Ori immediately sets the right pace of the narrative. The player tells the story of a magical forest Niebel, where everyone lives in harmony thanks to the endless light that is felt here even in the ground.
Ori – child Niebel and good spirit, the light is able to maintain the forest and its inhabitants. Ori once lost and remains all alone. It is strange, but pretty creature named Naru and takes care of Ori, how about your child.
Ori and The Blind Forest – a fairy tale, where the main character will die, and more than once.
In a bleak night in the woods becomes restless – a terrible cataclysm happens, marks the end of the era. Niebel light fades, giving way to darkness, but because of the drastic changes everything into chaos. Hope is weak, but not yet extinguished – to return to equilibrium can only Ori. Alone again, again lost.
Some subtle details and touches of the author succeeds in a few minutes to establish a strong emotional connection with the player’s main character and even to the forest, continuing until the final credits.
After a brief prologue Ori and the Blind Forest lets the player to free travel on the huge map Niebel. At first, however, to reach every corner of it will not work – here a strange door, which needs to open some strange debris and there passage littered with stationary rocks and so on.
That’s not to mention the fact that our hero first even jumps are hard – for animation shows how the Ori is struggling to grab the ledge to avoid falling back down.
The authors originally conceived Ori and The Blind as a sincere declaration of love classics.
But to help flagging spirit comes Sein – another keeper Niebel, designed to help Ori return light. Another Sein said sketches of past inhabitants of the forest, forcing the player’s imagination to play with images and think out the story in his own way – just like in the best children’s books.
Here are just Ori and The Blind Forest – a fairy tale, where the main character will die, and more than once. Conservation is not automatic – the player himself has to create the spirit of connection, which consumes energy – resource replenished from broken crystals at a level and sometimes by killing monsters.
Initially, each “camp” must be strictly count, but more energy becomes greater, and the resource is developed rather quickly.
If you want to survive, will have to fight. Ways of cracking down on opponents not so much: the spiritual fire “bomb spirit” and a couple of tricks.
Rather than give Ori a large arsenal of weapons, the authors have focused on acrobatics – is often more profitable to just zip past opponents.
At some stage, the player is given the coolest skills to build on the enemies and their projectiles, thus overcoming long distances without touching the ground.
A little later, you learn to use it to also redirect the attack, thereby killing the enemy or, for example, break down the barrier that hides the secret passage.
This unique mechanics built a lot of memorable moments, whether it be to promote the cave, full of thorns, or aircraft rodeo with birds, which prove to be not as agile as our hero.
All of these “large” capacity have their noble origins – he learns from Ori spirits, fallen into eternal sleep after the Cataclysm. Sein tells the story of what they were and how they were called, and the rest, again, the player is free to think out itself.
It’s funny that the authors originally conceived Ori and The Blind as a sincere declaration of love classics like Rayman and Castlevania series.
These are not empty words for marketing games – Moon Studios have managed to create a reference platformer made with some incredible reverence to the golden “metroidvany” standards.
Take, for example, the levels themselves. There is always clear without further guidance, you need to do – just for one death (often – once) realize,
“Yeah, that this mechanism is needed for this, but here you need to get, wait a moment and jump over there.” For all the passage never became necessary to resort to the method of spear – even the “secret rooms” where you can see, if you look at the level, and it is not necessary to force all the walls in search of “sekretki”.
In this case, the game designers Moon Studios is very creative and, say, the ability to climb walls is not one, but ten applications. Pro repeats can be forgotten – each task skill and intelligence occurs only once, which is rare for a platform, designed for the passage of a ten (!).
Healthy variety of affected and abilities. It should be used to the one of them, to train the “timing”, and learn to think creatively in its application – the game immediately gives you something new and the previous trick has no time to even begin to pall.
In the arsenal there is something that could make the rest of the set unnecessary. But at the same situation, where several ways of passage, are quite common.
Niebel, and relies on canons “metroidvany” represents a single large location. It has several sub-zones, which differ dramatically not only in design and musical themes, but also the gameplay.
In some ancient cave waiting for you traps, unstable bridges, landslides and forest filled with poisonous mist, will do its utmost to disorient the player and force to think contrary to the usual logic.
Or here’s a place where one has to think fast and use multiple portals in a row, so as not to fall into a prickly plant – the Ori and The Blind Forest there is always something to surprise you.
The usual battle with the bosses, the authors decided to remake a fascinating pursuit, the game “outwit each other” test of skill and ability to use acrobatic tricks Ori, but never – banal spam attack buttons and memorizing the “patterns” of the enemy.
The experiment was more than successful – thanks to this approach Ori and The Blind Forest is perceived not as a game, where the “floor – even floor – the boss” and so several times, and as a single adventure.
