You'll have to tell my mom that about my test scores back in high school
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Ori and the Blind Forest is a beautiful disappointment...
- Thread starter DominicanGlory
- Start date
I actually think it would still be great. Have you seen the making of videos? Looks fun even when you're just moving around a box!
7/10 is a really solid score
It's not "best Metroidvania ever made" territory though. In that sense I can see it being a disappointment if you were expecting a game worth the hype.
But it's okay because hype backlash is a thing and nothing ever is praised universally because taste is subjective and we're all gonna die anyway.
I'm coincidentally playing through the game as we speak (thanks indie sale!). Just gotten through the Forlorn Ruins and the sequence afterward, so I'm a ways in. As far as being a "bad metroidvania" goes, I don't disagree. It's definitely more platformer than metroidvania, but it's just enough of the latter to disappoint.
My first hours with the game were admittedly fairly miserable. I accidentally went to Black Root Burrows with only Wall Jump, and was convinced for awhile that I had gotten myself stuck (unaware that the game had a backup save feature), but eventually managed to extricate myself while unlocking Dash. Can't help but feel it's a design flaw to allow that DLC area to be accessed as early and easily as it is; while it should be accessible for experienced players, it's an easy trap that could discourage newcomers who aren't up for a tool-less trial by fire.
The game didn't start to fully click and become truly fun until Ginso Tree and unlocking Double Jump / Bash, which are clearly the bread and butter of the game's platforming. The experience is at its strongest in open areas where Ori's mobility can be fully employed—and at its weakest in more claustrophobic spaces, where Ori itself can unfortunately blend in with the various effects.
I don't find its combat as unenjoyable as others; rather, I (usually) find it a fun extension of Ori's mobility, and there's something to be said for the fact that once you have said mobility, combat is typically optional. However, if the player doesn't utilize their mobility in dispatching enemies, and instead just ranged snipes them, that's obviously not going to be fun, and could perhaps be adjusted from a design perspective.
The escape sequences so far are visually stunning, but tedious from a gameplay perspective. Ginsu Tree's was... okay, but the Forlorn Ruins escape was just bad, IMO. There was no discernible urgency like in Ginsu's, and at multiple points you're instead made to wait for various environmental changes to happen—which, when you're repeating the sequence due to one-hit K.O.s, can be annoying.
One thing I'm most ambivalent about is the game's save anytime feature. It's at once a boon and a bane, which was maybe the intention, but comes off as sloppy. Obviously, the player is allowed to save before attempting most challenges, but there will also be times where they forget to save for awhile and lose just enough progress to sting—or save somewhere ill-considered, like the aforementioned Black Root Burrows, potentially rendering them stuck (or perceived as such, since the game doesn't actively telegraph that its backup saves exist).
I'm enjoying my time with Ori quite a bit in the end, but it's not without its frustrations. Hopefully its sequel will also make its way to Switch eventually, for all of us introduced here.
Edit: Oh—one more thing. The skill tree. Skill trees are fantastic and allow for player agency in progression, but Ori's needs improvement on that front. It's not a tree at all, and there's actually very little freedom for what order the player approaches it, as they're virtually forced to invest in each equally up to a point, and afterward most are going to beeline for the inner path's increased jump, air dash, and reduced damage taken.
My first hours with the game were admittedly fairly miserable. I accidentally went to Black Root Burrows with only Wall Jump, and was convinced for awhile that I had gotten myself stuck (unaware that the game had a backup save feature), but eventually managed to extricate myself while unlocking Dash. Can't help but feel it's a design flaw to allow that DLC area to be accessed as early and easily as it is; while it should be accessible for experienced players, it's an easy trap that could discourage newcomers who aren't up for a tool-less trial by fire.
The game didn't start to fully click and become truly fun until Ginso Tree and unlocking Double Jump / Bash, which are clearly the bread and butter of the game's platforming. The experience is at its strongest in open areas where Ori's mobility can be fully employed—and at its weakest in more claustrophobic spaces, where Ori itself can unfortunately blend in with the various effects.
I don't find its combat as unenjoyable as others; rather, I (usually) find it a fun extension of Ori's mobility, and there's something to be said for the fact that once you have said mobility, combat is typically optional. However, if the player doesn't utilize their mobility in dispatching enemies, and instead just ranged snipes them, that's obviously not going to be fun, and could perhaps be adjusted from a design perspective.
