Ori and the Blind Forest

I've just lit the big lantern in the Misty Woods, and I have to say I'm having a lot of fun with this game. Much more than I had with Hobo Knight, primarily because it has actual platforming, often at high-speed, which is something I dig. I also really, really like the projectile/munster bouncing mechanic, you can do some hilarious and cool things with it.

Also, the escape from the flooding tree was p. spectacular.

 

I told you you'd like it.

I am waiting for your reaction to Mt. Horu later on.

You are also going to experience some fairly diverse and fun mechanics meanwhile.

And you are in lucky position of being able to proceed straight to the sequel afterwards (which is around 3x bigger). It borrows a few pages from HK (more emphasis on combat with melee), but high speed platforming is something it very definitely doesn't lack - grapple is possibly even more fun than bash and you get both.

 

And finished. Very good game, but pretty short - I 100%'d all the maps and the final clock tells me I spent 10 hours on it. Still, there was definitely a lot of fun packed into those 10 hours.

 

This or Hollow Knight?

 

Depends what you want/expect.

Hobo Knight I thought was very strongly overrated, and for the most part pretty boring, but the thing is that when I see a game that looks like a platformer, I expect platforming, of which HK has next to none. Otoh its undeniable strength is having a big and varied world to explore, though considering how easy/undemanding the game is, you might eventually start asking yourself why do you even keep going on (and ofc the answer is "because of my autistic sense of completionism").

Meanwhile Ori is a roight propa platformer with roight propa platformung, so it sat very well with me. It might be (much) smaller in scope and have a lesser focus on exploration, but all I know is I had much more fun with it.

 

Except that hollow knight never really advertise itself as a platformer. It doesn't even look like platformer except for the side scrolling viewpoint.

 

Hollow Knight is all about exploration. It has a ton of cool rewards for clever players, from lore to shortcuts to equipment. It has a wide range of challenge in the boss fights/arenas as well, right up to brutally difficult stuff.

Ori is pretty artwork with all difficulty completely trivialized by letting you save anywhere you want and respawn at no cost at all.

 

Hollow Knight, just like Salt and Sanctuary is a 2d Souls like, so the focus is not on platforming, but on combat. Yes, it has vague lore, area shortcuts, equipment, charms etc. Remind you of something? Like Dark Souls idk?
Ori is a platformer and a tough one at that, at least for me, since I don't play normally this kind of games. Ori 1 allowed you to save anywhere (read: manual saving, with a cost to energy, a system similar to KCD, where instead of energy it's potions).
Ori 2 instead has auto saves because players (probably console tards) forgot to save after a tough section.
And yes, it looks good. Is it forbidden by law?
Take that fanboyism someplace else. It's not required not welcomed.

 

While I like both games, I find it odd that people seem to think Ori has more platforming than HK, when both have about the same amount of it.

 

You're really missing out, it's the best metroidvania that I've played in years, and I play an awful lot of them

 

I enjoyed both games, but I thought HK is supreme for the actual combat aspect. To me it was all about getting new abilities unlocked, the tangible feeling of becoming stronger, studying your many bosses and their exquisite movesets, and becoming strong hobo. It might be one of my favourite games last couple of years.

Ori is a wonderfully charming game with some lovely platforming and the escape sequences are the highlight. I think it's pretty weird to compare the two, really.

 

Well, I do play those kinds of games and I'm telling you, it's not a tough one at all. It's on par with any old mario game. It's like saying Farmville is a tough strategy sim game because you've never played those kinds of games, let alone a really deep one like EU4.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying an easy, pretty game. Sometimes you just want to relax instead of struggle. But don't sell it as something it's not. Super Meat Boy and IWBTG and Spelunky are 'pretty tough' modern platformers. Ori is a stroll for anyone who's cleared even a 2d sonic or mario game.

HK has almost no Dark Souls DNA in it all really, just the currency loss mechanic. It doesn't have stats to level up, or weapons to find or craft, and it gives you a ton of movement and utility powerups as you progress. It's much more akin to Metroid than anything else. Dark Souls didn't invent shortcuts or equipment.

Salt and Sanctuary does rip off a lot from Dark Souls, though I enjoyed that aspect anyways, I think the qualities mesh well.

 

Bad analogy. A platformer relies on reflexes, you gave an example of a strategy game or whatever that Farmville thing is. Of course it would be tough for any player who mostly plays strategy/tactical/stealth/RPGs to start playing a game like Ori or any platformer for that matter.
And I played Mario when I was 10 or 11 or so and I don't remember having to pull off any of the impossible stuff that you do in Ori.
Again I said it was difficult for me, I'm not trying to "sell it as something it's not".

