Ori and the Will of the Wisps carries over and improves upon most of its predecessors strengths. Namely, it looks and sounds a treat, and flows beautifully. The story hits similar emotional beats and is delivered with grace and flair.
It's in the game design where we see more of a give and take. Blind Forest may have worked within a Metroidvania-like structure, but progression was strictly linear outside of unintended sequence breaks. Wisps adopts this for its first third, but then branches out with multiple objectives. Not only this, but Wisps opts for a more fleshed out set of quests, collectibles and systems, allowing for a greater degree of personalisation and deeper incentives for exploration. It's nothing ground-breaking, but it serves to flesh out the Metroidvania aspect that felt a a bit weak in Blind Forest. Still, I'd wish for more interconnectivity to really take things to the next level, and a more restrictive fast-travel system could help facilitate this design.
A Hollow Knight-esque badge/shard system works in conjunction with a vastly improved combat system; easily Blind Forest's worst feature, combat has been rendered quite good here in Wisps, with some legitimate boss fights that manage to give closure and climax. It's not on the level of a Hollow Knight, but it's a huge step up.
So that's the "give", what's the "take"? Blind Forest's assurance that the player would have almost every ability possible up to any given point in the game allowed for platforming challenges that utilised all these abilities. While Wisps is certainly no slouch in this department, its more open progression forced the designers to scale back on this element, owing to the fact that players will acquire some abilities in different orders.
Taken as a whole, I do think Wisps comes out on top over Blind Forest, and is frankly one of the best of its kind, with a few missteps that hold it back from being on the level of Super Metroid or Hollow Knight. Might a third Ori title hit this legendary status? I wouldn't be surprised.
It's in the game design where we see more of a give and take. Blind Forest may have worked within a Metroidvania-like structure, but progression was strictly linear outside of unintended sequence breaks. Wisps adopts this for its first third, but then branches out with multiple objectives. Not only this, but Wisps opts for a more fleshed out set of quests, collectibles and systems, allowing for a greater degree of personalisation and deeper incentives for exploration. It's nothing ground-breaking, but it serves to flesh out the Metroidvania aspect that felt a a bit weak in Blind Forest. Still, I'd wish for more interconnectivity to really take things to the next level, and a more restrictive fast-travel system could help facilitate this design.
A Hollow Knight-esque badge/shard system works in conjunction with a vastly improved combat system; easily Blind Forest's worst feature, combat has been rendered quite good here in Wisps, with some legitimate boss fights that manage to give closure and climax. It's not on the level of a Hollow Knight, but it's a huge step up.
So that's the "give", what's the "take"? Blind Forest's assurance that the player would have almost every ability possible up to any given point in the game allowed for platforming challenges that utilised all these abilities. While Wisps is certainly no slouch in this department, its more open progression forced the designers to scale back on this element, owing to the fact that players will acquire some abilities in different orders.
Taken as a whole, I do think Wisps comes out on top over Blind Forest, and is frankly one of the best of its kind, with a few missteps that hold it back from being on the level of Super Metroid or Hollow Knight. Might a third Ori title hit this legendary status? I wouldn't be surprised.