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Ori lights the way!

Megadoomer

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Ori (and Sein?)
First Appearance: Ori and the Blind Forest (Windows and Xbox One, 2015)
First Nintendo Appearance: Ori and the Blind Forest (Switch, 2019)​

Ori is a small guardian spirit whose quest to find a family gets him wrapped up in all sorts of dramatic adventures. (Ori is, as far as I can tell, genderless, so I'll stick with "Ori", "they", or "them") While Ori started out as being exclusive to Microsoft consoles (and PC, much like a lot of Microsoft's major releases as of late), Ori and the Blind Forest received a Switch port last year, and as of the time that I'm writing this, Rivals of Aether: Definitive Edition (which includes Ori as a playable character) is coming to the Switch some time this month.

Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, are Metroidvanias. (platformers with an emphasis on exploration and gaining new abilities, like the Metroid games or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night) As a result, there's a lot of material to draw from for the character (as anyone who's played a Metroidvania will know, characters get a ton of different abilities by the end of it, and Ori plays quite differently between their two games), and a large amount of locations to work with for potential stages, ranging from the Spirit Tree that Ori originated from to icy mountaintops, harsh deserts, dark caves, or foggy forests.

In addition, Ori's appearance in Rivals of Aether can help to give the uninitiated an idea of how he might work in Smash Bros.


As for music, I'll list a few different possibilities.

Ori and the Blind Forest Medley (Rivals of Aether): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_zeR53ZagE
Restoring the Light, Facing the Dark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utGn3_V54Is
Up the Spirit Cavern Walls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsKpJygwE5Y
Climbing the Ginso Tree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wQ_BQHmV3A
The Spirit Tree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6rCpWMHEOw
Ku's First Flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGxubALoA_Y
Dashing and Bashing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZix0ztlZ1A
The Ancient Wellspring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG8BVcBnWqY

Moveset and stage idea(s):
-Megadoomer

Supporters:

BirthNote BirthNote
Janx_uwu Janx_uwu
KillerCage KillerCage
L Lionfranky
Megadoomer Megadoomer
Nazyrus Nazyrus
ninjahmos ninjahmos
 
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Janx_uwu

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Support, because while I haven’t played the game, it looks amazing and Ori seems like the oddball Microsoft choice that just seems right.
 

Megadoomer

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I've beaten Ori and the Will of the Wisps with 100% map completion! I still need to upgrade some of Ori's moves (those upgrades are fairly pricey - 1600 each), but I'm a good way done with a moveset, and I'll post it here when I'm done.

Also, some tweets seem to point towards Rivals of Aether getting its Switch release date announced (and possibly getting released?) next week.

 

Lionfranky

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I just came back and beat Will of Wisps in hard difficulty... I thought I wouldn't die since I completed it before.... now as for 4 hour and no death completion achievements...

I think Ori's signature deflection move should be his unique game mechanic. I'm not sure how Sakurai can implement. Sure, he can take note from Rivals of Aether, but I'm not sure.... Smash is still different from that game.

Anyway, dropping support.
 

Megadoomer

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I've got my idea for Ori's moveset and stage written out. Note that it's based on Ori and the Will of the Wisps - while there might be some minor spoilers, the only things that it should spoil would be the moves that Ori gets.



Ori Lights the Way!

Three of the palette swaps will be borrowed from Rivals of Aether, making Ori light red, light blue, and light green, with their regular eye colour in all of the cases. Another palette will almost invert Ori’s colours, giving them dark purple (almost black) skin and white eyes as a reference to characters like Kuro, Ku, and Naru. Another palette makes Ori dark blue with yellow eyes to reference Gumo. For the last two palettes, I’ll reference the Spirit Light (along with Seir from Will of the Wisps) by having Ori glow bright orange, and the Moki (ferret-like creatures from Will of the Wisps that resemble Ori) by giving Ori a brown palette with bright yellow eyes.

For a series logo, I think I’ll go with the O from the game’s title. It’s used as an autosave notification for Ori and the Will of the Wisps, so it should work.

For a stage, I feel like the Spirit Tree makes the most sense, since it’s important enough to appear in the title screen of both games. Much like the Ori games, you can’t directly interact with it – it will be in the background, providing some impressive-looking scenery. The regular version will be a walk-off stage with curved floors, kind of like the Mario Galaxy stage except not being perfectly round.

