OrbusVR: Reborn

Don't bother, massive disappointment. Basic af & and still janky. ...and that's after they dumbed down the game's graphics because they took that Facebook money to change the entire game to play on the Facebook Oculus Quest 1. Didn't even leave the previous features in higher graphics options for us PC players, Orbus' original platform. Played the alpha, bought into the beta, and played the first year of the original OrbusVR and the game was great. It had a well designed world map with a good progression flow & interconnectedness that encouraged all players of all levels to cross paths and naturally help each other. The devs took the Facebook money and deleted OrbusVR entirely and relaunched it as Orbus Reborn, specifically for the Facebook Oculus Quest 1 launch. They added classes and pet dragon racing tracks, those are cool. That's about it... 1. They made the single town now walled off and requires a load screen to go in & out. Now feels disjoint when the original town was open & social (you could see new players struggling at the farm next to town and pop off to help). 2. They made all mobs scale to your level, not cool -- you never feel like you've made any progress leveling. Everywhere you go feels like a struggle to get through... and you can't solo your way through more than a single mob at a time; if you aggro a second you're almost certainly dead. So now you're discouraged from going out and exploring, which used to be great. 3. They changed the world map entirely. It's now significantly smaller than the original. Fewer biomes, less variety, fewer color palettes. 4. They also reduced the mob variety down to a barebones few & recolors, when there used to be many and based on different biomes. 5. Many features from the original game were completely removed. To points 3. and 4. -- they're now selling us back a chunk of landmass & OG mobs for real money as an "expansion". Shady af. EDIT TO ADD: There's no feedback in combat. When you're being hit by a mob, your controllers don't vibrate, and your screen only goes red when your health is critically low. When you attack, mobs don't react in any way to indicate you hit them, then don't even have on-hit "pain" sounds. The devs have heard all of these critiques of these many, objectively bad design decisions and yet continue with only "This is how it is" responses. So how *is* Orbus Reborn? It's like an alpha of a tiny piece of the original Everquest, without any of the promise of being a killer app in the future. Bonus issue: If you use the wand while having your smooth locomotion set to what every VR game has made standard (left controller moves & strafes, right snap turns) then you can't snap turn at all with the wand in-hand. You're not restricted like that with any other weapons, it makes no sense from a design decision.

I really really WANT to recommend this game, I love the idea, and there are so many fantastic concepts in the game. However, the core of the game really is combat, and there are just too many problems with it in my mind that the devs seem... almost defensive of even. Classes: There are 4 classes to choose from ranging from extremely difficult to absolutely braindead each with their own upsides and unfortunate flaws. Runemage - Beautiful concept, the variety of spells is pretty cool, or at least would be if more of them were useful. Unfortunately, there's not really much reason to use many of them other than frostbolt->icelance and polymorph for party content. Pretty much all of the rest of the spells just don't do enough, and since it takes extremely "accurate" drawing to cast any of them, you'd have to sacrifice practicing a useful spell to work on a fun one you like instead. Remember that "accuracy" part, well, the devs are EXTREMLY VOCAL about the "math" involved in recognizing the spells. I'm sure it's just a trained model, but whatever they used to train the model was definitely not the icons they give you for casting the spells lol. You can sit tracing the spell, checking all sides to make sure it's perfect flat, literally put the book into the spell and see it fits exactly on the lines and sometimes it still won't work, but then other spells you have some extremely sloppy shortcuts you can do (one lost frostbolt 2 for example) that shows however their model determines spells, it needs a huge overhaul. Ranger - Aiming at things that aren't right in front of your face (unfortunately essentially nonexistant for solo play) actually requires a bit of skill and is super fun. However, the game is currently balanced so it's best to just wildly flail your arm to fire 3 arrows a second at things point blank, rather than actually aiming. Even with the wild flailing, using special arrows can take a bit of skill because the pickup and dropoff detection can be a little funky. Overall, with just a simple rebalancing I think this class could be great. Warrior - I hope you're ready to learn combos, err, more like combo. Learn wound for solo play, it's all you'll do. Repeat it until your eyes bleed. Also, make sure you have some space to walk around in, because theres about a 1foot space where hit detection works properly, otherwise enemies will attack through your shield, or your attacks will pass through them, or every strike will count as a left-right swing. Now that you've grinded out a ton of levels, you can learn your other useful combo, provoke. Learn it well too as you'll basically be just swapping out wound for this to spam nonstop for dungeons. Musketeer - An interesting concept, the utility and healer class has a fair amount of orbs and a couple of tough choices to make with those when deciding their loadout (but after that it's pretty much just spam them on cooldown unfortunately). Pretty decent at soloing because of the healing which means you don't have to worry about being as squishy as the runemage for questing even though in dungeons you're still the squishy backline. This is in my opinion the most well balanced class, but the similar straight forward "use things as soon as their available" mindset is kind of boring. For a game that talks about breaking away from traditional MMO button spam, it's essentially button spam. There are also some "professions" which are non combat classes seemingly? It's kind of weird but sure. Fishing - Actually pretty nice. The reel is pretty good and the jerk on mainhand to reeling in with offhand has a nice visceral feeling to it. Fishing gets (as one might expect) pretty monotonous without any other special type of minigame, or fish swimming around to at least try to cast near. Overall it's basically what you would expect from fishing in an MMO. Alchemy - Alchemy is really cool, and the one thing I don't know of any glaring flaw with. Not only do ingredients have to be added in a certain order, the cauldron heats and cools, and you have to add certain ingredients at certain temperatures. This is honestly an awesome concept that really helps flesh out the system. Further, you can age potions at an (unfortunately out of the way) potion rack in your base. Which lets you make them stronger, but with the potential to ruin them if you leave them there for too long. The best executed part of the game in my opinion. There's also a tablet/inscription profession that I won't spoil and seems extremely cool, but since you require other people to do it (can't analyze your own runes) it pretty much requires a guild or you being a reputable inscriptionist, which means you need practice, which means you need a guild. "A lot of your complaints seem to be about the solo experience, what about the group experience?" Well, I wouldn't really know beyond dungeons. Why is that? Because for some godforsaken reason guilds start with EXTREMELY limited slots (starting at 10 people max initially). This means that most any guild that wants to work on end game accepts only max level players. That means grinding through everything up to max level by yourself or the occasional pug if you can't bring friends into the game. IF you don't have a lot of time to look for pugs for regular quests, you're probably soloing it. My suggestion would be to wait for the team to flesh out the game more, and hopefully make a balance pass or two. However, the devs seem very ... defensive? ... about their decisions and very strongly push back on most balancing feedback it seems. Which means I don't really have a ton of hope for that. Until then, I'd only really suggest it if you have friends or are okay with a bit of a mindless grind to get to the good stuff.

