When you first look at the game, you´d think that it was designed with the art in mind, but they acually greyboxed the game first and then decided to make it super pretty
Usually when I watch a smaller youtuber, I assume with these types of videos, that they'd, usually, be opinionated and stretching realty a bit. But when I watch you, that's not even a thought in my mind. This is grade-a unseen content, a gem that's unfound. Truly great works.
It's weird, the owl's egg is like three times the height of Ori. But at the beginning Ori isn't much smaller than Naru (Snorlax), and Naru isn't much smaller than the berry trees. Then again, there were also some trees that were gargantuan compared to Naru. I think the small berry trees and the cave at the start is what confused us about Ori's size.
actually i think ori is bigger in the opening scene we see ori and naru taking apples from trees that are shaken down considering that ori's size must be akin to that of a large-ish cat to a fox and naru being comperable to a small bear so kuro is actually massive
Ori and the Blind Forest is one of my favorite games of all time! It's really amazing how all of the game's elements are in such harmony. The gameplay, story, graphics, music, they all complement each other so well.
I like to compare the game to a flawlessly shaped diamond - while hard, it's clear, and it has all edges and sides perfectly balanced. A true gem. My favorite game, beats Half-Life in my opinion, and I'm a hardcore Half-Life fanboy who wanted to grow Freeman style beard and mustache since 8, and now I'm 21 and I have it :D Who knows, maybe I'll learn double jump when I'm 34...
Ori 2 is comming for us in the hype train and we are running on the rails to face it faster because the game is realease the 11/02/2020 (and if you are form USA this is 02/11/2020
"then there's a really challenging little section to put your abilities to the test." Mate, I'm still getting PTSD flashbacks from that damned tree. "Really challenging little section" is an understatement of the highest order. 🤣
Ori is a lot larger than you suggested here. It's hard to pin down just how big he is, given that some trees are massive compared to everything, and others are smaller than Kuro (the owl antagonist). Since all the plants and enemies are fictional and have no RL counterparts, and Kuro is so much larger than Ori (and is obviously not a "normal" owl), you can't really use them to judge how big he is. So it is reasonable to use Kuro to judge, since owls are owls, right? Well, in this case, maybe not so much. There are several places in the game where, if you get there quick and have a sharp eye, you see squirrels that scurry away and hide. By all appearances, these are just normal-sized, completely normal squirrels, and they're about half the size of Ori. That means that he's somewhere between 1 ft and 1.5 ft tall (or perhaps a bit larger). Given the oddball sizes of the creatures in the second game, where the owl is as big as the wolf that is just as big as the giant spider, and you have a number of weasel-like critters that help throughout the game that are the same size as Ori, it's apparent that you can't use the fictional critters to judge Ori's size, so the best way is to use the squirrels to judge. USE THE SQUIRRELS, DANGIT! So, yeah. Ori's fairly reasonably sized. Kuro's just HUGE.
There is so much that I feel this game just absolutely nails. The new twists on classic platformer powerups and tropes (difficult escape sequences testing all of your abilities and personal skill as opposed to difficult bosses testing the same things), teaching without teaching, growing stronger in the game as you grow better as a player, and it goes without saying that the atmosphere is one of the best ever. The music and visuals feel incredibly lively and unique. Even the difficulty curve is nearly flawless as you pointed out here. It really is one of the most carefully put-together games I've ever played and the sheer polish that it all has is something most games could only dream of. Easily my favorite game of 2015 and maybe even of the last 5 years.
@2:31 worng assessment, ori might be small but Naru isn't, in the finale you can see the owl and Naru together near the trees, the owl is just bugger, big enough for the tree at the end.
Ori and the Blind Forest - an absolutely brilliant game with stunning visuals and sounds. Took me 18 hours, but I finally finished it this morning. And then i found this review of the game on UA-cam - very well done and so spot on. Liked and subscribed straight away!! Well done mate.
Ori and the blind forest is the first PC-game in my entire life, in wich I collected EVERYTHING. I'm not a gamer, that wants to collect everything, but this game saied my right in the face: "Common dude! Only complete the story is boring! Let's go and explore the world!" I've enjoyed every little second of tha game and it's artstile is just beautifull.
Holy crap you just blew my mind with how tall Ori really is, I thought the Owl was just huge as well! You hit the nail on the head here though in all aspects. It's been a very long time since I've been excited to come home and play a specific game but man, I was thinking about Ori all day and couldn't wait to get home and play.
yergshmerg Yeah, isn't that crazy?!? Hahaha. I agree totally, I loved this game so stinking much! I don't care too much for Metroidvanias, but this one made me like them.
i had always heard great things about this game but never decided to actually play it until ori was announced for rivals but this game is really amazing. the movement feels good and the progression is just like you explained it, you feel strong at the beginning and continue to feel stronger as you move on
Yes the bash-ability is absolutely amazing. And yes, the Ginso-tree escape drove me mad either. First time I've played it it took me about 15 to 20 times until I have figured out every obstacle
@@1dk_man haha yeah. i played my first run on hard mode and mount huro had some parts which were incredibly hard. not just the final escape^^loved this game for being extremely challenging while having a great story and eyes and ears were in love with the game for every single second of my 13-14h playthrough^^ took me a long time even though i consider myself to be a good gamer :D
You don't just grow by obtaining new powers, but you develop your skill as a player too. The distance between new abilities is perfect to allow you to master the previous ones before you move on.
Great stuff once again and I totally agree. Ori is a masterpiece, easily one of the best exploration action games I've EVER played and a huge part of it is because of the power fantasy is just so well executed, just like this video said.
