Why You Should Be a Bit Disappointed With Ori and the Blind Forest

[09philj]

On the one hand Ori isn't a bad game. On the other hand, it doesn't really have anything much over the 2009 flash game William and Sly.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Personally, I loved it for the feel of the gameplay, its great OST, and yes, its aesthetics & style. True, the story and themes didn't rate significantly above passable, but they weren't where my focus was, anyway.

Also, who are you to say I'm wrong to love me some sweet animations and particle effects? I'm a 3D artist. It's kind of my thing.

And his thing is that story is greater than art. He says that if you like the art, that's fine, it's your groove, but that the story is the cheapest framework on which they have hung the animations (or likely the other way around, with the art done first and the story stapled on afterwards).

He's not saying that you're wrong for liking the art, but that you should be disappointed that they took all the beauty of the art and stuck it with the most boring non-story they could write. He's going after the game, not the players; you shouldn't be ashamed for liking it because it was designed for you to like it on the most base level, you should be disappointed with the studio for setting the bar that low.

On the title of the piece, I'm with Cait Seith: It's different from the one Yahtzee originally picked, but it also does a good job of summarizing what the main thrust of the piece was.

snip

I like happy games and escapism too, but I also like it done right. I'm all for Disney endings, but they have to be attached to a Disney-caliber story otherwise the characters haven't done anything of use and I wonder as a player why I was brought in when everything could apparently be solved with a magic wand and a bit of a talk. Entirely light-hearted, or starting melancholy and moving to happiness, either is good as long as the story is good.

 

[Redryhno]

I wasn't even mildly attracted to Ori's formula. I enjoyed it with The Last of Us because it's adequately furnished and fleshed out, but in Ori's case - it's just there. "Oooh, here's a cute lil' ragamuffin who's suffering in the great big world, EMPATHIZE WITH IT NOW, PLAYER! HAVE SOME WEEPY MUSIC BECAUSE WEEPY MUSIC EQUALS PERSONAL INVESTMENT!"

The same feeling got me when I played Journey. The game was going "LOOK AT ALL THE FEELS YOU COULD BE HAVING!" and all I felt was that it was competently and interestingly put together.

Dear indies, there's other emotional registries out there. Not every game needs to be an exercise in trying to get to the nearest rooftop and scream that gaming can be an art form.

What about the gameplay? You know, the part of the game that matters the most?

You haven't even mentioned anything about that in your rant here.

Well, to be fair, it's Metroidvania, it's kinda hard to mess it up after thirty years. It doesn't really do anything new or interesting, it's about getting powerups, platforming, and killing blobs of indeterminate shape and/or color. About the only thing that makes it different is the artstyle and the weird story with an unfocused focus.

I can't think of any reason for TLoU focusing on Joel beyond him being an author surrogate. Everything interesting happens to Ellie, who's actually a decent character but she's forced into a far more boring character's story.

Ehh....I wouldn't say that, she's honestly a pretty generic character, the only thing differentiating her from the others is that she's in a videogame and not a book, film, or even board game where her archetype is just as prevalent as the middle-aged white guy with violent tendencies to the recently undeceased.

Can you name me some examples of the Ellie archetype? I'm struggling to think of any off the top of my head.[/quote]

Let's see, there's Liam and his girlfriend in Battlefield Earth(it's been fifteen years since I read it, I could be getting the names wrong), Elayne Trakand of WoT fame, Stephanie Brown from DC, The Mord-Sith in general post Wizard's First Rule from Sword of the Seeker series have similarities but are smarter, Island in the Sea of Time series(both sides of the divide, it's complicated to explain here) has a couple of these, the best one being Swindapa, zombie and post-apocalyptic works of fiction in general, as much as I hate it, Bella fro the Twilight series(I suddenly feel a need to flagellate myself and then shower in boiling oil over saying that)

Spoiler: NSFW

Beauty from Anne Rice's BDSM-like retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Heck, read it for how outlandish and wacky the world is.

Pretty much the thing that makes them better(in my opinion) is that they become competent and no longer need who they are introduced with to be a good(or at least passable in some cases) character by at least the end of the book/run(as the case may be from the medium) they were introduced in.

I'm probably in a very small minority here, but finding out how Ori ends actually made me more likely to play it. There seems to be a large part of the gaming audience that basically despises joy. They make much ado about games like The Witcher, Bloodborne, TLoU, Spec Ops, ect., games that mire you neck deep in grime then stand on your head. The ideal seems to be as much darkness and despair as possible, a minimum of likable or heroic charterers, and the light at the end of the tunnel being reachable only from the top of a pile of innocent bodies.

I on the other hand am sick of the industry's angsty teen phase and relish the chance to just bask in the warm D'aaaawwwww of a good happy ending. Quite frankly if I want a story where a lot of people die the bad guys win and everything is just generally shit I'll watch the news. I like some escapism in my games thank you very much.

