Topic: Ori and the Blind Forest

[Cobra951]

I just finished it yesterday.  It's a beautiful Metroidvania sidescroller, which apparently was put together over 4 years by a loose international association of creative folks, who dubbed themselves "Moon Studios".  (Wikipedia page.)  This is the hardest platformer I've ever stuck with till the end, and I played some doozies on the NES.  After finishing it, I looked up the achievements list, and about fell off my chair when I read that one of them was to complete the game without dying.  My stat for respawning from a soul link (user-created save point) is near 700.  You learn by dying, and after a while, I'd jump to my death just so I could redo whatever sequence was giving me trouble, and end up with better health after it.  There's another for completing the game without ever spending any ability points.  Ouch!

Intricate, lovely visuals, haunting music, proper genre gating based on new abilities you find along the way (not to be confused with the abilities you can buy).  Enormous world to explore, and lots of secrets to find.  Highly recommended for whoever can stomach the sadistic difficulty.  Let me elaborate a bit on that:  The normal navigation is quite challenging, and full of death traps, but at least you can create your own save points to minimize what you need to repeat upon every death.  However, the end of each major chapter is an escape from a collapsing area of some sort, where you are forced to move quickly, and there is no saving allowed.  One major mistake or several minor ones reset the whole thing to the beginning.  A few expletives at the screen, during and after, are advised.  Stress relief.

Game's available on Steam and XBL (Xbox One).

[PyroMenace]

Yea, I've been playing it too. I agree with everything you said. Sad to hear that there are more collapsing escape events, just finished the first one and I almost wanted to rage quit, it's no joke, it is Super Meatboy level of difficulty. Fortunately it also has the super quick reload of SMB. I'm going to stick with it though, production on this one is incredible.

[Cobra951]

I'm going through it again.  Here's something I discovered.  If you go all the way up the aqua-blue ability branch (rightmost) ASAP, you will make your life much easier.  The last 2--triple jump and ultra defense--are invaluable, particularly for escapes.  The higher defense won't protect you from a chunk of landscape killing you, but it will let you get hit a lot more times by other stuff.  The extra jump--kind of obvious.  I got through the 2nd escape in 3 attempts instead of like 40.  Sure, much of that is knowing what to expect, but still, I got clobbered a bunch of times, and still made it out.

[PyroMenace]

That first escape event was particularly rough because there was a bit of info from the last ability you get that it doesnt tell you. If you hold the bash attack down and release at the right moment, you'll leap farther, which is invaluable and I believe the only way to actually get through that part.

[gpw11]

I'm just playing this and KINDA getting a bit worried about these escape events.  I love the rest of the game though, and am taking Cobra's advice.  I just have a really hard time not having fun when playing games.

[Cobra951]

Hey, welcome to the club.  Some things will seem so unfair until you figure out the navigation path.  I think Pyro's comparison to Super Meatboy is a good one.  Death really doesn't matter.  It's a learning tool.  Yes, the right-side ability branch makes it less frustrating.  Take more hits; get one more jump.

[gpw11]

That's good to know.   Does it ever get to a point where I really need to conserve my save points?  I'm worrying about that now but don't know if it's necessary

[Cobra951]

No, that gets better.  You get more of those orb things (how quickly I forget) by finding them, so that you can worry less about using them for save points.  Also, there are save places scattered around which replenish everything--very similar to Super Metroid save places.

[gpw11]

Thanks for the tips, by the way.  I'm in the second "temple" now

(click to show/hide)

With the gravity platforming that I'm not a huge fan of

and I don't think I would have had nearly as much fun with the first escape if I didn't read this first.  Beat it in 3-4 tries because of your guys' tips.