I played on easy mode and this game still felt like a challenge for me and not just something boring. This game is truly a masterpiece and should be given more notice
That's because the difficulty meter only buffs the enemies's health and nerfs the exp. orbs, leaving the platforming and AI untouched. And I hate that kind of "difficulty". It'd be one thing if the difficulty cranked up the enemy aggresivity or affected your jumping abilities. But nop! Just change some numbers around, that'll make it harder! I specially hate the drop in exp. value, because it only means that you'll have to *stop playing the game to farm some enemies due to arbritrary restrictions.*
@@julianx2rl I dont agree with you. u simply dont get many upgrades which limits ur powers by a lot! the AI was insanely well done for a platformer in my opinion. even after trying the same level for the 50th time the AI still changed the behaviour of some monsters thus making every single try a challenge and you cant simply memorize sequences 100% (rather 90%). i loved the challenge and i never play in hard mode usually because of the exact reasons u mentioned :)
I really like when if you get a new skill, the game makes you use it... So with the wall jump; you have no choice but to use it because you gotte get out of that place And as you saw with the bash; you had to beat the boss with it It’s like a little test to see how to do it, instead of just getting the skill and forgetting you have it
The best thing is the respawn. You don't see a annoying screen telling that you died. Doesn't disturb the flow of the game. And I can tell that every person died a thousand times in the game yet it doesn't get annoying because everytime you die you learn something to progress
Super Metroid is another example of a game with controlled freedom, although it's much less obvious than in Ori. In Super Metroid, you have the wall jump, an even more powerful ability there than in Ori, right at the start of the game. It's not easy to use, and you probably won't even realize you have it until the game tells you, but it still allow for tremendous freedom right from the start of the game. Other difficult-to-execute secret abilities, like the super jump (which is actually an alternate function of the speed booster upgrade) and the mockball (which is actually a glitch) allow for even more freedom. And let me tell you, the amount of hidden potential Samus has in that game feels really good once you unlock it.
+MADMACHlNE Yeah absolutely! Metroid has it from the start, but its pretty hidden (and kind of hard to use). It leads to that real freedom being felt when you play through a second time :) Great point!
I think this shows how different people play games for different reasons. You mentioned in the Mario 64 video that you play to win. You like to push at a game and feel it push back until it finally gives. For this purpose, Ori was great. It laid all the abilities it offered right out on the table, easy to use, and then scaled up the difficulty accordingly. You feel capable right from the get-go, yet the game still gives you a fair challenge. I'm a little different -- I play games for mastery. I like to feel my muscles get stronger, my reflexes get faster, and my mind get sharper as I progress through the game. It's not that I beat that hard game that's exciting, it's that I was able to beat that hard game. For this purpose, Super Metroid was great. I didn't care that Samus felt weak at the beginning, because she had options. She could fire up and down and diagonally, she could walk or she could run, and she even had two different types of jumps with their own physics! It felt like there was something to learn. The game only got better as I learned to wall jump and shinespark. Then I started sequence breaking and it was like I was playing a whole new game. It's my dream to do a reverse boss order run one day.
Yeah thats awesome! Really cool point, we play games for different reasons sometimes. Speedrunners run for mastery too, but in the specific case of time :)
This game gave me hope for games again. For the longest time every game I found was so dull. This game means alot to me and I'm glad you took the time to analyze it. :)
I really liked the savegame approach in Ori but I can understand why some people got frustrated with it, I had 2 situations where after a reload I ALMOST died instantly but I can imagine that some people saved themselves into permadeath. That's why I prever the backup save approach where you have the last save and the one before that.
Ginso tree best part, hands down. The music, just so great. The movement and pace of it is fantastic. I would love to experience it for the first time again.
BOEN SAW Yeah, my experience with other Metroidvanias is very limited, and others have said that kind of shows :) I knew you could wall jump in Super Metroid, but its hard to execute, and overall, whenever I played it, it felt very sluggish and limited. Samus' jump was very slow and annoying to me. But hey! There's probably a lot of really good ones out there
literally every time I see footage of guacamelee it makes me so happy, that is literally one of the best games I've ever played. gameplay, art, story,music, pacing, variety, challenge if you were up for some of the side quests. so fucking good
One thing I loved about the Megaman X games was the dashing and wall-jumping mechanics. Made them SO fun to play and explore levels. And when you found that secret power capsule? Fuck yeah.
This was awesome man, love your game analysis videos. It was a really cool idea to make a spin off to your game design series, hopefully making it easier to come up with more stuff to break down and look at. Great video.
I delayed watching this video waiting for the release of the Switch port, and completely forgot about it. I finished the game about a month ago, and it was a beautiful journey. I recently found out that there is a DLC area. One reason to play again :)
This was fantastic; the pacing & conversational tone was great, and I loved the little humorous image-manipulations & such (very Jontron). Subscribed & looking forward to more!
I have heard of ori and the blind forest, but have never seen any of the gameplay. But when I saw this video, even as a game designer myself, It looked even better than expected (You seemed to make it look better). I've made other game design videos (Called "Keychain Access"), and I'm glad I've watched this one. Keep up the good work. ;)
There are two ways to look at it. You can say that the enemies are big or the threes are small. Ori isn't necesarilly small in this game, I believe they did what felt right to them.
ability to create your own saves is interesting but it can backfire, i stuck somewhere in that game cause i saved in bad place. also when i was a kid i completed tomb rider game to like 75% and decided to save game in mid air, and when i load in i just die. had to play game from beginnig and never finished it cause of it. and there were more such areas that if you save they that is 100% save lost if you rewrite your save file
Most manual saving games now have conditions. Have to be on solid ground, can't be within x range of enemies. Safeguards against those kinds of problems. I can't remember, but I want to say Ori had these kinds of safeguards.
