Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition

It's a cute looking game, the visuals and atmosphere was a major seeling point to me. And actually I like the classic Jump&Run and Action Adventure genre. However this game seems to focus more on player torture than a motivating balance as game design. I found myself way to often stuck in unforgiving situations that forces you to redo the last part you already beat. Just as in the the Souls genre I guess. Also, sometimes it feels as if the character-control is taken away from you, maybe because of difficulty reasons or something. For example, instead of being able to "stutter-jump" up a cliff as you are used to, you are forced to slip down this cliff into death, because the game just won't respond as expected. So effing frustrating! Regulary I feel disabled while playing. Meaning, I would probably be able to do a difficult part by my reaction and skill, but the game just isn't allowing it to happen for various reasons. And I get stuck in level design. I just could finally advance by rejumping across all level parts that still have open ends (sometimes you need a new ability to get across a huge gap for example, thats why there are many inaccessible parts of the levels at the beginning) - well, I have no idea why I didn't find the right way in the first place, but whatever, it happens I guess. - But now, again! I have no idea where to go, every path is blocked again. Bruuuuuh. This is the opposite of a motivating game to me, I just had to stop playing because of the blood pressure my annoyance is causing. Thus only 3 stars so far (even thinking about only 2). Not sure if I can complete this game. I guess I am going to try a couple of times and if the game isn't catching my interest anymore (or if it keep on trying to kill my love for life), then I am just gonna deinstall it, whatever. Sadface. Dear devs, torture isn't a good thing. I would never buy the sequel after this experience, just saying. Best regards anyway, it's a very cute loooking game.

Ori wants to be a Metroidvania...you can backtrack to maximize your life and abilities, but combat is almost pointless and what you need to do to progress is pretty linear. Ori wants to have cinematic action...several sections are meant to be epic escapes, but often these sections are so trial-and-error that it diminishes any epic feeling it attempts to create. Ori wants to be sentimental...but at least for me it felt cloying. It spends only a few minutes to try and pull heartstrings, and while it's fine to have a simple and typical story, I feel like it thinks it's more moving than it really is. People sometimes compare it to the movie Up...but I felt tears watching Up. I never once thought anything in this game except "they are really trying to go for the cute factor, aren't they." Ori wants to let people enjoy exploration but also wants to have the difficulty of older games...so it has huge sections of exploration that aren't too difficult and give you plenty of time to figure out your approach, but then has sections that are basically auto-scrolling and require a bit of trial-and-error to complete, and so those sections feel super difficult and sometimes not fair. Ori wants to be beautiful...and it is, although I would describe it more as cute. If you like platformers, love things described as cute, and don't mind a few spikes in difficulty that require several deaths to figure out, then this is worth a playthrough. You just have to persevere through those "hardcore" sections. My three stars means "it was fine, but I'm not likely to play it again."

story, graphics, soundtrack, you name it. this game is beautiful in every aspect.

It's hard to find how to begin with this review since the game has nearly perfect quality balance between music, game design, story, visuals, animations... everything. Quality of the visual art, music and animation is far beyond reasonable for such a small game, but that's what makes it so special - the product is supersaturated with quality and it definitely helps it to stand out. All the character animations are actually made by rendering 3D models' animations into high quality 2D sprites, and each frame of every animation is ensured to be flawless. Every single area has an unique background even if player has to keep attention on the foreground in order to survive. Some music tracks are much longer than needed for some of the game's cut scenes. Nothing is made cheap, the game is hand crafted masterpiece, a nearly perfect fusion of musical, visual and programming arts. Definitive Edition brings extra content at even higher quality, and some other great additions. About the escape sequences and "restart right at the beginning" - that's no longer the case with Definitive Edition as you can play on "Easy" difficulty level where your progress is actually auto-saved during escape sequences. I personally found original (2015'th edition's) difficulty just right for me, it's the "Normal" difficulty in Definitive Edition. Addition of the "One Life Difficulty" is a very nice touch that helps to get even more replay value and richer experience for those who already mastered the game - being careful and cautious makes experience far more immersive and stakes during the difficult sections are so high you get same emotions as during the first play-through! Difficulty spike in "Ginso Tree" is a thing, but that spike is necessary for complete experience since player receives new movement abilities soon after which makes hardcore platforming/walljumping obsolete. It was a tough game design decision but it was right since it ensures better experience for the majority of players.

Ori and the Blind Forest is a Metroidvania style game where the focus is on precise platforming gameplay, with light combat mechanics. Despite not being my type of game, I really enjoyed this game. Pros: - Beautiful atmosphere with amazing graphics and music. - Clever level design makes it a blast to play and explore the world. - Ability to create custom checkpoints just about any where is convenient and especially helpful for players new to platformers. Cons: - Floaty and inaccurate controls can result in deaths. - It can be difficult to make out enemy attacks and harmful environment traps due to visual clutter. - Too much trial and error gameplay where the only way to prevent death is to know about the upcoming danger in advance. - Some sections are frustratingly difficult for players not familiar with precise platformers. - Game is too short.