Free SpiritIn the wilder places the monstrous creatures call home, there’s as much or more to explore. Each region is lousy with secret nooks, hidden just out of view or behind a clever bit of foreground. It’s completely possible to rip through them en route to the ultimate goal at the end of the tunnel – and credit to Moon Studios for making huge sections of each environment completely optional – but the rewards for taking a peek in every crevice are vast. There’s a Spirit Shard for seemingly every occasion, and while you start with a scant three slots to embed, as you uncover and conquer the wave-based Combat Shrines throughout the world your reward is more slots that let you extensively fine-tune your Ori. Eventually, I got to the point where there were some shards I just couldn’t live without, and so the additional options let me experiment with the unique ones liberally as needed, without having to lose my favorite passive abilities. For example, I immediately equipped the shard that let me cling to walls for fairly obvious reasons, alongside the upgradeable shard that reduced incoming damage by 10/20/25-percent. When I could finally afford it, I traded a whole bunch of currency for the shard that let me jump a third time before touching the ground – that one just felt like a no-brainer for reaching unreachable places. But there are many shards with quirky traits that I eagerly tried out to see what kind of fun builds I could put together. There are shards that increase your damage output at the cost of taking more damage, shards that give you more resources from slain enemies, and shards that give you a bit of a hint when you’re near a secret wall or tunnel.