Video Game Review: Ori And The Blind Forest Definitive Edition – An Astoundingly Beautiful Tale

Developer Moon Studios
Publisher Microsoft Studios
Genre Platformer
Game modes Single Player
Reviewed on Xbox One

Available on PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One

MG Thabo

Published March 18, 2016

Ori and the Blind Forest

You play the titular character, Ori, a cute little creature of light that lives within the forest of Nibel. Ori is taken from the Spirit Tree’s branches and cast into the forest below. Naru, a native creature of the forest, finds Ori in a battered state and decides to take Ori on as her own child. A beautiful relationship blossoms as this unlikely mother-child duo live their lives in the forest. One day there is a cataclysmic event that shakes the very fabric of the forest and causes Ori to get separated form Naru and left hopeless and alone. The story deliberately tries to evoke some emotional response out of you with moments of poignancy and tragedy and for the most part it succeeds.

Ori is joined by an entity called Sein who is a being of light that possesses great power. The two are tasked to restore the forest by restoring the three Elements of Light, namely Water, Wind and Warmth. There’s also an antagonist in the form of Kuro, a massive bird that wants to enact her revenge on the Spirit Tree and the forest. Revealing further details would be venturing into spoiler territory, but the story serves as the framework for what happens in the game. While the story is particularly powerful, it didn’t grip me as hard as I thought it would. It wasn’t my main concern while going through the game, but it did serve as a beautiful framework for the rest of the game and there are some pretty noteworthy moments throughout.

The game is a Metroidvania inspired 2.5 D puzzle platformer and that means that you will get more and more abilities as you’re playing the game and you have to use them to traverse through every level. During your initial exploration of an area you will discover upgrade orbs and items that are unobtainable at that present time, but once you have unlocked a certain ability, you can reach those areas. It encourages a lot of exploration and thankfully the game makes you want to explore as much as you can. The game has a fairly rapid pace, but it is a good kind of pace that makes you feel like you’re really progressing and doing something meaningful with your time.

There are a multitude of abilities that you unlock as you play the game and some can be relatively simple while others completely change your playstyle. It keeps everything fresh and interesting and does a good job of keeping you from becoming at all bored with the game. You can also upgrade Ori with the use of experience orbs you gain from killing enemies and exploring the environment. The upgrades aren’t central to the combat and traversal, but they do make your job a lot easier and gives the game extra variety. A great feature that the game uses is that you can save at any point you wish, given that there are no enemies and the ground is stable. It allows for some trial and error that won’t make you want to rip your hair off since you can determine your own starting point after a reload.

The game is fairly difficult, all things considered, and you will find yourself frustrated at times due to save locations being far away or a section requiring precise movements. The controls also falter a little bit on occasion where some jumps and actions don’t function correctly and cause you to die. Thankfully these moments are few and far between and they don’t matter in the overall scope of the game. There’s a lot of enemy variety that correspond with the particular environment you’re exploring and you’re always anxious to move on to the next section and see what will happen.

Now to probably the game’s best aspect and that is the visuals. Ori and the Blind Forest is astoundingly beautiful to a degree where you might not believe your eyes at times. You will find yourself gawking at your screen more often than not. The visual style is so beautiful that it elevates the experience tenfold. During each “section” of the game, you are presented with a new theme and you want to keep going just to see the next one. They often say graphics aren’t everything, but in this game it is a huge part of the experience. Along with the visual design, the sound design is also magnificent with a largely orchestral and vocal focused soundtrack that frames the game excellently.

Ori and the Blind Forest is a sort of love letter to gaming. It takes what makes games great and makes a beautiful experience from it. There’s very little to fault the game on besides a few niggles, but in the end it’s just a really fun and worthwhile game to play. You can sit down with it and enjoy yourself immensely for all of the 8 or so hours it takes you to finish the game. You will leave the experience happier than you were going in for sure and disappointment isn’t even an option when describing the game. I would say it’s one of the best looking games I’ve had the pleasure of playing as well as one of the most fun platformers I’ve played which is a huge boon in the game’s favour since I’m often not a fan of platformers. It carries my highest recommendation and my appeal that you go buy this game as soon as you possibly can and enjoy yourself. I guarantee you will.

Definitive Edition

The Definitive Edition comes with a bunch of additional features that make the game even better. There’s 2 brand new areas that you can access early on in the game where you can gain two additional abilities that will help you out significantly throughout the game. The fact that they can be obtained so early makes it that you can enjoy the benefits of them as soon as possible. One of the new areas also gives you a little more backstory on Naru and reveals a bit more about her intentions and motivations. Additionally, they have allowed you to use fast travel between certain save points and I’m surprised this wasn’t in the original given that it makes exploring and obtaining upgrades from previous areas much more convenient. I couldn’t imagine not having it while playing and it’s only more excellence on top of an already stellar package.

If you have a choice, definitely consider getting the Definitive Edition. It is well worth your investment.

Ori and the Blind Forest released last year already to much critical acclaim. It was heralded as a beautiful Metroidvania inspired platformer and it has garnered much love from the gaming community. Since then they have released a Definitive Edition of the game that includes a bunch more features that aim to make the already excellent game even better. Thankfully for me, I haven't played the game yet due to not having an Xbox One, but I have since gotten one. This gave me a fantastic excuse to play the game that everyone was raving about last year and I have to say, they weren't wrong. I'll now give a review of the original game and the contents of the Definitive Edition. You can skip the main review if you've played it before and skip straight to the Definitive Edition content below if you wish to. Ori and the Blind Forest You play the titular character, Ori, a cute little creature of light that lives within the forest of Nibel. Ori is taken from the Spirit Tree's branches and cast into the forest below. Naru, a native creature of the forest, finds Ori in a battered state and decides to take Ori on as her own child. A beautiful relationship blossoms as this unlikely mother-child duo live their lives in the forest. One day there is a cataclysmic event that shakes the very fabric of the forest and causes Ori to get separated form Naru and left hopeless and alone. The story deliberately tries to evoke some emotional response out of you with moments of poignancy and tragedy and for the most part it succeeds. Ori is joined by an entity called Sein who is a being of light that possesses great power. The two are tasked to restore the forest by restoring the three Elements of Light, namely Water, Wind and Warmth. There's also an antagonist in the form of Kuro, a massive bird that wants to enact her revenge on the Spirit Tree and the forest. Revealing further details would be venturing into spoiler territory, but the story serves as the framework for what happens in the game. While the story is particularly powerful, it didn't grip me as hard as I thought it would. It wasn't my main concern while going through the game, but it did serve as a beautiful framework for the rest of the game and there are some pretty noteworthy moments throughout. The game is a Metroidvania inspired 2.5 D puzzle platformer and that means that you will get more and more abilities as you're playing the game and you have to use them to traverse through every level. During your initial exploration of an area you will discover upgrade orbs and items that are unobtainable at that present time, but once you have unlocked a certain ability, you can reach those areas. It encourages a lot of exploration and thankfully the game makes you want to explore as much as you can.…

Video Game Review: Ori And The Blind Forest Definitive Edition – An Astoundingly Beautiful Tale

2016-03-18

MG Thabo

A Must Play

Total - 9.5

9.5

Ori and the Blind Forest is a love letter to everything that makes games great. With a great story, amazing visual design, tight and responsive platforming, there isn't much to fault the game on. It's a relative no brainer that you need this game in your life and the Definitive Edition just adds more to love. A masterpiece.

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MG Thabo

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Marko has played way too many games, listened to way too many metal albums and is probably taller than you. He is a qualified language and communication practitioner and likes to write about the good things in gaming.