The escape sequences so far are visually stunning, but tedious from a gameplay perspective. Ginsu Tree's was... okay, but the Forlorn Ruins escape was just bad, IMO. There was no discernible urgency like in Ginsu's, and at multiple points you're instead made to wait for various environmental changes to happen—which, when you're repeating the sequence due to one-hit K.O.s, can be annoying.
One thing I'm most ambivalent about is the game's save anytime feature. It's at once a boon and a bane, which was maybe the intention, but comes off as sloppy. Obviously, the player is allowed to save before attempting most challenges, but there will also be times where they forget to save for awhile and lose just enough progress to sting—or save somewhere ill-considered, like the aforementioned Black Root Burrows, potentially rendering them stuck (or perceived as such, since the game doesn't actively telegraph that its backup saves exist).
I'm enjoying my time with Ori quite a bit in the end, but it's not without its frustrations. Hopefully its sequel will also make its way to Switch eventually, for all of us introduced here.
Edit: Oh—one more thing. The skill tree. Skill trees are fantastic and allow for player agency in progression, but Ori's needs improvement on that front. It's not a tree at all, and there's actually very little freedom for what order the player approaches it, as they're virtually forced to invest in each equally up to a point, and afterward most are going to beeline for the inner path's increased jump, air dash, and reduced damage taken.
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The best Metroid is and always will be Super Metroid. Even though there have been plenty of other "Metroid like" experiences since it's release, with some very solid gems strewn about, Super Metroid is basically perfection in level design and balance and one of the best games ever made in my opinion. So basically, I feel similar to how you feel OP about almost every "Metroidvania" game out there. Including Hollow Knight and Ori. Not to say they are bad games, because they are fantastic, just (for me), not even close to re-capturring the magic of Super Metroid. I think it's just fine balance of a lot of ingredients that need to fall in place just right to reach that level. I found the big problem with Ori and Hollow Knight for example, was the repetitive environments, mixed with weird difficulty balancing (as you mentioned about Ori), and a feeling that I really wasn't progressing while I was progressing (if that makes sense?).
I am glad that there are folks giving honest opinions in here. I was going to jump on that sale but I'll just wait for a physical copy to keep sealed and add to the collection. Going for a complete, sealed collection. Still waiting on that CupHead physical for Switch...
->
If the fact that the game is a platformer is not your issue with people criticising its combat, why are you even bringing up its genre at all?
Knock off this "you're strawmanning" nonsense and at the very least admit you expressed your point (whichever it was) extremely poorly.
It's one of the greats of the generation. I'm excited for the sequel and interested to see how it works with more of a combat focus, but I never needed or wanted more from the combat in the first game. It's an all time great metroidvania platformer with combat designed to work as you're platforming.
I respect your opiniom as everyone has different tastes regarding to the games they like and expect, but man, Ori to me is the best Metroidvania since Super Metroid.
Depending on how you choose to upgrade, this can be very much untrue. Towards the end of my initial run I felt invincible; I could take over a dozen whacks from pretty much anything, aside from the things that kill you in one hit. Not to mention, the damage in the game felt very fair to me; just about every time I took damage, it was absolutely my fault (and I felt bad).
Personal anecdote: Hollow Knight bored the heck out of me compared to Ori. I honestly felt that the combat in Ori was more interesting, despite its simplicity. I got tired of poking things with a stick very quickly, and after the first 5 hours, I was done.
Same. I tried on both PC and Xbone but could never get into it after a few hours. The art style and presentation are amazing but I can't seem to stick with Ori. I'll certainly give the sequel a try next year.
I'm playing it for the 3rd time and loving it again. It is fine if is not your thing though.
I often find that games get too complex at some point. I think Ori hits my personal sweet spot. New mechanics are introduced slowly, you don't get overwhelmed and it has my perfect difficult level on normal.
I often find that games get too complex at some point. I think Ori hits my personal sweet spot. New mechanics are introduced slowly, you don't get overwhelmed and it has my perfect difficult level on normal.
