Developer Shapefarm’s debut release is more than just a stellar couch co-op adventure: Orbitals is a celebration of vintage anime that wears its inspirations on its sleeve. It’s Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion and Sailor Moon stuffed into a high-concept sci-fi story, with lovingly crafted animated cutscenes to boot. And while Orbitals never truly breaks away from these visual touchstones to blossom into a stand-alone masterpiece, it’s aping so many nearly perfect hits that the sugary nostalgia will probably be enough to keep you satiated during the game’s short playtime.
The elephant in the room is Hazelight Studios’ string of award-winning hits, like It Takes Two and Split Fiction, which have come to define the couch co-op space over the past 10 years. It’s nearly impossible not to compare similar games to Hazelight’s output, even if that seems unfair to new studios just entering the genre.
But Orbitals holds up against the best of the best — probably in no small part because its development team is helmed by ex-Hazelight talent. Orbitals Game Director Jakob Lundgren previously told Polygon that the game would integrate a lot of the Hazelight DNA, but I actually think it positively iterates on that award-winning formula in many ways.
I spent a lot of time standing around and holding down a single button to help out my partner in It Takes Two and Split Fiction. By contrast, Orbitals ensures both players are always zooming through its challenges together, making meaningful contributions to platforming sections or puzzles without lingering too long in one place.
In Orbitals, players step into the role of young space colonists, Maki and Omura, who have spent their entire lives in a stranded space colony ravaged by a mysterious radiation storm. The only thing keeping the folks on the station alive are high-tech respawn machines, named IMs, but the danger is closing in. In order to save their found family (and potentially help everyone escape the wreckage), Maki and Omura travel into the farthest reaches of space to scavenge what they need to survive.
The ’80s anime style does the heavy lifting for a by-the-numbers narrative
Despite its high-concept sci-fi premise, Orbitals’ story and its characters aren’t anything to write home about — it’s easy to see that they’re loving homages to popular anime series.
The IM respawn machines that bring the main characters back to life time and time again evoke some of Evangelion’s existential horror, though the game doesn’t delve into the implications that much. The spaceships are grimy, industrial and totally Bebop. Main character Maki acts (and looks) a bit like a magical girl, while her partner Omura is intelligent, a bit nerdy and way too prideful, like an endearing mix of Ranma and Spike Spiegel.
It’s regrettable that none of these pieces ever feel like they successfully iterate on those beloved archetypes; the game just copies the best odds and ends from other stories and pastes them piecemeal into this new setting. Orbitals fondly reminisces on the titans of animation yesteryear, and that nostalgia goes far. But most of the game’s narrative beats feel formulaic (and not in a good way). It took me an entire play session to really start engaging with the story; I’m not sure my girlfriend ever fully emotionally engaged with the world at all.
Where It Takes Two and Split Fiction do manage to edge out Orbitals is level design: Hazelight’s best games have players jumping from world to world. Being shrunk down to explore a snow globe is a memorable experience, doubly so when that’s followed up by a perilous journey through an oversize garden. Orbitals mostly offers different flavors of broken-down spaceship to rifle through, and they start blending together once you’ve gallivanted through a handful of wrecks.
That’s not to say that the environmental design in Orbitals lacks charm. The game still offers plenty of gorgeous (and dangerous) vistas to visit throughout outer space, including asteroid field mining settlements, an iced-over power plant, a crackling, lava-filled factory and more. If you end up in an unappealing locale, you can rest assured you’ll be zooming past it soon: Orbitals is short enough that no level overstays its welcome.
The art direction and loving details baked into Orbitals’ DNA are what really hooked my partner and me, and I have no doubt that the little discoveries around every corner will be enjoyable for most players.
If you ever tire of the main story or need a break from the platforming levels, you can divert your attention to the main characters’ lovable purple cat, the little Studio Ghibli-inspired alien dudes scattered throughout the world or some seriously engaging unlockable minigames. (The best minigame is a versus mode akin to Space War, where you try to blow each other up with blasters that have absurd recoil.)
Puzzles are challenging — and might be frustrating for some
I’m sitting on the fence about whether I should recommend Orbitals to a couple that never quite finished It Takes Two, Split Fiction or any other couch co-op platforming game. Unlike Hazelight’s impressive but lengthy titles, Orbitals is a bite-sized adventure, completable in around three play sessions, making for an easier commitment. But I know other couples that have struggled with the platforming in similar co-op games and drop them when a level gets too frustrating — and Orbitals features some surprisingly difficult coordinated movement challenges.
I personally enjoyed Orbitals’ brand of kinetic puzzling, which felt more active and less handhold-y than many levels in Hazelight games. My least favorite part of couch co-op games is when one player needs to stop engaging with play for the other to progress. If I’m standing on a button, pulling a lever or hanging around doing something similar, I’m probably not having much fun.
Orbitals has only a few instances in where you’ll completely stop to wait for your partner; while some doors and button presses require both players to operate them at the same time, that’s about it.
Even when you’re separated, the game keeps partners constantly engaged with one another. My girlfriend and I used lasers, water guns, jump packs and other cool gadgets to create new platforms for each other, clear out hazards like lava or forge paths in other creative ways. Orbitals forced us to pause and discuss how to time certain maneuvers, which was novel and fun. In the game’s toughest challenge, I had to match my partner’s movement tempo to send platforms back and forth across a side-scrolling screen while a nasty spirit clambered toward us.
I don’t anticipate longtime gamers to struggle with Orbitals, but the level of mechanical challenge feels a little bit higher than other genre fare. The game has many puzzles that require you to execute precision platforming in tandem with your partner, which might be frustrating for novice gamers.
While that could be a blocker for some folks, the game’s handcrafted anime art style makes it approachable, nonetheless. Orbitals is oozing with personality and constantly benefits from the attention to small details like character emotes. (Get ready to spam Omura’s wiggly dance.) And even if you completely bounce off of everything else, Orbitals is worth the upfront payment to experience Studio Massket’s beautiful ’80s-style hand-drawn anime cutscenes.
Orbitals is out now and is exclusively available on the Switch 2 for $40.
