Ori and the Blind Forest was one of the best unknown quantities to come out of E3. Debuting at Microsoft’s media briefing before making its way to the show floor, Ori is a gorgeous and stylish 2D platforming adventure that pulls in equal parts Super Metroid, Symphony of the Night, Journey, Dust: An Elysian Tail, and Super Meat Boy. It’s a great group of influences that simply work, as Leah B. Jackson explained in her E3 preview

Smart Save System

Upgrade Freedom

Holy Moly, It’s Gorgeous

27 IMAGES

Lots of Mystery

After getting hands-on with the same demo at San Diego Comic-Con, I gravitated towards four distinct features that help make Ori a fantastic experience.I’m a big fan of how Ori and the Blind Forest handles its save system, and honestly, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a game do it in quite the same way. While there are checkpoints scattered throughout the world that act as spawn points if you die (kudos to the fact that you restart almost immediately ala Super Meat Boy), there’s also a quick-save system with a twist.At any point you can use your powers to create a save point in the environment, but doing so uses quite a bit of your stored-up energy. The idea of balancing your economy between heading into a battle fully charged, or playing it safe and creating a checkpoint right beforehand is really interesting, and something that I’m intrigued to see play out across the entire game. It builds upon the moment-to-moment tension and risk/reward of platformers in a really smart and unique way.Super Metroid was built upon a very smart, but rigid upgrade system. Though you could visit certain areas out of order, meaning different players could gain different abilities earlier than others, there wasn’t a whole lot of real choice in the matter. Ori and the Blind Forest aims to upend this by infusing necessary, bespoke power-ups like the ability to scamper up a wall, with a skill tree that is completely in the in the hands of the player.Though I only got to see the first handful of branches on the skill tree, what struck me was how the various powers catered to the kind of player you wanted to be. I gravitated towards more exploratory abilities such as a passive magnet that pulled in experience and currency from the surrounding environment. However, the other branches offered many different types of player growth. If you want to master combat, there’s a road for you. If you want to be able to hold more energy for creating save points more often, there’s a road for you. Freedom and player expression are key in Ori.Yup, this one probably goes without saying, but Ori and the Blind Forest is a visually stunning game. Everything from the hand-drawn characters and painterly environment, to the gorgeous particle effects of combat and subtle use of depth of field all lend to Ori’s beauty. Just take a look at the gallery below.Yup, like it said, it goes without saying...which is a weird thing to say...So far, Microsoft has only showcased the opening 20 minutes of what they promise is a 10 hour adventure. Aside from a brief cutscene that acts more as a tone piece and a few bits of mysterious ephemeral narration, we know very little about Ori’s actual story. But developer Moon Studios promises a melancholy adventure filled with some truly emotional moments akin to games like Journey and Limbo.There were also some great moments of mystery sprinkled throughout the short demo, such as areas inaccessible at the time, and strange silhouettes that briefly appeared in the foreground. It seems like someone – or something – is keeping a watchful eye on Ori throughout the adventure. I’m genuinely curious to see where Ori and the Blind Forest eventually takes us, and hopefully we’ll get to see a bit more of it when a new demo is on display in a few weeks at Gamescom.

Marty Sliva is an Editor at IGN. After playing Ori, he wants to go to there. Follow him on Twitter @McBiggitty