It's fair to criticize the combat when there is an ability tree where all the upgrades to the combat are just to increase range, damage, speed of flames thrown etc. They don't really change the combat from mashing a button when close to an enemy.
You unlock new traversal and combat abilities throughout the game by locating remnant trees in the environments. Things like redirecting enemy projectiles, using enemies as dash-points (with the potential to stay infinitely airborn), and the ground-drop attack expand the toolbox pretty well.
There are game that stand the test of time, that's for sure, but I don't think the problem of Ori is being released 5 year later on Switch. I feel the game does not feel creative or fun enough even considering it as a platform mainly. It feels like work sometimes.
Shadow Complex was bad even in the og release date.
Oh c'mon, Shadow Complex was great when it came out. One of the most refreshing games of those couple years that came outta nowhere to surprise everyone who played it. In an era when 3D action games were all moving in the same direction... taking themselves super serious, narrative-over-gameplay, monster closet sameyness, Shadow Complex came out of nowhere to reintroduce 2D action games, with a silly over-the-top storyline and the reintroduction of Metroid-like mechanics in action shooter games.
It also did all of that as an Xbox Live Arcade release when XBL Arcade had been defined by cheap simple puzzle games like Geometry Wars, Zuma, Marble Blast.
While we're discussing recent Metroid-likes, more people gotta play Yokus Island Express. It's a charmer.
^ This.
I never understood the complaints about the combat. Clearly the devs took it to heart on their next entry judging by the trailers but the game was about puzzles/powers/platforming over fighting bad guys.
Honestly I liked that Ori wasn't obsessed with making it about the combat.
While some of the comments here do make me a bit sad (I think ultimately every creator wants their work to be enjoyed by everyone, even though you know that's never going to happen), it'd be incredibly interesting to have some of you over at my place to try Will of the Wisps. So many Metroidvanias were released after Ori and obviously everyone was able to improve upon the formula a bit.
We did the same thing now, we took a good look at all the stuff out there and tried to up the ante in every respect, so just as a game design experiment, I'd LOVE to be able to just give access to various people who bring up constructive criticism and look at if Will of the Wisps would work for them now. I'm pretty confident that we ironed out most of the things that some people were critiquing about Blind Forest, we worked super hard to create a package that should also work for people that really want these other aspects while still making sure that the original Ori fans get a huge kick out of Will of the Wisps (which is why I often make the comparison to SMB1 -> SMB3, since it brought in some of the adventure elements, the suits, worldmaps, etc., they added a ton of stuff on top of what they had in SMB1), but the proof is in the pudding.
We're getting pretty close, I can't wait for the Will of the Wisps OT and then we'll be able to shoot the shit and talk about how this or that worked out. I'm pretty sure that everyone who even just liked Blind Forest will get a huge kick out of Will of the Wisps, but I secretly hope that a ton of people who we weren't able to convince with BF yet will be blown away by Will of the Wisps :)
We did the same thing now, we took a good look at all the stuff out there and tried to up the ante in every respect, so just as a game design experiment, I'd LOVE to be able to just give access to various people who bring up constructive criticism and look at if Will of the Wisps would work for them now. I'm pretty confident that we ironed out most of the things that some people were critiquing about Blind Forest, we worked super hard to create a package that should also work for people that really want these other aspects while still making sure that the original Ori fans get a huge kick out of Will of the Wisps (which is why I often make the comparison to SMB1 -> SMB3, since it brought in some of the adventure elements, the suits, worldmaps, etc., they added a ton of stuff on top of what they had in SMB1), but the proof is in the pudding.
We're getting pretty close, I can't wait for the Will of the Wisps OT and then we'll be able to shoot the shit and talk about how this or that worked out. I'm pretty sure that everyone who even just liked Blind Forest will get a huge kick out of Will of the Wisps, but I secretly hope that a ton of people who we weren't able to convince with BF yet will be blown away by Will of the Wisps :)
See I don't know how anyone didn't feel pure bliss when playing this game. The art was beautiful and the music perfectly complemented it. The story was depressing but was always very interested to learn about the world.
My favorite two things was the ginso tree and the ability to jump off certain object, projectiles and enemies. That ability was a game changer and kinda removed any big issues I had with combat. The overall game is a masterpiece and one of my favorite games of all time. Can't wait for will of the wisp.
