designed and re escorted with a nice melody. The gameplay is seperated in 2 parts, Platforming and Combat. The platforming feels very smooth as Ori receives more abilities which further expands upon all the maps. The combat of the game is its weakest part as it doesnt feel rewarding and after a certain point it feels more like a chore. Moon Studio Studio did confirmed that they were aware of the combat being an issue after the game was released and thus they implemented changed in the Sequel. Lastly, the game doesnt have any post game content other than the oportunity to do speedruns and challenge runs. The story of the game is very good and will most likely bring people tears, smiles, joy and frustration.