Ori enters the stage with a reverse of their warp animation. There’s a flash of light and Ori appears, spinning around before gently touching down on the ground. For idle animations, Ori looks back and forth or yawns.

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I’ll be basing Ori on Will of the Wisps, as opposed to the Blind Forest. (I want to avoid the temptation to borrow too much from Rivals of Aether) Also, like in their games, they get a third jump, which has a similar gust of wind effect when they use it. It's worth noting that Ori has a lot of recovery options (a third jump, and his up special, down special, and (depending on the circumstances) neutral special can all be used to recover either horizontally or vertically), so as a result, they are extremely light - probably somewhere around the Jigglypuff or Pichu range.

A-->AA-->AAA: Spirit Edge. Ori pulls out their light sword and uses three horizontal slash attacks.

Forward A: Flap. Ori pulls out Kuro’s feather and waves it. The feather barely does any damage, but it creates a gust of wind to knock the opponent away. (the gust of wind has nowhere near the range that it has in Ori and the Will of the Wisps – it’s just a small gust of wind, about the size of Ori, in front of the feather)

Up A: Spirit Edge Launcher. Ori swings the Spirit Edge upwards.

Down A: Stab. Ori stabs with the Spirit Edge, like their crouching attack in Will of the Wisps.

Forward Smash: Spirit Smash. Ori pulls out their energy hammer and gives it a mighty swing.

Up Smash: Light Burst. Ori tosses a ball of fire straight upwards, which explodes upon reaching a certain height. (the height depends on how much it was charged)

Down Smash: Shock Smash. Ori hits their energy hammer on the ground, creating up to three red spikes (about as tall as Ori is) on either side of Ori, depending on how much it was charged.

Neutral Air: Blaze. Ori glows, creating a circular flash of light around their body.

Forward Air: Spirit Edge. Ori uses the mid-air sword attack from Will of the Wisps.

Back Air: Ori throws a Sentry (a glowing blue sphere like Sein) over their shoulder, and it shoots out three energy beams before disappearing.

Up Air: Spirit Arc – Ori fires a single arrow straight into the air.

Down Air: Downward Strike. Ori stabs straight down with the Spirit Edge. The first time that it hits an enemy, it will give Ori a slight boost in height, though subsequent hits won’t have this effect until Ori lands.

Dash Attack: Ori lunges forward with their Dash from the game, though there’s an aura around them to indicate that it will do damage.

Wake-Up Attack: Ori spins around as though chasing their own tail, which knocks enemies away.

Climb Attack: Ori swipes forward as they climb back on stage.

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Grab: Grapple. A thin blue tendril reaches out from Ori to grab at the enemy, pulling them in. This can also work as a tether recovery, like Samus’s grab.

Pummel: the tendril flashes with a bright white light, damaging whoever’s in its grasp.

Forward Throw: Ori kicks off of the opponent, knocking them away.

Back Throw: Ori steps around the opponent before leaping off of them to get some distance.

Up Throw: the tendril tosses the opponent into the air, and Ori does a leaping upwards slash with the Spirit Edge to knock them away.

Down Throw: Ori jumps off of the opponent to get more height, slamming them to the ground.

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Up Taunt: Ori holds up a ball of orange spirit light.

Side Taunt: one of the Wisps floats around Ori as Ori watches it carefully.

Down Taunt: Ori pulls out one of Lupo’s maps and checks it, making sure they didn’t make a wrong turn somewhere.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

B: Bash. Maybe this would make more sense as a down B, but I figure leaving it as a neutral B would prevent people from mis-inputting and launching themselves downwards by accident. Ori does a backflip as a light flashes around them, and if a projectile or enemy is in that light, that projectile or enemy slows down as an arrow appears on top of Ori. The arrow can be manually aimed for a second or two, and when the time is up or the button is released, Ori will launch in that direction, sending the opponent or projectile the opposite way. If it’s an opponent that’s launched, they aren’t sent very far.

Up B: Updraft. An updraft appears beneath Ori, and they pull out Kuro’s Feather. This causes them to rise into the air, and if the button is held, they slowly drift downwards. This does no damage.

