One fasset that really stands out in this game are the drift physics. How you can maneuver the car into doing your bidding. This makes you feel like a boss when nailing those hard courses. I played the game on hard and 100% it in 14h30min. Not easy but also not very hard. What can be frustrating though is the hitboxes of the clips. They often don't register as wel as perfect driftlines. You'll be repeating some courses for quite a while to get all the objectives. Now the annoying things... While the music was oké at the start of the game, I quickly switched to a playlist of my own. I find it a bit weird how loud some of the sound effects are in-game. When hitting the red boxes, perfect driftlines, grey boxes, when being airbourne, those sounds can become quite a nuisance. It's a pity they can be turned off seperatly in-game. I grinded the courses to be top 1 or 2% but apart from that, there isn't any replayabilty in my opinion. It was fun, graphics were oké, sound design could be better.
Story Loss, friendship, helping those in need and not to judge a book by its cover are the themes that I found while playing this art piece. Soundtrack/Sound Design The music written by Gareth Coker touches the heart and soul while the beautiful sounds of Aeralie Brightons voice guides you through the mysterious Forest of Nibel. The sounds composed fit the areas and different scenarios perfectly which when mastering the controls of Ori make you feel as if you are flying through this wonderful world. Graphics/Art Design One thing you'll notice is that the vibrant colours are jumping off the screen. The heavy use of blue and purple make for a dark, lonely and sad or even a dead enviroment, while the goldish yellow and green forestation brings out life in the Forest of Nibel. I love how those heavy contrasts are overlapping beautifully and each zone is defined by telling its own story coherent with Ori's story. Each area is a painting where a lot of work went into. You often just stand still to be in awe of the beautiful design. Gameplay Completed the game(100%) in 26hours on hard with a controller(XBOXONE), collecting everything and maxing out all skills even though I didn't need to. Once mastering the fluidity of the controls, all mistakes you make are probably your own when dying. As this is a platformer, you are going to move a lot. The abilities aren't overpowered or make the platforming easy. The combat in this game is personally not a highlight. Overal the gameplay is much fun, and not excruciating like some say it is. I'm not bothered by the fact that this game doesn't have any achievements (GOG Version). Summary If you like platformers with an amazing artstyle, a short but moving story with a score that you can keep listening to, i'd say for this pricepoint and time you invest in this game, it's certainly worth playing. Best to compare different user reviews to have a balanced view on the game, but it gets a strong recommendation from me.
