Ori and the Blind Forest

Mecanicamente muito competente, é uma delícia jogá-lo e atravessar as sessões de plataforma, principalmente perto do fim, quando seu personagem tem atributos suficientes pra superar os obstáculos de forma mais ágil.

Mas fora isso, não me conectei com o universo. Achei a música, cenários e estilo de animação um tantinho genéricos. O sistema de salvamento é pouco prático e as sequências de fuga irritam.

Honestly super mixed on this game in a lot of respects, a feeling that's probably exacerbated by the fact that the good things in this are really, REALLY good. It's another of the bigger examples of the influx of indie metroidvanias that came out within the last decade or so and in quite a few ways it's extremely easy to see why it's gotten as much praise as it has. Not only is the game visually stunning and emotionally gut wrenching at points, but from a mechanical standpoint, the movement side of things is absolutely top notch and is able to give a certain sense of appeal to even the most basic of interactions. With that said, I can't say I really love the game as a whole either and feel that it has a few pretty glaring weaknesses that drag it down to the point where there were points I could barely even say I was enjoying myself on any level, which is a pretty rough place to be.

Of these grievances, the biggest one is the one that a lot of others mark as the biggest flaw of the game as well, and that's that the combat is very unsatisfying and barebones for the most part, with it mostly boiling down to hanging around the general vicinity of an enemy and spamming attack for your homing shots to go at them. It doesn't really lead to any situations where the idea of raw combat is actually interesting due to this, and feels so lacking that I could make a genuine argument for just removing this altogether and losing absolutely nothing of value, with the way they currently work feeling more like minor nuisances than anything to bring any sort of thought to the table. It's just fortunate that the game itself seems to know this to an extent, because as time goes on, a lot of these types of encounters feel overtly pushed to the side in favour of the other ways in which combat it used in the game. While raw combat encounters might be the worst part of this game by a landslide, I really appreciate some of ways in which combat mechanics end up being used to further bolster the platforming elements, often placing enemies in such a way to utilise more as tools to continue exploring, as opposed to an obstacle. This not only succeeds at bringing in a natural sense of hostility to the player's environment, but makes for even more avenues of crafting unique movement challenges that make most of the more structured sections feel rather exciting.

With that said however, I also found the exploration of the game to be pretty hit or miss due to the level and world design, they got half of this so spot on with how Ori actually moves around, but what you move around on tends to lack a certain something. I feel that the map feels more like a set of linear areas with a couple of tiny branching areas that lead to a collectible rather than a more compelling, interconnected landscape that truly benefits from its Metroidvania design philosophies. What ends up happening because of this is that I rarely ever feel like I'm exploring for the sake of exploring, I'm either moving along to the spot on the map that I'm told to move to, or going about 10 seconds out of the way to pick up an item that I can now reach. The extrinsic rewards are all in place for sure, but there's rarely anything that feels intrinsically rewarding about exploring most of the map, especially given how most areas lack a sense of individual identity or variety, with the bulk of the landscapes just being different shades of forest, and while I know that the game is literally called Ori and the Blind FOREST, it still mostly just blends together is largely unsatisfying way with the few moments of variety not really being enough to offset this fact.

Funnily enough, the additional content added in the definitive edition was my favourite section of the game for the way that it was entirely detached from everything else, no objective markers leading to it, nothing at all like that, just a giant, labyrinthine cave system hidden beneath the rest of the world that continued to open up and morph as it went on. I wholeheartedly believe that the game would have benefitted from more areas like this that kinda just branched off and drastically changed as they went on, which would not only make for a more compelling gameplay experience, but would have been amazing at strengthening the more mysterious, whimsical elements of the forest to truly breathe life into the place. I also feel like I absolutely need to mention the fact that while I've complained a fair bit, I cannot praise Ori's mobility enough, especially once the dash move is unlocked and makes for some of the coolest stuff I've seen in one of these games because of how damn versatile it is. The game keeps giving you mew abilities that expand upon your existing capabilities in new, surprising ways, almost always adding some extra flair to things and rarely just being a basic ability that you could find anywhere else. As such, this ends up giving a lot of personality to your mobility.

Overall I think that this game has some really, really big flaws that stop it from being one that I truly love. With that said, I also don't think it's a game that can really be written off either because of the fact that while it's inconsistent, it gets some things so monumentally right that it's kinda impressive. This is also definitely a case of this being a game that I could easily see other people enjoying more than me, so yeah, while this wouldn't be my first choice of game to replay, I'd still heavily recommend it, especially with stuff like the incredibly emotional prologue showing that this game had the potential to be a masterpiece. I've heard that the sequel manages to improve upon this on almost every front as well, which makes me very excited to eventually get around to playing that in the future.

Looks great, but there are a lot of sloppy bits. combat sucks, platforming isn't living up to it's potential, all the systems like item upgrades are half baked and the levels are okay. The second one fixes almost all of the problems.

Maybe this is my fault. I kinda just hailed this as the best game I've never played, so I was pretty excited to get into it! But I have a lot of issues with this game, like a lot more than I was expecting. While this game is at times really beautiful, a lot of the visual effects that are just plastered all over the game make it so that it's really hard to tell what's going on, a lot of the visual information gets lost to me unless I squint. The combat leaves so much to be desired, it's literally just button mashing in a way that's not even really controllable by you. Also it faults in the same way many platformers do where they add precision platforming with floaty ass controls!!! I just don't understand why that's necessary at all, so inconsistent with stuff. The story is.... boring. So cut and dry and basic ass shit. Cute looking characters, devastation across the world, and you save it, wow, round of applause. I have no attachment to these characters and I just simply don't care about them. I played through this whole thing thinking that at some point when all the mechanics came around that I would finally have it click, and that the poorly implemented music and generic feel to it all was just a lapse of judgement. But then the credits appeared.

Despite the fresh art direction and fancy graphics, "Ori and the Blind Forest" is essentially an old-school Metroidvania. I had trouble digesting it at first, but as soon as I got more familiar with the controls it started to become more and more addicting. The learning curve is gentle enough to keep you engaged without introducing too many elements at once. Still, I have to confess that some parts have been frustrating to the point I developed an acute form of spike-phobia. At least the game gives you the chance to spend energy orbs and chose where to create checkpoints, so that you don't need to repeat whole segments dozens of times.

Overselling the atmosphere and aesthetic of Ori and the Blind Forest is just impossible. It is, simply, one of the most beautiful games I have ever played. But this isn't a case of style over substance, because the style is so substantive it would make basically any game special on its own; the style IS the substance. Propping up a simple but effective enough story that is childlike in the best way, fantastical rather than inane, the graphics and soundtrack were aiming for a nu-folklore aesthetic and pretty much nailed it.

The game at the core is pretty great too, but in a much less nuanced and impactful way. Ori is just a really solid Metroidvania platformer with a lot of neat puzzles reminiscent of Celeste (yes I know it came out later) or the new Raymans. But aside from some powerups that weave enemy interactions into the puzzle solving, there's not a lot we haven't seen before, the item-hunting aspects are honestly pretty ho-hum, and while the platforming feels great, the combat does absolutely nothing for the experience. Altogether, it was just a bit too frustrating. I know most of it comes down to me being bad at the game, but a unique "make your own checkpoint" system doesn't add enough levity or ingenuity to the combat to make it a spotless experience, and enemies are too numerous and ferocious for this not to be a letdown. Still, all the frustrating parts were well worth fighting through for some great setpieces.