RA_ZLO haha i remember there was a level in X-Men Legends to rescue a lot of people from a sunking ship and you had 10minutes of real time to complete the mission, i had like 1minute left and still all the way to go and decided to save the game lul save file got rekt
Ori does have safeguards. I don't think it's possible to get stuck, unless you somehow broke the game and reached an area you were not supposed to yet.
About the dash ability, I know that it came out long after you made this video but Specter Knight from the Shovel Knight DLC controls about the same way, and is just as fun to breeze through levels with. He also has wall-running and wall-jump in a game where you'd been trained to not expect that.
i enjoyed the game so much the last year, but i think ori and the blind forest what makes it unique is that yes it give you more power but it ask you to use that power at master level since the beginning and sometimes it teach you the hard way.
I love this game and i love ori! I raged so many times, I lost count. I still haven't completed it yet, but I'm almost there. I am in the volcano after all. But seeing that little bit of the volcano escape, I know I'm gonna be in for something big, all for it to be completely worth it in the end.
I know this is an old video, but I did the exact same thing with the area leading up to Mount Horu! I went there much earlier than I was supposed to, and found one of the final areas of the game where I couldn't do anything! Also, "You Have to Play the Game" is awesome, I noticed you added footage of it.
OMG, I did this too, and I managed to get through to the door without the feather ... that was super hard. Then I saved on the other side. I must have died 5x more times trying to get out of that area than getting in (once I realized the door was closed)
2:25 2 things, Ori is officially unspecified, and while it’s possible Ori, Naru, and Gumo are all really small, it’s also possible the flora in the game is just really big.
Daniel Sohlman There's a whole bunch at this playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PLrSZDOvRCmRBLuY5_DPZ0xqdMonjbNjZ_.html but more are definitely in the works too :)
The story of this game was never all that compelling to me, however the gameplay is just so insanely fun it got me to replay it 3 times in a couple weeks just because moving around in this world is so incredibly fun.
snomaN Gaming Mother of GAWD the visuals O.o. I want to find who the artist(s) was because I've been using Unity (the engine they used) for years and have no idea how they were able to make it look like that in the engine. Like I can't even figure out how to make an object glow .-.
Bro, Ori isn't that small.. just look at the Trees with the apples while playing the intro. and how small would the tree of life be, if Kuro was a normal sized owl. rethink pls.
In this game you are free and OP and you feel it ... but you are just a speedy boi that go really fast (with the definitive edition you are really fast) but your skill to dodge ....the _environment_ is your biggest ennemie because when you unlock Bash ennemies will become your playground but 50% of your death will be the ginso tree and 40% will be the environment 9% will be the ennemies and 100% will be your hearth that just break at the beginning of the game...... And the last 1% is when you made an hearth attack because you realize there will be an Ori 2 (Ori and the Will of the Wisp) and Ori is a big boi in this game
I'm really glad that Ori came free with my XBone, because it was completely off my radar, but ended up being an instant favorite (Metroidvania is pretty much my favorite genre, so it makes sense). Granted other than that the XBone has been a hell of a let down, and I barely touch the damn thing, but at least Ori made it feel somewhat worth it. I wish they'd announced the Scorpio a few months earlier, I'd have waited.
There's something I kind of hate about this game. And is its lack of contrast, for example, in Rayman Origins, there's a clear contrast between what hurts you and what doesn't. Because all of the enemies and hazards stand out from the detailed backgrounds. But here, I blew up a giant fungus that itself was a nothing, it wasn't a thing, just a blob with spikes. But OK, it has spikes, so I guess its dangerous, I mean, it could've used a something like a feline or a bear, but nop! A nothing is the enemy for now. So yeah, I blew it up with my laser that I don't even have to aim, like, the enemies might as well just drop their health automatically at that point. And it left a bunch of Yellow, Green and Red orbs. They're all loot right? Wrong! Turns out the red ones are harmful, even though other than the color they look exactly the same as the other spheres. And the thing is that most enemies are glowy things in a game that's filled with glowy stuff in the background, everything blends into this big pile of Bleh! What is bleh? Well, much like that blob from before, its nothing! ... I T ' S F U C C I N G N O T H I N G ! ! !
When i played the ending it showed me how terrible i was at the game. Seroiously it took me like 2 hours to beat the "final boss". It was really satisfying when i won though. What wasnt fun os when i spent like 4 hours 100%ing the game and got nothing as a reward
I don't think Ori is actually tiny. In the prologue when Naru went collecting fruit with Ori, the trees were a normal size for us if we were the characters. I doubt anything as rigid as a tree would grow on such a small scale, and they were fully grown because they were producing fruit. Still it doesn't really change anything; Ori is still adorable and Kuro is a badass owl of darkness.
Whoa, cool! I've been looking more into metroidvanias lately, seeing which games I'd say did it absolutely right. Super Metroid and Environmental Station Alpha (ESA) are the only ones that really immersed me in the explorative worlds they offer. And honestly, I love the idea of starting off super weak and lame and building from there. It really helps emphasize how much the player grows throughout the game, only a few games do that for me personally. But idk, I haven't played that many games of the genre, so it'd be silly to say few games do it well. I haven't even played the newer Castlevania games, only the first one. Either way, I love this video and what you pointed out in it made me want to play this game a lot now. K, I'm done rambling.
Trayson Lancaster Yeah definitely good points made, and maybe it was me who jumped the gun a bit because I haven't played a bunch of them extensively either. All I know is I didn't really care or get drawn into most Metroidvanias, but this game had me from minute one! Thanks for watching!
