Line #4 VideoGame/OriAndTheWillOfTheWisps


1	[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ori_2.png]]
2	The sequel to Moon Studios' ''VideoGame/OriAndTheBlindForest'', announced at E3 2017 and released on March 11, 2020, for UsefulNotes/XboxOne and Windows 10, with a UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port later on September 17 that same year. Like its predecessor, it is a {{Metroidvania}} in which you play as the foxlike light creature Ori.
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4	Things are peaceful in Nibel. Ori, Naru and Gumo are living happily after restoring the light, and raising Ku, the last hatchling of Kuro. But Ku longs to fly, a longing hampered by her malformed wing. Ori decided to remedy this with Kuro's feather, allowing the two to take flight.
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6	But a vicious storm soon separates the two, dropping Ori into the distant land of Niwen. Much like Nibel before it, the forest of Niwen is cursed with a vicious blight and tormented by a fearsome owl monster. Now Ori must track down its wayward friend, and will discover its own epic destiny in the process.
7	----
8	!!''Ori and the Will of the Wisps'' contains these tropes:
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10	* ActionizedSequel: Combat plays a greater focus in the game, with Ori now capable of and frequently encouraged to use melee combos on enemies and having to directly fight actual bosses, in contrast to the previous game which only had passive ranged combat at most and had no bosses. The new combat system (justified in-story by the ending of the first game) has gotten a lot of comparisons to fellow Metroidvania ''VideoGame/HollowKnight''.
11	* AlasPoorVillain: [[spoiler:Shriek was the last of her kind and forsaken by all others, to the point she literally has no idea what love and kindness are. After losing against Ori, she is last seen cuddling up with the corpses of her parents. She is confirmed to have succumbed to the Decay soon after.]]
12	* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: [[spoiler:Shriek was ostracized by all other races because she was a carrier of [[TheCorruption the Decay]], leading her to grow up alone without a concept of love and warping her into the merciless force of destruction she is in the game.]]
13	* AllThereInTheManual: The Foul Presence is called the "Stink Spirit" in the credits, most likely [[ShoutOut being a reference to]] [[Anime/SpiritedAway Studio Ghibli's own Stink Spirit]].
14	* AllTheWorldsAreAStage: The final dungeon, Willow's End, is a multiple-choice final exam stage, reusing design elements of the Wellspring, Midnight Burrows, Silent Woods, Baur's Reach, and Windswept Wastes, as well as the Ginso Tree and Mount Horu from the first game.
15	* AlwaysABiggerFish: Implied. Early on in the game, Ori is hunted by Howl, a giant wolf monster in the Inkwater Marsh. [[spoiler: When Howl treads into [[OminousOwl Shriek]]'s territory in the Silent Woods later, however, the owl monster hears his howl and intercepts him off-screen. Ori and Ku soon come across Howl's petrified corpse, having been turned to stone by either Shriek or the Decay. The developers originally showed Shriek doing the deed, but chose to leave it to the player to interpret instead.]]
16	* AnimalisticAbomination: Shriek ''vaguely'' resembles an owl, but the feathers of her wings are capable of folding back, revealing long stilt-like arms that she uses to walk. [[spoiler: Naturally, [[DeconstructedTrope she was shunned by all other races, leaving her all alone and bitter]].]] It is also implied that her appearance and her abilities are caused by the Decay.
17	* AntiFrustrationFeatures: If a hit knocks you into Decayed water before you've cleared the Mill, there's a period of MercyInvincibility that's a little longer than normal before you start taking damage.
18	* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler: At the end of the game, Ori gives up their existence as a leaf spirit to heal Ku. They become Niwen's new Spirit Tree, and the last scene shows a single silver leaf blown away by the wind, implied to be their offspring.]]
19	* BadassAdorable: Ori, more so than the last game where combat was mostly reliant on Sein, as now they have to fight on their own. Reduced to fighting off enemies with (of all things, and rather incongruently for a ''tree'' spirit) a torch at the beginning, Ori soon gains the ability to summon a LaserBlade. They gain more and more spiritual weapons and tools as the game continues.
