Deep Into The Woods With Ori And The Blind Forest

It used to be much easier for side scrolling platformers. Back in the day, all you needed was a working jump button, maybe an attack or two, and dozens of levels with a good sense of coherency. Now? It’s all about having those things in addition to a unique art style, something that Playdead achieved with LIMBO on Xbox 360 last generation, and something that Ubisoft seem masters of with their UbiArt engine, as shown by Child of Light and Rayman Legends.

Thankfully, Ori and the Blind Forest is a fantastic looking game, as you might have noticed if you saw the trailer from E3 this year (embedded below, if you haven’t). Everything radiates majestically, as if the moonlight is shining through the forest’s canopy from above, bathing the world in its blue glow.

Characters themselves are superbly animated; Ori – the playable guardian spirit – swishes and speeds around the screen, with a trail of light following his every move. He’s also joined by Sein, who manifests as a ball of light, and gives Ori the ability to attack enemies. Well, technically it’s Sein who’s doing all the attacking, but you control them as one, using the ball of light as essentially a disjointed arm to scrap with the enemies.

It’s the lighting that’s the star of the show here though, and unlike LIMBO where an absence of it was used to achieve the style, here there is an abundance of different light sources, all radiating in harmony. In this build, there were a few frame rate issues but hopefully they’ll be ironed out before release. Still, when it works, it’s really good in motion, with different layers of the background illuminated with stunning effect to create the impression of a deep forest to explore.

And that forest goes deeper than you might expect: this is very much a Metroidvania style game, where you have a large world to explore, and even from just this short fifteen to twenty minute demo, I got a real sense of just how expansive the forest was, with doors beyond blocked until I unlocked further abilities. To unlock these doors, you’ll need to collect artifacts, but some of these can be hidden in out-of-reach areas.

With that deep sense of exploration comes the upgrades system, which seems to be quite expansive in itself. Of course, you’ll gain larger abilities as you progress, but there will also be incremental upgrades through a skill tree, which can focus on attacks, exploration, or even the health system.

The checkpoint system is quite interesting too. Here, you’re able to save at any time with a soul link, but it’ll cost you in-game resources to do so, and it’s very much up to you to choose the best parts to create a checkpoint in between the more spaced out save points.

Ori and the Blind Forest seems like another superb sidescrolling platformer to add to the growing list of exceptional titles in a genre which is having somewhat of a resurgence at the moment. With exploration at its core, even this small preview felt like a part of an epic journey, and one which is achieved with a gorgeous art style. Moon Studios look to deliver one of the most refreshing platform experiences so far this generation when Ori lands on Xbox One later this year.