So I just completed the game, and I gotta say, I have mixed feelings. One thing that bothered me was the over-ambition in this game's presentation. The consistent story, art-style, and music (combined) all come off as if to say, "This is super important and meaningful," right off the bat. And the game is like this almost all the time making its themes extremely stale quickly. I don't know how to explain it that well; and idk, it might've just been me going into this game with a biased mentality. Notable pros: -That bash ability is probably the best thing about this game. -The soundtrack can be super relaxing. I actually took a nap one day while listening to it.
Y'know what's funny? The poster of this video thought Ori "revolutionized" the Metroidvania style despite the fact the invetor of that Mechanic is the man himself, Koji Igarashi, creator of the last good Castlevanias including SoTN that was shown on this video (which makes this even more ironic). Search youtube for "Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia 128/50 Challenge - Training Hall" and you'll see both Magnes and Redire mechanics in a metroidvania Koji created in 2009.
+metastase Personally I found Order of Ecclesia to be the opposite of what Snoman is saying with Ori. In OoE, I felt underpowered at the start, and by the end of the game, I felt SUPER underpowered. It is one of the few games that was so unfairly difficult that I actually stopped playing. I've finished every other Castlevania game I've picked up, but that one just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. This game looks amazing. Thanks for posting, Snoman.
+BleuVII At the start? Sure, and I still think starting weak and becoming powerful is the superior design, specially considering replay value which SHOULD be high as far as Metroidvanias are concerned (and that's another point about ORI: it sacrificed replay value to achieve this 1st impression effect). After all, the game systems must justify exploration otherwise there's no point to a Metroidvania, might as well stick to traditional action platforming. But at the end of the game? I'm sorry, you're the only person in the world who felt underpowered after obtaining Glyphs like Nitesco and Acerbatus in Order of Ecclesia. If I had to define ORI with a few words: It's pretty and smooth, but there's something lacking in substance that was invested in style. Something else to note about the main distinction between Koji Igarashi's Metroidvanias and the other ones: It has RPG elements on top of the exploration. That's the number 1 reason IGAvanias are able to appeal to casuals and hardcore gamers simultaneously.
MrPemrich Yeah of course! Symphony of the Night 0:10 Axiom Verge 0:13 Super Metroid 0:17 Guacamelee! 0:24 You Have To Win The Game 1:33 Super Skeleman 1:42 Castle In The Darkness 1:47 Another one I recommend that I didn't show footage of is La Mulana
When you first look at the game, you´d think that it was designed with the art in mind, but they acually greyboxed the game first and then decided to make it super pretty
Usually when I watch a smaller youtuber, I assume with these types of videos, that they'd, usually, be opinionated and stretching realty a bit.
But when I watch you, that's not even a thought in my mind. This is grade-a unseen content, a gem that's unfound. Truly great works.
+Jeremythellama1 That means a lot, thank you so much, glad you like it :D
grade D
I'll give you a D ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Ori makes you feel overpowered without being easy. I enjoyed comboing all my skills up in the ending, it feels sick as hell :D
I never realised Ori was so small, haha, nice obversation.
Yeah it kinda blew my mind when I figured it out lol
It's weird, the owl's egg is like three times the height of Ori. But at the beginning Ori isn't much smaller than Naru (Snorlax), and Naru isn't much smaller than the berry trees. Then again, there were also some trees that were gargantuan compared to Naru. I think the small berry trees and the cave at the start is what confused us about Ori's size.
ahmz1404 yeah, I completed it almost 100% and I never realized it .-.
actually i think ori is bigger
in the opening scene we see ori and naru taking apples from trees that are shaken down considering that ori's size must be akin to that of a large-ish cat to a fox and naru being comperable to a small bear
so kuro is actually massive
Exactly! The trees at the beginning show the actual size of Ori.
man the escape challenges in this game are brutal
+Devonly Yeah they are probably the hardest parts haha, the water escape was especially hard for me, but it felt so relieving when I beat it
Yeah, but when you beat the water scene it feels exhilarating!
@@snomangaming mount huro's escape section (the one with all da fire) made me want to break my keyboard but it felt SOOO good to finally beat it
Ori and the Blind Forest is one of my favorite games of all time! It's really amazing how all of the game's elements are in such harmony. The gameplay, story, graphics, music, they all complement each other so well.
I like to compare the game to a flawlessly shaped diamond - while hard, it's clear, and it has all edges and sides perfectly balanced. A true gem. My favorite game, beats Half-Life in my opinion, and I'm a hardcore Half-Life fanboy who wanted to grow Freeman style beard and mustache since 8, and now I'm 21 and I have it :D
Who knows, maybe I'll learn double jump when I'm 34...
ORI AND THE WILL OF THE WISPS IS REAL PRAISE THE SUN
SO HYPED
HYPE TRAIN!
choo choo
My Mum won’t let me stay off school to play it day one
Ori 2 is comming for us in the hype train and we are running on the rails to face it faster because the game is realease the 11/02/2020 (and if you are form USA this is 02/11/2020
"then there's a really challenging little section to put your abilities to the test."
Mate, I'm still getting PTSD flashbacks from that damned tree. "Really challenging little section" is an understatement of the highest order. 🤣
This game is a Masterpiece
true
Ori is a lot larger than you suggested here. It's hard to pin down just how big he is, given that some trees are massive compared to everything, and others are smaller than Kuro (the owl antagonist). Since all the plants and enemies are fictional and have no RL counterparts, and Kuro is so much larger than Ori (and is obviously not a "normal" owl), you can't really use them to judge how big he is. So it is reasonable to use Kuro to judge, since owls are owls, right?
Well, in this case, maybe not so much.
There are several places in the game where, if you get there quick and have a sharp eye, you see squirrels that scurry away and hide. By all appearances, these are just normal-sized, completely normal squirrels, and they're about half the size of Ori. That means that he's somewhere between 1 ft and 1.5 ft tall (or perhaps a bit larger).