20	* BagOfSpilling: Ori only starts the game with normal movement, jump, and the wall jump, with no explanation for why all other abilities (aside those given by Sein) are gone.
21	* BeatTheCurseOutOfHim: [[spoiler: [[GiantSpider Mora the Spider]] comes to her senses after you defeat her, thanking you for freeing her from the corruption. The Stink Spirit you encounter in the Wellspring also [[BrainwashedAndCrazy takes control of Kwolok]] in the Luma Pools and you have to fight him. Unfortunately, while beating Kwolok gives him a chance to crush the thing that was controlling him, he's left with no strength to keep living afterwards.]]
22	* BigCreepyCrawlies: Mora is an ''enormous'' spider that appears to be infected with cordyceps fungi.
23	* BigGood:
24	** Kwolok is doing everything in his power to protect the Moki, but his influence only extends so far.
25	** Mora, the GiantSpider, deeply cares for her children, even going so far as to try and seal the entrance to her domain in a vain attempt to stop the Decay from entering and infecting everyone.
26	** At the end of the game, [[spoiler:Ori becomes a Spirit Tree dedicated to protecting all of Niwen.]]
27	* BittersweetEnding: Has more bitterness compared to ''Blind'' ''Forest''. [[spoiler:But still outweighed by sweetness. The only way to save Ku and all of Niwen is for Ori to sacrifice their existence as a leaf spirit and become a new spirit tree. Gumo, Ku and Naru mourn that the Ori they knew is gone, but they lovingly care for the tree Ori's been reborn as, continuing to live and grow as a family. Many, many, ''many'' years later, Ori has fully grown into a new tree, and a glowing leaf is blown away by the wind, implied to be their offspring.]]
28	* BlackoutBasement: The Mouldwood Depths are initially covered in oppressive darkness, and moving out of range of a light source for more than a few moments causes a OneHitKill. Several segments require Ori to stay close to fireflies as they move through dark areas.
29	* BookEnds:
30	** [[spoiler:When Shriek was hatched, she struggled to learn to walk as she wandered from her dead parents. Upon her defeat, Shriek flies back to the Silent Forest whilst on the verge of death, [[WhereItAllBegan struggling back to the corpses of her parents and eventually dying in their embrace]].]]
31	** [[spoiler:At the end of the story, long after Ori becomes Niwen's new Spirit Tree, the shot focuses on a single silver leaf that is blown away from a branch and into the wind, mirroring the beginning of ''Videogame/OriAndTheBlindForest'' where Ori is torn away from Nibel's Spirit Tree by the storm.]]
32	** [[spoiler:The music for the last scene, "Ori, Embracing the Light", is a massive one for the prologue of ''Ori and the Blind Forest''. After a brief section that is not a reference to anything outside of the series' leitmotif, there is a calmer version of the ending section of "Inspiriting", and the last section of "Ori, Embracing the Light" references the first section of "Ori, Lost in the Storm".]]
33	** [[spoiler:Shortly before that is another CallBack to ''Blind Forest''. At the end of the prologue Ori picks their way through spiky bushes and rocky terrain, clearly at death's door, collapsing in exhaustion just as the Spirit Tree saves him. At the end of ''Will of the Wisps'', the last thing that Ori does is... pick their way through spiky bushes and rocky terrain, clearly at death's door, only this time Ori does not get revived. Instead, they're reborn as a blossoming new tree sprout, with a similar riff as the flower that bloomed when the tree revived him.]]
34	** [[spoiler:Both games begin with a GoodTimesMontage, this game ends like-wise with Naru, Gumo and Ku taking care of the spirit tree. Additionally, The prologue has a montage of Ku, Ori, Gumo and Naru growing up together as a family. The epilogue has a montage of Ku, Gumo and Naru continuing to live as a family beside the Spirit Tree until the end of their days.]]
