I already know that Mio: Memories in Orbit is the best metroidvania I’ve played this year. It’s the kind of game that makes me want to say stupid, sweeping statements like this. Let me back up a bit. Last year, I came for Silk Song holding a tiny pitchfork expecting a mob to rally with me when I said that the game was too damn difficult. Little did I know that I was going after the wrong fanbase. Most people who liked Hollow Knight and Silk Song, actually do enjoy incredibly challenging metroidvanias. So. Mio is for the rest of us. We appreciate a reasonable challenge, nothing too extreme. And we’re also mostly playing these games for the fantastic aesthetics. If you liked Ori and the Blind Forest, odds are, you might like Mio, too. And that’s my sell. If you’re unfamiliar with any of these games I’ve mentioned so far, read on.
A tiny otherworldly body emerges in a place known as the “Vessel”. She has flowing tentacle-like hair strands, and jumps softly from pillar to pillar. She’s a robot, and she’s brought back to life in a world that appears to be decaying. The entire game is a search, to find the reason for the blackout, and potentially bring this “Vessel” back to its former glory. As she moves through the different rooms and uncovers new regions in this large Vessel, we gain new abilities, defeat complex creatures, and learn more about the secrets that it holds. The opening sequence really undersells the sheer breadth of this beautiful, ethereal, hand drawn universe with soft music in the background. Over 40 hours in, there are constant shifts in the game, with new biomes that to unlock for exploration (I’m still so captivated).
The complicated idea of AI erasing everything that makes us human is a recurring nightmare these days for a lot of us. In the most inexplicable way, Mio makes me feel hopeful. Strange, that I see hope in this hand-drawn universe portraying life within beings made of steel and electricity. The story talks about the wasteland that exists in a time and space beyond automation, and that even robots felt the need to seek the humanity within them. It’s a complicated concept to explain, but this game does it quite well.
Lore aside, the rules are as all metroidvanias go — graduated. It gets marginally more difficult to remember things when you unlock new areas of the map. The game does a super short tutorial segment to get you through the basic traversal and combat mechanics. You can jump twice to get from one side of the room to the other. You can jump in the air while fighting a rogue robot. And hitting three times consecutively is a killer combo, literally. Of course, you aren’t completely alone in this journey, however isolated this world now seems. You encounter a robot at a workshop who constantly throws upgrades your way. There’s also Samsk, who is a centipede-like robot that haunts the piping system. Every once in a while, when you beat a boss, Samsk throws you a permanent improvement — teaches you one new skill that helps you open up or navigate a completely new realm.
Games are supposed to be fun and approachable. I said something about Silk Song that I still stand by. The way that Mio accommodates for fun is by relaxing the skill baseline and having adaptive boss battles. Every attempt at a boss battle “weakens” the boss by a miniscule amount. This adds up, especially in tougher battles where you have 10+ attempts. It’s an excellent strategy to keep you playing without rage quitting. Mio also has a lot of frustrating traversal challenges, but I noticed that the more I attempted these, the better I got at them. And it felt less luck-driven than Silk Song and Hollow Knight. I must say, this is an important reason I loved the game a lot more than even the Ori series (which it’s closest to). It’s more complex, vast, and yet enjoyable without being too frustrating.
I played this game on the PS5. It’s definitely best played with a controller, given the complicated movement combos required. It’s not beginner friendly, and shouldn't be the first game you ever play. But it’s an amazing metroidvania that’s so worth the 50 hours that you might end up spending on it.