The second game by Moon Studios manages to surpass everything done in the game prior. With continued effort and passion from all ranges of its crew, extending out to the designer of AM2R, to Gareth Coker's continued musical excellence, all the way to the head designers, Ori and the Will of the Wisps offers an amazing cohesive action platformer experience that to me, has no conceivable equal in the ways it excels.
The combat is practically DMC meets platforming, with similar gravity and a whole customizable moveset that extends and prioritizes air time, spacing, and bashing enemies to and fro. You're able to play both defensively and offensively at any moment, and all these options have their own costs and benefits. Each of the enemies are well done in terms of moveset and forcing you to be wary of their movements and danger zones. To extend this further, the combat also supplements the already amazing movement taken straight from Ori 1 (minus bash momentum no longer being conserved, which is really the only negative I have here). Using enemies to construct more air time gives you several ways to sequence break the game at any point. And finally, the bosses are spectacular, every single one having perfectly speedy ways to kill them and their movesets themselves being worthy challenges to master and fight around. Even if you're tired of those, the overworld has several combat trials for you to bash your head on, of which can be retried even after completion.
The level design itself is nothing short of exceptional, with challenges in spades and atmospheric delights at each doorstep. While I wish there was a more path of pain-esque area to fully utilize what you can do with moveset swaps, what's here is still excellent. The escape sequences are also way better now, with most of the trial/error bullshit taken out and keeping the grueling challenge and one-shot nature that is a perfect encapsulation of Ori's speed systems.
I can't talk about the levels of course without acknowledging how absolutely beautiful the art is, with each area having a wonderful color palette and distinct tone. The story and music is just as well supplemented , with what I believe to be Gareth Coker's best work as he makes exceptional emotional moments with Luma Pools and every escape sequence and boss battle. I was brought to tears more than once by just how well executed each moment was.
There are a few miscellaneous things to discuss, I really enjoy the "dungeons" of Ori 2 over the original, I like how upgrades and collectibles work with clear benefits to the latter and each upgrade being very distinct for the former. The Hollow Knight charms system is a worthy thing to grab to utilize here. Lastly, I want to cover my one and only issue, of which might date this review (since there's a patch forthcoming) but needs to be said. The performance bugs as well as optimization is almost awful. For a cohesive artistic experience like this, having sound buzzing if you're not running on a SSD and complete stuttering in a couple areas can really just break the whole thing at times. It's a tightrope you don't want to fall off of, so I hope the patch comes as soon as possible.
Either way, I can't wait to go back and 100% this game several times over, and start speedrunning this game to hell and back. I'm already practicing the boss times to fight as fast as possible. Despite the current issues, I'm giving this one of my best scores. (9.5/10)
The combat is practically DMC meets platforming, with similar gravity and a whole customizable moveset that extends and prioritizes air time, spacing, and bashing enemies to and fro. You're able to play both defensively and offensively at any moment, and all these options have their own costs and benefits. Each of the enemies are well done in terms of moveset and forcing you to be wary of their movements and danger zones. To extend this further, the combat also supplements the already amazing movement taken straight from Ori 1 (minus bash momentum no longer being conserved, which is really the only negative I have here). Using enemies to construct more air time gives you several ways to sequence break the game at any point. And finally, the bosses are spectacular, every single one having perfectly speedy ways to kill them and their movesets themselves being worthy challenges to master and fight around. Even if you're tired of those, the overworld has several combat trials for you to bash your head on, of which can be retried even after completion.
The level design itself is nothing short of exceptional, with challenges in spades and atmospheric delights at each doorstep. While I wish there was a more path of pain-esque area to fully utilize what you can do with moveset swaps, what's here is still excellent. The escape sequences are also way better now, with most of the trial/error bullshit taken out and keeping the grueling challenge and one-shot nature that is a perfect encapsulation of Ori's speed systems.
I can't talk about the levels of course without acknowledging how absolutely beautiful the art is, with each area having a wonderful color palette and distinct tone. The story and music is just as well supplemented , with what I believe to be Gareth Coker's best work as he makes exceptional emotional moments with Luma Pools and every escape sequence and boss battle. I was brought to tears more than once by just how well executed each moment was.
There are a few miscellaneous things to discuss, I really enjoy the "dungeons" of Ori 2 over the original, I like how upgrades and collectibles work with clear benefits to the latter and each upgrade being very distinct for the former. The Hollow Knight charms system is a worthy thing to grab to utilize here. Lastly, I want to cover my one and only issue, of which might date this review (since there's a patch forthcoming) but needs to be said. The performance bugs as well as optimization is almost awful. For a cohesive artistic experience like this, having sound buzzing if you're not running on a SSD and complete stuttering in a couple areas can really just break the whole thing at times. It's a tightrope you don't want to fall off of, so I hope the patch comes as soon as possible.
Either way, I can't wait to go back and 100% this game several times over, and start speedrunning this game to hell and back. I'm already practicing the boss times to fight as fast as possible. Despite the current issues, I'm giving this one of my best scores. (9.5/10)