Ori and the Blind Forest was one of 2015’s stand-out games. Five years later Ori return’s. Bringing the charm, tight platforming, and wonderful art direction that made the original so special. Like the first, Will of the Wisps opens to Ori and the gang teaching their recently adopted little Ku – the baby owl from the end of the first game – how to fly. Things go astray as Ori and Ku get separated during a test flight that leads them isolated in this dangerous – yet beautiful – world. There’s also more to the story than just this setup. The game is more emotional than the first.
Like the first, Will of the Wisps builds on the tight, side-scrolling platformer’s signature traits. Ori traverses a world laden with thorn branches, toxic swamps, and dangerous monsters. Along the way, side quests are added to the adventure, giving access to new abilities and spiritual rewards. There are also passive abilities that act as a “mod” of sorts for your type of gameplay. Some can help you, like reduced damage taken, while others make things more difficult, such as faster enemy respawns or greater damage taken.
Acquiring abilities will aid in your quest to get to young Ku. Some of the abilities have to be re-acquired even though Ori already had them in the previous entry. But that wouldn’t be much of a game now, would it? The abilities range from having a ranged bow to shoot projectiles and enemies from afar, and even an ability that makes Ori become a projectile. These are essential since Will of the Wisps has a heavier emphasis on combat than previously. Ori’s able to string together much more complicated move-sets to handle enemies. This is helpful since the game throws many enemies at Ori.
Speaking of enemies, Ori comes face-to-face with several bosses in this installment. In almost every section of the world resides a boss that Ori must confront to progress further. Unlike the first game, these battles feel like true battles, instead of escape sequences – even though this game has them as well – that test Ori’s prowess.
One way Will of the Wisps brakes from its predecessor’s mold is the use of a mini-hub. It’s here that Ori can upgrade abilities, and even take part in helping fix the hub with the use of Golek ore’s scattered across the world. Acquiring enough of these ore’s can improve the hub and make more side-quests and activities available. There’s also the addition of Spirit Trials and Combat Shrines that will test Ori’s speed and combat tactics respectively.
That being said, the game has some significant performance issues. I played on a launch Xbox One and had varying degrees of performance issues. During my playthrough, I had a total of 5 crashes, 50 instances of freezing, and many frame-rate drops when combat gets frantic and/or there’s a lot of things happening on screen. Will of the Wisps would be even better if these issues were fixed.
There were many occasions where Ori would freeze mid-jump only to fall into hazards or traps when the game picked up again. This impacted my normal playthrough ushering me to bump it down to easy just to take less damage. Some of these issues are still prevalent – but to a lesser degree – on the Xbox One X. A friend of mine had some of the same issues, but hopefully, with a patch, the game can be more fun to play.
Despite these issues, I had a needless obsession to keep playing because of how good the game is. It’s a nearly perfect package – technical flaws aside – of gameplay, story, art direction, music, and lasting appeal. Moon Studios has delivered another hit, and I cannot wait to see what the do next. Let’s just hope it’s not another five years off.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps is exactly what the gaming industry needs right now. Proving not only to be one of the best game’s this year, but also a shining light in these ‘real-world’ times.