(PC) - Ori and the blind forest

@Mire got me a copy of the Definitive Edition because he loved the original so much. I beat it yesterday, then went back to get the last 2 skills I had missed and try to find as many collectibles as I could. It's a fantastic game that does a lot right. The graphics and atmosphere are absolutely stellar and the abilities you unlock dramatically change the mechanics and force you to adjust how you play the game accordingly.

...But it ain't perfect. The floaty controls take some getting used to (something as simple as climbing onto the top of a pillar can be ridiculously finicky) and it seems as though if I want to max out my ability tree I'm going to have to grind a fuckload of enemies. I've only got one ability point left unfound (which is not appearing on my world map for some reason), but I don't think I've got the patience to kill the number of enemies required to fully power up. I did only play on "hard" mode, which possibly gives you less XP per enemy killed, so maybe that's what's holding me back.

Still, the set pieces are fantastic, and even though they could be quite frustrating I enjoyed conquering the "race" sequences. Definitely recommended.

Yea I also beat this last month. It has been a game on my radar for a while and I only recently had the time to devote to it.

The visuals are amazing. The whole game is a art piece and takes you through all kinds of ambient color pallets of different zone types.

The music is top notch. Emotionally driven compositions with haunting vocals backed by orchestral instruments makes the environments and characters really come to life.

The story is okay. The most memorable part is right at the beginning where they try and hit you in the feels. The rest of the story kinda takes a back seat to the stunning visuals and great music.

Gameplay is fun. I played on normal, so I didn't run into the problem Tanoomba did with having to grind to max out abilities. Quite the opposite actually. I had every ability just about right near the ending of the game with loads and loads of life/energy/ability cells still scattered all over the land. The platforming aspect of the game was pretty good, with some small hiccups like Tanoomba mentioned above, but overall it all worked pretty good and was challenging and fun trying to figure out how to get past certain areas. They definitely give you an arsenal of tools to get past the different obstacles, and I'm pretty sure, on many occasions, I ended up making life harder on myself than I needed to. But it's still nice to know that you can experiment and get through different obstacles in multiple different ways.

They have an ability tree type RPG element that has 3 branches of abilities that your character inherits as you gain and spend points into each. One branch is utility based (so movement type abilities), Efficiency based (revealing map markers, and gaining extra life/energy), and combat based (making your combat skills more powerful and changing how they function). Along side the ability tree they also have new skills that you gain as you progress through the story, which will give your character access to new areas by using said skills to reach those areas.

If you love platformers, great visuals, and amazing music I'd highly recommend this game.