Last weekend we finally rolled credits on Orbitals. I picked up Orbitals when it first came out in early September and my wife and I played it all weekend until we got stuck. It turns out we got stuck right before the big ending.
This past weekend we finally jumped back in after spending seven hours that first weekend. We beat the game at about nine hours total, meaning we only had about two hours remaining when we got stuck. We still have a couple of mini-games to play and probably many secrets to find, but what a fantastic experience!
WORKING TOGETHER
The team at Shapefarm has managed to create a co-op experience similar to Hazelight’s recent games — Split Fiction and It Takes Two — but on the slightly shorter side. The magic within these co-op games lies in them being specifically created to be played together. Co-op is not just an add-on feature or an afterthought.
There are two types of cooperative games. There’s the standard tagged on co-op where you can play with friends or on your own. Adding other players just means more people are doing the same thing. Games like the Spelunky series have both players doing the same exploration with the same tools. There’s also cooperative shooters where more players leads to more enemies and stronger boss fights.
The second type of cooperative game is the Orbitals and Hazelight style of game. These are games that were designed to be played by two players. Most of the time each player has their own specific role to complete tasks together. These games are all about working together to figure out what’s next.
Orbitals is full of lightbulb moments where you start off unsure of what you are doing, only to figure it out and feel accomplished as a team. The game features many made up contraptions to help you get through challenges.
This isn’t the type of game you can each just go off on your own and do your own thing. You are always trying to figure out how to complete the current objective as a team.
ANIME-TION
What really differentiates this game from the Hazelight games (It Takes Two and Split Fiction) is the hand-drawn animation style. Orbitals looks and plays like an old school, hand-drawn anime series from the 80s or 90s.
Shapfarm’s Creative Director Marcos Ramos and Game Director Jakob Lundgren worked with anime legend Hidetoshi Yoshida — as the Storyboard Director and Key Animator. Hidetoshi also brought along his 40+ years of experience creating beautiful worlds in anime.
We did not skip a single cutscene in Orbitals, no matter how much my wife wanted to. They were all brilliantly executed. It felt like watching classic anime, even in gameplay moments I’d have to remind myself that I was controlling this character sometimes.
There’s a visual cue that I love seeing in video games lately. It’s when they lay out the name of your current location in a large font atop of a beautiful background. It’s something I also love in film. In fact, I remember first noticing it in the Daniel Craig 007 films, but I’m pretty sure it started in the early 2000s with Hype Williams-directed Hip-Hop and R&B music videos.
It looks so nice in Orbitals with the grainy film overlay, the giant Japanese characters, and the colors. It looks great pretty much everywhere — hand-drawn backgrounds, pixel art, and realistic landscapes.
THE STORY
Orbitals tells a beautiful story of two siblings, Maki and Omura, trying to save their space station colony from impending doom. The game features puzzle solving, exploration, and competitive mini games. They even created a beautiful theme song and opening, like any traditional anime.
I purchased the deluxe edition with the digital concept gallery. Looking through I can see the hard work that went into designing all of the characters and creatures within this space world.
You can play Orbitals locally or online with a friend (or stranger). As a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive you can also use GameShare to play with a friend who has a Nintendo Switch 2 or an original Nintendo Switch, but doesn’t own the game.
I’ve been hyped about Orbitals ever since seeing that first trailer for the co-op gameplay and the visual style. I may even try playing it over again with a friend via GameShare.
