Ori and the Will of the Wisps: Don't quit when you get to "frog boss"

I was really enjoying coming back to this game because if you read my previous posts I feel like this game is made very well and love how you can just walk in and out of playing the game and after a little while of familiarizing yourself with the controls again, you are able to get right back into this.

Much of this has to do with the fact that the controls are pretty streamlined and none of the encounters other than optional ones are truly difficult. That is until you get to the "frog boss" whose name is Kwolok

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If you have played this game for even an hour you probably recognize this guy because he at first is friendly and helps you to get to some of the earlier areas of the game. However, later on when you get give 3 paths to take all of which are central to the story, one of them will lead you to a place where Kwolok has been compromised or infested, and now he turns on you.

Thus begins what has been called by man to be the "hardest boss in the game" and we are not really even that far into the game.

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it starts off with him chasing you and when people die 10 times during this chase it isn't really anything new. In this Ori as well as the "Blind Forest" Ori, the chase sequences being tough is nothing new. Any somewhat veteran Ori player knows that this is a regular part of the gameplay.

however, this one is different because if you can get through it in just 10 tries you are either very good, or very very lucky.

This chase sequence allows for zero error and even a slight hiccup as far as button presses or getting even briefly trapped on a wall will result in your insta-death. The amount of health that you have makes zero different. If Kwolok touches you, you die right away.

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To make matters worse (or better if you love super-hard games) getting past the "chase" isn't the end of it all like it has been in other situations in this game and other games like it. After the chase you are now subjected to an extremely difficult boss fight with a HUGE health bar. Also, unless you have cheated and looked online you are unfamiliar with what the attacks are going to be and therefore you are going to die in the first encounter.

The good news is that when he does almost certainly clean the floor with you, you no longer have to do the chase again to have another go. It auto checkpoints at the start of the fight.

If they did make you do the chase every time getting past this would be reserved for the kind of people that have completed Hollow Knight's harder stages and well, I already did that and do not want to do it again.

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Kwolok is located in the Luna Pools and this is just one of 3 main areas that you can progress towards once the story gives you multiple options about where you want to go. As someone that has at least had a go at all 3 of them, this one in Luna Pools is the one that you should probably save for last because this is one of the few design flaws that I have found in this game. The Luna Pools appear to be your logical next destination once the path splits into 3 because it is the most accessible. It also requires your underwater dash ability, which is the upgrade or skill that you almost certainly most recently acquired. It just makes sense that this is where you are "supposed" to go to next.

I'm here to advise you to NOT go here next and save it for last

Reddit and other forums are filled with comments about how this boss fight made a lot of people rage quit the game and made them angry enough that they didn't even investigate the possibility of going somewhere else first. I can understand why they would think this because no matter how many health and magic upgrades you come into this instance with, he is still going to insta-kill you in the chase sequence.

Do yourself a favor and pursue other things, perhaps even all of the things that you can possibly pursue before you take this one on.

one very good thing about Will of the Wisps is that you can warp out of this place at any time to any of the shrines I think they are called. You can also warp straight back and have another try at it at any time.

Do yourself a favor and do exactly that. I nearly quit the game and decided to give it one more chance, then discovered that you have a TON of other options rather than just suffering through the Luna Pools boss.

I am playing this on Switch but it is available on all platforms and is also an incredibly good game... one of the best of all time IMO.