One of the reason I’m preferring this, to be honest.
I’m near the end phase I think, I just did the desert part and now I’m running from a giant worm in a chase sequence. Although after 12 failed tried I quit raged. 
I feel your pain, I was stuck on that part the other day. Easily the most frustrating part of the game. My least favorite kind of game sequence where you basically have to memorize the entire thing before you can beat it so it’s just incremental progress. Don’t worry you’ll beat it but it’s definitely annoying. You are close to the end though, maybe 90% done
Up to 55 tries or so already. Still stuck.
What it pisses me off is that until now ,the game wasn’t particularly hard. In normal mode it was fun and engaging but not that challenging. I don’t know why they have to put this stupid difficulty peak. I also noticed the difficulty can’t be changed. Great.
DONE ON THE 62ND TRY.
Woo, just finished. Strong contender for game of the year so far.
I normally suck at and hate the chase sequences, but I actually managed that worm one first time. Didn’t seem too bad with lots of tunnel dashing
A big patch just hit!
I downloaded it last night on Xbox and was surprised there wasn’t one for PC yet. But this morning the one for the PC is up, and it’s 3 times the size of the patch for Xbox.
Man I’m so conflicted about this game. Bugs and performance aside (hopefully that patch fixes them cause they are disruptive on my X1X) the game is just so much more complex than the first one, and really feels way more combat oriented than the first game. I don’t feel it does enough to earn that extra complexity though.
The story, sound, animation, and art (when it’s not bugging out) is A+ and is the reason I have been sticking through it. I’ve got one wisp so far (the snow area one) and I feel like I’ve done a lot (the timer for me is bugged and claimed I’ve spent over 20 hours on the game, apparently the map and skills menu doesn’t pause the timer). However I only have like 5 active abilities and 10 or so passive abilities.
The one (irrational?) thing I truly hate about this game are some of the control decisions that I don’t believe were in the first game. Sure you can use the dpad for movement (and imo that’s much better than analog stick) but you can’t use the dpad for aiming your bashes. Since it’s way too much to keep swapping between dpad and left analog I have to use left analog for platforming, which is much less optimal.
Is the game really gaining anything by giving me this super slow attack that requires timing to use properly in addition to the regular attack? Does the game gain anything from me having several different projectile types (spear, bombs, arrows, etc…)? Do things like extra damage to winged enemies or enemies drop more life but are harder to kill really make the game better? Is having to remember Left Trigger vs select to bring up the correct menu to swap things out (active vs passive) really a good design? Is the game gaining anything from having to better time combat and dodges? Is the game better for having SO many side quests and so many map pickups, and so many map icons, etc…?
My opinion is no. I think the first game so far is much better because it focused on the platforming, story, and art. It was much simpler (not in an difficulty way) and this game keeps breaking my immersion all over the place. It was so much nicer to just have the one 3 branch upgrade tree that I didn’t have to worry about most of the time too. I feel like they added way too much to this game, not because the game would benefit for it because why the hell not.
I’m still going through it because I’m not hating my time with it, but if they come out with an Ori 3 I’ll most likely skip it.
Finished, it was great game, despite some missteps (see above…).
Finished this up, and absolutely loved it. It took everything I liked about the first game (fluid traversal, gorgeous aesthetics, interesting areas to explore) and built on them while layering in some more satisfying combat and customization.
Famously, Mario 64 was tuned to be a joy just to run around in before any levels were even designed. Few platformers have managed that feat over the years, but this is one of them. Everything is so kinetic, between your normal movement, dashes, bashes, grapples, dives, etc. that just getting from place to place is a delight. It’s also noteworthy as one of the few 2D platformers to make full use of the strengths of the analog stick over the d-pad, as it helps you control speed and many of the movement options are aimed with full 360-degree freedom.
Combat felt a bit lacking in the first game, and it’s the biggest improvement here, as it is quite satisfying to try the various tools and be zipping around dodging, attacking, and reflecting projectiles. The radial menu to freely select which abilities to use without going into the pause screen really helps employ all the tools, though I wouldn’t have minded energy costs being a bit lower to encourage using them over the regular slashes. I wasn’t as impressed with the Hollow Knight-style badge system, as most of them didn’t feel all that impactful.
The escape sequences were a highlight of the original, and are a thrilling spectacle here too, but I think the developers got a bit too scared by the criticism of their difficulty the first time around. Where the first game seemed to require near-perfection, and a dozen or more attempts before succeeding, these were much more forgiving and I got out despite somewhat sloppy play on the first attempt on most of them. Still, probably better to err on the side of making them too easy, as the optional spirit races fulfill a bit of their role as pure platforming challenges.
Overall, an amazing experience from start to finish, and will be high on my list of games of the year.
Heh. It makes me sad that I’ll be playing it on a plain 1080p monitor with a maximum of 60Hz refresh rate. Nevertheless, playing it on the Series X should be a LOT more smooth than when I was playing on my PC, where they were a lot of slowdowns. I wonder if I should continue my game or start over? Hmmm.
Should be cross save?
Yep. It’s a Play Anywhere game. Hence the dilemma. I originally stopped playing on the PC because of poor performance, but I got pretty far into the game.
Wow… too easy? I just completed the first chase mission clearing the old mill and had to do that a couple dozen times. Hated it and was really hoping that there wouldn’t be any more sequences like that… Looks like there are.
But then I never really played any platformers, so am not as proficient in this genre. Frequently struggle with bash leaps or triple jump dash combo moves, so yeah… Lets see how far I get in this!
I played this all weekend. I’m going to get the last wisp now.
Here’s what I said on the weekend thread:
I think there’s a small part of me that irrationally doesn’t want to like these games. I mean, the first game had definite objective flaws, but I complained about them while playing the game to the end. And now most of those flaws have been worked out (partly by yoinking a lot of ideas from Hollow Knight, but that’s cool), and the art and music are even more beautiful and the level design is excellent, and I still kind of want to put it in the “it’s okay” category. But actually that’s unfair. It’s a really really nice game.
Maybe it’s the saccharine story? I mean, it’s actually quite deftly presented, but it still seems manufactured to evoke sensitive gamer tears. Cute creatures lost and alone, a family of misfits, poignant deaths…
I probably just have to admit that this is one of the best games of last year.
A great thing about the game that I need to add is how generous it is. Maybe it’s just because I’m thorough in collecting Shards, but not many games would introduce you to swimming, including managing a breath meter, and then very soon afterwards give you the ability to breathe underwater without worrying about breath. Or give you a triple jump that, as far as I can tell, isn’t necessary hardly anywhere in the game but makes a lot of jumps easier. For as much careful craftsmanship as went into the level design, they seem very willing to give you ways to break (slightly) that level design if you want.
I enjoyed the game, but hated the boss chase level sequences. The 3rd one (I think?) where you run away from the frog (to the left) was the one that was just too tough for me & I stopped playing. Pity as the rest of the game was rather fun & I would’ve enjoyed playing more of it.
My overall impression of those was that they were much more forgiving than the ones in Ori 1, but I still wouldn’t be surprised if they were a common roadblock. The frog one was long and they didn’t put any mid-point saves in any of them. If I were designing them, I’d make them way easier–they’re basically dramatic moments and tension builders and spectacles, and they lose all of that when you have to play them five times.
That was one of the better story moments, though, when they brought back the boss from the water wheel level, Wrath of Khan-style. Did not expect that.
Yeah, I hated them in the first game, but really didn’t have much of an issue with them in the second.