Given the oddball sizes of the creatures in the second game, where the owl is as big as the wolf that is just as big as the giant spider, and you have a number of weasel-like critters that help throughout the game that are the same size as Ori, it's apparent that you can't use the fictional critters to judge Ori's size, so the best way is to use the squirrels to judge. USE THE SQUIRRELS, DANGIT!
So, yeah. Ori's fairly reasonably sized. Kuro's just HUGE.
When I first used bash/stomp combos, I felt really skilled and proud of myself. A moment later, I died to a simple walljump section.
There is so much that I feel this game just absolutely nails. The new twists on classic platformer powerups and tropes (difficult escape sequences testing all of your abilities and personal skill as opposed to difficult bosses testing the same things), teaching without teaching, growing stronger in the game as you grow better as a player, and it goes without saying that the atmosphere is one of the best ever. The music and visuals feel incredibly lively and unique. Even the difficulty curve is nearly flawless as you pointed out here. It really is one of the most carefully put-together games I've ever played and the sheer polish that it all has is something most games could only dream of. Easily my favorite game of 2015 and maybe even of the last 5 years.
The story is a real tear jerker, only empowered by an amazing soundtrack
Yeah. Sometimes I get tears of sadness. But sometimes it was tears of pure joy.
@2:31 worng assessment, ori might be small but Naru isn't, in the finale you can see the owl and Naru together near the trees, the owl is just bugger, big enough for the tree at the end.
Ori and the Blind Forest - an absolutely brilliant game with stunning visuals and sounds. Took me 18 hours, but I finally finished it this morning. And then i found this review of the game on UA-cam - very well done and so spot on.
Liked and subscribed straight away!! Well done mate.
Ori and the blind forest is the first PC-game in my entire life, in wich I collected EVERYTHING.
I'm not a gamer, that wants to collect everything, but this game saied my right in the face: "Common dude! Only complete the story is boring! Let's go and explore the world!"
I've enjoyed every little second of tha game and it's artstile is just beautifull.
Holy crap you just blew my mind with how tall Ori really is, I thought the Owl was just huge as well!
You hit the nail on the head here though in all aspects. It's been a very long time since I've been excited to come home and play a specific game but man, I was thinking about Ori all day and couldn't wait to get home and play.
yergshmerg Yeah, isn't that crazy?!? Hahaha. I agree totally, I loved this game so stinking much! I don't care too much for Metroidvanias, but this one made me like them.
i had always heard great things about this game but never decided to actually play it until ori was announced for rivals but this game is really amazing. the movement feels good and the progression is just like you explained it, you feel strong at the beginning and continue to feel stronger as you move on
Yes the bash-ability is absolutely amazing. And yes, the Ginso-tree escape drove me mad either. First time I've played it it took me about 15 to 20 times until I have figured out every obstacle
Mount Huro's escape made me want to claw my eyes out in anger but when I got it it felt fantastic.
@@1dk_man haha yeah. i played my first run on hard mode and mount huro had some parts which were incredibly hard. not just the final escape^^loved this game for being extremely challenging while having a great story and eyes and ears were in love with the game for every single second of my 13-14h playthrough^^ took me a long time even though i consider myself to be a good gamer :D
This game is cute, but Ori and the will of the wisps is taking everything to another level
You don't just grow by obtaining new powers, but you develop your skill as a player too. The distance between new abilities is perfect to allow you to master the previous ones before you move on.
Great stuff once again and I totally agree. Ori is a masterpiece, easily one of the best exploration action games I've EVER played and a huge part of it is because of the power fantasy is just so well executed, just like this video said.
+jarkokoo Yeah for real! I wish more people knew about this game :D
I played on easy mode and this game still felt like a challenge for me and not just something boring. This game is truly a masterpiece and should be given more notice
That's because the difficulty meter only buffs the enemies's health and nerfs the exp. orbs, leaving the platforming and AI untouched.
And I hate that kind of "difficulty".
It'd be one thing if the difficulty cranked up the enemy aggresivity or affected your jumping abilities.
But nop! Just change some numbers around, that'll make it harder!
I specially hate the drop in exp. value, because it only means that you'll have to *stop playing the game to farm some enemies due to arbritrary restrictions.*
@@julianx2rl I dont agree with you. u simply dont get many upgrades which limits ur powers by a lot! the AI was insanely well done for a platformer in my opinion. even after trying the same level for the 50th time the AI still changed the behaviour of some monsters thus making every single try a challenge and you cant simply memorize sequences 100% (rather 90%). i loved the challenge and i never play in hard mode usually because of the exact reasons u mentioned :)
That bash attack reminds me Specter Knight; looks like fun to use
I really like when if you get a new skill, the game makes you use it...
So with the wall jump; you have no choice but to use it because you gotte get out of that place
And as you saw with the bash; you had to beat the boss with it
It’s like a little test to see how to do it, instead of just getting the skill and forgetting you have it
The best thing is the respawn. You don't see a annoying screen telling that you died. Doesn't disturb the flow of the game. And I can tell that every person died a thousand times in the game yet it doesn't get annoying because everytime you die you learn something to progress
Super Metroid is another example of a game with controlled freedom, although it's much less obvious than in Ori. In Super Metroid, you have the wall jump, an even more powerful ability there than in Ori, right at the start of the game. It's not easy to use, and you probably won't even realize you have it until the game tells you, but it still allow for tremendous freedom right from the start of the game. Other difficult-to-execute secret abilities, like the super jump (which is actually an alternate function of the speed booster upgrade) and the mockball (which is actually a glitch) allow for even more freedom.
