Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Played it to 98%, in about 14 hours. Really good game, with a couple gripes:
First, while the original Ori and Hollow Knight shared the same “metroidvania-but-pretty” DNA, and came out at about the same time, it’s unavoidable to compare the two games and they’re understandably similar, but man did it feel like the guys at Moon Studios spent the past 5 years playing nothing but Hollow Knight over and over. The progression system was basically pulled from HK, default weapon is a directional blade, hell even one of the settings feels pulled straight from HK.
Secondly, the new progression system was great – I like freedom – but inclusion of movement abilities in that system broke the game in a way that didn’t feel great. Plopping you down and giving you access to triple-jump waaaaaay at the outset of the game was broken as all hell. I was able to do many puzzles in the game completely backwards, without many of the “required” movement techs. Sequence breaking is a foundational part of a metroidvania game, but somehow when I was doing it in Ori 2 it felt awful. It felt less like I found a creative solution and more like I found a bug and just face-rolled my way to victory.
Also I got screwed out of a couple achievements because they just didn’t trigger. Didn’t get one for beating the game, getting all collectibles, or getting max health. Going to jiggle the xbonx a bit tomorrow to see if I can get them to pop but I’m not holding my breath.
Addendum: Jigging the xbonx did not, in fact, fix things. I still do not have these achievements.