Ori is a fantastic game in many ways. Its artstyle is great, it has an amazing soundtrack, as well as a heartfelt story, but it's so unfortunately bogged down by issues on the gameplay end that it kept me from truly enjoying the game to the extent I wanted to. The new abilities you can get are great, and make this game have a great sense of progression, but over time they start to make you keenly aware of how strange Ori feels to control at some times. The bash ability is almost single handedly responsible for this game being good. A lot of the difficulty also feels strangely tuned. Most of it comes from the save system in this game, which is an interesting idea that I think ultimately falls flat. The usage of limited item pickups to make save points often leads to long sections where you can't access saving, and one mistake leads to you having to redo that entire portion. Overall, this game is one of the greatest arguments one could make for a game as strictly a piece of art, and has immense potential as a gameplay concept, but falls short in several key areas. It is however absolutely worth a playthrough. Also I've been told the sequel fixes everything so none of this really matters anyway.

Reviewed on Dec 02, 2023


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