And let me tell you, the amount of hidden potential Samus has in that game feels really good once you unlock it.
+MADMACHlNE Yeah absolutely! Metroid has it from the start, but its pretty hidden (and kind of hard to use). It leads to that real freedom being felt when you play through a second time :) Great point!
I think this shows how different people play games for different reasons. You mentioned in the Mario 64 video that you play to win. You like to push at a game and feel it push back until it finally gives. For this purpose, Ori was great. It laid all the abilities it offered right out on the table, easy to use, and then scaled up the difficulty accordingly. You feel capable right from the get-go, yet the game still gives you a fair challenge.
I'm a little different -- I play games for mastery. I like to feel my muscles get stronger, my reflexes get faster, and my mind get sharper as I progress through the game. It's not that I beat that hard game that's exciting, it's that I was able to beat that hard game. For this purpose, Super Metroid was great. I didn't care that Samus felt weak at the beginning, because she had options. She could fire up and down and diagonally, she could walk or she could run, and she even had two different types of jumps with their own physics! It felt like there was something to learn. The game only got better as I learned to wall jump and shinespark. Then I started sequence breaking and it was like I was playing a whole new game. It's my dream to do a reverse boss order run one day.
Yeah thats awesome! Really cool point, we play games for different reasons sometimes. Speedrunners run for mastery too, but in the specific case of time :)
This game gave me hope for games again. For the longest time every game I found was so dull. This game means alot to me and I'm glad you took the time to analyze it. :)
I really liked the savegame approach in Ori but I can understand why some people got frustrated with it, I had 2 situations where after a reload I ALMOST died instantly but I can imagine that some people saved themselves into permadeath. That's why I prever the backup save approach where you have the last save and the one before that.
Ginso tree best part, hands down. The music, just so great. The movement and pace of it is fantastic. I would love to experience it for the first time again.
just FYI, you could walljump right from the start in super metroid too
BOEN SAW Yeah, my experience with other Metroidvanias is very limited, and others have said that kind of shows :) I knew you could wall jump in Super Metroid, but its hard to execute, and overall, whenever I played it, it felt very sluggish and limited. Samus' jump was very slow and annoying to me. But hey! There's probably a lot of really good ones out there
Superb! Thanks for this!
literally every time I see footage of guacamelee it makes me so happy, that is literally one of the best games I've ever played. gameplay, art, story,music, pacing, variety, challenge if you were up for some of the side quests. so fucking good
One thing I loved about the Megaman X games was the dashing and wall-jumping mechanics. Made them SO fun to play and explore levels. And when you found that secret power capsule? Fuck yeah.
in ori a cool thing is that with unpredictable power ups, you never know what is concealing you
This was awesome man, love your game analysis videos. It was a really cool idea to make a spin off to your game design series, hopefully making it easier to come up with more stuff to break down and look at. Great video.
And once again Snoman crushes it in yet another great video, GG.
Patrick Williams Hehe thanks man!
I whish I could like more than once.
I delayed watching this video waiting for the release of the Switch port, and completely forgot about it. I finished the game about a month ago, and it was a beautiful journey.
I recently found out that there is a DLC area. One reason to play again :)
Mad props for using some "You Have to Win the Game" footage.
lukenuetzmann Hahah yeah! I did enjoy that game but it definitely has its "blah" moments
This was fantastic; the pacing & conversational tone was great, and I loved the little humorous image-manipulations & such (very Jontron). Subscribed & looking forward to more!
+Khyrberos Hehe glad you enjoyed :) Loved this game so much, I just had to do a video on it
"The pacing was really good because you didn't feel constrained early on."
I have heard of ori and the blind forest, but have never seen any of the gameplay.
But when I saw this video, even as a game designer myself, It looked even better than expected (You seemed to make it look better). I've made other game design videos (Called "Keychain Access"), and I'm glad I've watched this one. Keep up the good work. ;)
There are two ways to look at it. You can say that the enemies are big or the threes are small. Ori isn't necesarilly small in this game, I believe they did what felt right to them.
+Javier Gimenez Yeah, true, some things are very small like the trees haha
ability to create your own saves is interesting but it can backfire, i stuck somewhere in that game cause i saved in bad place.
also when i was a kid i completed tomb rider game to like 75% and decided to save game in mid air, and when i load in i just die. had to play game from beginnig and never finished it cause of it. and there were more such areas that if you save they that is 100% save lost if you rewrite your save file
Most manual saving games now have conditions. Have to be on solid ground, can't be within x range of enemies. Safeguards against those kinds of problems. I can't remember, but I want to say Ori had these kinds of safeguards.
RA_ZLO haha i remember there was a level in X-Men Legends to rescue a lot of people from a sunking ship and you had 10minutes of real time to complete the mission, i had like 1minute left and still all the way to go and decided to save the game lul save file got rekt
Ori does have safeguards. I don't think it's possible to get stuck, unless you somehow broke the game and reached an area you were not supposed to yet.
That also happened to me in the Misty Woods, it was horribleeee
Nathan Hall It did. "Can't make a link on unstable ground" and "Too close to enemies" are the major warning messages I can remember.
those berry trees must be REALLY tiny
Hello fellow Ori-Fan watching this 4 years later.
@@Gamer-g2v1r Hello fellow Ori-fan reading this comment
@@AgentSilv Guess I better like your comments then if you dont mind...
About the dash ability, I know that it came out long after you made this video but Specter Knight from the Shovel Knight DLC controls about the same way, and is just as fun to breeze through levels with. He also has wall-running and wall-jump in a game where you'd been trained to not expect that.
i enjoyed the game so much the last year, but i think ori and the blind forest what makes it unique is that yes it give you more power but it ask you to use that power at master level since the beginning and sometimes it teach you the hard way.
