To say that I had absolutely no idea what was going on the first time I played Mio: Memories in Orbit is probably an understatement. I was far too busy admiring and exploring the beautiful if slightly creepy landscape to pay much attention to any greater goal. But after getting smacked around by a couple of robots I came to my senses.
You play as Mio in this metroidvania, who has woken up in an enormous technological ark which is floating through space. The catch being you don’t really know what it is or what you’re doing there at first. So the only thing to do is to explore and figure it all out as you go along.
“As you progress into the intricate environments of the Vessel, you’ll be able to unlock new memories,” a news blog says. “Strike enemies that block your way and meet with different powerful guardians, holders of the spaceship’s darkest secrets. These encounters will make you grow into a formidable force.”
The more I think about it, the more I realise that I play a lot of games where the main character starts off with no knowledge of what’s going on and has to grapple with a new mysterious environment at the same time I do. Playing through Mio felt like the first time I picked up Inside or Limbo—dropped in a kinda unsettling world, clambering around, trying to make it out somewhere safe and maybe piece together what was going on as I went.
My favourite game last year was Ultros which had the same premise of landing on an odd spaceship full of psychedelic plants, masked travellers, and godlike creatures, and exploring it to uncover its odd secrets. I’m thrilled to be able to walk down that path again with an equally stunning metroidvania, even if I’ve traded the vibrant plants for a techno-dystopia.
It took a little getting used to but the platforming and fighting is also a ton of fun. There’s not just a bunch of different enemies for you to take on, some of which pack a real punch. My advice is if you see a little dude with a hammer, don’t get swept up in how cute it looks, because they are aggressive little critters who’ll bonk you on the head at first sight.
To help deal with the more aggressive bots in Mio you can collect a couple of useful abilities. With the grappling hook you can spring around the place like a robo Spider-Man and the glider makes me feel like one of those flying squirrels.
Mio may be a ton of fun right now but it’s still just in its demo phase. Developer Douze Dixiemes has promised players that it’s going to keep working hard to make sure it’s in its best possible state for launch.
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“We’ve already collected some feedback, and it seems that you particularly appreciated the art direction overall, the boss fights (especially when they gave you a hard time) and the soundtracks,” the blog post continues. “This is exactly what we were going for.”
So far the bug reports which you can log on the game’s Discord server have been few and far between. There is a log of the game refusing to launch, which I haven’t personally had any issue with. Then there’s a complaint about the jump button on both a controller and keyboard not working when you have both plugged in and an issue with someone fixing a plate with nacre (a resource you collect by killing robots) and then coming back the next day and finding it all broken up again. But it seems that the majority of players are loving their time with Mio’s demo.
The devs even compiled some of their favourite fan responses they’ve received so far. “Demo before [Silksong]! And it’s really good,” one player says. “So much love for this game that I stayed more than three hours inside, [mostly] just afk listening to the Satuary soundtrack,” someone else commented. I’m certainly excited to carry on my adventures, encounter more angry bots, and just marvel at this absolute work of art.
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