When MIO: Memories in Orbit was first revealed almost a year ago, it 🦄immediately grabbed my attention: a 2D metroidvania full of mystery, platforming, and a hand-drawn art style. I didn’t need any further convincing, and going hands-on with a two hour demo sh♉owed I was right to be excited.

You start as a group of figures that resemble a body in a strange scenario with a few platforms and several symbols surrounding you. It’s not clear what you’re playin𓂃g as (may🐬be a soul?), but you learn how to jump and move while reading some ominous phrases in the background.

After a few minutes, this en📖tity is then injected into a small robot called 🌳MIO, and you wake up in a facility known as the Vessel, a huge spaceship that contains many biomes and dangers.

Step by step, you begin exploring without a clear objective — some locked doors require a specific access badge, so I assumed I 😼needed to track it down. I met a machine that worked as the only checkpoint of the whole demo, and from there, I could start walking paths with multiple branches that led🐼 to collectibles, other friendly robots asking for help, and many other menaces. Classic Metroidvania.

While I played the entirety 🎐of the demo without a map - there is one, don’t worry - I was pleasantly surprised by how organic exploration felt, even if I found myself getting lost down myriad wind⛦ing paths.

It kept me mindful of where I was going, trying to keep notes as I witnessed some of the most exquisite scenarios I🎐 have seen in the genre for a very long time.

The way in which visual outlines and shadows of every object and surface are portr🌄ayed, mixed with how everything feels like a living, breathing painting, is a true gift for the eyes. The cozy, almost melancholic soundscape only adds to the immersion, helping to pull me into a world fu🍃ll of unknown creatures.

In my path, I confronted a handful of regular enemy types. While I didn’t have many means of attack in the demo, they always felt precise. Enemies had readable hits thanks to a white blink before💞 they strike, which made every encounter fair🔯 and manageable.

This also applied to the two bosses I played against, which reminded me of classic enemies from the old Mega Man series. They had second phases with faster and longer combos, but th༒eir attacks remained easy to react to, offering a worthy challenge.

While explori🍌ng and defeating enemies, you find droplets of Nacre, the

game’s main currency, modifiers, 🐻and old modules. The former are used to restore your health in specific spots, and you lose all of them if you die. You can crystallize them using specific machines so they become permanent in your inventory, but it was unclear if there were other benefits and downsides to it.

Modifiers g𓆏rant you enhancements, like extra health or being able to see the enemies’ HP bar. You need to allocate modifier slots to use them, and you don’t have many at the beginning. Old modules, on the other hand, are used with a merchant to get more of these slots and other helpful permanent upgrades. It’s simi🦹lar to something like Nier: Automata, where basic things you equip underline certain skills and mechanics.

I’m intrigued by MIO’s universe. The few lines of dialogue and documents I found painted a picture of a narrative focused on metaphysical topics (stories with robots can’t escape the question of the soul). It seems like the game will boast depth not only in ga🐈meplay, but also in its narra𒀰tive and setting.

The only thing that didn’t𓂃 feel good during my playthrough was the Hairpin skill. It’s a hook that lets you use your tendrils to grab crystals and move to them. You need to use it to reach otherwise unreachable areas, and one of the bosses’ arenas has two crystals if you want to use them for better movement.

This didn’t work very well 𒅌in the demo. It felt like the hook didn’t activate from certain angles in some crystals, but in others, it didn’t matter where you were aiming. It’s frustrating, since you can’t use Hairpin twice while in the air (you need to touch the ground and wait for the skill to recharge), and I ended up failing some jumps because of it.

MIO: Memori꧙es in Orbit still doesn’t have a release date, but I’m ready to get lost in its beautiful scenarios and learn more about its intriguing universe🍌. I hope the combat gets increasingly complex as you make progress, and the questions of what the protagonist is and what it is really doing in the Vessel get answers — or at least other more interesting questions.