Ori and the Blind Forest

I’m still loving it, but now I’m completely stuck in Sorrow’s Pass.

There’s an area where you push a boulder to block a beam so you can move past the beam. And then there’s another boulder that you push into an air flow so that it goes to the top and blocks another beam, but then when you go past that beam there’s yet another beam. I could use the second boulder to block that one from the bottom side, but then I can’t get up top past the second beam. I seem to be missing something big here. As if a piece of the puzzle was missing.

Yes, it appears you’ve missed one object in that scene.

  • You need to block the top beam with something else, to release the boulder.

  • That something else is above the top beam, have another look there

  • There’s a pylon on the ledge. You need to ground pound it until it blocks the beam.

Thanks jsnell! I had to unlock 2 of your hints to finally realize that I did see an object up there, but I couldn’t find any way to interact with it. Now that I know it’s possible, I know exactly what I can try up there.

I made it to the top! Now I have no idea where to go next. I guess it’s exploration time. Time to go back to areas near the beginning of the game perhaps. My newest ability really increases my mobility and where I can go. The funny part is, the move I learned by leveling up the inner ability try still can’t be used, because I have yet to learn “dash”, so therefore when I gained the ability to “dash in mid air”, that’s still meaningless. The controls in the menu say dash is RB, but obviously RB does nothing right now. I guess maybe dash is something I’ll learn near the end of the game. It’s so strange that they would tempt me to gain an ability early on that does nothing.

Yeah, the fact that you can gain useless abilities before you can use them is a mistake. But I don’t think Dash comes a long way into the game, so it’s likely you missed an ability tree in an earlier area.

Really? I thought ability trees were all part of the linear story. I guess there’s an optional one somewhere too? That kind of sucks.

Are you sure you’re not thinking of Bash? Which is tied to the Y button? Not Dash which is on one of the shoulder buttons (that I don’t have yet)?

I just looked it up. You get dash in the dark area where I couldn’t see a damn thing. It’s a new ability that was not in the base game, only in the Definitive Edition. I guess that’s why it’s optional.

But… how are you supposed to do that area early in the game? It’s so dark in there and you can’t see a thing so it’s too easy to die. I always assumed you’d get something later in the game that would light that area up a little brighter or something.

I found out where to go next!

And more importantly, I also couldn’t resist back tracking and back to the dark area. I figured if there’s a dash ability to procure there, then it’s worth fumbling around in the dark.

And it was! Once you explore it a little in the dark, you do find a little ball of light that helps you see. And once you get the Dash ability, the whole area lights up (thank god). It’s actually a really great area. Highly recommended. Now, as to when you should be able to tackle this area? I have no idea. I had a relatively easy time since I have quite a few abilities in my repertoire. I imagine this area would be a lot harder for people who tackle it near the beginning of the game.

I hot that pretty early, but I wondered half the time if I was supposed to be there. Interesting to learn that that was part of the “bonus” content in the Definitive edition. Makes sense, since it’s pretty self-contained. But can you really finish the game without the Dash ability? I can think of some spots with the bullet-shooting flowers that seem impossible without it.

Finished. That last sequence was really tough. I had to do that for a long time to finally get it.

It was worth it though. Great ending to a great game.

And just so that I’m clear about what I saw:

Ending Spoilers

Kuro, the owl mother, killed Ori at the end, right? When she then decided to deliver the light to the tree herself, getting wiped out by the same light that killed her children, that was pretty striking. And Ori’s foster mother then started taking care of Kuro’s one remaining offspring. But the death of Ori was left kind of ambiguous. I figured the character could just be unconscious, but then we would have seen the character at the end, right?

Total play time: 22 hours 18minutes.

But it feels incomplete since I didn’t get so many of the areas from earlier in the game. I’m very tempted to go back.

I went back into my game, and discovered I start at the last save point before the final area. In other words, in order to explore the rest of the game, I have to actually go back to a teleport shrine from the final area. That is not easy. I tried for a while last night, but this is harder (getting back to a shrine from the bottom of Mt Horu) than the ending was.

Was this game created by austrian sadists by any chance?

I am starting to hate it despite the nice graphics and music.

Hey, I finished it, and I’m not a masochist. It’s pretty hard in some places, but I don’t remember hating it at any point whatsoever. Well, maybe a little bit in a couple places at most. That’s it.

I don’t find it fun to do the same thing for 30 minutes in a row, which is how long it took me to escape the flood. I see Rock8man took 90 minutes. I was close to uninstalling the game even after those thirty - it just feels like a god damn waste of time. It’s not like the game is giving me much experience I have never had before in narrative or anything. It is just eye candy plus hand gymnastics…not really my thing I guess.
I don’t deny the game is well done, but I find it kinda chore to play. But now I have some 6 hours in it, so I want to see it through even if I do not particularly enjoy it. Dammit :)

That “escape the flood” part is one of the worst. There’s only one other section that’s as hard and unforgiving as that one, but it’s close to the end and you do have more tools at that point. I’d say it’s worth trying to go until the end if you can.

I took a long time on those too, but like rhamorim says there aren’t a lot of places like that. i thought about giving up but I’m glad I stuck with it - but I do have a fondness for this type of game as long as I don’t play too many of them.

Ori is definitely hard in spots, it’s also a different kind of hard from Dark Souls, as in Ori it’s all about precision and execution of mechanics along a singular path. It’s more akin to masocore platformers like Super Meatboy etc.

Yeah, the flood did take me 90 minutes. And there was one other big difficulty spike in the game. But I still enjoyed it a lot. Like I said upthread, I think what really enamored me to the mechanics is that even when it’s a scripted sequence like the flood rising, your actions are still determined by physics. Just little differences in timing can lead to big differences in momentum, which can mean life or death. There’s just something about that, the fact that it’s your fault when you die, that even in sequences where in other games they simplify the mechanics sometimes and hold your hand, but Ori refuses to do that. I just found that part of the charm.

I’m glad I finished it. Though when I tried to go back to get 100% after finishing it, I eventually petered out. I’m just not that type of gamer. Once I finish the main story, I guess I’m done no matter how much I try to fight against that instinct sometimes.

Finally finished it. Took me 12 hours in total.
It was damn challenging, that’s for sure. And now I don’t want to see another damn platformer for the next 20 years.

I also did not get all the sidestuff. Got all the skills, but left lot of ability/health/etc points, beelined it to the end.

And yeah like you guys, I also always leave main story for last in games, and once that is done, I am done. In this game though, meh going after the secrets.

I would say that any fan of the genre needs to play this, I am just not among them.

E3 trailer for the sequel: