ORI AND THE WILL OF THE WISPS

The traversal is the design: dash, glide, burrow, and a bash that launches you off walls and enemies alike. Areas are built as flow lines rather than corridors, so a clean run looks choreographed and a sloppy one ends in a spike pit — and the checkpoint spacing is generous enough to make that funny.

Fifteen gigabytes, twelve hours, and one of the few games where the orchestral score is doing narrative work. The escape sequences are the high point; the boss fights are slightly less precise than the platforming, which is the opposite of most games in this genre.