Ori And The Will Of The Wisps
Developer Moon Studios Publisher Xbox Game Studios Format PC (tested), Xbox One Release Out now
PC, Xbox One
The real world seems even more grey when we tear our eyes away from the screen. We’d begun to wonder if Moon Studios’ sequel was going to be a permanent E3 fixture for Microsoft – since its 2017 announcement, each year has given us an increasingly spectacular-looking trailer, a reason for Xbox owners without Game Pass (if such people exist) to keep their consoles mothballed. If anything, it’s more dazzling than the promos; even the darkest areas of this sprawling world are bathed in a bioluminescent glow. Its palette covers the entire spectrum, and frequently reaches for the most vibrant hues. You sprint through a forest on the cusp of winter, the warmth of a late-evening sun taking the edge off an autumnal chill you can almost feel in your bones. You swim through holiday-brochure seas in one biome that finds the sweet spot between tropical and otherworldly. The notion of a living, breathing world is a marketing cliché, but here you can detect nature’s pulse. Everything seems to move, down to the wooden bridges buckling gently beneath your feet and the twitching wings of dying insects enmeshed in a spidery hollow. And at its heart is Ori, their brilliant white glow just about enough to drag your attention away from the countless visual distractions around them.
It’s a good job that ancestral light focuses the eyes, because this is a more immediately hostile place than before, illustrated by a brief early encounter with a huge, toothy wolf. The original’s tame combat was an undoubted weak point, such that we were uneasy about talk of an increased focus on fighting, even with an expanded arsenal. Yet combat is far from an unwanted interruption. You start with a sword that Ori wields with grace and speed; later, there’s a powerful spear with a glorious wind-up animation. But by then we’ve fallen in love with Ori’s hammer. If there’s something incongruous about a tiny sprite wielding a whacking great mallet, it’s forgotten the second a mid-air swing hits a buzzing fly or a stomping brute with an almighty wallop; it’s as satisfying as connecting with the jaw of a wyvern in Monster Hunter, and it happens much more frequently here. And if explosive slugs discourage closequarters attacks, an upgrade that turns ground attacks into shockwaves that spread beyond the point of impact ensures we keep it permanently bound to the B button.
For the face buttons not reserved for Ori’s jump (which is eventually tripled) there is a palette of abilities to choose between. A mid-air dash later lets you tunnel through sand, and burst up and out from it, accounting for the right bumper. The left, meanwhile, is reserved for the Bash ability that lets you seize and redirect projectiles mid-flight, and a grapple with surprising reach (if relatively limited use). Between those and the arrows, the explosive spheres that melt ice and the lategame ability to turn yourself into a projectile – let’s not call it self-Bashing, hm? – Ori becomes an astonishingly versatile protagonist. For large parts of the game, we’re convinced we’ve not enjoyed controlling a character so much since Super Mario Odyssey, though Ori’s moveset is less about expressiveness or showboating trickery.
There is a sense of desperation to exploration – you’ll dash over to a wall, barely avoiding the thorny tangle below, or scrabble up to the edge of a platform, having just about cleared a huge gap with a triple-jump and a dash. And that’s when the pressure isn’t on. Escape sequences are back, though whether it’s a burrowing worm or an avalanche from which you’re sprinting, they’re more forgiving this time. Recalling the frustration of the Ginso Tree, we gasp with delight after clearing the game’s first chase on our second attempt. One or two later pursuits fall into the trap of all but demanding precognition to beat first time, but each allows more margin for error, giving slow fingers the chance to recover from any mistakes. There are plenty of moments during Will Of The Wisps when you’re convinced it plays as good as it looks, and that’s going some.
The enchantment, alas, wears off. Such an expansive moveset leads to indecision and confusion, and points when the game’s huge world – substantially larger than the first game’s, albeit quicker to traverse, even without fast-travel shrines – leaves you lost. Getting stuck is part of most Metroidvanias, of course, but too often it’s unclear which tools you need to get by. Sometimes it’s an ability you gained a long time before but benched in favour of the stronger combat options. More than once, it will demand you pull off a succession of moves with fussy timing, such that you can never be sure whether you’re doing it wrong or missing a vital skill upgrade. And then there are occasions where it’s apparent that playtesters got stuck, and a text overlay will simply tell you which ability you need to progress.
The game’s size isn’t a problem, but there’s a Baz Luhrmann-esque maximalism to it all that makes us wish Moon Studios had dialled everything back a bit. Even the visual sumptuousness grows overbearing: with every inch of the world seemingly designed to inspire an awestruck reverie, gorgeousness becomes the norm, such that we greet later areas with little more than a shrug. Gareth Coker’s lush score swells and soars, prodding you to feel more deeply about a story that’s laser-focused on showing you sad things happening to excessively cute, vulnerable creatures. And the build-up to the big finish is a crushing disappointment, setting you a tedious task in an abstractly gamey environment that simply covers every available surface in spikes, culminating in a dreadfully boring boss fight. Its moments of genuine brilliance are worth experiencing, but they shouldn’t blind anyone to the shortcomings of a sequel that, underneath that beautiful surface, is as frustratingly flawed as the first.
There are plenty of moments when you’ll be convinced it plays as good as it looks, and that’s going some