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The story
A thread on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (Geha) board kicked off after a post criticizing the brutal “die-and-retry” checkpoint design in the indie game series ‘Ori’ was reposted there. Because the original poster was pegged as a Nintendo-leaning commenter, the discussion spiraled into a factional fight over “which side actually hates indie games.” Counterarguments flew back and forth citing things like Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) treatment of indie developers and the platform-by-platform rollout of ‘Palworld,’ while the original criticism of Ori’s punishing checkpoint design also picked up some genuine support.
What people said
Ori had that "instant classic" smell right up until the die-and-retry stuff kicked in — the second you could place save points, I was like "wait, this is actually trash."
Trial-and-error against terrain gimmicks where dodging is literally your only option isn't fun at all.
Did you even buy Ori?
If you don't design a die-and-retry game carefully, it just kills the replay value.
Well, I guess that's unavoidable since SIE's developer support is apparently terrible.
Palworld, the indie poster child, snubbed the Switch too (uses "ブヒ"/"膣U," derogatory 5ch slang mocking Nintendo fans and the Switch) — how's that feel?
Nintendo — the company that files SLAPP suits against indie games (a jab combining "SLAPP lawsuit" with the "-dou" in Nintendo's Japanese name) — being loved by indie developers? That's a rough joke.
Everyone in the world except PlayStation loyalists, apparently.
More friends joining the club, yay 😊
Any inconvenient truth for PlayStation just gets labeled "Nishi."
Took about two seconds for the "so sad we can't release a physical copy" story to show up.
So "sad we can't release a physical copy" gets translated into "blind rage"?
Run the world through the Nishi-kun filter and apparently it's overflowing with hatred.
You put all that effort into leveling up the skill tree and then get hit with instant-death gimmicks over and over.
Even in the original thread this got reposted from, Ori gets trashed as some no-name garbage game. Nishi-kun fundamentally looks down on indie games, doesn't he.
You don't even need to explain that — our idiot OP (Re: #1) already quoted it right here.
I've only posted twice in this whole thread.
Seriously, nothing but idiots in here.
I played it on Game Pass but got stuck partway through because it got too hard.
Could've used a bit more of a safety net.
Seriously, know your place.
There's literally a proper Switch version out and this guy doesn't even know it.
Shows his true colors — anything goes as long as he's got a stick to beat Nintendo with right now.
This is exactly why.
I'm mainly on Steam but I also own a Switch, so yeah, I read it.
I mean, a die-and-retry game like that would get uninstalled in a heartbeat anyway.
That's the kind of thing you can only do if you genuinely care about the game from the heart.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps are critically acclaimed Metroidvania-style indie games originally released on Xbox and PC under a deal with Microsoft, later ported to platforms including the Switch. What’s actually at issue in this thread isn’t the quality of the games themselves, but whether the checkpoint design — built around dodge-only terrain gimmicks and instant-death traps — is good design, with the original critic stating this was a genuine impression based on actually having played the games. The thread, however, quickly devolved into a circular “which side actually hates indie games” argument, with people citing things like SIE’s treatment of developers and platform-exclusive releases as evidence. Set aside the Geha board’s usual factional console-war framing, and this also reads as a genuine genre debate over how difficulty should be balanced in “die-and-retry” games.
※This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [Geha]) thread “[Sad News] Nishi-kun Ends Up Treating the God-Tier Indie Game Ori as an Enemy.”
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