Side B: Spirit Star. Ori throws a star that acts like a boomerang, returning to them after traveling a short distance. Unlike Link's boomerang, it doesn't home in on Ori. If it returns to where Ori threw it from, it vanishes. Ori can only throw one at a time.

Down B: Spike. Ori leaps backwards, throwing a spear of energy at the ground where they were standing. The spear explodes upon hitting the ground. This can be used for evasion as well as attacking.

Final Smash: Ku’s Flight. Ori hops on Ku, who flies rapidly across the stage to rapidly build up damage like Sonic, Diddy, or Pikachu when they use their Final Smashes. After a few seconds, Ori leaps off of Ku, glowing for a bit before crashing to the ground. When they land, this causes a white explosion to burst from the ground, sending nearby enemies flying.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For one victory pose, Ori walks up to Ku to give them a big hug, which is followed by Gumo coming down from the ceiling to hug them both, and then Naru comes in to give them all a big bear hug. Aww. Another victory pose has Ori and Naru sitting on the victory screen, eating oranges. For the last victory pose, Ori holds up the Smash Ball like they do with other collectibles that they find.

For a victory theme, my pick would be the vocal theme that recurs throughout the game. Starting here, it goes until either the 23 or 28 second mark. (11 seconds is probably pushing it)

When Kirby absorbs Ori, he glows white and gets Ori’s ears. He also gets the Bash ability, which works the same way as Ori’s does.
 
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Megadoomer

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Rivals of Aether is having an announcement stream on Tuesday.


I'm assuming that the release date for the Definitive Edition will be announced. Not sure if there will be any new content, or if it will cover the balance changes made with this version of the game. (I'm not sure what these announcement streams involve - the closest that I can find are Rivals Directs, which have only been posted on April Fool's Day)

EDIT: Rivals of Aether comes out on the Switch on September 24th, and Ori and the Will of the Wisps is coming to the Switch today. (September 17th) I'm definitely going to pick both of those up.
 
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Megadoomer

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Seeing as it's been well over 24 hours since my last post, I figure I should post in this thread given the relevant news.

Rivals of Aether is already out on the Switch, surprisingly - I figured it wouldn't be out for at least two more hours. If anyone's picked that up, or got Ori and the Will of the Wisps on the Switch after it was shadow-dropped last week, are you enjoying them so far?
 

Nazyrus

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Count me freaking in! fighter or mii costume… just give me either! I freaking love this series, finally started playing the second game last night <3
 

ninjahmos

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Count me in! We haven’t gotten an indie rep as a fighter yet, so why not Ori? At least, I think Ori is an indie game series. Or maybe I’m wrong.
 
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LiveStudioAudience

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Going through Will of the Wisps, and no surprise its an amazing title with wonderful mechanics, and even the combat's been given some pretty solid depth via attacks.

As far as Smash, if nothing else I'd adore an Ori stage to battle on. Pretty much any setting from the games would work, but that gorgeous artwork, the music, and Ori Bashing through in the air in the background would be amazing to see.
 

Diddy Kong

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Question ; do I need to play the first game to fully enjoy the new Ori game? Cause it looks wicked fun
 

Lionfranky

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Question ; do I need to play the first game to fully enjoy the new Ori game? Cause it looks wicked fun
Yes. Will of the Wisps requires you to know story of the previous game. It starts from where Blind Forest ended. You will miss quite bit what each cutscene means.
 

LiveStudioAudience

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Blind Forest is also a great introduction to the core mechanics which get expanded on in Will of the Wisps.
 

Megadoomer

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While the Game Awards isn't much different from any other Game of the Year list (aside from a much larger amount of commercials and reveals being tied to them), it's worth noting that Ori and the Will of the Wisps got a few nominations: Best Art Direction, Best Score and Music, and Best Action/Adventure Game.

The last category seems stacked (The Last of Us 2, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ghost of Tsushima...), but I feel good about its chances in the other two categories, particularly art direction.
 
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KillerCage

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So I beat Ori and the Will of the Wisps a few weeks ago.
I'm not sure if I like it better than Blind Forest or not.
The combat is certainly better, but the story is weaker.
Am I alone in feeling this way?
 
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Rie Sonomura

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I’d love to see Ori content in Smash period. Idc how. But at the very least I need that music, ESPECIALLY Restoring the Light Facing the Dark

that segment is my favorite part of the game, hard as hell but so intense 💙
 
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