Mio: Memories in Orbit

Does this unit have a soul? Absolutely.

Why

Why Not

Impressions

Mio is an excellent Metroidvania which learns from its peers while adding enough to stand out. Despite a few frustrating design decisions I never wanted to stop exploring its incredibly designed and rendered world, eager to see what panoramas awaited.

The core concept here will be very familiar if you've played a good Metroidvania in the last few years. Abilities useful for both traversal and combat coupled with exploration rewarded by extra upgrades or shortcuts are pretty standard fare after decades of progress from the genre's progenitors. Mio has its own twists to offer though, from only being able to heal in predetermined locations to your iframe dash being tied to your grapple and your dodge letting you briefly disappear then reappear in place. But its greatest differences come from the DNA of the developers' debut effort, a puzzle game called Shady Part of Me.

Mio's hardest sections involve platforming, but what they're really about is solving puzzles. When I first saw accessibility options in the menu I though 'huh, neat' and immediately forgot about them. After hundreds of hours headbutting brick walls in souls-likes and Silksong I've built up a bit of a tolerance, so the thought of actually enabling accessibility options never crossed my mind. However by the buildup to the true ending it was clear if I didn't enable them I'd no longer have a mind for thoughts to cross; incredibly lengthy platforming sections requiring more puzzle-solving than platforming skill lead to increasingly long and frustrating runbacks. With Ground Healing on, each section became an isolated problem to solve, one which was still mechanically and mentally challenging but didn't make me want to uninstall every time I made a mistake. I really wonder about the decision to not include something like this as a base mechanic, and clearly the devs did too since it's also a modification you can find in game.

Another holdover from Shady Part of Me are the incredible visuals, taken to the next level by the addition of color. Rather than being limited to light and shadow by the premise of the game Mio explodes with vibrant color, each biome having its signature tones. There are some comparatively mediocre corridors linking areas, especially in the later game when you're mostly in a factory setting, but even these have their high points and even at their worst I wouldn't call them bland or repetitive. The music is also a standout, doing a great job evoking the loneliness of exploring a gigantic, dying spaceship.

And explore it you shall, Mio nails the core genre concept of seeing somewhere you can't reach and having it stick in your head until you can. There's a good balance of obvious secrets you can see but not reach, more hidden ones you have to go off the beaten path for and locked doors which you'll never get through unless you carefully analyze every inch of the map (or just look it up online). I may have been occasionally frustrated by boss designs or long runbacks, but my desire to experience the new areas and story crumbs Mio had in store kept me persevering through all of them.

Speaking of bosses there are some cool designs; early bosses are varied enough to be interesting if not particularly hard and later bosses certainly don't lack creativity or novelty. Both the 'final' and FINAL bosses are standouts, and overall the combat is solid with meaningful modifications enabling a variety of different approaches. You'll want to switch up your approach depending on the boss as well; some modifications are amazing in general but completely useless against certain bosses.

Overall Mio was a great game despite the occasional annoying design decision, many of which (farewell slow elevators, you will not be missed) were of course addressed in a major patch less than an hour after I finished the game :(. Ah well, an effective reminder that it's always best to wait if you can. If you, like me, find it difficult to wait after seeing how amazing this game looks in trailers go ahead and pick it up though. There's something truly special here despite the flaws, drawing on the lessons of the best of the genre while taking risks on new approaches of its own.