Four years of development have gone into Ori and the Blind Forest, a game that can easily be completed in eight hours. Anyone who thinks that all the effort hasn't paid off is mistaken: Ori may not be too long, but it can already count itself among the most beautiful games of the year.
Fantasy fairy tale with a lot of feeling
In the touching intro we experience how Ori - a small, radiant spirit being - gets lost in a fairytale forest. But a chubby, caring creature discovers the strange ghost child and takes it into his care. The game surprises with wonderfully idyllic scenes in which small gestures instead of big words ensure that we immediately grow fond of the two characters. They have to, because after just a few minutes the family happiness is over again: A catastrophe shakes the magic forest and Ori - now on his own - has to find a way to save his homeland. Hot on his heels: A gigantic, angry bird chasing after Ori in dramatically scripted scenes. We don't find out why he's doing this until late in the game. A little tip for sensitive souls: It's better to have handkerchiefs ready!
Adventure in glorious 2D
For their debut, Moon Studios - an international indie team - was inspired by Nintendo classics, including The Legend of Zelda, but above all by the great Metroid series. From the 2D side view, Ori explores the beautiful forest environment, which is not made up of separate levels, but in one piece. So we can hike from magnificent grassy landscapes to babbling brooks, slippery ice caves, eerie spider caves or fiery mountain landscapes without loading times. So that the story doesn't falter, a marker always gives us the rough goal, but we decide for ourselves when we set out there.
Strong Jump & Run, weak fights
Shortly after the start of the game, the being of light "Sein" joins us, which from then on circles around Ori as a small spark. Sein not only leads us through the story, but also serves as a weapon for Ori against the various forest monsters: Pressing the X button lets Sein shoot magical sparks that automatically burrow into the nearest opponent. So you never have to aim actively, that's done for us - not only does it play unusually, but also quite undemandingly, because most of the fights just boil down to wild button hammering. It quickly becomes clear that Moon Studios simply doesn't attach great importance to the battles - there aren't even any real boss fights!
Rather, the jump & run aspect is in the foreground, and the developers have actually done a great job: Ori dashes, climbs and jumps through the levels so wonderfully quickly and precisely that the game would have been a complete success even as a perfectly normal platformer. On top of that, the developers show enough imagination to keep the gameplay fresh to the end: we shoot our way around with teleporters, block lava fountains, dodge rays, tear down walls, dive into lakes, reverse gravity or wandering through a constantly changing ghost forest - all this may not offer anything new in terms of gameplay, but it is implemented so well that the motivation never wanes.
The control via mouse and keyboard is basically okay, but especially in the later hours of play, when perfect inputs and lightning-fast reactions are required, you simply cannot avoid a good gamepad. We recommend the Xbox 360 pad on the PC, so the controls are just as brilliant as on the Xbox One.