Ori and the will of the wisps 2 player series#

It’s a sequel in a series that’s still at odds with itself. But like The Blind Forest, Will of the Wisps mistakes sentimentality and cutesy aesthetics for profundity.

There’s no doubt that it’s a good, fun game. Ori and the Will of the Wisps is the Platonic ideal of a sequel: It’s bigger, better, and more beautiful than its predecessor, while retaining and complicating its surprisingly skillful platforming and taking out pretty much everything that sucked. It’s when the mechanics work towards making the player feel the story and the world of the game more deeply that these kinds of platformers stand out. Inside’s mind-controlling puzzles make total sense in that game’s particular dystopia. Braid is so memorable because of how its time-based platforming fits in with the themes of making mistakes and living with the consequences.

The best emotional platformers are the ones where the mechanics come from the story. It’s the kind of sentimental, self-serious storytelling that started with Braid and continues (granted, with more subtlety) in games like Limbo and Gris (or less subtly in Celeste). But there’s another subgenre of tone that’s incredibly popular with indie developers who want players to “feel things” while jumping over obstacles and killing enemies. The most obvious is the “Metroidvania” (yes, I know) subgenre of platformers. There are two separate, overworked, de facto genres that both Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, lean on.

Ori and the will of the wisps 2 player