+MrMelodyCold Yeah thats a cool way to put it. I really want to try out the definitive edition!
Probably one of the best games ever created. Just replayed it on the Switch and wouldn't stop even after 100 percenting it (again....)
Bash: *exists*
Shovel Knight Specter of Torment: i’ll have that if you don’t mind eh?
I love this game and i love ori! I raged so many times, I lost count. I still haven't completed it yet, but I'm almost there. I am in the volcano after all. But seeing that little bit of the volcano escape, I know I'm gonna be in for something big, all for it to be completely worth it in the end.
100% agree with this video Ori is such a simple but deep game, colourful exciting it's everything you want in a game!
Just wanna say I have a game I'm having in concept and your really helping I'm trying to work all of this in it
Great video man! I'm excited to see how far this series will go =D
KeiruKeiru Thanks man! Lots of ideas to come :D
I know this is an old video, but I did the exact same thing with the area leading up to Mount Horu! I went there much earlier than I was supposed to, and found one of the final areas of the game where I couldn't do anything! Also, "You Have to Play the Game" is awesome, I noticed you added footage of it.
OMG, I did this too, and I managed to get through to the door without the feather ... that was super hard. Then I saved on the other side. I must have died 5x more times trying to get out of that area than getting in (once I realized the door was closed)
2:25 2 things, Ori is officially unspecified, and while it’s possible Ori, Naru, and Gumo are all really small, it’s also possible the flora in the game is just really big.
I am still attempting to wrap my brain around the controller smashing good time that is known as Hardcore mode. Thats. Just. EVIL.
You really deserve more subs! Great job!
Please do more of these. Videos like these are very helpful :)
Daniel Sohlman There's a whole bunch at this playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PLrSZDOvRCmRBLuY5_DPZ0xqdMonjbNjZ_.html but more are definitely in the works too :)
Well, there goes my tomorrow afternoon :)
Thanks!
1:47 what game is this? please tell me, I played this games years ago, but I forgot its name
Castle in the Darkness
@@snomangaming omgsh! I wasn't expecting to receive an answer so soon, and I would never dream that it would be YOU that'd answer me! thanks a lot!
The story of this game was never all that compelling to me, however the gameplay is just so insanely fun it got me to replay it 3 times in a couple weeks just because moving around in this world is so incredibly fun.
Tristan Begin Yeah, the story was alright. The visuals were amazing! and the gameplay, for sure, was what stuck for me.
snomaN Gaming Mother of GAWD the visuals O.o. I want to find who the artist(s) was because I've been using Unity (the engine they used) for years and have no idea how they were able to make it look like that in the engine. Like I can't even figure out how to make an object glow .-.
Bro, Ori isn't that small.. just look at the Trees with the apples while playing the intro. and how small would the tree of life be, if Kuro was a normal sized owl. rethink pls.
Your review is awesome, very clever analysis!
Well said and comprehensive.. I looove it!
toki tori 2 does this I feel, in a better way by giving all of the powerups at first and the only things you don't have are knowledge.
In this game you are free and OP and you feel it ... but you are just a speedy boi that go really fast (with the definitive edition you are really fast) but your skill to dodge ....the _environment_ is your biggest ennemie because when you unlock Bash ennemies will become your playground but 50% of your death will be the ginso tree and 40% will be the environment 9% will be the ennemies and 100% will be your hearth that just break at the beginning of the game......
And the last 1% is when you made an hearth attack because you realize there will be an Ori 2 (Ori and the Will of the Wisp) and Ori is a big boi in this game
Love it! Thanks for the detailed analysis! :)
Thomas Mahler Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed!
I don't think Ori is that small, or the trees in the prologue are extremely small too. I think Naru have a human size. But nice observation.
I'm really glad that Ori came free with my XBone, because it was completely off my radar, but ended up being an instant favorite (Metroidvania is pretty much my favorite genre, so it makes sense). Granted other than that the XBone has been a hell of a let down, and I barely touch the damn thing, but at least Ori made it feel somewhat worth it. I wish they'd announced the Scorpio a few months earlier, I'd have waited.
This video made me get the game. Thank you for sharing this gem. ♥
Saymon Wedemeyer That's awesome I'm so glad, it really is such a fantastic game!
Ori is bigger than a squirrel. S/he's cat sized. That owl is massive
*I hear Ori and the Blind Forest*
DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN, DUN DUN DUN DUN!!!!!
That was a pleasure to learn and listen to.
Can't wait for the sequel of this game.
I haven't played the game but it is the most aesthatically appealing game I know.
0:56 NO, YOU'RE BREATHTAKING
Love this game and your video! Im a teacher in Sweden who try to implement game design into the courses I teach (high school). this was inspiring!
Not many games made me cry but this one sure did ;-;
There's something I kind of hate about this game.
And is its lack of contrast, for example, in Rayman Origins, there's a clear contrast between what hurts you and what doesn't.
Because all of the enemies and hazards stand out from the detailed backgrounds.
But here, I blew up a giant fungus that itself was a nothing, it wasn't a thing, just a blob with spikes.
But OK, it has spikes, so I guess its dangerous, I mean, it could've used a something like a feline or a bear, but nop! A nothing is the enemy for now.
So yeah, I blew it up with my laser that I don't even have to aim, like, the enemies might as well just drop their health automatically at that point.
And it left a bunch of Yellow, Green and Red orbs.
They're all loot right? Wrong! Turns out the red ones are harmful, even though other than the color they look exactly the same as the other spheres.
And the thing is that most enemies are glowy things in a game that's filled with glowy stuff in the background, everything blends into this big pile of Bleh!
