Ori and The Will of the wisp takes everything great from the original one and cranks it to eleven. This is one of my favorite games of all time now, everything from story to gameplay to the beautiful often time haunting music is just perfect. Will of the wisp is the sequel to the blind forest that again follows Ori with his found family raising the last Owl baby of Kuro the main antagonist of the first game. It was great to see Gumo and Naru back as well I loved the blind forest so much and getting to see all of these characters return is amazing. Now, the little owl baby is named Ku and she can’t fly due to a birth defect on one of her wings. Ori helps her with the aid of a magic feather Ori had in the first game. So cut to some great mortgages of Ori helping to raise Ku, she eventually is able to fly with Ori on her back and they end up on a new island full of darkness in the middle of a storm. Lost and separated that is where our story starts.
From here on out there will be spoilers to if you haven’t played the game yet I recommended playing it then reading this!
So the gameplay is like the original Metroidvania style and it feels better than ever. In the first game, Ori didn’t really fight on his own a light spirit named Gil did that for you in this game though Ori is front and center forming all kinds of light weapons from swords and hammers to giant ninja stars and spears! Ori has all kinds of new fighting styles that are each fun to use. The games allows you to build your own Ori fighting style with the X, Y, and B buttons. You hold down LT and a menu pops up that allows you to map whatever ability you want to that button. There are also a ton of different shards that add to your abilities from allowing you to do more damage and have more health to also sticking to walls and being a magnet to other items.
The boss fights in the game are where it is at as well every fight is incredible with each boss having an epic soundtrack to it as well. The music for this game is incredible I love listening to it, it has just this beauty to it. The music feels haunted like it comes from a place of the past, it makes all the visuals you see in this game that much better. Speaking of visuals aside from a few frame rate issues I would have from time to time, this game is so colorful. Whenever you enter a world full of decay it is dark and full of death but then when you go let the light out there is so much color to the world. Everything becomes bright and amazing add the music in and you really can’t help but fall in love with the game.
The map itself is twice the size of the original with so much more to do as well, this game has side quest for each of these awesome characters in the game. While some of them have names that are a little hard to pronounce I honestly love all of them they make this world feel lived in and like there is a past to this land before Ori and Ku get there. Even the main villain Shriek I felt and understood, I really wish Ori could have helped her in some way the part of this game I didn’t like was that you can’t save Shriek, I felt there could be a way to do that. This game also has a safe zone called the glades where all of the characters you meet on your travels go to live. You can help Grom find ore throughout the world that allows you to build new stuff for the glades or help Tuley find new seeds to plant all over the glades as well. The more you help the more amazing the glades become.
This game feels to me a lot like Links awaking as well even having a side mission that has you handing off one item for another to different characters all over the map. While this I haven’t finished yet because the map is huge I can’t wait to go back see where that all ends.
In terms of story as well this game is full of emotions that carry you through the whole game and each of these characters has their own reason for doing what they do. The twist at the end of the game as well having Ori be the narrator from both games is really incredible too and something I didn’t see coming. In times like these where there is so much bad happening in the world Ori and the will of the wisp gave so much joy and reminded me of the beauty in our own world and to love the people in your life. This is truly an amazing game with so much heart in it. If you have the time to play it because it is also free with the Xbox Game pass! Also, everyone stay safe out there I know things are rough but stay hopefully things will get better! N8
Currently playing: Ori and the Will of the Wisps
