izigame.me

It's a multi-color, super-cute game with side-to-side viewing.

THIS is how you do a sequel!

Taking everything the first game did poorly and turning it good and taking everything the first game did well and making it even better. Everything is just top notch in this game.


The gameplay is fluid and smooth. Ori feels so good to control, every ability and attack just flows so well into each other. The combat is a massive step up from the first game where it was a shallow button mashing simulator, now it's an incredibly flashy and amazing feeling system. Assigning buttons to different abilities is such a simple yet effective system for quickly accessing whatever ability you need. And swapping abilities during action doesn't break the flow of gameplay too much. There are so many new abilities for platforming and for combat that by the end of the game you are just launching, grappling, bashing, dashing, wall hopping all in quick succession and you're not even thinking about what you're doing and it feels like second nature, which is something few games have managed to achieve.

Visuals are somehow better than the first game, which already looked amazing. Every screenshot from this game could be in a gallery. All the areas are absolutely gorgeous and all the characters are so expressive and well animated. The first game used sprites of 3D models for animation which did look pretty cool, but it was definitely the right call to just animate the 3D models in this game as it just adds so much to the game feel.

The story is probably the least improved part compared to the first game, but that's because it was already fantastic there. And it still is great here, it tells a much more complex story than the first game, still relatively simple by modern standards, yet it's executed so well that it'll have you bawling by the end.

And the music is beautiful as always. It relies a lot less on the main Ori leitmotif which makes the few times it does appear feel so much more special. Hearing it right as you are about to defeat a boss or right as the escape gets to it's most cinematic part just hits so well. The entire OST is just so well-composed. The crescendo in the Wellspring track, the opening chords of Baur's Reach, the beautiful vocals of Luma Pools, it all adds up and makes the OST full of great tracks.


I didn't mention any major flaws because I'm genuinely stumped when trying to think of one. Worst part about this game is that it ends. Ori and the Will of the Wisps is an amazing sequel to the first game that will have you hoping that they'll make an Ori 3 sometime in the future.