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YMMV / Ori and the Blind Forest

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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: The Spirit Tree gets elements of this once the full plot is revealed. While wanting to reunite with its lost child is understandable, filling the sky with light is shown to be incredibly dangerous to other life not tied to the light, and taking that risk for the sake of just one of its dozens of children can come across as selfish.
    • Every individual child is precious. The spirit tree has every obligation as a father to find Ori.
  • Best Level Ever:
    • The Ginso Tree, due to it being the place that introduces the Bash ability, which gives the game's platforming its own unique identity among other Metroidvanias, as well as having an utterly relentless Rise to the Challenge that introduces itself just when you think everything is good, and effectively tests what you've learned to that point.
    • Mount Horu, despite being one of the hardest levels of all time, has some incredibly awesome platforming challenges that use all of the game's abilities to the fullest.
  • Cry for the Devil: Kuro gained some sympathy from players after it's revealed that her hatred for light stems from her children being incidentally killed by the light of the Spirit Tree. That said, that isn't an excuse to plan to remove the light altogether, killing many more creatures in the process, including Ori's adopted mother Naru and every single Gunmo except ''one''.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: While what Kuro went through was horrible, what she did was also horrible and hypocritical. Kuro lost the moral high ground a long time ago. Yet a notable amount of fans portray Kuro as a black and white hero that did nothing wrong, completely ignoring her hypocrisy.
  • Fan Nickname: The Rotten Beetle enemies are generally called "Banelings", due to the fact that they are green, rolling... things that attack by exploding.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • Shortly after you complete Forlorn Ruins, you find yourself in a terrifying situation where Kuro is hunting you down, waiting for you to pop out of hiding. She endlessly lurks in the background, with tense music playing constantly and engaging a Scare Chord (in the form of Kuro shrieking) whenever you expose yourself (which you have to do several times to make progress). And if you let yourself be exposed for too long — which is just a few seconds — Kuro comes and effortlessly kills you. The entire sequence just leaks feelings of being terrifyingly unsafe and having to be as careful as possible to avoid your demise.
    • One Life mode. Normal mode is hard enough, but only being allowed one life makes for not just a difficult challenge but also a really scary experience. Almost every step of the way, there's something that can kill you — be it instant death spikes or something silly like a weak enemy — and whenever you face a difficult section, you're at least one mistake away from leading your current Ori to being Killed Off for Real and having to take control of a brand new one at the very beginning. It also makes the already hard Mount Horu extremely terrifying, thanks to it having plenty of deadly traps; there are many in the main hub alone (like pools of lava and lava falls pouring down) and most rooms likewise have them in various forms, and you have to clear them all.
    • Ori's original death animations that did not make it into the final game. The videos showcasing these depict Ori, among everything else, getting cut in half. And there are two versions of it, one of which goes across its whole body and shows red/pink insides like a true gruesome death it is. See that one here.
  • Nintendo Hard: Oh boy is it ever. Even the Easy and Normal modes are still very challenging. This game will make even masters of platform games cry. Advancing in some of the later areas requires slingshotting yourself off projectiles launched at you, in real time. In the Definitive Edition, at least one section requires you to do this with your own projectiles!
  • Ron the Death Eater: While what Sein and the spirit tree did was horrible, they didn't do it on purpose as Sein's dialogue after escaping Kuro in Forlorn ruins proves. They certainly deserved a punishment, but watching Nibel and it's inhabitants slowly die around them while they can't do anything is more than enough. Yet some fans ignore this blatant fact and portray Sein and the spirit tree as black and white villains. They ignore how those not responsible for Sein and the spirit tree's actions suffered with them.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • The Ginso Tree, Misty Woods, and Forlorn Ruins being rendered inaccessible once you complete them is annoying, especially since they have collectibles required for completion. As one last insult to injury, once you complete the game, your save file is locked out; you can't play it any longer. Granted, you're past the Point of No Return by then, but it's still annoying. This is thankfully fixed in the Definitive Edition, which allows you to re-visit all of those areas and lets you continue on a file you've beaten the game on.
    • The fact that exploring even the tiniest bits of the map is required for 100% Completion. Some players spend hours looking for the grayed out areas to finally have that chore off of their backs.
  • Spiritual Licensee: To both Studio Ghibli films as well as Avatar: The Last Airbender in terms of narrative, art direction, animation and music style.
  • That One Achievement:
    • "Immortal". To earn it, you must complete the game without dying. The game is already hard to begin with (completing the game with a triple digit death count is downright easy); making sure you don't die once makes this downright sadistic. Even with save scumming, it only becomes tedious.
    • "Unhinged", as added by the Definitive Edition, is obtained by completing the game on "One Life" difficulty, which makes sure you have only one life to begin with — this means that if you die even once, you go back to the beginning of the game. And if you die, you have to do everything before the point you died all over again. Good luck with the tough levels, which you'll have to absolutely perfect so as to clear them all in one go.
    • "Elite", which requires you to complete the game without using any ability points. Given that the abilities you get from them include making your attacks more powerful, healing you whenever you create a Soul Link, and the ability to reuse Soul Links, this means that you have to either be extremely cautious or skilled if you want to earn this achievement.
  • That One Level: The majority of the game is pretty hard by itself (see Nintendo Hard in the main page), but then you get to the last level of the game, where you need to run away from both Kuro and the advancing forest fire. Expect the game to punish you for even the slightest delays in your actions. In fact, all three escape sequences can be this, due to a combination of the Advancing Wall of Doom that must be outrun and the fact that you can't save until you finish, leaving very little margin for error. This is partially rectified by the addition of checkpoints at easy difficulty in Definitive Edition.
    • The Forlorn Ruins has a puzzle mechanic that revolves around carrying an orb around that allows Ori to jump on and off heated machinery that would kill the player otherwise. The difficulty arises from the mechanics of these objects, which throw a fair bit of gravity mechanics in the mix. The machinery cubes and surfaces are also surrounded by spikes and later on insta-kill lasers as well, quickly making a failed jump lethal.
  • The Woobie: In spades. By the end of this game, you will be in tears for everybody.
    • Ori was seperated from their home, but thankfully found and raised by Naru, however, due to the forest dying, Naru starves to death, forcing them to leave their home and shortly dying themselves afterwards, only to be revived by the light of the Spirit Tree. Poor thing probably needs a hug after all of this.
    • Naru herself after it's revealed that she also lost her father and was forced to leave her home to never come back. Her eventual death is even more sad when one realizes that she knew she was going to starve, but refused to eat the fruit because she didn't want Ori to suffer the same fate.
    • Gumo is introduced as a petty thief, who hinders Ori on his quest to restore the forest, but he also becomes this when it's revealed that he is the Last of His Kind, and his stealing is simply him Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life.

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