Review

Introduction

Alright so this is a game I’ve been meaning to get around to for a while. It’s one of those titles that everyone hypes up as a beautiful, emotional, masterpiece of the metroidvania genre but I still went in with mild expectations. And look, I won’t deny that the game is absolutely gorgeous. The art style is stunning, the soundtrack is… uhh honestly forgettable since I can’t remember it. The problem is that all that beauty is wrapped around a game that I found really frustrating to actually play. This was arguably the biggest disappointment of this season. Apparently 2nd game is way better after I got the contract. Oh well, it can’t be that bad… right?

The Story

The story? Surely, that’s good considering how much they shove it in your face… I mean it was alright, my only complaint with the story is that Ori didn’t die a gruesome death allowing for a sequel to be made but I can live with it. The story is fairly simple. There are moments where the game tries to make you feel something just through the presentation alone and it failed.

The Gameplay

WHO TF MADE THIS TODDLER FRIENDLY COMBAT SYSTEM??? No, even calling it a combat system is a disservice to games as a whole. 90s arcade space shooter games have more of a combat system then this. I could not even be in the same room as my PC and I could fight an enemy. Like the slimes can just be avoided by… staying still and spamming X. Frogs? Bash. Crows? Bash. Green roly poly? Bash. Big slime? Spam X.

Ok so if the comabt is non-existent surely it makes up for it in platforming… right? Man, I didn’t want to write this review because I knew as soon as I started writing it hate from deep within would well up cause that was the worst platformer/metroidvania I have ever played. It is a disservice to the genre, the controls are clunky and awkward to use. Don’t even get me started on that wall climb. The only good thing that comes from the combat and the platforming is the bash… How tf…

Those escape sequences? Stupid… Its not even hard, instead it feels like artificial difficulty by putting you on a timer and then making you memorize the layout of the escape path by dying 10 times. Where’s the fun in that? None of them are hard you just need to remember where to go. In Celeste for example you go through a room and die cause you go “wtf am I supposed to do there?” You then stop to think of what maneuver you could pull off to get past that and try again. Here? “Ok go right, up, left, up, right” it’s just filled with mediocrity.

The Progression

Exploration? Pointless, like actually there is no insentive to explore other than seeing the map percentages go up ig. Collect all the life orb thingies and the energy orbs? Not needed cause combat is a lie so you don’t need to survive, you don’t need all the health in the world for baby’s first platforming either, and getting more energy orbs are useless cause their only use is to save the game which only uses one orb and after you save a few steps forward you’ll find a crystal which will give you back the orb you just used… Which brings me to saving, who in their right mind decided that they should tie saving to a usable resource even if the way to regen it is plentiful. And the worst part? The aforementioned energy crystals are abundant in the final area because the KNOW you need to save often so why implement a stupid mechanic in the first place??

Conclusion

It really feels like they took a lot of inspiration from various others in the space and stuck with the bad in all of them. Honeslty, even though I did buy both of the games I am not in any mood to try out the sequel, at least any point soon and unless at least a good portion of my complaints are fixed in it which imo might take a miracle. If you want to play a game for only it’s visuals and nothing else, do not buy this game but instead by a picture book might be a better investment. Hell, go read Veil

Score: 5/10