There are games like work. Daily, painstaking, even a little monotonous. For example, The Division 2 or Destiny 2 . There are games as a challenge. Ruthless, nervous, angry. This is, undoubtedly, the entire Dark Souls series, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and all Souls-like projects. And there are games like magic. Light, kind, charming. And Ori and the Will of the Wisps is one of the best magical games of recent years.

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Austrian Moon Studios has released only two games in its 10 years of existence. But what! The studio’s first project, the platformer Ori and the Blind Forest , published five years ago by Microsoft Studios, received the most flattering reviews from players and the press and earned every conceivable gaming award, including The Game Awards 2015, 2016 BAFTA Games Awards, NAVGTR awards 2015, two Golden Joysticks Awards 2015 and three 2016 DICE Awards. We are already silent about numerous Editorial Choices, Game of the Year titles, etc. The sad tale about the little forest spirit Ori and his friends was so fond of the players that the fate of the sequel was a foregone conclusion. After five years of development, Moon Studios released another masterpiece on the mountain – Ori and the Will of the Wisps.

So, if you remember, at the end of Ori and the Blind Forest, Ori picked up the last giant owl egg Kuro. The game ends with the spirit of the forest and his foster family resting in their native cave, and the first cracks appear on the egg shell. Well, Kuro’s egg hatched into a cute little owl, Ku, who became Ori’s best friend. Ori, Ku, Naru, and Gumo lived happily in the Swallow’s Nest, but Ku really wanted to learn how to fly. The trouble is that her wing is damaged from birth and she cannot stay in the air. Ori found a solution – he tied Kuro’s large feather to Ku’s wing, and the owl was able to take to the air. Having circled the entire forest of Nibel, Ku and Ori crossed the big water on her back and ended up in the neighboring forest, Niven. A swooping storm has separated Ku from Ori, and now the little spirit must save his girlfriend and at the same time the entire forest of Niven, in which something is clearly not in order.

Honestly, I don’t know how Moon Studios does it, but the forest in Ori and the Will of the Wisps looks even more fantastic and beautiful than in Ori and the Blind Forest. It is truly magical, breathing, alive. And very different in its different parts. Swamps, caves, meadows, lakes, mountains, even a piece of desert. Secret passages and imperceptible at first glance paths, secrets, riddles and trials. It has everything and more.

Like the previous game, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a 2.5D platform game, but the authors have endowed essentially flat levels with frightening depth. Carefully, lovingly designed and animated background, shadows flickering in the foreground, animation of light blades of grass, fluff, moss, even stones and thorns. When Ori runs, jumps, flies, swims or slides through the level, everything around him seems to come to life, filled with meaning. And what a play of light and shadow here, what a study of details that makes every snag, every stone look like the head of a wonderful animal!

And the creatures themselves that inhabit Niven turned out to be amazingly cute and cute. In the new game, Ori communicates with others much more often, they share secrets with the spirit, and they appear on the map in the form of Rumors that are worth checking; give tasks that make you distract from the main mission and explore the forest; asking for help; sell new skills or cards, and simply comment on what is happening, giving indirect advice on what to do next.

I found Ori and the Will of the Wisps to be much more forgiving of beginners than Ori and the Blind Forest. Ori’s movements are smoother and more predictable, new skills are unlocked gradually to allow the player to master their arsenal, plus a simple combat mode can now be selected from the start to focus on the story. And the acrobatics itself has become a little more logical. There are almost no furious series of jumps, as it was almost in the second location of Ori and the Blind Forest. Almost half of the game can be completed with even the most basic platforming skills. Yes, you will often die, but this is normal for games of this genre. However, after the events in the Silent Forest, when Ori is sent to look for fragments of the Guardian of the Forest, acrobatics becomes much more complicated, new skills and stages appear, in which it is necessary to perform fairly long series of error-free jumps. Yes, there is no manual save in the game now, but the authors have set a lot of automatic save points, almost in front of every new “room”. It’s even more convenient that way.

Forest Niven is a real labyrinth of tunnels and secret paths. The game map resembles some kind of anthill in the context. Looking for secrets and ways to get to them is a separate important feature of Ori and the Will of the Wisps. As with any Metroidvania, and the Ori series is undeniably a Metroidvania, you will have to return to old locations after gaining new skills in order to look for hidden and previously inaccessible passages. To make it easier to move around a sufficiently large level, the game introduced a teleport system, similar to Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition, an improved version of the first game that was released a year after the original was released. However, Ori is so pleasant to control that sometimes you don’t want to look for a teleport yourself, but go halfway across the world just to feel the pleasure of your own dexterity gained during the game.

Like the first part, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a rather sad tale, however, along with moments of light sadness, there are also joyful episodes here, primarily associated with the funny inhabitants of the forest. In addition to the lighting and backgrounds, the mood of the game is created through great contextual music. Ori and the Blind Forest won a lot of prizes for their music, Ori and the Will of the Wisps will certainly collect no less.

If you do not get distracted by additional tasks, checking rumors and searching for secrets, with the proper level of skills, Ori and the Will of the Wisps can be completed in 4-5 hours. If you carefully search all the nooks and crannies, participate in ghost races and help local residents, then you can spend two or even three times more time on the game.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is one of those games that, as they say, put their soul into it. Incredibly beautiful, charming, it, nevertheless, remains a rather complex game with very diverse and interesting gameplay. This is not a game, but real magic.

PS Right now, an improved version of the first part of the game, Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition , can be bought on Steam with a 75% discount, for only 70 UAH. The Definitive Edition includes new regions of the game world, new Ori skills, teleporter wells that make it easier to move around the world, and much more.