If you had a dream for an entirely original game concept, how much would you be willing to compromise your vision for more sales? If it was possible to quantify such a thing, imagine that making it more appealing to the mainstream by 5% would also increase reception and sales by 5%. Would you stick to your guns and create a completely uncompromised game, even if it meant a Metacritic score of 50? Maybe making it just a little easier or a little more direct would be enough, just so you get to the 70 range and a trickle of word-of-mouth sales. It wouldn’t be a best-seller, but if someone was interested enough to buy it, they would be likely to finish the game with a positive experience.

Rain World decided not to compromise even 1%. This game wants to make a statement about nature, and saw the tiniest bit of compromise to make it fair or predictable as antithetical to the message. For starters, you play as a lonely Slugcat, a defenseless rodent trying to locate the rest of its kind in a journey across an industrial zone overtaken by nature. While predators can snap you up in one bite and machines can crush you effortlessly, all you’re able to do is pick up stuff, throw items, climb, and eat. Your journey is a progression from water lock to water lock, hiding each night from a torrential flood of rain which also kills you instantly. To not starve in the middle of the night, you need to have at least four stocks of food, and surviving a night increases your progression meter by one. Filling this meter to a certain level is required to open the doors between the major areas, but dying means the loss of two levels. This means that to progress to a new area, you have to scour for food sources on a time limit while avoiding unpredictable instant-kill predators and any mistake means you have to repeat the process at least two more times. Once you get to a new area, there isn’t always an immediate water lock, so you have to quickly explore and avoid the new predators after spending most of your time just entering the area in the first place. While those are just the basics, it gives a taste of just how brutal the survival in this game is. I quit the game three times before pushing myself to finish it, and even then I wasn’t exactly having fun.

The reason I'm belaboring the point of just how little fun I had in this uncompromising murderscape is twofold: firstly, to let you know what you’re getting into if you do decide to buy it, which you just might when you hear that secondly, all the pain was worth it. It all paid off. The slow reveal of the game’s themes was absolutely magical. The ending was a perfect mesh of story and gameplay satisfaction, where I felt like I accomplished something and really learned something. It’s the most satisfied I’ve ever felt when completing a game in my entire life. It’s probably going to end up in my top ten games of all time. If all this sounds intriguing to you, and you think you can handle the pain, I’ll be cheering for you every step of the way. Stay dry, Slugcat.

I've been waiting for a sequel to Ori and the Blind forest practically the moment I was looking at it's credits rolling. I knew a second part of this masterful game would double down on its strength and introduce us to another awe-inspiring world.
There is so much "good" in this game, it deserves the highest praise possible. But I want to focus on two things, that in my opinion make this game the best of its genre. The Art-Direction and the gameplay itself.

Anyone who remotely heard of the first part, probably knows what to expect. The level design is out of this world, literally. Every area or biome looks completely different, giving you the feeling you are exploring something new up until the very end. Every stage has so many very detailed layers, that reach far in the background to give it depth. Everything moves, breathes, reacts... just lives. The characters are often times cute and their stories heartfelt, sometimes sad and always a joy to follow, even though all you get is a few lines here and there. The sound design underlines everything perfectly and adds a beautiful soundtrack on top.

What makes this game the best of its kind though, is the way gameplay progression is paced and placed very carefully. What I mean by that, is, that from the beginning up until the very last moment of the game, you get new abilities and upgrades, that make you feel stronger. Every area introduces something new, just at the right moment, so that you had enough time to master all previous abilities. It's just perfectly timed. Nothing beats the moment though, were you start to combine these abilities, some complementing each other so well, that you start to breeze through the world like a ninja, making you feel like a pro. Traversal and fighting in this game is perfection and you won't get bored at any time, that's a promise.

I also feel the game arrives at a perfect time, as the villainy of the games antagonist roots in the fear and anger and discrimination we see ever so often in the real world. It is in contrast to the "good side" which thrives through collaboration and inclusiveness. There is a reason for the evil in the world and we can change that, one step at a time.