Pick up a new combat ability and you can assign it to a specific gamepad button. Shards offer new passive abilities to hone your gameplay, meanwhile, extra abilities can be unlocked and upgraded through vendors throughout the world using that familiar Spirit Light. Rather than the single linear skill tree of Blind Forest, Will of the Wisps opens up its combat to far more personalisation.
Instead of the light of the Spirit Tree, we’ll be taking on the evils of the forest with a good old fashioned sword and a whole host of extra abilities. It turns out, not relying on Sein to fight your battles for you is incredibly fun. They’re just a small sprite, nobody loves them For all its heart-stopping art, tranquil music, and cast of incredible characters, however, it’s the combat that truly separates Ori and the Will of the Wisps not just from its predecessor but from the current cohort of platformers available. Along your journey, you’ll meet the inhabitants of each region, trade with them, help them with side quests, and learn about their role in the forest. The world is terrifying at first, and there will be wolves hiding in eye-wateringly pretty backdrops, but with every new skill, every new friend made along the journey, and every new personalised ability, every corner of this map opens up.
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But that’s where the beauty of this series comes into its own. The world seems to tower over Ori in every new land you visit, with seemingly insurmountable blockades and enemies everywhere you turn. In fact, this feels like a central aspect of the overall atmosphere. Such depth is certainly carried over from the original game, but the result here serves to make Ori seem even more naive, even more vulnerable in the face of the corrupted world around them. I progress to a new section of this location just a few moments later, but just before I do, a large wolf takes snarling notice in the background, before slinking off to face me later on. An early example has me marvelling at the ferocity of a storm battling the forest I find myself lost in, all in the back layers of the screen as I continue my journey. Immediately noticeable is just how much deeper these areas run, both in map size and screen real estate. Just a small town spriteĪs you travel beyond the confines of Nibel, you’re treated to a wonderfully diverse series of locations. But everything about Ori and the Will of the Wisps feels bigger, deeper, and much, much longer. We’re still playing with the flexibility to switch between lightning fast-twitch reflexes and slower, more contemplative puzzle solving. We’re still treated to heart-wrenching montages, voice-over narration, and expressions of movement. Sure, we’re still getting that gorgeous hand-drawn art style with a depth of field and smoothness of animation not seen in many other action platformers. Will of the Wisps is going to have to sit on different foundations, even just for the sake of narrative.
From the off, it’s clear things are going to be different this time around. Kuru Jr soon hatches, and is welcomed into the family we left at the end of Blind Forest. We begin our adventure with an introduction to that final unhatched egg that’s been playing with our parental instincts since the previous game wrapped.
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It’s that magical combination of serene storytelling and masochistic difficulty that made the original Ori work, and it’s out in full force in the second game. This is the direct sequel to the breakout hit Ori and the Blind Forest, which had us cursing it out one second and weeping uncontrollably the next. Ori’s as small as ever, but the world they find themselves in, even from the start of Will of the Wisps, is so much larger.
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