What a time we live in! After growing up during the console wars, now we are living in a time where Microsoft and Nintendo can play nice. While it’s nice that it’s led to changes like Minecraft being more unified across platforms, the biggest win is that Ori and the Blind Forest is out on the Nintendo Switch (Cuphead was a good get too).

Ori and the Blind Forest tells the tale of Ori, a small guardian spirit that falls from the Spirit Tree overlooking the Forest of Nibel. A cute and then quickly heartbreaking prologue introduces how a small creature Ori found its way into the life of a cuddly bear looking creature called Naru, only for them to be seperated. Ori finds itself alone in a dark and dangerous world. Only Ori can restore the Spirit Tree and the Forest, with the help of a guide called Sein they have to recover the elements scattered across Nibel.

Narrated by the Spirit Tree with additions from Sein, the story is touching, sad and uplifting. Nibel begins looking so oppressive, drained of life and covered in deadly spikes. As you restore each area the game is filled with colour and life, sometimes it almost makes you forget how frustrated you were a minute before.

Ori is an action adventure platformer that uses gated progression through your abilities (or at the beginning your lack thereof). In each area you’ll find other trees that hold a spirit which will grant you a new ability. Most abilities give new traversal options that will open up each area, making it possible to keep moving forward as well as getting to all those hidden nooks and crannies. The world has many dangerous creatures inhabiting it, and Ori initially does not have any direct way to stop them. Sein is a floating ball of energy that when the attack button is hit fire off sparks in a limited area that can harm the creatures.

Ori has an interesting approach to checkpoints. Outside of very specific save/warp points, Ori has to create their own checkpoints called Soul Link. This is both a blessing and a curse, if there’s a particularly tough area you can make soul links as you progress as long as you have the energy. It’s not something you can reuse endlessly, you require energy to make them and if it’s not a flat surface or enemies are too close you can’t make a soul link. The most frustrating part, more self-inflicted than anything, is when you get confident with a tricky section and forget to save. If you die you lose all progress, so it can be pretty devastating when you get careless and lose ability points or nailed a really difficult area. 

As you progress through the world you’ll find many collectables in the form of ability points or spirit energy. When you collect enough points, they can be spent on abilities (funnily enough) from an ability tree that you access from any soul link or warp point. These abilities aren’t necessary to complete the game, like having more powerful attacks and being able to have energy from defeating enemies magnetised to you. 

Ori is still a beautiful looking and sounding game. Between the charming animations for Naru and Ori, and the beautiful (yet threatening) world, it’s thankfully just as lovely on the Switch. Even in the handheld mode the small Ori can be easily seen amongst the detailed scenery. With a smart use of animation and background and foreground the world always feels alive, at times creepy, as you see mysterious creatures lurking and moving in the foreground. The orchestral score is lovely and is fitting for a game like this, and honestly for this genre of game it's refreshing. If you want a cool reminder of how good the music is or how it was recorded, there’s even a short vid in the Theatre section on the music. The only real negative I can find at all is that the camera sometimes struggles to keep up when Ori falls down great distances quickly. Thankfully it is easily remedied by waiting a second or two for the camera to correct itself.

If like me and you have played this game already but before the definitive edition was released, there’s a few additions and some general quality of life improvements. There are two new sections which expand on the story as well as holding an extra move. Difficulty modes have been added, easy, normal, hard and one life. Normal is the game as it was released, which can still be pretty tough. Easy is there to help make the challenges less punishing so you can enjoy the world and story if you’re more along for the ride. More importantly easy mode adds checkpoints to the escape sequences, which made me consider changing the setting after the hair pulling frustrating escape from the Ginso Tree. Then there’s hard and one life modes which are for the hardcore. One life mode exists for those who only seek to live a life of pain and torture. Another big change is that once you finish the game, you can go back and find anything you missed originally.

After butting my head against some tough areas, I quickly got used to some sections through muscle memory. Being able to deftly dodge spikes and jump over toxic pools, and then accidentally get a little too close to one of the many dangers. There will be moments of frustration, there will be swearing and sometimes I even had to walk away for a little bit and gather my thoughts. Sometimes muscle memory can capture your worst playing habits, making the same errors over and over as you butt your head against it. In the end I couldn’t be mad at the game, every time I messed up it was because I messed up. I could see what I needed to do and I had the abilities to do it. The great thing about each new ability Ori is given is that they aren’t just to gate a certain entrance off, you’ll need every ability along the way. The area the ability is obtained is a great training ground, often before you’re really put to the test, you won’t be getting anywhere otherwise.

At one point I was running around getting all the parts of an environment puzzle all lined up and found one part hadn’t done what it was supposed to. Worse was that I had saved it since then so it wouldn’t reset once I died either! This is when I found out about Ori’s backup saves. In each save file there are multiple backup saves from previous times you saved. While it was to fix something that the game didn’t do properly, it was something that could’ve happened in any other game. It was a lifesaver that such a feature exists when otherwise I could’ve lost much more progress, even all of it.

There’s Achievements and Leaderboards, I could also link the game to my Xbox account although I’m unsure what it did besides show that I was logged in. There’s also achievements to aim for, while they’re not tied into your Nintendo account it’s still nice to know when you’ve accomplished some of the tougher challenges. Leaderboards didn’t show up on my copy, but I died so much I’m in no position to want to show off.

Ori and the Blind Forest is a delight to play. It’s difficulty may mean that it’s not for everyone, but for platformer fans there’s a lot to like. With Ori and the Will of the Wisps due on Microsoft platforms next year, it would be plain cruel to only give us this much Ori. At least we know that the original could be ported over so well, there is always hope. For now one of the best action adventure platformers in recent years is available on the Switch and is definitely worth your time. 

Review code provided by Xbox