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Wenjia" is cozy, linear 2D platformer and apparently the only game from the Chinese developer "Dilemma Studio".
Now let's start with the obvious thing first: The game visually looks very similar to the
Ori games, to such an extent that you could mistake a screenshot of this game for being one from Ori. The game's designers managed to replicate that beautiful hand-drawn visual style of Ori, with magical forests, ancient ruins, gloomy caves and thorny dangers. They even added a lava section. The playable cat and it's fellow spirits are all white. A melancholic musical soundtrack breaths emotions into each scene. Personally I don't mind the borrowed visual style as it's pretty to look at and I'd rather play a good looking game than an ugly one.
The story follows the cat called Wenjia which can move between the realms of matter and energy. The cat once released the "energy child" which, infuriated by how people consumed the energy from the energy realm, brought a calamity. Now Wenjia is called by small forest spirits (called elfs in the game) to help rescue other spirits which are trapped in a cave surrounded by lava with the energy child protecting them. The story is not of an award winning quality, but I guess it's okay for a young audience.
The gameplay consists of fairly basic skill-based platforming. Unlike in the Ori games, in Wenjia there is no combat and no "Metroidvania"-like complex map. You just travers different levels from left to right. There are floating platforms, teleport-dots, wind gusts which need to be used to avoid obstacles like pits and thorns. The game does have a standout feature which allows you switch between the 2 realms with a press of the left bumper (
). Visually it mostly changes the color pallets, but in-game it makes the aforementioned traversal elements like the platforms visible in one realm, where they are hidden in the other realm. This allows for platforming challenges where for example you get out of a teleport-dot, switch realm and land on a platform. Unfortunately the switch between realms can feel a bit sluggish, making some later sections of the game a bit frustrating.
The game can be finished in less than 1 hour, maybe 2 if you take your time to find all the collectible energy crystals. There are 2 achievements (1. for
completing the game in lass than 1 hour, 2. for
completing the game in 5 deaths or less) which would make a completion difficult, but thankfully there is a workaround to unlock both achievements
described in one of the solutions.
In summary, while Wenjia shamelessly copies the visual style and presentation of the Ori games, it's still a nice linear platformer with some decent traversal challenges.
3.0