Reviews of Deaf Games / Hoh – Ori and The Blind Forest

With the release of Ori and the will of the clumps that quickly approached, I decided to review ORI and blind forests and write reviews. I have to reveal that I only have a basic edition. What is currently sold is a definitive edition, but mine is the previous version, so the arrangement may be different between them.

This is a brief review, because surprisingly this game is more inclusive than I remember. As usual, the first thing I checked was settings. Screening shows all the available options. So as you can see, there is only a language option. There is no subtitle option.

Obviously, I already know that this is not a good sign because of experience with other games. However, this is where the surprise comes: the game does not have any words or dialogue. Everything is displayed visually, with a very short phrase in a large text, as you can see on the next screenshot. Even the speech that comes with texts is actually not English, it is more words that grumble, than the right.

This must be one of the best aspects of this game, because I don’t need to spend energy to pay attention to dialogue. I can turn off the part of my brain and vice versa just enjoy the soundtrack, which is very beautiful. You don’t even need to play the game to hear the soundtrack, because there is no relevant sound signal, from what I can pay attention to.

I have found that this game is very suitable for people like me, because it is very visual, very little relying on sound to tell the story. Soundtracks that definitely help regulate mood, but that is not important to note. So, instead of the game draining attention, the opposite. This is a very cold game, that you can easily lose the perception of time. To be honest, there are many moments that I frustrated, but that was my fault (I wasn’t right -really synchronized what I needed to do with what I did).

And because this game is more visual games, it also means very beautiful and deep, because you will not lose important information that hides in the form of sound signals. Even though I play prologue without sound, I am still emotional, just because the game is truly nailed to use visuals for emotions.

Alexia is a deaf writer, graduating in audiovisual communication and a major student in writing a scenario. Passionate about representation, accessibility, and mental health in the media, also writing about personal experiences with deafness/hearing loss and mental health in the medium. You can contact him on Twitter on @alehcemy