What starts as a lively, resonant palette of color - that same pastoral-yet-mythical sheen that gives moments of calm and peril alike an almighty impact - soon gives way to an experience that allows everything else to shine. Because the truth of the matter is that there are virtually no “lacking” components to Will of the Wisps. The way environments are so heavily, densely layered, yet at the same time don’t come across as over-compensating or distracting from an element that may or may not be unfortunately lacking. Masterminding what might be the pinnacle of the genre in modern times and arguably one of the best games of this generation.Īnyone who’s even taken a peak of Ori will know of Moon’s artistic strides that made Blind Forest such a talked-about debut. But Moon Studios appear to have done the seemingly impossible and bested all of them. Fans and followers of Metroidvanias have been blessed these past few years - Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight, Yoku’s Island Express and The Messenger all similarly debut games from studios whom made a great first impression through varying means. It’s been five years to the day since the original first dropped but it’s been worth the wait. The sequel that builds on the strengths of the original, while seeing to the drawbacks that stopped it from achieving perfection.
With a visual look such as this, it’s no surprise to see the follow-up, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, has taken so long to even attempt a claim at being superior. And while not without its short-comings - its combat the only real major culprit, which felt especially secondary and not as fleshed out - Ori‘s gorgeous aesthetic, heart-tugging soundtrack and appreciation for the finer detail cemented Moon Studios as a name to trust. Another studio who recognized that the then-resurgent design philosophy that is/was the Metroidvania sub-genre was not just a flashback to past fondness. Their debut effort in 2015, Ori and the Blind Forest, had already set itself apart with the sheer breadth and ambition of its artistic and presentation elements.
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With a new generation of consoles here, Moon Studios has released an optimized version of their instant classic for Xbox Series X, and with it comes some visual improvements that only help strengthen the game’s legacy.
The ten hour journey had us enraptured in an experience like no other, feeding us through an endless series of emotional and thrilling scenarios. We reviewed the game when it first hit Xbox One, and as you can tell from the first couple of sentences, it was nothing short of breathtaking. Moon Studios created something special that would go down in history as a defining trait of the Xbox One, a game that was not only beautiful, but was played as one of the best Metroidvania type games available, sitting atop classic such as Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Released at the beginning of the year, Ori and the Will of the Wisp became one of the most outstanding games to ever be released during the current generation. Additional portions here were written by Adam Beck.
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Editor’s Note: The non-console specific portions of this review originally appeared in our own Jordan Helm’s review of Ori and the Will of the Wisps, which can be read in full and unaltered here.
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