What is bleh? Well, much like that blob from before, its nothing! ...
I T ' S F U C C I N G N O T H I N G ! ! !
I just found out the game LITERALLY has a "Contrast" meter on the settings... I can actually see shit now. ; _ ;
When i played the ending it showed me how terrible i was at the game. Seroiously it took me like 2 hours to beat the "final boss". It was really satisfying when i won though. What wasnt fun os when i spent like 4 hours 100%ing the game and got nothing as a reward
If Ori is so small, then that's even smaller foliage, bro.
I don't think Ori is actually tiny. In the prologue when Naru went collecting fruit with Ori, the trees were a normal size for us if we were the characters. I doubt anything as rigid as a tree would grow on such a small scale, and they were fully grown because they were producing fruit. Still it doesn't really change anything; Ori is still adorable and Kuro is a badass owl of darkness.
What are the games shown from 1:33 to 1:55? I only recognize Super Metroid and the blue&pink one.
ori is so underrated. This game alone is a good enough reason to buy an xbox and yet fanboys never talk about it lmao
Whoa, cool! I've been looking more into metroidvanias lately, seeing which games I'd say did it absolutely right. Super Metroid and Environmental Station Alpha (ESA) are the only ones that really immersed me in the explorative worlds they offer. And honestly, I love the idea of starting off super weak and lame and building from there. It really helps emphasize how much the player grows throughout the game, only a few games do that for me personally.
But idk, I haven't played that many games of the genre, so it'd be silly to say few games do it well. I haven't even played the newer Castlevania games, only the first one.
Either way, I love this video and what you pointed out in it made me want to play this game a lot now.
K, I'm done rambling.
Trayson Lancaster Yeah definitely good points made, and maybe it was me who jumped the gun a bit because I haven't played a bunch of them extensively either. All I know is I didn't really care or get drawn into most Metroidvanias, but this game had me from minute one! Thanks for watching!
So I just completed the game, and I gotta say, I have mixed feelings.
One thing that bothered me was the over-ambition in this game's presentation.
The consistent story, art-style, and music (combined) all come off as if to say, "This is super important and meaningful," right off the bat. And the game is like this almost all the time making its themes extremely stale quickly.
I don't know how to explain it that well; and idk, it might've just been me going into this game with a biased mentality.
Notable pros:
-That bash ability is probably the best thing about this game.
-The soundtrack can be super relaxing. I actually took a nap one day while listening to it.
3:42 The graveyard in Dark Souls 1.
Again, might buy it for the art style alone.
Man, the music is good in this game. Especially in the tree which name I forgot but I know it started with a G's water escape sequence.
#RunOnSentence
+Banana Farm Yeah the music is one of my favorite parts of this game :)
+snomaN Gaming You know the tree I was talking about previously?
It's the Ginso Tree.
I finally remembered.
Y'know what's funny? The poster of this video thought Ori "revolutionized" the Metroidvania style despite the fact the invetor of that Mechanic is the man himself, Koji Igarashi, creator of the last good Castlevanias including SoTN that was shown on this video (which makes this even more ironic).
Search youtube for "Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia 128/50 Challenge - Training Hall" and you'll see both Magnes and Redire mechanics in a metroidvania Koji created in 2009.
metastase Yeah looking back, my knowledge of Metroidvanias was very limited, and Ori just really stuck out to me. There certainly are some faults here
+metastase Personally I found Order of Ecclesia to be the opposite of what Snoman is saying with Ori. In OoE, I felt underpowered at the start, and by the end of the game, I felt SUPER underpowered. It is one of the few games that was so unfairly difficult that I actually stopped playing. I've finished every other Castlevania game I've picked up, but that one just kind of rubbed me the wrong way.
This game looks amazing. Thanks for posting, Snoman.
+BleuVII At the start? Sure, and I still think starting weak and becoming powerful is the superior design, specially considering replay value which SHOULD be high as far as Metroidvanias are concerned (and that's another point about ORI: it sacrificed replay value to achieve this 1st impression effect). After all, the game systems must justify exploration otherwise there's no point to a Metroidvania, might as well stick to traditional action platforming.
But at the end of the game? I'm sorry, you're the only person in the world who felt underpowered after obtaining Glyphs like Nitesco and Acerbatus in Order of Ecclesia.
If I had to define ORI with a few words: It's pretty and smooth, but there's something lacking in substance that was invested in style.
Something else to note about the main distinction between Koji Igarashi's Metroidvanias and the other ones: It has RPG elements on top of the exploration. That's the number 1 reason IGAvanias are able to appeal to casuals and hardcore gamers simultaneously.
We demand a good game design of Ori and the Will of the Wisps
I still cant find the moral lesson in the tree killing Kuro's children...
Can we get a listing of the other games you show clips of? I would like to find and try those games too. I love this genre.
MrPemrich Yeah of course!
Symphony of the Night 0:10
Axiom Verge 0:13
Super Metroid 0:17
Guacamelee! 0:24
You Have To Win The Game 1:33
Super Skeleman 1:42
Castle In The Darkness 1:47
Another one I recommend that I didn't show footage of is La Mulana
Absolutely amazing game. So excited for the sequel!
This game is beautiful
The start is kinda just like “ ow, my heart..😭”
Cool video. Makes me wish I had a real working PC for this, but in time.
MoonSpiritExp Yeah it ran pretty choppy on my laptop :/ Same here, will get a better PC soon.
Let's be real here, the manual save system was annoying. Glad that was fixed in Will of the Wisp
Can’t wait to play this on Switch!
Ori’s that small and Kuro’s normal? But wat about the giant tree and stuff with lights? That kuro took from the tree? _thinking intensifies_
This game is a MASTERPIECE