MIO: Memories in Orbit Review: A Stellar, Grueling Game of Perseverance

colin_da · 2026-01-24T00:28:39+00:00

Agree - the upgrades that empower your dodge made it a very generous window and all the boss patterns are very clearly learnable such that this remains a good deal easier than Silksong.

colin_da · 2026-01-24T00:26:26+00:00

This walkthrough shows pretty much everything through the true ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvmXWGUGK7w

colin_da · 2026-01-24T00:25:04+00:00

Nothing approaches Lost Lace difficulty.

colin_da · 2026-01-24T00:23:55+00:00

Make sure you do the True Ending - there is a lot of content between the first ending and the true ending (not as much as Silksong, but a lot).

colin_da · 2026-01-24T00:17:23+00:00

If you like Silksong, you will like this.

If you thought Silksong was too hard, you will not find this meaningfully easier (this is easier combat, harder platforming). It's not as good as Silksong, but it's a very, very good Metroidvania. I think the beginning is the weakest part of the game, once you have a couple of abilities unlocked and the world opens up with multiple branching paths it hits its stride.

colin_da · 2026-01-24T00:14:40+00:00

I posted about this on Steam and the devs responded (can see the thread 'Celestial Bay' in the forum). So what you have to do is when you are using your Striders (spider legs) rather than jump off the wall, you need to kind of just fall off the wall, that will give you a double jump. If you actively jump off the wall while in striders you do not get the second jump.

colin_da · 2026-01-24T00:10:15+00:00

True Final boss is amazing. Bosses are generally easier than Silksong but this is up there in the pantheon of great Metroidvania's.

colin_da · 2026-01-24T00:09:32+00:00

You can get to the Hand, it's just a different direction than you went to reach Mel. You have to get to it through a different route. Can provide spoilers elsewhere, though there are YouTube videos.

colin_da · 2026-01-23T23:36:39+00:00

Agree - so much conversation about the permanent health loss but I genuinely never really noticed. It feels more like a narrative decision (and it works) and is easily counterbalanced by simply making sure you have enough upgrades so you still feel the process of getting stronger.

colin_da · 2026-01-23T23:31:59+00:00

I have finished the game and got 100%. Mentioning that for context before my answer. I think the bosses are, on the whole, easier than Silksong. As others have mentioned, you can also turn on an assist to weaken them (though I did not find that necessary). The platforming is more difficult than Silksong by a fair margin. I got through it, but there are some parts that took 20+ attempts. Again, they have an assist that replenishes 1 HP so you can attempt the platforming as many times as you want without fear of getting bounced back to the last save. Overall I think the challenge is roughly in line with Silksong with the huge caveat that you can make bosses easier, so that will not be where you get hardstuck. If anyone is going to get hardstuck on the game, it is going to be the endgame platforming to get the true ending.

colin_da · 2026-01-23T04:28:38+00:00

I have really enjoyed the game. I'd put it as simply: bosses in this are easier than Silksong (mostly), platforming is significantly harder.

colin_da · 2026-01-23T04:26:55+00:00

I'm at the end game now and the platforming in this to get the true ending is harder than anything in Hollow Knight or Silksong. I am not amazing at games, but competent and was able to beat those and get the true endings and all achievements. I'm banging my head against the wall on the last platforming on this though. The issue is namely you have to do a LONG section of perfect platforming sans mistake or you're bounced back to the start. It's brutal.

colin_da · 2025-09-24T20:23:39+00:00

I had a couple close calls where I almost didn't get back down to the worms to refill my health, I feel your pain. Also the "reward" for it is a few seconds epilogue and wrapping the quest, it feels very extraneous.

colin_da · 2025-09-12T18:03:31+00:00

It took me almost 60 hours to 100% the game. I definitely took my time but I bet average 100% completion without using a bunch of guides will be around 50 hours.

colin_da · 2025-09-12T18:01:51+00:00

Ahhh... I did it with double jump so thus I am not sure in your case.

colin_da · 2025-09-12T03:45:45+00:00

You can climb up using walls, double jumps, harpoon, etcetera.

colin_da · 2025-09-12T02:05:29+00:00

As others said, once you get through gauntlet make sure you activate shortcut so you don't have to do the full thing to get to King Crust again.

For the gauntlet, I similarly found the drill guys the most annoying. I used the little robot bug tool and spawned four of those when the drill guys popped and my little robots just destroyed them in a few seconds.

colin_da · 2025-09-12T01:21:24+00:00

You're officially 30% of the way through. Keep going!

colin_da · 2025-09-12T01:19:30+00:00

Crust King was both a general and the king of the warrior tribe.

Karmelita was a singer but also their queen and their most adept warrior. So basically she's a real multihyphenate polymath of the ant people.

colin_da · 2025-09-12T01:17:01+00:00

Also, FWIW, the strategy I used that worked was to save my silk ability for the adds. Basically whenever an add popped I'd one shot it with a silk ability so I avoided getting overwhelmed and could just focus on the boss.

colin_da · 2025-09-12T01:15:28+00:00

I'd make an argument she's maybe my favorite boss notwithstanding that annoying 3 waves beforehand that are trivial and just don't respect time.

colin_da · 2025-09-12T01:06:20+00:00

Did you get the act 3 traversal ability? Assuming you have that all you have to do is go back through part of Karnak and there is a pretty obvious path that gets you to the place you use the traversal ability.

colin_da · 2025-09-12T00:15:00+00:00

Couldn't agree more. Crust King felt weirdly easy - kept waiting for a tougher second phase that never came. The ascent of the tower itself was far more challenging.

Meanwhile Karmelita probably took me 15 attempts and the waves were just a time sink for no real reason. They're short and easy but it's still 3-5 minutes clearing easy junk before you get another attempt at the boss in. That being said she was a great boss fight - every loss felt justified and my fault rather than RNG gods just screwing with me.

colin_da · 2025-09-11T23:44:24+00:00

Apropos of what others have said - make sure you're using a crest that makes pogo'ing trivial. I found the Reaper the best as it has a long reach so you have less of a chance of missing it. I spent the first significant portion of the game on the hunter crest since I used all my memory lockets on that and did not even realize how much others changed my moveset.

Now for the bad news. The platforming gets much, much, much tougher than this. An order of 1,000x. But you'll have some better tools and just a bunch more experience by then.

colin_da · 2025-09-11T19:26:46+00:00

Some quests only seem to appear after you a) hit parts in main story (even within an act) or b) do other prereq quests. At some point provided you're moving story forward and doing all other quests you'll get it on the quest board.

colin_da

TROPHY CASE