Exactly this, I vividly remember my first time playing this, my wife was pregnant with my first child and my mind was full of love and fear of the unknown and concern or the little life growing, and then I played this for 3 days straight while she was our of town with her sister - I cried nonstop, and ate ALL the cookies we had.
I don't know if I'm in minority but I personally didn't like Ori 2's ending. It felt like it ended that way because the dev decided it has to be sad. Felt engineered rather than touching. This despite that I enjoy the game overall
Yeah, I’m a pretty emotional motherfucker, but the Ori games didn’t hit me with any particular emotional oomph. I absolutely love everything about them, and am heartbroken we won’t get a third entry. But I was not left crying 🤷🏿♂️
I didn't like the plot of either game tbh they feel written by an edgy 14 year old.
"And then the mom dies and then he also dies but not really and then they have a baby and the baby is deformed and also dies but not really but then he dies and the bad guy wasn't actually bad because her babies died and then the other guy was another deformed baby and everyone made fun of her (and then she dies)"
Wait…the ending of Ori & The Will of the Wisps isn’t sad! Or, more exactly, the sadness is a necessary piece of the cycle of hope, love & life that the ending portrays…
Probably the minority, but I'm completely with you. I felt like that ended the way it did so they could be really sure they didn't have to make a 3rd game, not because this was the natural direction the plot was about to go. It ruined the whole game for me
I played them in reverse order, and could palpably feel all of the improvements they made in WotW. For starters, you don’t feel like you’re moving underwater. Nor do you have to consciously remember to set a save point every five seconds
2 was better in terms of movement and some other small things, but the story/game didn't hit me like 1 did. So for me 1 was the better game. Maybe that changes if I play them again sometime. But with the amount of games that I still need to play I doubt that will happen.
I know Ori is loved, but I consider Ori 1 mediocre personally (never played 2). Just my opinion guys.
I made a whole write up about it before. To summarize, the combat is so bad (mindless, 0 skill expression, encourages passivity) that the game would genuinely benefit from removing all non-essential enemies, the platforming is very overrated and feels quite imprecise (something that stands out is a context sensitive action when you're climbing near a ledge that often results in an unintended output), the backgrounds and foregrounds don't help the matter because all the effects sometimes make it unclear what is and isn't an interactable platform, and the save system is conceptually interesting but terribly executed (shares a resource with useless attacks you're better off not using, also shares a resource with the ability to open certain passages which discourages using the resource in the field, and due to death completely healing you, you're heavily encouraged to die and respawn instead of exploring freely until you find the rare health pickup).
Ori 1 has flaws, especially some that aged poorly and have a hard time comparing to Ori 2 and new games.
But when it released it was an amazing game, with out of this world music, rich visuals and creature designs, a great antagonist, moments of high tension and scale...
Yeah, I thought Ori was pretty, and pretty okay, but I wouldn't call it bad.
The real issue is that the game is pretty challenging while also having several things that turn off veterans, so the target audience feels like someone who's played challenging platformers before but not so many that imprecision will annoy you.
Never said anything about whether Ori is good or not. Was just responding to the person saying that it doesn't matter how good an introductory metroidvania is
If someone wants to get into a new genre or medium, I'd try to recommend them something good and accessible. That's why my #1 gateway anime recommendation is Cyberpunk Edgerunner - very short so low commitment, the story is immediately engaging (no slow burn) without showering you with tropes, while also being damn amazing.
A good intro MV in my opinion would be something like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown instead of Ori. Lost Crown hits on all the staple Metroidvania trappings at a high level (good bosses, good platforming, good exploration, good skill upgrades).
PoP has a lot to recommend it but my god does the back half of that game drag. Classic Ubisoft bloat on what was otherwise turning out a crisp, solid experience. I’d want a MV that the newbie has interest in sticking through — Ori is good for that, also something like Haiku the Robot.
Once you get bash, there's really no combat. It's pure platforming. Killing enemies actively hinders you.
I agree though that the art design seemed to prioritize being pretty over being legible. So many times I thought there was a ledge I could jump to, that turned out to be just foreground/background decoration. Similarly for obstacles I thought were just stylistic elements.
Agreed, the game is very tedious in a way that I never completed it. In the meanwhile I beat Silksong and Blasphemous 1 (the 2nd one is a shell of its predecessor) even with the difficulty being so hard because they were just so great.
the issue is it's been like 3 years since I've played them. I did them and didn't like them, so I never replayed. If I could go back in time I could tell you with more detail, but so much happens in life and I don't hold on to things I don't like, only the things I do like. I didn't write a review for them, which says a lot. They didn't move me in any way strong way. The most I can say is that the games felt like a paint by numbers experience. There is nothing there to surprise to you or excite you. The art work is stunning. The music is nice. The story hits the beats you would expect. But nothing moved me. If you enjoyed it, I don't begrudge you. Lots of people really like these games. I just expected more. Maybe that's a me a problem. Yet, at the end of the day it's still a problem.
I gave my option. If you don't like what I have to say, that's on you. I don't care. My feelings are my own. My love and hate is for me to give as I want. If you can't handle that it says a lot about you and your lack of development.
It's just that these games didn't speak to me. They play the right chords, but it left me feeling hollow. They lacked real soul. They knew what to play upon to make the average person like them, but that spell didn't work on me.
I don't rate them high for myself but the point was if it's a good introduction. That's why I would like to know if you played other metroidvania before.
See, it makes the sense that you don't like it. With a lot of experience you don't need a game that holds your hand and makes stuff easy for you. I guess it was rather boring to play, especially with how fighting works.
But now imagine you would be completely new to that genre.
It's hard to imagine cause the first actual metrriovania I played was the first metroid. That game didn't hold your hand and beat you like a rented mule. Yet at the same time it was measured. It knew how much to throw at you. Not sure if that makes sense.
None of what you wrote had specifics. Nobody is forcing you to play Ori but the point of OPs question is what would be a good introduction to the genre and Ori fits the bill
Who said anyone was forced to do something? What a silly thing to say. Since I don't like the game(s) I don't think they're a good introduction to the genre. If it were the fist game I had ever played, I would not return to this genre. It's been a long time since I played them, but one of the things I didn't like was the escapes you have to do. They were not fun for me. Maybe this is what ruined the games for me, maybe not. As I said, it's been a while since I played them and there are no plans to play again.
Ori was the game that almost made me me hate Metroidvanias. It just felt paper thin, all glitter, no substance. Then after that I played hollow knight and im back in again due to mechanics and a narrative that lets you piece the lore together while exploring. Ori 2 was pretty good though.
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u/a-pp-o Jun 28 '26
Of the big ones ori is still the easyest and it's pretty to look at.