MIO: Memories in Orbit is the second game by French independent studio Douze Dixièmes, a team of only seven people. MIO is a sci-fi Metroidvania where you play as a little robot exploring the ruins of the enormous Vessel, reconnecting networks, fighting crazed constructs, and navigating teeth-grindingly tough hazardous environments.
Immediately the art style pops. Sporting a sort of manga or sketchbook texture over deep watercolours, the character and environment design of MIO is consistently gorgeous. The various denizens and critters of the Vessel are equal measures cute and startling, a hallmark of any great Metroidvania, and while MIO herself is silent, the golden tendrils that sprout from her head are oddly expressive when they need to be.
The animation delivers too, whether it’s MIO digging into a lifeless robot husk looking for parts or a centipede-like friend scurrying out of a pipe to give you an upgrade. The narrative gradually reveals itself to you as you progress, and thanks to evocative writing and solid, if sparsely used, voice acting, it is deeply effective. The true ending, too, wraps everything up wonderfully.
Exploring the Vessel’s many different environments, each with stunning backdrops and bespoke mechanics, remained a tantalising hook throughout the 20 hours or so it took me to reach the true ending. Getting truly lost down one of several branching paths, only to realise you’ve looped back to familiar territory and opened up a shortcut, is super fun. Early on, there are lore and progression items to find around every corner, and there were long stretches where I lost myself in the flow of exploration.
The soundtrack is a highlight and frequently reinvents itself. For the most part it consists of chill, electronic sounds with soft female vocals, but it has a real identity. Occasionally some Daft-Punk style robot vocals kick in for a crescendo, or the same female vocals that were once meditative will suddenly become rhythmic, punching through the zen.
Combat is melee, so you won’t be blasting away like Samus. The standard attack is a three-hit combo, and hitting an enemy resets your ability to double jump. Eventually you unlock a grappling hook and dodge to manoeuvre better in fights. There is a modification system, where you have limited slots to attach certain traits. Some of these modifiers are things as integral as displaying enemy (or your own) health, but others offer small tweaks like making the last hit of your combo do more damage, or upon a successful dodge, a nearby enemy is stunned.
While the modifiers do allow a bit of flexibility, the combat remains fairly straightforward throughout, with difficulty spikes coming in the form of bosses with large health pools, several phases, and the fact that you have no option to heal during a fight. Similar to something like Hollow Knight, triumphing over the boss fights is all about learning attack patterns, to the point where you can effectively dodge everything they throw at you.
While a lot of the bosses are cleverly designed and aesthetically grounded in the world, just as many feel unbalanced, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they get nerfed post-launch. They either have too much health or hit way too hard. Given how well-hidden and sporadic permanent upgrades to health and damage were, it felt a little frustrating to struggle against a boss without knowing if I was underprepared or not.
This issue of challenge only became more of a problem as the game went on. Seemingly at random, MIO would fall to the ground, the screen would go white, and her health would be permanently lessened by one. I couldn’t understand the reasoning for these moments, other than signifying story progression, and it was really disheartening. As you progress in a Metroidvania, you want to feel yourself getting stronger to reflect the harder enemies and environments; instead, I felt arbitrarily punished the more of the game I saw.
Another similar problem: at a certain point the merchant character Mel gets captured. Their assistant tells you the area they’ve been taken to, but I couldn’t find them for the life of me. Due to this, I spent several hours in the latter half of the game without any way of buying health upgrades, increasing my modifier slots, or buying new modifiers themselves. I did eventually find Mel, in an extremely tucked-away spot down a very well-hidden path. I understand the appeal of hidden optional areas, but denying the player access to such an important NPC without any guidance is ill-advised.
There’s a fantastic Metroidvania here. MIO: Memories in Orbit features beautiful art, a unique soundtrack, a compelling setting, and a captivating narrative. That said, some design choices bring the experience down. Some optional areas and story threads are too well hidden, and permanently losing health is unfairly punishing, which, when combined with a handful of overtuned bosses, creates an arbitrary amount of challenge. While significant, these problems could be fixed in post-launch balancing patches, in which case I would happily add a whole point to my final score.
Rating: 7.5/10
MIO: Memories in Orbit was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by the publisher.