Orn: The Tiny Forest Sprite Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Orn: The Tiny Forest Sprite Switch NSP Free Download Romslab Orn: The Tiny Forest Sprite had me really excited when I first saw the trailer. It looked like a blending of Okami and Ori and the Blind Forest, two of my all time favorite games. A hand drawn Japanese art style like Okami, with the forested 2D platforming gameplay like Ori. Well, looks can be deceiving, a lesson I learned the hard way with Orn: The Tiny Forest Sprite. The story in Orn: The Tiny Forest Sprite is simple and typical. A dark lord named Nalu is threatening to devour all the light from the world and cover it in darkness. Orn, as the title of the game suggests, is a forest sprite who is sent out to collect some crystal shards to help him seal away Nalu forever. That’s it. That’s the extent of the story. It’s as shallow as a puddle. ROMSLAB.COM BEST SWITCH GAMES

Orn The Tiny Forest Sprite Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

I was hoping to learn more about this world and of our hero, but this is seriously all there is.The gameplay in Orn: The Tiny Forest Sprite is maddening. The jumping mechanics are unreliable at best. This game also features one of the most questionable choices I’ve ever seen in a game: a meter that depletes every time you jump. At the start, you collect a fruit that gives you a magical meter that you will have to keep full if you want to jump or perform any of your other abilities. This would make sense if you had to collect other fruits along the way to keep the meter full, but there aren’t any aside from that very first one. This means you have to constantly mash the Y button to keep your meter filled with enough energy to allow you to do anything. It’s annoying and makes no sense whatsoever.

Nope, No Collecting of Fruit!

There are three runes that you will have to find along your journey: the Terra rune, the Frost rune, and the Darkroot rune. The Terra rune grants you the ability to make earthy platforms appear, dash, and make plant enemies decay. The Frost rune helps you get past certain firey obstacles and lets you warp (kind of). The Darkroot rune allows you to phase through specific hollow barriers. These are cool in theory, but the dashing and warping abilities are just as unreliable as the jumping mechanics and both the Frost and Darkroot runes will kill you if you use them for too long. Luckily, there are respawning stones spread throughout the levels. They are few and far between, and are usually only located after a particularly tough section of the level. Kirby Star Allies Switch NSP Free Download

Orn The Tiny Forest Sprite Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Since there is so much difficulty in making successful jumps, you’ll have to repeat the same stretch of the levels over and over again just to get to that next one. Plus, whenever you die your energy meter is depleted so you’ll have to mash the button to refill it so you can attempt to progress further. This completely interrupts the flow of the game. It’s bad enough that the platforming is so poorly designed, but having to stop to refill a completely pointless and nonsensical meter is absurd.On top of the funky controls, the environment also poses a problem at times. Now don’t get me wrong, I really like the hand drawn Japanese art style of Orn: The Tiny Forest Sprite. The graphics aren’t terribly mind blowing, but it’s cute, vibrant, and visually pleasing for the most part.

Jump and the Magic Meter

However, this is a 2D platformer and there are a lot of things in the foreground that are either highly distracting or downright obstructing. Running behind lava falls will take up a large portion of the screen and hide upcoming enemies until it’s too late to keep from running into them. Then there are certain areas where platforms are concealed by a tall patch of grass or mushroom in the foreground, so you’ll have to perform leaps of faith to try to get to where you need to go. It’s really poor level design.Orn the Tiny Forest sprite’s storyline is the usual good versus evil or dark versus light tale. Nalu a dark lord is threatening to destroy all the light and leave nothing but darkness. The Ancients descended from the heavens above and drove Nalu back to where she came from. Kitaria Fables Switch NSP

Orn The Tiny Forest Sprite Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

They knew that would not be the last they had seen of Nalu though. Orn the Forest Sprite is sent to collect Soul Stones which will help seal away the Dark Lord forevermore. Unfortunately the story doesn’t expand too much from what I described above during further gameplay. On Orn’s journey he collects three Runes: Terra, Frost and Darkroot. These runes grant Orn special abilities. The Terra Rune enables Orn to Dash, to make an earthy platform appear between some gaps and it also makes plant enemies wilt and decay. The Darkroot Rune helps Orn pass through hollow barriers that appear in his path and finally the Frost Rune helps Orn past a fiery obstacles plus it lets you warp.

Abilities and Runes

All the abilities are mapped by the game to the directional buttons and when they work they are interesting. Note the “when they work” that I typed above. Because more often than not when you press a direction button nothing happens. Having an ability not work while you’re playing Orn isn’t brilliant if you’re relying on it. For example, Orn was floating on a raft down a river, and he came upon a barrier. I pressed the Darkroot rune to remove said barrier. However, the ability fails to work and Orn is pushed off the raft and into the river. Game over for me….so sorry Orn: not my fault! With a platform game you know you’ll have a lot of jumping to do. In that respect Orn the Tiny Forest Sprite is faithful to the genre as Orn has plenty of gaps to jump over. Kitten Squad Switch NSP

Orn The Tiny Forest Sprite Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

One of the first items Orn picks up on his travels through the forest is a Moon Drip which turns out to be a magical fruit. It gives Orn the ability to Jump and also places a magic meter in the top left corner of the screen which reduces when Orn jumps. I can hear you thinking: that’s not to unusual in a  game! However, the one fruit that Orn found is the only one in the whole game, you don’t collect fruit to replenish or fill up the magic meter after you jump. Instead of doing my best to find more of these delicious Moon Drips, I had to constantly press the Y button to fill the meter, every time Orn jumps over something. It goes like this, press, press, press, Jump, press, press, press to fill the meter up again to jump! Strangely, using the Runes does not deplete the magic meter. So instead of depleting it by using your magic, it depletes by jumping!

Add-ons (DLC): Orn: The Tiny Forest Sprite Switch NSP