My favorite two things was the ginso tree and the ability to jump off certain object, projectiles and enemies. That ability was a game changer and kinda removed any big issues I had with combat. The overall game is a masterpiece and one of my favorite games of all time. Can't wait for will of the wisp.
Don't let these comments bother you too much as they are just a minority voice. Your game has reached critical acclaim over 100s of professional reviews and 100 000s of user reviews. Please don't fall into the trap of trying to cater for a minority of people, while "ignoring" a majority of fans.
What I'm saying sounds very harsh, but I've seen it happen in tons of other sequels.
Please just do whatever you feel you should do, and believe in the vision of your game.
I'm definitely excited to play it! I voiced a couple critiques here but I still definitely really enjoyed the first and was instantly on board with the second from the first trailer.
Also everyone complaining about the escape sequences are cowards, those were the best part of the game.
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Taking constructive criticism and working with it to make your next work better is what an artist does. Blind Forest is a good game, but it could be better. Assuming Moon is motivated by an artistic drive rather than pure capital Will of the Wisps would only exist to begin with if they felt a need to improve upon the last game. They're fine.
Super hyped.
I'd play it even if it was more of the same since Ori is one of my favorite metroidvanias, but if you guys can nail all those elements like you did with platforming it will be incredible.
I only played the demo but it didn't do much for me. Definitely didn't make me want to play more.
It's a good game. I think it's a little over-rated in that I woudn't consider it "great," but it's extremely solid. The graphics are somewhat simple, but colorful, pretty, and effective. Exploration is pretty good, the map is nice (a lot of Metroidvanias fuck this up imo). Combat is barebones and enemy variety is poor, but I don't think it hurts the game too much.
Its story elevates it beyond where it's mechanics place it.
I'd personally rank it 3.5 or 4 out of 5, but that doesn't mean I didn't love my time with it. Not every game has to be groundbreaking or revolutionary or mastercraft to be something you enjoy. Ori 2 is one of my most aniticipated games of 2020.
Its story elevates it beyond where it's mechanics place it.
I'd personally rank it 3.5 or 4 out of 5, but that doesn't mean I didn't love my time with it. Not every game has to be groundbreaking or revolutionary or mastercraft to be something you enjoy. Ori 2 is one of my most aniticipated games of 2020.
I agree with you, and I'm glad that you were able to put to words my feelings. Like, I feel bad for not being as impressed with the game as literally everyone else. It's gorgeous, yes. There are a few tracks that I appreciate. It's a story that plays on sentiment, but I'm the mentality of "life is tough; deal with it," so it drew no tears from me.
Besides, games like Fe do this work more effectively.
That leaves the gameplay, and since Ori came out within the same generation of Guacameelee, Hollow Knight, Axiom Verge, and Timespinners, Sundered, etc. Ori feels dusted.
Great eye-candy, but in that regard, Seasons after Fall is also nice to look at. So what exactly does Ori offer that I can't get elsewhere?
Yeah I felt exactly the same playing it.
It looks great but the detailed areas often obscure obstacles and enemies, and the combat in general is just underwhelming.
Ori himself is also very fragile, and the game design seems to have a lot of trial and error which results in a lot of cheap deaths that the generous checkpoint system seems to be designed to counter rather than by actually balancing the game well.
It was a nice 7-8/10 but doesn't hold a candle to great Metroidvanias like Super Metroid or Hollow Knight.
It looks great but the detailed areas often obscure obstacles and enemies, and the combat in general is just underwhelming.
Ori himself is also very fragile, and the game design seems to have a lot of trial and error which results in a lot of cheap deaths that the generous checkpoint system seems to be designed to counter rather than by actually balancing the game well.
It was a nice 7-8/10 but doesn't hold a candle to great Metroidvanias like Super Metroid or Hollow Knight.
The checkpoint system reminds me of savestating through a Mario ROMhack. A lot of the obstacles feel like you need to trial-and-error your way past them and to counter that you have the ability to restart at the most convenient point you can find. It doesn't give the impression of balance so much as a concession.
It also makes those escape sequences where this ability is taken away from you feel more artificial and arbitrary.
It also makes those escape sequences where this ability is taken away from you feel more artificial and arbitrary.
