Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (2019, Switch) Review

IT DRAGS ME DOWN

Is it worth sacrificing visual clarity for beauty? It depends on the game, of course, but in the case of Ori and the Blind Forest I would say the answer is a resounding no. Moon Studios' first game takes place in vibrant, Studio Ghibli-inspired nature where trees, flowers and bushes all beam with bioluminescent magic. Not only that, the player character Ori shines, projectiles shine, fireflies shine. Sometimes the background shines as the sun or moon monitors the landscape. And to top it off, the visual bloom effect seems maximízed to increase the glowing effect.

My problem is that it often feels overdesigned and distracting. Layers of parallax scrolling paint the screen with cluttered beauty. The aesthetics directly interfere with the 2D platform-puzzling and action gameplay, muddling or even obstructing important visual cues. Details in the foreground occasionally hide important things, like your own avatar in combat or upcoming hazards. It's hard to discern glowing enemy projectiles from glowing power-ups as Ori pulls them in. When even Ori himself starts looking like a light bulb it's hard to tell what's going on, where you are exactly, and where to go to avoid getting hurt.

Not every area and situation is afflicted by this curse, but enough to make the game suffer. The fairytale vibe would fit a relaxing, meditative experience, like a story exploration game where your actions don't matter much in terms of gameplay. But instead, it plays like Celeste, or Super Meat Boy, or any other hardcore puzzle-platformer where you die a thousand deaths.

In Ori and the Blind Forest, you're asked to perform death-defying acrobatics with a focus on speed and precision. Using a constantly increasing moveset, you need to avoid spikes, energy beams and enemy shots, climb walls and glide or dash through the air, figuring things out in real-time as you go.

The story being told, all minimalistic from a narrative standpoint, is conveyed through a bright and colorful visual language. Ori is a creature of light that gets separated from the Tree of Life in a storm. He is found and raised by an extremely Ghibli-esque creature called Naru, until one day darkness consumes the land. All life withers as food runs out and Naru dies from starvation. Ori is the only mournful soul left to explore the world and restore life, all the while hunted by a giant, black owl.

As an experience, it's full of contrasts like that. Life and death. Light and darkness. Cuteness and brutality. Unfortunately, for me the storytelling doesn't resonate emotionally - it's too on-the-nose. I like that the writing is sparse, but the score and visuals are anything but. It feels like overkill, like a shortcut to saltwater. Sure, the introduction works as an incentive to save the world, but I couldn't share Ori's grief, since Naru dies before we've really gotten familiar with her.

In terms of gameplay, Ori and the Blind Forest is well thought-out, at least when it comes to challenge design and game mechanics. After the opening tragedy, you set out to explore a metroidvanian world setup, getting stronger by upgrading your health pool and power reserves. That power is best used to create custom save points, a great feature that I wish more games would mimic. The world is a maze of gauntlets, but the metroidvanian design feels redundant since there's little reason to go looking for secrets. The rewards - experience, health upgrades, etc. - are simply too meager, considering the effort of getting them.

At certain points you unlock new movement abilites, followed by a section where you get to try out those skills. These sections range from frustrating to great. I particularly enjoy the inventiveness behind the air dash, used by bouncing off enemies or their projectiles to remain in the air.

This leads to some crazy situations where you need to juggle yourself in the air over long stretches of spikes. Some of these area designs suck, however, having too few enemies that pop up and down like whack-a-moles. They're unreliable, not appearing when they need to, and their rate of fire is too slow - you sometimes can't keep yourself airborn for long enough. Other maneuvers are kinda standard - double-jumping, climbing and gliding through the air - but no less welcome, as your ways to traverse the devious world increase.

Traps are everywhere and reduce your health by a lot, and a well-meaning game would make sure to point them out visually in some capacity; by sharp, contrasting colors for instance. Ori and the Blind Forest doesn't - instead, they kinda blend in with the surroundings. You need to plunge blindly into a zone and die repeatedly to understand what's expected of you. Some people don't mind that. I usually don't either, but Ori takes it too far. The game seems hell-bent on constantly screwing you over.

Ori's movement is too imprecise for a precision platformer. He sprints, somersaults and double-jumps with all the pace a creature of light should, but in my hands it plays painfully. He reaches top speed instantly, and when you're trying to land on the edge of a hanging pole, or a narrow ledge, you constantly miss and overcorrect. Granted, I have well-documented issues with every Switch-controller I've tried, even the Pro Controller. It's quite possible I would enjoy the PC-version more.

My movement issues reach their sorriest state in the escape scenes, where you need to flee oncoming forces of nature; a flash flood, a storm and a volcanic eruption. Again, these are nice in theory but are ridiculously hard because of the unreliable controls and the fast-incoming barrage of hazards. Ideally, you would enter some sort of trance-like, free-flowing mental state, but you're denied such power fantasies. These scenes became a major roadblock for me.

Another roadblock is the dreadful combat. Constantly respawning enemies keep interrupting your progress. Their health takes too long to whittle down since your standard attack is weak, even when fully upgraded. Your standard defensive capabilites are non-existent, and it feels like Ori's missing a dodgeroll. Instead, you're encouraged to counter enemy projectiles by reversing them with the dash, or sacrificing power to detonate a magic bomb, but these attacks are clunky and hard to time correctly. Waiting for an enemy to attack just to counter gets aggravating fast.

There's certainly a good game beyond all the frustrations. Some fantastic ideas are there, and those rare moments when the challenges strike the right balance I'm having a blast. It's beautiful to look at and the music tries, albeit unsuccessfully, to soothe me with its piano-plunking melodies and angelic choirs. But I never reach that nirvana the game needs for me to enjoy it, because it seems adamant to mock me. It mercilessly drags me down towards those spikes, with my mood in tow. It's nonetheless a promising first attempt from Moon Studios, and I hope the sequel gets it right.