 

The analogy is fine. Simple sim/management games are also tough for someone who's only ever played twitchy reflex games. You'd be amazed at how many people can't be bothered to even read tooltips when they're not familiar with the genre because they think it'll be useless shit like 'press forward to move forward' you find in action game tutorials. It's all equally cringeworthy.



Top comments include "Hate this damn level! Been trying for like 3 hours strait, and no luck!!!!" and "This level counts as a Japanese war crime"

Now that I think about it, Donkey Kong Country games would have a ton of good examples as well. The secret levels in DKC2 are fucking hell, though I've never gotten to the second one myself since it requires completionism and those fucking secrets are top tier autism.

Fair enough, I feel pretty much the same way about Ori. It feels like it's trying way too hard to be artsy, like movies with long scenes with no cuts for no reason except the director jerking off. It never managed to get into my head the way Hollow Knight or Shadow of the Colossus and so on did (or Crosscode, jesus christ that one took me for a ride) because it kept me way too conscious of the fact that it was trying to do exactly that. Emotional moments in games work best when they catch you off guard after ramping up your adrenaline. It's probably why I don't care for most jrpgs anymore either- spending an hour in a dungeon and fighting a boss not being sure if you're going to get wiped and lose all that progress puts you in a very different state than quicksaving and yawning through some fight with no consequences. Not to mention just the novelty of discovering new spells after leveling up after a big fight back then, stuff like that.

 

Is it shit?

 

You have a point. I also remembered that 15 years ago one of my classmates tried to play Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow and said that it was "insanely difficult". He was a action/shooter type player so it's understandable now.
Still, both Ori are fantastic games regardless. They managed to impress me at the very least and I'm not easily impressed in this day and age.

 

Yep, which is more or less what I said. One is a platformer, the other isn't.

Of course, while Hobo Knight may not have much in common with Dark Souls, they certainly share one thing, and those are terribly obnoxious fanbases who have to go up in arms at the slightest notion of disrespect to their beloved games of all time.

 

Again, where is that odd notion coming from that Ori is a platformer and Hollow Knight isn't? You jump from platforms to platforms in both, and it's not very involved or difficult in either. The tree sequence and the other two escape sequences in Ori are it's most difficult parts, and are completely blown out of place by the difficulty of the White Palace and the Path of Pain in Hollow Knight, which contains much harder platforming than anywhere in Ori.

 

Don't be obtuse. Jumping between platforms doesn't make Hobo Knight a platformer more than playing the role of Doomguy makes Doom an RPG. The White Palace is quite possibly the only actual platforming sequence in that game, and for a good reason - because the 'drop all geld on deff' mechanic is incompatible with standard trial and error gameplay that is characteristic of most platformers. In fact, the white palace is the best proof of that as well - because when you die, your ghost spawns together with you at the respawn point just to make sure you don't lose shit, which iirc doesn't happen anywhere else. Meanwhile since Ori allows saving anywhere, it can do more tricksy platforming sequences on a more common basis. Everything in Ori also tends to be much faster, from general movements to split-second decisions during jumping puzzles - the jumping reaches farther and higher too than in HK.

If you compared Ori and HK to say Rayman, the former would have much more in common with it than the latter.

 

Bullshit, the only thing Ori has over Hollow Knight is speed and a wider jump arc, but the platforming itself is basic as fuck and on the same level as going around in Hollow Knight

 

I would like to see The Rat's impression on Super Metroid.

 

The idea that white palace is the only platforming section is retarded. Crystal peak has more platformer mechanics than Ori does in it's entirety; rotating lasers, vertical conveyor belts, stomping piston mazes, disappearing platforms, timed dashes through flashing laser webs... Ori is only more of a platformer in that it's less of anything else., aside from maybe 'cinematic experience'. You may as well be arguing sonic or mario aren't platformers either. Sonic sure as fuck doesn't have much of a jump arc.

How punishing a death is has nothing to do with whether or not a game is a platformer. Spelunky has permadeath and a shitton of traps that can kill you instantly. I suppose it's not a platformer either?

 

The rat probably hasn't played a lot of platformers and doesn't really know what platformers really are, his definition seems awfully limited

 

das rite i havent played a platformer in me loife which is why i cant recognise hobo knight for the best platformer evar that it is

 

I mean, you're not exactly citing examples here. You've admitted you've never played a metroidvania before (presumably including metroid itself) and your arguments would exclude tons of platformers as well. What have you played? Old console games like mario, sonic, donkey kong country? Newer indie ones like cave story, spelunky, shovel knight? You mentioned Rayman, you mean the newer one? I recall it being popular around here but it never caught my interest.