Every year the Polygon staff chooses 10 excellent games to award our Game of the Year honors, but that means some games we love don't quite make the cut. As with last year, we're running a series of opinion pieces by members of the Polygon staff explaining why certain games earned top marks from them even if they didn't make our staff-wide Game of the Year list.
The truth is, I'm part of the problem.
When Ori and the Blind Forest was first released in March of 2015, I didn't play it, and I have no good excuse for why that is. I had seen some videos and loved the look. I had heard it was a "Metroidvania" style exploration-focused game, which is one of my favorite genres. And I had listened to my colleague Arthur Gies raving about the game non-stop, both in and out of his excellent review.
But despite that all I didn't play Ori and the Blind Forest in March. I also didn't play it in April. Or May. Or all summer or through the fall. I didn't finally get around to loading up Ori on my Steam account until this month, just a few weeks ago, as I worked through a list of games I decided I had to try out before turning in my Game of the Year votes.
Within half an hour of starting Ori and the Blind Forest, I had one thought screaming in my head: Why did you wait so long, you dummy?
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