PLEASE NOTE THIS IS THE EARLY ACCESS
So, as you can tell Ori and the Will of the Wisps is one of my favorite games of all time, so I was ECSTATIC when this game was revealed. I was so excited to play it and I finally got around to the Early Access. Unfortunately, the launch was a bit.. rougher than expected, Which I'll get into later, but beneath the Early Access crustiness lies yet another Moon Studios HIT.
In typical Moon studios fashion, this is one of the most beautiful games I've ever played, but in a very different way compared to Ori. Ori balances areas of darkness with equally high if not higher areas of serene wilderness, kind of like a Ghibli movie. Here though? This game is dark fantasy to the max, with some great gothic locations and some excellent character and boss designs. The Music also sounds great and the voice acting in the surprisingly well-animated cutscenes sound great as well.
Weirdly enough the sound editing isn't that great, with some attacks not having the weight that the animations make them out to have, and some things like the lock-on sound being a bit hard to discern but most of the rest of it turned out well. I can't comment on the story as we only have the first bit of it, but I am intrigued to see where it goes.
The combat is really heavy and slow, but very satisfying. There's a bit of weapon durability annoyance in there and the balancing of that vs the enemy density and strength is a bit lopsided, but it isn't too bad. It's a little weird how I can spec super hard into defense and yet some enemies can still kill me in one hit so that's a little silly.
Even more silly is the game's inventory management, which, as of now, just straight-up sucks. The UI is extremely crowded, with so much dicking around in these menus, compounded by the fact that there's no auto pickup making it a chore to collect resources which is how you offset the brutal durability system. And if you die too many times, you eventually reach that bloodborne loop where you have no healing items but you need stuff from enemies to get those healing items, which sends you into that familiar downward spiral. It can be a bit too punishing at times.
And that is on top of the multitude of Early Access weirdness in this game. There are a lot of basic QOL options not in the game, like key bind mapping and pausing, the frame rate was pretty bad at launch (though it has been fixed for me) and there are a bunch of minor bugs and features that just aren't here. In my mind, this is definitely an Early Access ass Early Access game.
And that's how I'd describe this game. It is a game that, in all of the areas that count, is spectacular. Great visuals, music, combat, exploration, and an interesting narrative. But the balancing on the game's systems, the QOL, and the polish in terms of bugs and performance could be better. This game is getting patched pretty frequently, so maybe by the next update or two, it can reach that level that the Ori games set out for it. But right now, I'd say to temper your expectations, since it IS early access.
So, as you can tell Ori and the Will of the Wisps is one of my favorite games of all time, so I was ECSTATIC when this game was revealed. I was so excited to play it and I finally got around to the Early Access. Unfortunately, the launch was a bit.. rougher than expected, Which I'll get into later, but beneath the Early Access crustiness lies yet another Moon Studios HIT.
In typical Moon studios fashion, this is one of the most beautiful games I've ever played, but in a very different way compared to Ori. Ori balances areas of darkness with equally high if not higher areas of serene wilderness, kind of like a Ghibli movie. Here though? This game is dark fantasy to the max, with some great gothic locations and some excellent character and boss designs. The Music also sounds great and the voice acting in the surprisingly well-animated cutscenes sound great as well.
Weirdly enough the sound editing isn't that great, with some attacks not having the weight that the animations make them out to have, and some things like the lock-on sound being a bit hard to discern but most of the rest of it turned out well. I can't comment on the story as we only have the first bit of it, but I am intrigued to see where it goes.
The combat is really heavy and slow, but very satisfying. There's a bit of weapon durability annoyance in there and the balancing of that vs the enemy density and strength is a bit lopsided, but it isn't too bad. It's a little weird how I can spec super hard into defense and yet some enemies can still kill me in one hit so that's a little silly.
Even more silly is the game's inventory management, which, as of now, just straight-up sucks. The UI is extremely crowded, with so much dicking around in these menus, compounded by the fact that there's no auto pickup making it a chore to collect resources which is how you offset the brutal durability system. And if you die too many times, you eventually reach that bloodborne loop where you have no healing items but you need stuff from enemies to get those healing items, which sends you into that familiar downward spiral. It can be a bit too punishing at times.
And that is on top of the multitude of Early Access weirdness in this game. There are a lot of basic QOL options not in the game, like key bind mapping and pausing, the frame rate was pretty bad at launch (though it has been fixed for me) and there are a bunch of minor bugs and features that just aren't here. In my mind, this is definitely an Early Access ass Early Access game.
And that's how I'd describe this game. It is a game that, in all of the areas that count, is spectacular. Great visuals, music, combat, exploration, and an interesting narrative. But the balancing on the game's systems, the QOL, and the polish in terms of bugs and performance could be better. This game is getting patched pretty frequently, so maybe by the next update or two, it can reach that level that the Ori games set out for it. But right now, I'd say to temper your expectations, since it IS early access.