Moon Studios

Ori and the Blind Forest was developed by Moon Studios and published on Xbox One by Microsoft Studios. It will be released on March 11, 2015 for $19.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.

If I’m ever asked sum up Ori and the Blind Forest in just a few words, I’ll undoubtedly describe it as beautiful, sorrowful, thought-provoking and magical, but it’s also a game which offers a stiff challenge that stretches across a vast and diverse range of environments and offers a lot of replay value. In fact, I’d have to say that Ori is one of the best games I’ve played in a long time and it may even be one of my favourite games ever, despite belonging to a subgenre of platform games of which typically I’m not a fan.

Although Ori is basically a platform game with RPG-lite elements, it features a system of advancement through the unlocking of new and different abilities – double jumping, air-dashing and so on which in turn allow access to previously unreachable areas. This style of game is traditionally likened to Metroid and Castlevania, but due to its graphical leanings and wonderful musical score, Ori is perhaps most alike to Dust: an Elysian Tale among its peers.

As a reviewer, I’m duty bound to tell you what genre a game belongs in, or how it looks and how long it is, but the truth is that Ori is one of those special kind of games that works hard to set itself apart (and boy does it succeed) because almost everything comes together perfectly to create a tight and eminently enjoyable experience which allows it to sit aside from similar games and perhaps even redefine the accepted norm.

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You’ve read our picks for the best XBLA and ID@Xbox games of 2014. Now it’s time to look forward with us at what might be the best games of 2015. While fully acknowledging that some of these games likely won’t up to their billing and others may get pushed into 2016, these are the 2015 games that XBLA Fans is currently most looking forward to. If these releases aren’t on your radar yet, they will be after you’re done reading.

#IDARB

Developers: Other Ocean Interactive and The People of the Internet

#IDARB is a particularly interesting game to say we’re anticipating in 2015, seeing as XBLA Fans got our hands on what we were told was the “final” game in December and published our review already. This zany handball-meets-platformer game from Other Ocean Interactive and the fine folks of the internet — many features crowd sourced — isn’t officially out until February, though, when it will be part of the Games with Gold promotion. It’s difficult to explain just what #IDARB is, but it’s easy to recommend that you go play it when it releases next month.

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Ori and the Blind Forest will release March 11 on Xbox One for $19.99, developer Moon Studios announced today. The side-scroller will also be made available on PC the …
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Ori and the Blind the Forest has been delayed into early 2015 on Xbox One and late 2015 on Xbox Live Arcade, developer Moon Studios has announced. Moon was …
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Moon Studios’ Ori and the Blind Forest, one of the most beautiful games shown at this year’s E3, now has a release window. As revealed by game director Thomas Mahler …
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At Microsoft’s E3 press conference on Monday morning, there was a video montage of a lot of games that are coming to Xbox One through the ID@Xbox program. Over the next few days, XBLA Fans is bringing you a slightly longer glimpse of those titles than what the montage trailer allowed for. Our coverage of these titles will be in alphabetical order. Following is a look at the fourth set of those games.

Ori and the Blind Forest

Microsoft describes Moon Studios’ Ori and the Blind Forest as “one of the most stylistically gorgeous games we’ve seen on Xbox One so far. Even though the young console doesn’t have much competition in that realm yet, it’s a fair statement to make. The Metroidvania title looked absolutely gorgeous racking up a lot of time in the limelight during Microsoft’s E3 media briefing. Moon Studios was busy quietly working away on the side-scroller for four years prior to its public debut last week. The playable E3 demo received mostly favorable reports from the show floor, but we’ll have to wait until the fall to find out how things come together in the final release.

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