I'm glad to see this thread, as I've been mulling over my own reservations about Ori and the Blind Forest since I cleared it to 100% two months ago—and admittedly, I hesitated to post an exacting dissection of it like I do for some other games because I do find it a little weird to do that when I know the designer is hanging out with us in the room and reading everything.
Speaking of which, if you're on the Switch port, I highly recommend perusing the behind-the-scenes featurettes in the gallery after you're finished, even if you had a mixed opinion of the game like I did. You can really see the love that was put into this game pouring out of every crevice, and I can appreciate how it took some risks with original systems that not every Metroidvania developer necessarily has the resources or ambition to implement. It's in the nature of taking risks and breaking with conventions that not everything will go over well, particularly if players come in expecting a specific genre (from the marketing, imprecise word-of-mouth, or whatever else) and come in with a preset frame of mind. When I see people here gripe about "combat", I think there is some of this going on—a certain reluctance to play ball with Ori on its own terms and understand how the radius-based homing attack fits into the overall toolkit.
*
This won't be the aforementioned dissection. But I stand by my first impressions from October:
In short, I disliked all of the escape sequences (the set pieces that stand in as end-of-dungeon boss encounters) and thought they deflated the experience every time. In a way it helped that they were so beautifully crafted: the execution was so polished that it left me utterly convinced that the idea of mashing this specific kind of speedy do-or-die platforming with an exploration game built around not-entirely-linear power progression just doesn't work as a concept. In other words: if I didn't like it in Ori, I'll probably never like it from anybody. (MercurySteam took a crack at something similar with the Diggernaut escape sequence in Samus Returns, and it might be the clunkiest thing about the otherwise excellent Samus Returns.)
That's not a knock against all escape sequences broadly, as of course they've been a long-running staple of the genre whether you prefer to save or kill the animals. But Ori's "platforming bosses"—along with some of its progression gating on the world map—have a pretty serious problem with excessively depending on instant kills (or "effective instant kills", as I call them, when you fall somewhere with no chance to recover using your current toolkit and you can't do anything but take damage until you die). The escapes are clearly made to look and feel spectacular when you do pull them off fluidly from start to finish, and they do, but the actual process of determining your path often feels like reverse-engineering the designer's intent rather than expressively using the move set to improvise, react, and make desperate recoveries from sloppy fumbles.
I've heard some people describe this as difficult platforming, and it's really not. Executing the right moves is rarely ever the problem; the demands on your precision are not all that stringent (though the delay in waiting for the arrow to swivel to the intended angle threw me off repeatedly when using the grapple). In my case, anyway, the cause of death was almost always legibility: not having enough time to read what's going on or locate the "intended" path (or in certain sequences where you get sniped for standing in the wrong place, understanding where the safe zones are), and dying repeatedly until I can perceive what's going on. And this is in a game where the legibility is a bit of an acquired taste from the start; it takes a bit of experimentation to consistently parse what is or isn't safe to touch, or what the hitboxes are.
There's a place for this sort of difficulty design—even the incredible DKCTF dabbles in it with some of its mine cart or Rambi stages where there's nowhere to go but forward and fast—but I think there are times, in the platforming genre and elsewhere, when tight margins of error just reduce player freedom without adding much excitement or interest. Generally, I find that chases, auto-scrolls, stealth sequences, and other such "cinematic" set pieces work best when they have a certain elasticity to their level of tension, if you know what I mean: a sense of being ahead or behind—banking up room for error, or losing room for error, with a chance to make unplanned recoveries from mistakes.
Which brings me to my next point: that with respect to Ori specifically, the instant-kill design clashes like crazy with the entire progression model of a Metroid-alike where the incentive to explore is to build up your life and energy reserves. The whole point of poking around the map, apart from compulsively defogging the map for its own sake, is to build up a safety net for yourself. In Metroid—and I'm not saying that games of this sort should slavishly imitate Metroid—this, in turn, is what makes low-percentage runs an interesting speed category, and creates a whole spectrum of risk/reward from low-% to 100% for technical exploration on the part of the player. So when the big boss-like set pieces discard this, yes, they're evenly balanced platforming sequences that play out the same way no matter how much or how little exploration you've done (and you do need to accommodate players who just zip directly from one marked objective to the next)—but they also trivialize everything else you've done in the game. As a result, they feel a bit detached and impersonal, and the separate impulses of the "Metroid plus platforming challenges" synthesis don't seem well integrated.
