Do you feel the story is weaker than Blind Forest? (Big spoilers)

[: D]

Or am I just spoiled from that? The whole Ori turning into a tree didn't seem as impactful to me as Naru fighting through hellfire to get to Ori, along with Kuro's motherly sacrifice.

Also feel like if Ku had actually died from Shriek's attack it'd be much more emotional, but she's just hurt.

Pretty good intro as expected though.

[T9]

Way weaker

[Sixtyfivekills]

I hear ya, I thought Ku was going to play a much bigger role to the plot, but nope, they had to "kill her" off until the very end. Shrek also had it rough, I thought she was at least going to have a tiny bit of sympathy towards Ku because baby owls were nice to her.

And yes, tree didn't have that much impact, if anything it made me upset because they just fast forwarded the story.

[AtomHeartDragon]

I liked the original story more overall. It doled out emotions better and I'd say had more powerful themes, was better constructed (in how everything fell into its place), had some skillful twists and resolved its threads better. Also, I have mad respect for being able to move player to tears some 10' in.

That said, I still like the sequel's story and think the ending was powerful.
However the pacing was markedly worse, there were no strong twists (well, I liked tree and narrator ones, but they were not proper story twists), tons of loose ends and it lacks the feeling of all the pieces seamlessly fitting together.

[: D]

Well i mean, even the start of the game is "weird". It's like they ran out of ideas for why Ori should be on another adventure and just said "Hey, lets just make it a training accident and drop him off somewhere"

Not that you just getting up as if nothing happened in BF isn't weird, but Wisps's start just doesn't make as much sense.

[Scorpix]

Originally posted by Stand Proud:

Well i mean, even the start of the game is "weird". It's like they ran out of ideas for why Ori should be on another adventure and just said "Hey, lets just make it a training accident and drop him off somewhere"

Not that you just getting up as if nothing happened in BF isn't weird, but Wisps's start just doesn't make as much sense.

Interesting thing, both game started from the storm. In the first during storm Spirit Tree has lost Ori and at the start of Ori 2 everything starts from the storm during which Ku and Ori get seperated.

[AtomHeartDragon]

I'd say it's not as much story being noticeably weaker (or weaker at all) in itself but it is noticeably less well constructed.

[: D]

Originally posted by AtomHeartDragon:

I'd say it's not as much story being noticeably weaker (or weaker at all) in itself but it is noticeably less well constructed.

Mmm, on this point i agree. We didn't even have a real goal at first, and then suddenly the game goes from "find Ku and go home" to "find the light remnants and save this world"-- and the only tie-in to that change is Ku getting injured. Not the best reasoning.

[Scorpix]

Actually it is "find the light and save this world", because if you wont, Ku will die, because there is not enough light nor to revive her, nor to hold her alive forever. If you watch each time story progress (you get another fragment of light) there is less and less flowers, so it is also a race against the time.

[mvon007]

Yeah the changes in focus are curious. Reunite with Ku, but in the meantime do all this other crap for a few hours, lose Ku but still think you are fighting to reunite with her, then find out that no that ain't happening.

If it was -actually- a race against time, we might have opened the door for multiple endings.

Pacing was definitely poor, especially at the start as alluded to above. You don't even advance the 'story' for a good long time, and as has been discussed ad nauseum, what you spend most time on in the game is utterly irrelevant.

[AscendedViking7]

Way weaker. The pacing was poor and I thought Ku was going to have a much larger role in the story like the trailers implied. The ending sucked too. This was still a really good game, but I like Blind Forest way more. :/

[Radene]

We already have this thread.

[AtomHeartDragon]

Originally posted by mvon007:

Reunite with Ku, but in the meantime do all this other crap for a few hours

That's one of my main criticisms of the game. As much as I like open world games, having ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of sidequests and sense of urgency don't mesh at all.
Sure, I would keep some sidequests (Family Reunion first and foremost) but we don't really need all that finding hats, acorns and collecting Gorlek ore. Not in this game. Have the rebuilding proceed in the background, have characters credit Ori for his progress progress so that player still feels like they are contributing and building ties with that safe spot and its inhabitants (building towards the ending), but don't let them waste time there!

My other criticism would be that we don't have anything like in the original where the story smoothly pivoted from apparent light good darkness evil angle to Kuro's backstory without any pieces falling out of place.

My last criticism is that we have a ton of lose ends and uneven pacing.

So the story is good, but it could have been told better.
The ending, though, is about perfect.

[KillingArts]

I agree it was a little weaker, but still great and better than what many other games give us. So I can't complain.

[andersonLX]

Originally posted by Scorpix:

Actually it is "find the light and save this world", because if you wont, Ku will die, because there is not enough light nor to revive her, nor to hold her alive forever. If you watch each time story progress (you get another fragment of light) there is less and less flowers, so it is also a race against the time.

I tried. After defeating Mora and getting the second light, a cutscene showed that situation of Ku is worse with flowers on her left fading. But then I ran back to Ku, and the place is still the same, the faded flowers are still there.

[Red_Theory]

Yeah I like the first game's story a lot better. One thing I don't see brought up is the sheer amount of useless characters/NPCs in this one. Sure the first game was a lot lonelier but each character had much more impact on the story and gave them breathing room.