35	** [[spoiler:The first game's prologue and this game's epilogue both end with Naru dying peacefully.]]
36	** The first game began with the Spirit Tree narrating that Naru "embraced [his] light" (Ori), whilst the second game ends with [[spoiler: Ori (as the new Spirit Tree) narrating how they "embraced the light" (Seir).]]
37	* ButNowIMustGo: [[spoiler:During the GrandFinale montage showing Ori's growth into Niwen's Spirit Tree, adult Ku is shown departing the land as Naru and Gumo wave to her.]]
38	* CallBack: The final reward of the ChainOfDeals quest is a Map Stone Fragment, the same that were all over the first game. But since you don't need it to obtain maps this time (in fact, by the time you complete the quest you should already have every map but the last one), finding and activating the Map Stone instead marks every single remaining secret on your map. Also, the NPC who sells you maps? Wherever he appears, there's usually a map stone nearby in the background.
39	* CastFromHitPoints: With the Life Pact shard equipped, using abilities when you have no energy costs you life instead
40	* ChainOfDeals: The "Hand to Hand" sidequest, which sees Ori trading items with friendly {{NPC}}s across the course of most of the game, although in this particular case the trope is inverted: instead of bring sent by someone to acquire an item, Ori finds a seemingly useless item first, and then has to find someone who has use of it. That person will then give Ori another seemingly useless item, and the cycle repeats.
41	* ChaseScene: Just like the first game, there's a few sections where Ori is being pursued by an enemy. Once by Howl at the game's beginning, twice by the Stink Spirit ([[spoiler:once with it having possessed Kwolok]]), briefly in the boss fight against Mora the GiantSpider, and multiple times by Shriek.
42	* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: [[spoiler:Kuro went evil as part of a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, but she realized that the way she was going about things would have destroyed what she was trying to protect, and thus made a final sacrifice to save the egg that would hatch into Ku, and thus is never fought. Shriek went evil because [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer she was rejected by the other owls and by Niwen for her decayed appearance]], has absolutely nothing to protect, and [[RedemptionRejection spurns Ori's kindness out of fear]], shortly before becoming the game's final boss. Ori repays the favour as the game's final boss.]]
43	* CriticalHit: The Finesse shard gives a 10%/20% chance to deal 1.5x damage.
44	* CriticalStatusBuff: The Last Stand shard boosts damage dealt by up to 20% when Ori has less than 15% life remaining.
45	* CubCuesProtectiveParent: In the flashback to [[spoiler:Shriek's childhood, the owl chicks are more curious than anything regarding her deformity, but soon their parents come and forcefully separate them.]]
46	* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Bash has been remapped to make room for the three equippable abilities. "Launch" functions like Bash, so it becomes less of a problem with that ability equipped, but it is only acquired late in the game, where Bash is acquired very early, so you'll have to overcome any reflexes from ''Blind Forest''.
47	* DarkIsNotEvil: [[spoiler: When [[BrainwashedAndCrazy she's not driven mad]] by the corruption, Mora the GiantSpider down in Mouldwood Depths is quite soft-spoken and gentle and she even speaks of the importance of light for everyone, even those like herself who usually stay out of the light.]]
48	* DefiantToTheEnd: Upon defeating Kwolok possessed by Stink Spirit, Ori climbs onto the area above the boss battle arena where it stumbles upon both Kwolok (now back to his senses) and Stink Spirit barely clinging onto life. Even in it's final moments, Stink Spirit makes one last attempt to attack Ori before it's smashed into paste by Kwolok.
49	* DisabledBadass:
50	** Ku has a malformed wing and fails to fly until Gumo ties her mother's feather onto her wing. [[spoiler: Her wing is healed at the end, however, allowing Ku to fly without the feather.]]
51	** In a way, Shriek. By all means, her extreme deformities should have led to her demise early on, but instead she toughed it out and learned to use those deformities to her advantage.