Likewise, some of the progression gating on the map has a similar problem: it often errs on the side of killing you (or not permitting you to escape death) instead of chipping at your health or signalling that the route is blocked some other way, and while Ori is hardly alone in doing this—you can't dive into the acid in Hollow Knight until, well, you can—when you combine this with some of the legibility issues, it isn't that friendly to experimentation.
*
To be fair, despite the proliferation of Metroid-inspired designs this decade, there really aren't a lot of games that do what Ori does: and I don't just mean the stunning artwork but the extent to which the game embraces its 2.5D-ness (2.5-dimensionality?), if you get my meaning. It's a game that radically pulls away from thinking in grids, tiles, or geometrically regular surfaces, and which has a very "live" physics system. (If you look at it this way, Yoku's Island Express is arguably one of Ori's closest cousins.) That comes at the cost of a certain degree of precision when it comes to, say, parsing which slopes are open to wall jumps and climbing, or landing accurately on the edge of a narrow plank dangling off a vine. And a lot of that is an acquired taste if you're an experienced Metroidvania player and have certain expectations for how things work or how to read your visual field; you do need to learn how to read this game specifically and grasp how your movement options fit in.
Despite my reservations with Ori and the Blind Forest, I think there is quite a bit of potential in the foundations it laid, and I actually think it doesn't get nearly enough credit for the things it tried that are original and unique to the overlarge category of games that people call Metroidvanias (a term I don't much like anyway, and which I've always found especially misleading to people coming in from Metroid rather than Castlevania). People talk up the artwork and ambience above all else—and deservedly so—but not nearly enough about the physics or environmental fluidity as a distinct branch of design, one worth exploring much further. I remember thinking something similar a few years ago about SteamWorld Dig, which certain players were pushing as a Metroidvania when it was really nothing of the sort: that this might not be that substantial a platforming/exploration experience now, but the foundations were definitely there to make that happen. Then Dig 2 came along and knocked my socks off.
This is a roundabout way of saying I really do wish I could take up that hypothetical offer to drop by Moon Studios and playtest Will of the Wisps.
Speaking of which, if you're on the Switch port, I highly recommend perusing the behind-the-scenes featurettes in the gallery after you're finished, even if you had a mixed opinion of the game like I did. You can really see the love that was put into this game pouring out of every crevice, and I can appreciate how it took some risks with original systems that not every Metroidvania developer necessarily has the resources or ambition to implement. It's in the nature of taking risks and breaking with conventions that not everything will go over well, particularly if players come in expecting a specific genre (from the marketing, imprecise word-of-mouth, or whatever else) and come in with a preset frame of mind. When I see people here gripe about "combat", I think there is some of this going on—a certain reluctance to play ball with Ori on its own terms and understand how the radius-based homing attack fits into the overall toolkit.
*
This won't be the aforementioned dissection. But I stand by my first impressions from October:
In short, I disliked all of the escape sequences (the set pieces that stand in as end-of-dungeon boss encounters) and thought they deflated the experience every time. In a way it helped that they were so beautifully crafted: the execution was so polished that it left me utterly convinced that the idea of mashing this specific kind of speedy do-or-die platforming with an exploration game built around not-entirely-linear power progression just doesn't work as a concept. In other words: if I didn't like it in Ori, I'll probably never like it from anybody. (MercurySteam took a crack at something similar with the Diggernaut escape sequence in Samus Returns, and it might be the clunkiest thing about the otherwise excellent Samus Returns.)
That's not a knock against all escape sequences broadly, as of course they've been a long-running staple of the genre whether you prefer to save or kill the animals. But Ori's "platforming bosses"—along with some of its progression gating on the world map—have a pretty serious problem with excessively depending on instant kills (or "effective instant kills", as I call them, when you fall somewhere with no chance to recover using your current toolkit and you can't do anything but take damage until you die). The escapes are clearly made to look and feel spectacular when you do pull them off fluidly from start to finish, and they do, but the actual process of determining your path often feels like reverse-engineering the designer's intent rather than expressively using the move set to improvise, react, and make desperate recoveries from sloppy fumbles.
