Ori and the Blind Forest
11/6/25
I want to start this by saying that Ori and the Blind Forest is my favorite game of all time. I have over 45 hours on it on switch (like 4-5 playthroughs). It's music, art, and story are very moving to me in a way most games aren't. So if you haven't played the game before I strongly urge you to do so before reading this review. I'm going to heavily spoil it and this game is best played blind for full impact. You will cry btw. Its like at most 12 hours long if you suck at gaming (like I do), its $20 not on sale. I prommy you'll enjoy it :D
Ori and the blind forest makes the bold decision to have you sob like a fucking baby during the tutorial. I'm not joking, all 5+ times I've played the tutorial I have to take a moment to cry a little. You get introduced by Ori being adopted by Naru. As their mother. she is always putting Ori first, playing with them, giving them food, building a home together. But it can't last because there is a story here and that story is sadness. The forest begins to dry up. All the life around dies, and no food is left to be found. Naru gives the last of the food to her child, before laying down to die. THATS RIGHT, THE CHARACTER ON THE MOTHER-FUCKING BOX ART DIES LIKE 10 MINUTES IN. Now an orphan, ori runs away before dying of starvation themselves. THATS RIGHT 2 FOR 2 HERE ON BOX ART DEATH. Luckily the spirit tree revives them and they set out on a journey to restore the forest. I won't summarize the whole game here of course, I just needed to blabber about the intro XD.... im still sobbing...
The actual game itself is super fun to get into! The movement controls and jumping feel really intuitive to me for a platformer, and none of the combat is too hard if you know what you're doing. In fact, most boss fights are move movement based than actually doing damage (in the first game atleast -_-). By the end, you have alot of really unique movement tools that you can combine to find secrets and complete the map (needed for 100% completion). My favorite is bash because you can just fucking juggle yourself on enemies and their projectiles. It's no much more fun than hollow knight pogoing (which is hard as hell I swear). You get it early on and its one of the main things you use to nagivate the world. The upgrades can begin to feel grindy on hard mode, but they make the game way easier so its understandable. I love the world itself, everything has this hand painted feel to it that I adore and I actually have official art prints from the switch physcial version on my bulletin board. AND THE MUSIC!!! OH THE MUSIC :D Gareth Coker did the sound track and its a fucking treat to listen to. In fact, I used the track from the tutorial Naru, Embracing the Light for my senior dance solo!
The main antagonist of the game is Kuro, she's this really awesome owl that's best talked about in this discord message I sent a friend: I adore the main antagonist because by the end you realize she was completely fucking justified to crush the spirit trees core Like at the beginning it’s framed as “oh no this big scary owl killed the whole fucking forest what an evil bird” but then you learn more and it’s like “oh oh no” SPOILERS BTW but When the spirit tree used its light to call out to Ori at the beginning it released so much pure brightness that it became dangerous to weaker creatures of the dark. So when she saw the bright light she went to destroy it BECAUSE JT WAS FUCKING KILLING HER BABIES. The cute little baby owls just get evicerated by the sheer force of the light but nobody knows this, so you think she’s evil and mean but she was just a mother who wanted to protect her kids. I wrote a whole essay once on how Ori is about a mothers love and sacrifices. It’s like a core theme if you pay attention to the details. The whole plot happens because of 2 mothers trying to protect their kids (both adopted and biological bc adoptive love can be just as strong as biological parents) Naru protects Ori with her very life, doing everything she can to keep them happy and safe when the world is falling apart. When a bright light flashes on the horizon she shelters them out of fear not knowing the light is meant to welcome Ori not kill (naru is also a creature of the dark) Kuro meanwhile sets the plot off by trying to keep her children safe, being willing to sacrifice the world for them even if it’s too late... Really symbolically balanced. At the end you find one of Kuro’s eggs that didn’t die in the light and they get adopted into the family, which leads to the next game but it doesn’t have that grip on me
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6/12/22
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