52	* DisneyDeath: [[spoiler:Ku is murdered by Shriek, but is revived at the end when Ori ascends to become the new Spirit Tree.]]
53	* DistantFinale: [[spoiler:The ending shows the growth of Ori as the new Spirit Tree of Niwen, outliving their friends and family, immortalized as shapes in their bark.]]
54	* DrivenToSuicide: One of the sidequests involves a Moki asking you to find his family so they can move into their new house in the Glades... but by the time you reach his old home, his wife and child have succumbed to the Decay. He does not take the news well: if you tell him, he disappears, and if you go back to the old house, there's now ''three'' statues there.
55	* EnergyBow: One of Ori's new weapons, called the Spirit Arc, is a bow that shoots arrows made from light.
56	* EnergyEconomy: Spirit Light acts as a currency, used for spending on things like maps of areas, new abilities, and upgrades to your weapons.
57	* EquipmentUpgrade: Many spirit shards and abilities can be upgraded to increase their effectiveness or provide additional perks.
58	* FamilyOfChoice: Ku, Ori, Gumo and Naru may be different species, but they all regard one another as family.
59	* FamilyThemeNaming: Kuro's child is named Ku.
60	* TheFarmerAndTheViper: [[spoiler: Shortly after Seir is made whole, Shriek attempts to attack Ori and Seir as they make their way to the remains of the Spirit Willow, only to be repelled by Seir and knocked off her feet. Seir's clearly getting ready to kill Shriek in Ori's defense - and Shriek's clearly expecting to get fried alive - but Ori holds Seir back and tries to befriend Shriek. Shriek instead screeches in Ori's face and flies away, attacking Seir and Ori again later on.]]
61	* FetchQuest: A new mechanic for the game, there's a trading sidequest that involves you exchanging various things with characters all over the map.
62	* FightingSpirit: Spirit Trials allow you to compete with the "ghosts" of other players to see if you can beat their speed records.
63	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
64	** [[spoiler:Doubles as a RewatchBonus. At the very beginning when the narrator is describing the birth of Ku, they mention that "We named her Ku." This seems like an oddly personal line for the otherwise distant narrator, but then you reach the end of the game and learn that the narrator is actually Ori, reborn as a new Spirit Tree, revealing that "we" referred to Naru, Gumo, and Ori themselves.]]
65	** [[spoiler:There is also the menu that shows your progress. It's in the shape of a single-trunked tree, unlike the doubled-trunked tree of Niwen.]]
66	* {{Foil}}: Gumo to [[spoiler:Shriek]]. [[spoiler:Both were seemingly the last of their species, barely surviving a disaster caused by the loss of the local Spirit Trees' light. Both only find loneliness and eventually embrace "darkness and fear". Both are also spared by Ori from a potentially gruesome fate even after Ori has every reason to allow them to die. They differ in how they react to forgiveness. Gumo jumps at the chance of redemption, and eventually fully integrates into Ori's FamilyOfChoice. Shriek completely rejects the forgiveness, leading her to become the final boss.]]
67	* GoldColoredSuperiority: [[spoiler:Seir becomes golden when she is restored, and in the end, Ori bears the same golden light when they become a Spirit Tree.]]
68	* GoMadFromTheIsolation: [[spoiler:Shriek was born alone and denied company when she sought it, effectively teaching her that she's unwanted and everyone hates her. This led her to grow up in complete solitude, which drove her sanity into the ground and left her incapable of understanding kindness and mercy -- even when she sees Ori saving her from Seir's power. Her mindset, eroded from being alone, ultimately has her choose death over a better future, showing just how devastating of an effect her solitude had on her mental health.]]
69	* GrandFinale: [[spoiler:The game ends with Ori becoming the new Spirit Tree of Niwen and his adopted family growing old and living out their final days together happily. While the game does leave off open-ended enough for the potential of one of Ori's children to be the protagonist of the next game, this game is the definitive end to Ori's story.]]
70	* HappilyAdopted: Ku is very happy to have Naru as a surrogate mother, as Ori was.