Obligatory cane-waggling aside, I do like happy endings, but the way Ori plays out is sorta weird in that it just sorta...happens...There's no build-up and the reason to start things off is kinda the opposite of how it ends. It's just sorta mixed signals and that's what the article talks about. There's nothing wrong with happy endings, but they're very rarely pulled off well in a game, and this is sorta one of the examples. If a character dies, you don't suddnely bring them back after ten hours with next to no explanation that the theory of doing that is possible in the intervening gameplay.

 

[Evonisia]

Am I the only one taking a certain perverse joy in Yahtzee doing to an indie game what indie game enthusiasts have been doing to AAA games for years now?

I'll be honest and agree here. If only to help balancing the scales after becoming practically jaded to all of the "oh you won't find x, y or z impressive in AAA gaming" posts of recent years.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Whilst I did enjoy Ori a bit (I really liked the style and artistic direction, so sue me), but it did bother me that the mother dying in the beginning thing didn't stick. For sake of example, mid way through there's a trippy level in like a misty forest, getting turned around back and forth and I thought, this would be a great time to have like the 'ghost' of her leading him on and he's following out of a desperate need for her to be alive, not for the 'quest'. Yet it never comes back up again till the Disney-esc ending.

There's the beginning intro, the bad guys motives in the middle, and the eventual end, that's all the 'Story' there is in Ori. So whilst I do love it, they could've gone a bit further with the story.

 

[theSovietConnection]

I really think some people need to actually read the article, and not take it for the title value. I mean, he says right in the first paragraph:

I mean, it's not bad as games go. It passes the time. Controls alright, animation's really good, I certainly wouldn't judge you harshly if you did enjoy it.

Can we please, collectively, agree to start actually reading things before we pass judgement on them?

Anyways, Ori looked interesting if only from the aesthetic perspective to me. Given what Yahtzee has said about the story, I think I'll wait for it to go on sale before picking it up.

 

[iller3]

Hmm, it almost reads like he's implying that a lot of indie devs are making more money than they should be off of professional victimhood and our kneejerk empathetic response to them. What a completely unique and never before exposed concept in video games and journalism

 

[GodzillaGuy92]

We've all had to go through the process of growing up and learning to cope with adulthood and independence (at least, I assume we have; the comments on this article will probably gauge that).

I truly didn't think I'd have to worry about seeing that, but lo and behold, in the first dozen comments alone:

I think Yahztee is going to have to eventually accept that people LIKE the "indie game formula" he decries.

But he said at the beginning he's fine with people enjoying-

I genuinely thought people were past this garbage. It's kind of a shitty / arrogant way to title your argument and it's something that I've only seen Kotaku / Polygon doing.

Also, you're "disappointed" in people? Boo hoo. You're actually emotionally affected by people liking a game? Congrats, that's a new low.

But he explai-

I liked Ori, don't tell me I SHOULDn't you pessimist who finds no joy in anything but the most amazing games ever.

...Sigh.

 

[Redryhno]

Hmm, it almost reads like he's implying that a lot of indie devs are making more money than they should be off of professional victimhood and our kneejerk empathetic response to them. What a completely unique and never before exposed concept in video games and journalism

Eh? That wasn't in the article. Literally all he said was that the game is getting much more acclaim than it should by using the same tired set of tropes and that he's tired of the stories they try to tell ending up in the exact same place they started, effectively making the progression of the gameplay meaningless.

 

[IrisNetwork]

I'd agree to most of this article but still, the selling point of this game to me was more of the gameplay, music and art style more than the story.
The RPG elements didn't add much but at least they didn't make me as overpowered as in Dust: An Elysian Tail
I've never dropped any abilities as useless as in Strider.
So, it was alright. It didn't have co-op like in Guacamelee or Rayman Legends but it was ok. Adequate. Nothing to be pissed off for.

EDIT: Also, the big headed child in a scary world is an overused formula in indie games but so is the pixel art platformer like Fez, They Bleed Pixels, Spelunky, Cave Story and AVGN Adventures. Does that make Shovel Knight any less of a competent platformer? No.

Innovation is a nice plus but a competent game is good nonetheless as long as they add on some unique twists to it.

 

[Timeless Lavender]

I have not play Ori game yet but the art looked very pretty. But what you said is basically why I have a problem with some games in general when it comes to atmosphere and story. You also made a strong point about that these type of emotional games have many tropes in its genre and story telling style just like jump scare for horror and parody for comedy.

I would love if game dev actually use their talent instead of trying to fool or manipulate their consumers with cheap emotional tactics.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I wasn't even mildly attracted to Ori's formula. I enjoyed it with The Last of Us because it's adequately furnished and fleshed out, but in Ori's case - it's just there. "Oooh, here's a cute lil' ragamuffin who's suffering in the great big world, EMPATHIZE WITH IT NOW, PLAYER! HAVE SOME WEEPY MUSIC BECAUSE WEEPY MUSIC EQUALS PERSONAL INVESTMENT!"

The same feeling got me when I played Journey. The game was going "LOOK AT ALL THE FEELS YOU COULD BE HAVING!" and all I felt was that it was competently and interestingly put together.