I've heard some people describe this as difficult platforming, and it's really not. Executing the right moves is rarely ever the problem; the demands on your precision are not all that stringent (though the delay in waiting for the arrow to swivel to the intended angle threw me off repeatedly when using the grapple). In my case, anyway, the cause of death was almost always legibility: not having enough time to read what's going on or locate the "intended" path (or in certain sequences where you get sniped for standing in the wrong place, understanding where the safe zones are), and dying repeatedly until I can perceive what's going on. And this is in a game where the legibility is a bit of an acquired taste from the start; it takes a bit of experimentation to consistently parse what is or isn't safe to touch, or what the hitboxes are.
There's a place for this sort of difficulty design—even the incredible DKCTF dabbles in it with some of its mine cart or Rambi stages where there's nowhere to go but forward and fast—but I think there are times, in the platforming genre and elsewhere, when tight margins of error just reduce player freedom without adding much excitement or interest. Generally, I find that chases, auto-scrolls, stealth sequences, and other such "cinematic" set pieces work best when they have a certain elasticity to their level of tension, if you know what I mean: a sense of being ahead or behind—banking up room for error, or losing room for error, with a chance to make unplanned recoveries from mistakes.
Which brings me to my next point: that with respect to Ori specifically, the instant-kill design clashes like crazy with the entire progression model of a Metroid-alike where the incentive to explore is to build up your life and energy reserves. The whole point of poking around the map, apart from compulsively defogging the map for its own sake, is to build up a safety net for yourself. In Metroid—and I'm not saying that games of this sort should slavishly imitate Metroid—this, in turn, is what makes low-percentage runs an interesting speed category, and creates a whole spectrum of risk/reward from low-% to 100% for technical exploration on the part of the player. So when the big boss-like set pieces discard this, yes, they're evenly balanced platforming sequences that play out the same way no matter how much or how little exploration you've done (and you do need to accommodate players who just zip directly from one marked objective to the next)—but they also trivialize everything else you've done in the game. As a result, they feel a bit detached and impersonal, and the separate impulses of the "Metroid plus platforming challenges" synthesis don't seem well integrated.
Likewise, some of the progression gating on the map has a similar problem: it often errs on the side of killing you (or not permitting you to escape death) instead of chipping at your health or signalling that the route is blocked some other way, and while Ori is hardly alone in doing this—you can't dive into the acid in Hollow Knight until, well, you can—when you combine this with some of the legibility issues, it isn't that friendly to experimentation.
*
To be fair, despite the proliferation of Metroid-inspired designs this decade, there really aren't a lot of games that do what Ori does: and I don't just mean the stunning artwork but the extent to which the game embraces its 2.5D-ness (2.5-dimensionality?), if you get my meaning. It's a game that radically pulls away from thinking in grids, tiles, or geometrically regular surfaces, and which has a very "live" physics system. (If you look at it this way, Yoku's Island Express is arguably one of Ori's closest cousins.) That comes at the cost of a certain degree of precision when it comes to, say, parsing which slopes are open to wall jumps and climbing, or landing accurately on the edge of a narrow plank dangling off a vine. And a lot of that is an acquired taste if you're an experienced Metroidvania player and have certain expectations for how things work or how to read your visual field; you do need to learn how to read this game specifically and grasp how your movement options fit in.
Despite my reservations with Ori and the Blind Forest, I think there is quite a bit of potential in the foundations it laid, and I actually think it doesn't get nearly enough credit for the things it tried that are original and unique to the overlarge category of games that people call Metroidvanias (a term I don't much like anyway, and which I've always found especially misleading to people coming in from Metroid rather than Castlevania). People talk up the artwork and ambience above all else—and deservedly so—but not nearly enough about the physics or environmental fluidity as a distinct branch of design, one worth exploring much further. I remember thinking something similar a few years ago about SteamWorld Dig, which certain players were pushing as a Metroidvania when it was really nothing of the sort: that this might not be that substantial a platforming/exploration experience now, but the foundations were definitely there to make that happen. Then Dig 2 came along and knocked my socks off.
This is a roundabout way of saying I really do wish I could take up that hypothetical offer to drop by Moon Studios and playtest Will of the Wisps.
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