Every now and then, a game will release that slams home the point that games are in fact art and Ori and the Blind Forest did just that, but while it was visually spectacular, there were some issues with the gameplay. Fast forward to now and we have the games follow up, which, if possible, appears to be even better looking, but has it changed anywhere else, or is it best left on the wall?

Ori and the Will of the Wisps takes place almost right after the ending of the previous game, Ori, Naru, Gumo and Ku are now settling back into life, with Ku being the little baby owl, that survived the fight between Ori and Kuro. Over the course of a wonderfully animated scene, we get to see Ku struggle to fly, as the right wing is damaged, but Ori remembers a feather that it had from Kuro and with some bandages, straps it to the wing and together, the pair take flight. Sadly though, confounded by the thrill of soaring across the sky, the pair fall a foul of a storm and are separated, both landing in a part of the world they had never been to before. Ori decides right away to seek out Ku, in order to return home, but this new place is not an easy place to live, the Decay has spread here, and evil creatures roam the world, the worst of them is Shriek. This large bird dominates one part of the land and kills all creatures who enter her domain, the few times you see her outside of it, she casts a massive presence on the world. Eventually though, Ori and Ku are reunited and as they begin to make their escape and head back home, they are discovered by Shriek and tragedy befalls them.

Honestly, by the time that happened, I felt like I had enjoyed a full game, even though it was only a few hours, after those events unfold the game expands even further, with more characters and locations to discover, it felt like part 2 and I liked it. In the first game, there were a number of things that people, me included, didn’t like, chief among them was the inability to backtrack, here though, they basically kept the world layout, in substance of course and then went and overhauled almost every aspect. Now the game is far more opened ended, letting you return to locations you have been to, multiple times, as you find new powers as you progress, making each return potentially a rewarding experience. The locations start out feeling quite familiar to the first game, but as you progress through it, more and more locations, each with unique themes and challenged are discovered. One such location is almost completely in darkness, which requires you to play it very safe, as being in the dark for too long will result in instant death, the world as a whole feels far grander that before and worth exploring, as there are so many secrets to discover.

Secrets are not the only thing to discover, as there are new challenges to complete, some are combat shrines, which are the ones you will want to do, as they let you unlock new shard slots. Others though, well it varies on your personal preference, as they are time challenges and while they do reward you will xp you can spend, some of them need some skills, that you might not have yet, making them far more challenging than you might initially believe them to be. Outside of that, there are a few of the Zelda-esq dungeons, these are not traditional dungeons of course, but clearly something you will understand once you start to see them and of course explore them. The series signature controls are making a return as well, which if I am being honest took me far too long to adjust to, due to the floating nature of Ori, but also for some reason there are none of the power-ups unlocked from the outset. Now some might claim that it is Metroid inspired, so that is to be expected, but as the game never explains why not, it stands out as an odd part. Once I did find my groove on the controls though, things felt perfect, I was able to jump, dash, grapple and glide around like a seasoned pro, it was just the best, especially those times when you believe you won’t make a jump, just sublime.

Of course, I mentioned shards before and if there is one massive change from the previous game, it is the upgrade system, yes you still unlock new abilities as you progress, but the game now uses shards to allow you to modify the game to suit you. Shards are found hidden around the world, so you will need to keep an eye out for them, the first one you will find allows Ori to stick to walls, making climbing a heck of a lot easier than before and while some are amazingly helpful, like giving you more health or such, others are not as kind. Bounty is perhaps the one shard I discovered that is a major boost, but also a massive pain at the same time, while you are able to take less damage with it, enemies can now dish out more damage and take more hits to defeat, which leaves the question of, do you want to risk it. Shards are also things you can enable or disable at anytime, so if you are in the midst of a boss fight and finding that you need more health, you can remove the one that increases the orb collection range and add some more health, the games ability to let you decide what you want enabled, is truly welcoming.

On top of that, you can upgrade all your moves and some shards, letting you deal more damage, equip stronger attacks and so on, these require the orange orbs that explode out of enemies once you defeat them. For a while there, I was so focused on upgrading, I felt like I would never earn enough orbs for what I needed, but eventually, I just forgot about it and when I went back, I had over 5000 orbs, which gave me almost all the upgrades at once, so worry not on that. If all that was not enough for you, there are also large chunks of ore to discover, mysterious seeds to collect and side quests to complete, the quests can be something as simple as locating where someone is, or delivering something and while they can be confusing, if you haven’t discovered the target required yet, they are basic enough to worry bout them, whenever you want. The ore however, that is harder to explain, as there is a certain someone who can use it to make upgrades to things, what happens when you upgrade it all, I couldn’t say as I am still trying to find two more pieces, but the upgrades so far are fun. Seeds can also help with that upgrade, but again, finding them all can be a little tricky and something you only need to worry about, if you want to 100% the game.

So, right now the story has a lot more depth, the gameplay has been overhauled in most areas, but how about the presentation, this is where you start to see the cracks in things. The games visuals are simply put, stunning, while other games have the realistic look, or super cartoony, Ori has perfected the painting come to lifestyle and each new location, character or fight, all help emphasis that fact, with little effort on its part. The world feels alive as well, due to the fact that you actions impact the world and you can return to these locations again and again, to see what has changed, from the early marsh location, to the snow and beyond, each area is teeming with touches that make it all come together in ways that most games simply overlook. From the foliage in the fore and backgrounds, to the way the ground shifts under foot, all these aspects make the game something, that you could screenshot at any time and you would have a near perfect piece of art, sadly the hud is still visible.

But all that art and beauty comes at a cost, the game struggles to run well, a lot and while the times when this happens are not exactly demanding of precision inputs, there are times when it happens that is just frustrating. Examples are along the lines of the game just stuttering, or pausing, while you are mid jump, waiting a few seconds and then coming good, and this was on Xbox One X. While I initially thought it might just be the Xbox, I restarted it and the same issues were happening, so I went to the PC and while they were less frequent, they still did happen. The most common one here, was when the game would reload after a death and parts would come in, the controller would vibrate and then upwards of 10 seconds later, the rest of the game would load, it was truly bizarre. Sadly, the PC also had another issue for me, every now and then, the sound would buzz, like their were was an effect that was not loaded properly and whenever it needed to play, it would buzz the system, not a big thing there, but still annoying. On the flip side of that though, the games score is simply hypnotically good, except for one tune in the starting area, the rest of the score is just amazing, Gareth Coker has done an amazing job, to the point where adding this score to my library is something I am going to do. The one track that I didn’t enjoy so much, was the starting area one, as it sounds like it is pulled from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which is another great game, but sadly the tune had me feeling like it was a temp track that they just forgot to replace.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a digital masterpiece of artistic design and leaps and bounds ahead on gameplay that its previous entry. With upgrades that make changes to how you experience the game, each playthrough could be something new, giving the game more chances to shine. While there are some presentation issues, performance being one of them, they are easy enough to ignore, as long as you focus on the game as a whole, because you really need to.

Review copy provided by Xbox