Dear indies, there's other emotional registries out there. Not every game needs to be an exercise in trying to get to the nearest rooftop and scream that gaming can be an art form.

What about the gameplay? You know, the part of the game that matters the most?

You haven't even mentioned anything about that in your rant here.

Mostly because the gameplay isn't the focus of the original topic to this thread; but I'll give it marks for being adequately solid. A little Metroidvania, an interesting attack mechanic that keeps things from being too easy - but none of that changes the fact that if the theming and the atmosphere aren't going to draw me in, then I won't play for more than five or six minutes.

And that's exactly what happened. Being a picky gamer that's usually motivated by lore, something about the setting has to draw me in for me to keep playing. Nothing did, in this case. You could swear to me that Ori has the most polished mechanics in the history of polished gameplay mechanics that I wouldn't retract my opinion.

 

[KDR_11k]

Why would "overwhelmingly positive" reviews be unjustified just because the story is tropey? This isn't a book, if people enjoy the gameplay component it could have a story like Super Mario Bros and still be great.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

If you play a metroidvania game for the story and not the gameplay, you have only yourself to blame when you're inevitably disappointed.

Don't know what 'metroidvania' is, but I tend to agree. Even if all the things Yahtzee complains about were fixed, I'd still forget about the story right after the intro until the ending cutscene. Why have the intro then? Well, it serves to set the tone of the game, a melancholic atmosphere which is appropriate for the setting. It doesn't need to do anything more.

The game feels split in two however, with the cutscenes forming one part and the gameplay another. I think this shows how far platformers have fallen. Oldies like Abe's Oddysee or Another World gave you a cohesive whole, not a gameplay + story formula.

 

[Redryhno]

If you play a metroidvania game for the story and not the gameplay, you have only yourself to blame when you're inevitably disappointed.

Don't know what 'metroidvania' is, but I tend to agree. Even if all the things Yahtzee complains about were fixed, I'd still forget about the story right after the intro until the ending cutscene. Why have the intro then? Well, it serves to set the tone of the game, a melancholic atmosphere which is appropriate for the setting. It doesn't need to do anything more.

The game feels split in two however, with the cutscenes forming one part and the gameplay another. I think this shows how far platformers have fallen. Oldies like Abe's Oddysee or Another World gave you a cohesive whole, not a gameplay + story formula.

Metroidvania is basically just what it's called that the game does, platforming, rpg-esque, revisiting old areas to get to areas you couldn't reach before without upgrades, etc. Metroid and Castlevania are just basically the most well-known game series that did this well and it's just sorta merged into its own notifier nowadays.

I think a part of the article was hinting at why have the intro at all? The game itself already gives off a melancholy atmosphere, you don't need dead parents being killed in front of you to get that feeling, the artstyle and music already does this. Overall though, it's a bit of a tiredness of the same stuff with a new splash of paint getting as popular as they are when there's other games that do something not as over-saturated as this particular set is in the indie market. But I could very possibly be reading this completely wrong.

 

[saltyanon]

After seeing the title, I had to read through the comments. Am I the only one who sees the brilliance and hilarity in using a blatantly manipulative clickbait title in talking about a blatantly manipulative game?

It's almost like this article is saying the same type of people that enjoy games like Ori are the same type of people that are easily manipulated into clicking links.

I hope I'm not reading too much into it.

 

[gamegod25]

Haven't played it myself yet but I can see where both sides are coming from. If you enjoy a game that's the most important part, after all if that's why you play games is to enjoy yourself. Of course I can also see being kinda disappointed that it didn't go far enough or reach its full potential. And I certainly can understand that feeling of anger/depression when everything you did was rendered pointless or undone.

 

[Denamic]

So you're telling Yahtzee not to tell you what to do? That's a bit ironic, but okay.

 

[Xerosch]

Well, this article left me with more questions than insight.

Isn't storytelling always a kind of manipulation? I think it's a necessary tool for identifying with the characters and the will for them to succeed.

And what is so bad about being emotionally touched by media? Who decides if what I feel when playing a game, watching a movie or reading a book is superficial? If the Ori-formula works with me, why does someone think he has the right to tell me it's shallow or too much? The soundtrack of 'Journey' is one of the most emotional things I've ever heard, but I could understand if someone thinks of it as overly melodramatic. Doesn't change my opinion of it, though.

I guess the key factor here is to let people enjoy what they like and shut the hell up about it (isn't it always?).

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I would probably be a bit disappointed if I was as familiar with these indie platformers as some people. But I hardly play them. Honestly, I bought it because I thought that esthetically it looked better than any game that I have ever seen in my life. And I wasn't disappointed by the gameplay either, being unfamiliar with metroidvania type of games. It comes down to taste refinement. When I was younger I could read any book, watch any movie or any TV show and play any game without noticing the flaws. As I accumulated more experience in those areas I became harder to please. I demanded better quality from all of those sources of entertainment. Ori and the Blind Forest provided me with something that was fresh TO ME, even though the formula is an old one.