Board 8 > I really want to like Ori and the Blind Forest.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Playing it now and it feels like a ton of wasted potential. The platforming abilities I'm getting are really fun, and the art style is gorgeous, but the execution of...basically everything else sucks. Combat is not fun, there's a ton of unavoidable enemies, unnecessary hazard spikes are everywhere, and the graphics often sacrifice the ability to see hazards for extra foliage. For a game where its greatest strength is freeflowing platforming, many segments are slow and tedious. There are flashes of brilliance where I'm having a lot of fun but there's not as many of those as I'd like.

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Yeah, I found it not as good as it should have been. And my friend quit before finishing it because he wasn't enjoying it at all.

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I don't disagree with your criticisms but still found it engaging enough to beat. It was JUST getting to the point of overstaying its welcome by the time the credits rolled.

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Oh, and the game let me buy the upgrade for air dash way before I can actually use it which is...weird.

And the few enemies I can avoid, I feel bad for doing so because of how leveling up works. If I don't fight I won't get triple jump.

And at one point the game let me go off the beaten path. I traveled far and found one of the future temples, only to be told 'lol come back later' and was made mto trek all the way back because it didn't give me a warp point.

Maybe I was expecting too much but this game had some hype from other people. I actually feel retroactively annoyed that it beat Dragon Age.

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This was basically my takeaway from it as well. Definitely not one of my favorite metroidvanias.

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Glad at least a few people agree with me! I felt like I was completely missing something because I've only heard universal praise.

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I loved Ori and Ori 2 the whole way through. Fantastic games, both probably in my top 20 or 10 of all time.

On the flip side I have no idea what the hype of Hollow Knight is about. Played a few hours off and on so far and find little reason to go back to it yet.

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I'm going to pretend that this topic never happened
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The only thing i really didn't like about Ori were the end sequences in each of the areas. The idea behind it is cool but it just turns into a lot of trial and error that feels real bad on the 5+ times you are trying to complete it perfectly. Rest of the game though i loved even if the combat is pretty underwhelming.

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Ori took me a little while to take to. Once you start getting more abilities, it opens up.

The end of the first dungeon is fantastic.

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I hard disagree with your take but thats fine. how far are you? do you have bash yet? it gets better as you go.

one thing I will say thats not super obvious is that there are a lot more combat options than the spirit flame. if youre just dodging projectiles and smashing y or whatever, youre doing it kinda wrong. mix in some stomps and bash and charge flame for variety.

that said, combat is indeed a weakness and a lot of the things you say are fixed by ori 2. I bet you like that one more.

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I liked it a lot because the combination of the awesome presentation, and abilities like Bash made it feel so magical. I played it a second time and it felt really dry and limited. I played all of Ori 2 too and from the beginning it felt pretty dry. Not sure if I changed, or if it really was just the novelty of the first play through that I liked.

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Zigzagoon posted...

I loved Ori and Ori 2 the whole way through. Fantastic games, both probably in my top 20 or 10 of all time.

On the flip side I have no idea what the hype of Hollow Knight is about. Played a few hours off and on so far and find little reason to go back to it yet.

I love Hollow Knight so maybe they're just for different types of people.

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I was also underwhelmed with Ori 1 for a lot of those reasons but Ori 2 is fantastic, and basically what I thought the first game would be like from all the praise I heard. Fixing the combat is a big deal and improves the pacing and flow so much. In the first game it would just get in the way of the fluid movement.

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I thought the combat worked well for what they were going for. You can just hold the button down to constantly attack and focus entirely on movement.
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I love both Ori games. I also couldn't get into Hollow Knight.

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transcience posted...

I hard disagree with your take but thats fine. how far are you? do you have bash yet? it gets better as you go.

Currently on the lost woods esque area. Bash can be a lot of fun although waiting for enemies' attack pellets to line up for the exact jump you need is less fun.

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I would wait until you finish the first dungeon and see what you think then. That part really changed my opinion of the game.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Playing it now and it feels like a ton of wasted potential. The platforming abilities I'm getting are really fun, and the art style is gorgeous, but the execution of...basically everything else sucks. Combat is not fun, there's a ton of unavoidable enemies, unnecessary hazard spikes are everywhere, and the graphics often sacrifice the ability to see hazards for extra foliage. For a game where its greatest strength is freeflowing platforming, many segments are slow and tedious. There are flashes of brilliance where I'm having a lot of fun but there's not as many of those as I'd like.

this is pretty much how I ended up feeling about the game as a whole

(I also don't care for Hollow Knight so that's not an either/or thing)
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Ori relies too much on Bash as a mechanic. It's not a bad mechanic but it's not good enough to carry 2 games in my opinion.

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eh, there's about an hour where you use it a lot in 2. 2 lets you use so many different mechanics that no single mechanic overpowers any other.
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Combat in 1 was better because it was totally Metroid. It's rare for a game to actually understand that being able to attack while moving is core to the awesome feel of Metroid. But they ruined it in 2.Timespinner does it though.

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