71	* HighAltitudeBattle: [[spoiler:Shriek as the FinalBoss will eventually destroy the entire battlefield, forcing the player to constantly Bash off a rain of projectiles just to stay alive.]]
72	* HopeSpot: After finally reuniting in Silent Woods, Ori and Ku corner her mother's feather in an open field and gets ready to use it to fly back to Nibel. However, Shriek suddenly corners them and things go south from there.
73	* JavelinThrower: The Spike ability lets Ori charge and throw spears of light.
74	* JawDrop: Near the end, [[spoiler:most of the Wellspring Glades inhabitants invoke this trope as they witness Ori merging with Seir in the distance]].
75	* LaserBlade: Ori wields one called the Spirit Edge, which is their default weapon. As a weapon, it's the JackOfAllStats, since it has decent power, speed, and range, but is the best at none of those things.
76	* LateArrivalSpoiler: Ku's existence spoils the ending of the previous game, considering she's [[spoiler:Kuro's last child]].
77	* LongLived: Ori and at least some members of their adopted family, as previously implied in the last game. [[spoiler: Naru lives long enough to to see her ''second'' Spirit Tree grow to gigantic-by-real-world-standards redwood-sized maturity, while the tree spirits are heavily implied to live as long as the Tree they came from does.]]
78	* NarratorAllAlong: [[spoiler:The end of the game reveals that the narrator is Ori, many years in the future after they "embraced the light" and became Niwen's Spirit Tree.]]
79	* NintendoHard: Similar to the last game, while players still get to choose the difficulty, by no means is ''Ori and the Will of the Wisps'' an easy game. Boss fights can be tough and require several retries; god forbid if a boss fight has several phases, since if a player dies during a later phase of a boss fight, they may have to restart the whole boss fight from the first phase. In addition, the chase sequences are also very difficult, as players are usually given only a small margin for error and few to no checkpoints in the chase sequences. If one mistake is made, players may have to restart the whole chase sequence, even if they died just before reaching the end of the chase.
80	* HeadbuttOfLove: During the BigDamnReunion, Ori and Ku invoke this trope.
81	* NoHeroDiscount: Averted with Lupo. When you encounter him in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, he gives you the area's map for free because he realizes just how dire the situation is.
82	* OminousOwl: Shriek. Emphasized with the ability to retract her feathers and use her wings as legs.
83	* PacifismBreakingPoint: Ori spent [[Videogame/OriAndTheBlindForest most of the previous game]] being mostly pacifistic, only attacking things relating to darkness and the Decay. But Ori ends up having to abandon their pacifism and fight Shriek after the latter [[spoiler:turns down Ori's kindness when she is knocked down by Seir. And since this also comes after Shriek had killed Ku, Ori decides that Shriek is BeyondRedemption and abandons being a pacifist towards living creatures]].
84	* ParryingBullets: With the Deflector shard, Ori can deflect projectiles with melee attacks.
85	* PlotHole: The spirit willow dies, Seir shatters, then the spirits die. It is never explained why they didn't do anything before the willow died.
86	* PlotTriggeringDeath: [[spoiler: All of Niwen's problems started with the Spirit Willow dying of old age.]]
87	* {{Retirony}}: [[spoiler: The Spirit Willow decides to resign their role as guardian of Niwen and bestow it to Ori. But just before they could bestow Seir to them, Shriek swoops in and snatches Seir. If you look carefully in the background during the final battle, you can see the Spirit Willow fall as Shriek destroys the very ground. Either way, it falls to Ori to restore Niwen.]]
88	* PowerUpMagnet: With the Magnet shard equipped, pickups within a certain range will be drawn to Ori. Increasing its potency causes them to be pulled in from even further away.
89	* RidiculouslyCuteCritter: Ori again, of course, but now also Ku. The Moki count too, given how much they resemble Ori, and help the two protagonists throughout their journey.
