Forget the Hollow Knight VS Metroid debate, where are we on Hollow Knight VS Ori?
Hollow Knight blows both Oris out of the water for me
Ori 1 is has good traversal, accomplished art (that could stand to be way less glowy and obstructive), and a few good emotional cues. Escape sequences were done well.
Combat and saving, however? Both genuinely awful.
Plot was good in essence but the emotional beats were far better when they didn’t try to force tree narration.
Ori 2 is a vast improvement on Ori 1. Combat is a million times better, traversal and abilities are great, and the world is more involved and interesting.
The art is much more parseable that the first one. Glad they worked on that.
I did think that a lot of the combat abilities were kitchen-sinky – they did a good job but it felt a lot like “we’re throwing every weapon type in here with the rest of our stuff so you can’t say we didn’t”
love the hammer though
I’m not going to re-open the debate on whether or not several design decisions were reactionary to Hollow Knight.
I will, however, say that the lead guy saying Hollow Knight couldn’t possibly have influenced them because they “don’t think about it” since they “don’t even like it” is a load of absolute crap
NPCs are a mixed bag — the giant frog slaps, as does the bear, but the regular-sized grab bag pals suck. It’s like they somehow spent all the charisma, design, and character on the big ones and then mixed the leftovers with some toothpaste. Maybe I remember there being a soup guy I didn’t mind? But my impression of everyone else was “oh my god stop”
The plot took a dive from the first one. Nothing really meant anything. Or, I mean… I don’t know how exactly to put this, because on the surface it looks pretty good. but any degree of scrutiny kinda makes it fall apart. Let alone some of the implied messaging about disability. There were a lot of forced moments, too.
but once again I love the frog arc
The boss fights and escape sequences were good, though some of them felt kinda… long for the sake of being long. It also felt like they could have improved the balance of boss fights / escape sequences – there were plenty of points where it seemed like there should have been some kind of boss, or mini-boss, especially with all the combat abilities.
I still don’t understand what the weird little racing shrines were about. like I guess that’s fun in theory? I did not enjoy them
as for Hollow Knight, I’ve already said a lot about what made me fall in love with it, and I don’t want to make this huge wall of game reviews impenetrable. but I would absolutely put it above both Oris.
Hollow Knight is an incredible game with masterful storytelling, brilliant world design, compelling characters, and immersive gameplay.
Thankfully we don’t live in a world where only one or the other can exist. I’m happy to have enjoyed both universes. but I really do think Hollow Knight is a better game.