The sequel to one of the Xbox One’s most beloved exclusives finally arrives and it may be the best looking, and sounding, game of the year.
If you were to travel back in time, to the height of the Xbox 360’s popularity and tell fans that the most high-profile and critically acclaimed Xbox exclusive was a 2D indie Metroidvania you would’ve become a laughing stock. And not just because you wasted a time travelling trip on trolling gamers. But that’s the position Microsoft is in right now, and while cute little Ori may not seem an obvious replacement for Master Chief his new game demands to be taken seriously.
It’s five years now since Ori And The Blind Forest was first released, which means there’s been a longer gap between these two sequels than most triple-A games. But to all intents and purposes Ori And The Will Of The Wisps is triple-A. Despite the 2D gameplay it has some of the best graphics we’ve seen all generation, with a strikingly beautiful landscape and wonderfully animated characters that are supported by a glorious soundtrack that’s even better than the visuals.
At the same time though, Will Of The Wisps is still very obviously a Metroidvania and one that follows the formula of the genre extremely closely. Not only that but it purposefully echoes some of the most memorable moments from the original, most obviously the lengthy opening sequence that introduces you to the ferret-like Ori and his friend Ku – a newly-hatched owl that proves to be a less than skilled flier, with a disastrous maiden flight leaving both Ori and her stranded in an unknown forest.
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There’s relatively little dialogue in Will Of The Wisps but the storytelling is excellent nonetheless. The rot, the same malignant growth from the first game, is what drives the main plot, but the heart of the story is the relationship between Ori, Ku, and main villain Shriek. The latter has one of the best backstories of any protagonist in years and yet still most of the story, and certainly the emoting of the characters, is achieved through wordless body language.
Will Of The Wisps has all the standard features of a Metroidvania, in that you have a very large open world environment to explore, but your progress is frequently blocked because you lack specific items or abilities that you only gain later in the game.
But there are many important differences in how Will Of The Wisps approaches the genre and like the first game there’s more of an emphasis on straight platforming than many of its peers. And while combat was one of the weaker elements of the original, here it’s been beefed up considerably with more moves and weapons, and more interesting enemies.
Some many even consider there to be too much emphasis on fighting, especially towards the end of the game, but there’s a good synergy between the fighting moves, the selectable weapons, and the movement-based abilities that have you zipping about the screen almost like a 2D Devil May Cry.
Will Of The Wisps also has less backtracking than normal for a Metroidvania, at least in terms of taking the quickest route through the story (which we certainly didn’t do). Backtracking is always controversial, but the game goes further by dispensing with the soul link system from the original, that forced you to manually save your position, in favour of a simple auto-save.
That means death has almost no consequence, although fears that this would dumb down the platforming and action are unfounded, as while it’s slightly easier than before, Will Of The Wisps is still extremely challenging by most standards.
The hardest parts are usually the boss battles and the escape sequences (which can sometimes be one and the same). The latter requires the most precise platforming in the game, but are still fundamentally similar to the Blind Forest, while the boss battles are considerably more involved and almost always involve giant screen-sized monsters whose tells and weaknesses have to be worked out in an almost Dark Souls like manner.
Backtracking is much more evident in the optional side quests, which include a long, Zelda-like trading quest and many story-based missions that end up providing you with new abilities or other boons. However well they’re presented, most of these are just fetch quests but there’s also an interesting hub world village that you can help to upgrade, by bringing back materials to craft new buildings and filling up the area with characters you rescue.
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The problems with The Will Of The Wisps are essentially the same as with the original, in that as beautifully constructed as everything is, the game isn’t really doing anything new with the Metroidvania concept. The sequel also has the issue that at times it sticks a little too close to its own predecessor, especially in terms of how it tries to pluck your heartstrings during story segments and how many of the opening areas look very similar to those from the first game.
Plus, there’s the reason we delayed this review from its launch, where the game was rendered almost unplayable on Xbox One S because of shoddy performance. A day one patch was supposed to fix the problems, but it’s not been entirely successful. It’s certainly much better now, but even on the Xbox One X there’s still occasional hiccups and glitches that suggest a second patch will be necessary.
But the new combat system and expanded abilities have evolved considerably and the degree to which they allow you to customise your experience, simply by choosing which items to equip, works extremely well. Some you can’t get by without, especially those that involving flying, but even things like the triple jump aren’t strictly necessary if you just want to see the ending.
There’s also a wide range of passive abilities, which you can only activate a limited number of at once, and while some seem indispensable at first – such as the one that lets you automatically stick to walls or those that increase your health or damage output – you can eventually learn to do without them and instead opt for more interesting alternatives that allow you to explore more of the map.
Unoriginal or not Will Of The Wisps is both an improvement on the original and one of the best Metroidvanias of the generation. We’d have qualms about a third game stretching the formula beyond breaking point but while describing this as one of the best games of the year means nothing, given how empty the release schedules have been so far, this would stand out as a great game no matter when, or on what format it, come out.
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