90	* RuleOfSymbolism: In the epilogue, [[spoiler: as it progresses, we see day gradually turn to night. By evening, as she rests at the foot of the Spirit Tree that Ori became, Naru passes away peacefully.]]
91	* SadlyMythtaken: The title comes from a popular false etymology for the word "WillOTheWisp".
92	* SandWorm: One of the enemies in the Windswept Wastes, they are a threat while you are burrowing. [[spoiler: A massive one chases you out of the Windtorn Ruins once you've gotten to the bottom and collected the Heart of the Forest.]]
93	* SceneryPorn: Just like the first game. Even more so, thanks to graphical improvements.
94	* SelfDisposingVillain: [[spoiler: Unlike many enemies in this game, the giant sandworm in the Windtorn Ruins is never fought; at the end of the chase sequence, its emergence from the ground causes several large stones to get knocked loose and come down on top of it, presumably crushing it to death.]]
95	* SequelEscalation: The map is bigger, there's much more to find, there's new abilities to get, there's more enemy variety, and you have actual bosses to fight.
96	* ShockwaveStomp: Spirit Slam can be upgraded to unleash a damaging wave of energy when used to strike down from the air. It works similar to Ori's Stomp ability from the first game.
97	* SpinOffspring: Focuses on the child of Kuro, the antagonist of the first game.
98	* StealthPun: Niwen's guardian is the Spirit Willow, and its light was split into five Wisps. They're ''willow wisps''.
99	* TakenForGranite: The Silent Woods is home to many, many inhabitants that have become petrified and turned into stone prior to the beginning of the game by the Decay. [[spoiler:And a couple more, namely Howl and one of the Moki you can talk to, likewise turn into stone during the course of the game.]]
100	* ThenLetMeBeEvil: [[spoiler:Shriek was shunned by the other creatures due to being a mutant created by the Decay. Without any concept of love, she grew up to become a merciless force of destruction driven to snuff out all life in her domain, the embodiment of the very corruption that had deformed her.]]
101	* TogetherInDeath:
102	** [[spoiler:The "Family Reunion" sidequest ends with the father Moki willingly succumbing to the Decay and becoming petrified with his family.]]
103	** [[spoiler:After Shriek is defeated, she returns to her parents before passing away.]]
104	* TookALevelInBadass: Without Sein to fend off enemies, Ori has to rely on their own skills to defend themselves. They gain the ability to summon a variety of spiritual weapons courtesy of Niwen's collection of ancestral trees as well as Opher.
105	* TragicVillain: [[spoiler:Destructive and terrifying though she might be in the present, Shriek was born the last of her colony and was ostracized for her [[AnimalisticAbomination strange and sinister appearance]], leaving her bitter and alone with no concept of love. After being defeated by Ori, she is last seen cuddling up with the corpses of her parents and eventually perishing in the Decay.]]
106	* TrueCompanions: The lengths Ori goes to find Ku and bring her back home safely to Nibel clearly marks them as this. The same goes for Gumo and Naru, even though they're more OutOfFocus.
107	* TunnelKing: After gaining the "Burrow" ability, Ori becomes skilled in tunneling through sand.
108	* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: Willow's End, the location of Niwen's Spirit Willow and the heart of the Decay, serves as the game's final area.
109	* WhamLine: [[spoiler:"When my name was Ori."]] Delivered by [[spoiler:[[NarratorAllAlong the narrator]]]] during the game's ending sequence, revealing that [[spoiler:just as the first game was narrated by the Spirit Tree of Nibel, so is the second - but in this case, the Spirit Tree of Niwen is ''Ori'', far in the future.]]
110	* TheWorfEffect: The first boss is a giant wolf named Howl. You don't actually defeat him in the first fight, but rather temporarily fend him off. Instead of a rematch, you later find his corpse [[spoiler:petrified by the Decay and/or Shriek (depending on how you interpret it, as Shriek goes after Howl shortly before he's found turned to stone)]].
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Context VideoGame / OriAndTheWillOfTheWisps