Booting up Orbitals for the first time, I was immediately hit by a warm wave of nostalgia like the food critic in Ratatouille. Memories flooded of a younger, care-free Sam watching anime in the 90s; everything from Dragon Ball, Cowboy Bebop and Pokemon to VHS tapes my uncle stashed away of Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555 and Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Japanese developer Shapefarm wanted to evoke those feelings with Orbitals, a cozy co-op action-adventure game about space-faring travellers undertaking a dangerous intergalactic mission. The result is a fittingly nostalgic and charming experience, even with some of its shortcomings.



Orbitals follows two space explorers, Maki and Omura, who must work together to repair their space station from being destroyed by a violent storm. Through jolly co-operation, players navigate the mazes of the massive space station to prevent everything from falling apart. Meanwhile, new experiments in potential cloning technology keep things intriguing as the story unravels.



The first and most apparent thing you’ll notice about Orbitals is the visuals. Heavily inspired by retro 80s and 90s anime, complete with that fluid hand-drawn animation and eye-popping colour palettes, Orbitals’ striking art direction elevates an otherwise safe but fun co-op adventure. Shapefarm put a lot of detail in character animations which brings their quirky personalities to life. Maki is more upbeat, extroverted and naturally optimistic, while Omura is the quiet, calculating type. Through their animations alone - their facial expressions, gestures, and body movements - both protagonists are wonderfully characterised, making it easy to latch onto their plights.

Heavily inspired by retro 80s and 90s anime, complete with that fluid hand-drawn animation and eye-popping colour palettes, Orbitals’ striking art direction elevates an otherwise safe but fun co-op adventure.

Since Orbitals is strictly a co-op game in the vein of Hazelight’s titles, you’re given the option to play through the game using a friend code, or alternatively couch co-op. I opted to hop online and team up with strangers. Core to the gameplay is a considerable amount of platforming and puzzle-solving. It’s less concerned with action and more focused on getting players to work together to solve problems while progressing forward.



A lot of these problems take the shape of environmental puzzles. Using a variety of tools at your disposal, players can move or manipulate objects, create openings, flip switches, or pull items along in zero gravity. Like It Takes Two or Split Fiction, puzzle-solving in Orbitals requires complete dedication as each player’s input is necessary to progress. If one fails, the other fails too. Luckily I found myself paired with players who were locked in and skilled enough to navigate its roughly 9-hour campaign. This reliance between each other also built a stronger connection between Maki and Omura, whose evolving dynamic is explored fantastically in the game.

When not on foot, Maki and Omura control a spaceship - more accurately, one player takes control of steering, while the other uses cannons to shoot incoming debris or intruders. The flying sections might be the truest test of the co-op mechanics as each player needs to pull their weight. The person steering might be able to dodge incoming projectiles, but it's up to the other to ensure you take no damage. The back-and-forth pull of steering and shooting creates a very compelling gameplay loop - we've seen it before, but Orbitals at least dazzles with its retro particle effects and hazy atmosphere of space.



However, Orbitals’ story isn’t the most consistent and neither is its gameplay. Towards the third act, fatigue set in as puzzles or exploration felt repetitive. The storytelling also poses many interesting philosophical questions related to Omura as well as the deadly storm they find themselves in, yet it never coalesces into anything surprising or meaningful by the end. It’s as if those story threads were left on the cutting room floor to trim down the game’s length - I wouldn’t have minded a few extra hours if it meant getting a more well-rounded story in the end. That said, the road leading up to the climax manages to hold your attention despite losing some of its steam.

It’s as if those story threads were left on the cutting room floor to trim down the game’s length - I wouldn’t have minded a few extra hours if it meant getting a more well-rounded story in the end.

Thankfully, players can hang out in the space station’s lively hub area between missions. While it starts off a little cold and void of life, as the game progresses, it quickly becomes populated with Maki and Omura’s personal touches and spaces where they can relax and unwind. There’s an abundance of minigames to tackle to further strengthen your bond and reflexes with your partner, while simply hanging out and enjoying the quirky atmosphere is a welcomed break from the chaos. It’s in these small moments that you appreciate Shapefarm’s reverence for retro anime. Personality simply oozes out of every creative decision here, from the art style to the intentionally crippled framerates to match the classic aesthetic. It often reminded me of the passion the animators of the Spider-Verse movies exuded; confident and earnest in their execution.



Because of that, I ended up adoring Orbitals and felt a bit sad by the time I rolled credits. It was more than just a nostalgia trip. I felt completely invested in these characters and wouldn’t have minded watching a 100-episode TV series all about them. Central to that is Maki and Omura’s excellent dynamic, their subtle comments and remarks, their sincerity, and their camaraderie reflected in the players’ own camaraderie which carries so much of the game on its back.

Since Orbitals is a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, I think it benefits from the portable on-the-go nature of the console. Whether docked or in handheld, the visuals looked sublime, but more importantly, you could have bursts of fun while tackling missions together before returning to the hub to rest. On the technical front, I encountered no issues but I have heard some players experience framerate dips (the unintentional kinds) during busy sections in handheld mode. My other minor complaint has to do with the presentation. Due to the art style, some environmental solutions aren’t obvious because you’re not quite sure if some objects are interactable, so you’ll end up blindly running around areas hitting everything before something eventually works. It only happened a few times, but I wish the game made these forward paths stand out a bit more without sacrificing the art style.



Orbitals is a breath of fresh air in the co-op gaming space (no pun intended). Its retro anime-inspired visuals and presentation are superb, and the characters are equally as goofy and lovable. Where it falters in the gameplay and storytelling departments, it can pick you right back up with its charm and nostalgia. It may not reach the heights of the titans in the co-op gaming scene like Hazelight effortlessly does, but if you’re looking for a similar itch to scratch - perhaps infused with a standout art style - then Orbitals will take you to the moon and back.

Nintendo Switch 2 Review code provided by Nintendo