You didn't buy it? What are you doing? Just buy it already. STOP READING THIS REVIEW AND THE OTHER ONES AND GO BUY ORI, NOW, YOU'RE LOSTING A LOT OF TIME. Bye.

Ori and the Blind Forest is by far one of the best games I've purchased on Steam. The story is simple, but heartfelt and beautiful. The world feels fresh and unique, the gameplay is challenging but is completely based on player skill. Whenever I made a mistake within the game I never felt like it was because of poor game design, purely that it was my own skill that was keeping me in the same place. You will die a LOT in this game, I think my overall death count at the end was over one thousand, but it's part of the appeal in a weird sort of way. One top of that the world is stunning, using beautiful colors and each section of the forest is paired with its own incredible music. Movement of your character feels natural, quick, and as you learn new skills it merely adds to the beautiful simplicity of attacks/movement. Buy this game, do it, seriously, you will not regret it. It is beyond fun, beautiful to the point that I can't think of a game that compares to how it looks and feels, and it may just make you cry. BUY IT.

this game has it all. i think its the best i've ever played in my life even though i cried like a little b**** in the beginning

Game's a masterpiece. One of the most visually stunning games I've ever played, while maintaining a fair but intense difficulty that rises as soon as you get comfortable with a new skill.

The story is a simple 'save the mystical rainforest' type thing: vague and magical, but I think just enough content. A few twists and turns, and I might have gasped and/or cried a time or two.

Gameplay is generally just a modernish 2D metroidvania style platformer, but the end of every temple is a chase scene.
The chase scenes are some of the toughest pieces of gaming I have ever done, one took me 45 mins, the other an hour. Once done successfully they only take a minute or so, so yeah, I'm not great at twitch gaming but these are tough.
You learn new combat skills as you progress, which allow you to enter new areas. You also have a light perk tree, but the value of some choices are questionable while others are OP. Choose wisely!

The level design is cool, each temple has some trick to beat it that usually requires the skill you learn right before entering. Standard fare, but really well done. I especially liked the gravity puzzle.

Music is beautiful, like really beautiful, but sometimes I got tired of the same tunes, especially when repeating those damn chase scenes.

But the visuals, damn they look good. Hand drawn backgrounds, an adorable Stitch meets Ferngully type protagonist, and some really gruesome and frightening enemy design really bring the whole thing together. There are glowing Avatar style forests, scorching liquid firepits, and great 'anime magic' style effects for the spells, attacks, and item AOE fields.

Negatives of the game include the fact that the game can trick you into missing 100% achievement by ending the game before you have finished everything, and sometimes the aiming of some of the spells and attacks can be inconsistent. That last one kinda blows since you will be using them very quickly, and need to chain them so little room for error.

Overall, can not recommend this game enough. It is pretty quick, maybe eight hours including my many retries of the chase scenes, and I even did a replay of it, which took even less time. The aesthetic of the game is so cinematic and wonderful, I promise unless you're immune to cheese you'll love it. The gameplay is real difficult, I definitely felt like I earned the finale. Very satisfying to see the game come to a close, even though i just wanted to restart it.

My score: 10/10 Must Play

- THIS REVIEW MAY AND MAY NOT CONTAIN SPOILERS -.. oh yeah and may be quite long....

Ok... Ori and The Blind Forest...
With a total of 20h (oh and yeah i'll keep on playing it you can be sure) I think I can finally say a thing or two about this sandbox game.

General Scores:

-Graphics: 10/10 for an Indie, actaully better than what you could ever expect and better than many open world 3D games.

-Story: 7/10 cliché, the usual hero that saves it all, yet presented in a remarkable and unique emotional way which makes up for the fact that it's so cliché so we might as well give it an 8.

-Combat System: HANDS DOWN 10/10! IT'S STINKING AWESOME. Ori litterally keeps on gettin stronger by sucking light, smashing grounds and walls and chain-killing enemies better than Dante of DMC ever could. Unbelievable how they combined style to skills and all that in the combat system. If you focus a bit on gathering as much Spirit Lights as needed to get most abilities before starting the rest of the adventures and take 1h of your time to discover the new area called "Black Root Burrows" and get the 2 new skills... oh boy... ORI will slowly turn INVINCIBLE. Almost OP!

-Gameplay: 9/10 on Keyboard and 8/10 on XBOX ONE Controller, mainly because the controller uses the analog and it isn't as precise as the keyboard, but if you use the arrows on the controller then you'll be fine. Though I must admit that I never enjoyed a game as much as Ori and The Blind Forest in terms of how fluids and impeccable the control is.

-Soundtrack: another hands down. 10/10 without second guesses or doubts, big thumbs up for Gareth Coker and all the members of the Orchestra. I never thought such sublime tunes could be achieved by humans, every time I opened the soundtracks and listened... it feels like a slice of Heaven.

And now my final opnion.

I actually had this game cracked, I reached till the end of the Ginso Tree level, realized its potential, uninstalled the game, bought it on Steam for full price because it deserves every last penny of it, found my old game save, deleted it, replayed from scratch.

BEST INDIE GAME OF 2015... and it still will be the best for many years to come, people should know and play this game, it should have advertising on TVs and all over the web.

We hope to see more from Ori's Team!

Graphics: 10/10
Music/Sounds: 10/10
Story: 10/10
Gameplay: 9/10 (because it may be a little hard for some people)

=> Overall: 9.75/10
A must-play for anyone who likes platformers and also a great experience for almost everyone else. And if it's too hard
for you, just watch it on youtube, it's worth it.

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Great game. its hard at some points but boy it sure is:

+good platformer first and foremost
+great story
+smooth controls

-once or twice i didnt know what to do and was stuck for more than an hour
(possibly because im a dumbass)

4.5/5!

Beautiful graphics. Lovely story. A solid platformer. Highly recommend this game!

Beautiful story and fun gameplay!