All in all, I am a soft mark for this kind of game. A VR MMO is pretty much exactly what I'd like to see. If it handled any one part of being an MMO competently then I'd be all over it. If the combat felt good I'd just enjoy it for that. Were the game visually appealing, it could be fun to simply explore an open world with others and see the sights. Could it manage a feeling of progression with equipment and stats that felt meaningful. It fails on every mark, everything positive I can say about this game is just stuff that comes naturally out of it being a multiplayer VR game and is in no way benefited from being in this game in particular. And considering some of those other multiplayer VR games also have at least pretty okay gameplay and in some cases are free, it makes this game's $40 pricetag seem ludicrous. If you're like me, and you really want a VR MMO, you see this as the only option and you think "Well I may as well try it." Don't. That's what they are depending on. This was made to be "The First VR MMO" for a reason. They set the price that high for a reason. They know there is demand for a VR MMO and rushed to make this to fill that demand without any capacity to produce a high quality product. People who have extreme nostalgia for some early MMOs may get some enjoyment out of this, but by no means is it worth anything more then $5-$10 if that. It's hard when you want something and you at least want to give it the benefit of the doubt. Don't. I made the mistake. It sucks, you'll have to wait for someone else to make it. It could be years. Still not worth it.

Watched some videos and though "meh". Read some reviews on here and r/orbusVR and decided to give it a 2 hour chance. I have since quit my job and have devoted my life to memorizing spells as a rune mage. TL;DR: This game captures that same feeling I got 14 years ago when I first played WoW. Lost in a huge world filled with other lost people who were all willing to stop, talk, and work together to adventure.

Now I am not one to post comments often. This game though is amazing in its own way, and I would recommend it. The original OrbusVR graphics were not great but the game play and story did get your attention. The people who I met in my travels were always helpful and willing to show my noobness how its done. Sure, I was also chased by 8yo and 10 yo with them screaming and yelling and asking you to follow them to oblivion. But that's why we can choose to mute people (thank the lords for that, wish I could do it on real kids) . Now the OrbusVR Reborn graphics.....that was mind blowing. It really does not compare to the original. Now the game play! I have tried all the classes (mind you I have not played all of them to end game just tried). For those that play other shooting games or bow and arrow then does this game cater to you. Its the easier classes to play when soloing and especially if you play musketeer. (the HEALS!) If you play games like Gorn or melee then try out the paladins or warrior classes...One warning though, play as a caster at your own risk....it takes alot of practice...I mean alot...like going to college and studying to become a doctor only to realize that this isnt worth it and fail miserably at final exams so you just become a janitor in a hospital type long. I personally have not gotten to end game content but there is always so much to do. You can fish and yell at them when they break your line. You can make potions and yell at the pot when it gives you a ruin potion. You can age those potions and yell at them when you they go bad because you miss the timer. AND raise dragons! and pet them because you dont yell at dragons. (what monster would do that).

Hard pass. I got this because I wanted to give Runemage a shot. Immediately find out that Vive/Index users who play Runemage cannot turn when they have their wand out. The devs have known about this since 2017 and just decided to not fix it because they do not give a ---- about SteamVR players. In case a dev reads this: If you want to make money off a platform, you need to support it. Leaving such a critical bug in the game for this long sends a very clear message that you do not care about SteamVR players and just want our money. Well, if that's the case, I'm taking my money back.

With the very few hours that I have with this game. I can say for one thing. It's ambitious and it's fun. Pros: - Very friendly community. If you need help just ask them and they can help you out - Very easy to use classes (Starting out that are hard to master but you can get the hang of them in a small amount of time) - Mechanics are fun - Ingame guides are helpful - Easy on the eyes graphics - If your system isnt up to pair with requirements you can still run this game with decent fps and little stutters Cons: - Slow combat with basic enemies when starting out could push back a player but moving to different areas yields different attacks. Also the attacks are predictable but thats so then you can have time to scale yourself back and heal more or attack differently - There will be a few crashes here and there upon first time opening of the game on your system. After that theres little to no crashes. - The price a little too high but it's worth it with dlcs coming out soon that will be free to all owners of the game iirc If there is one thing to take away from my review is this. Do a bit of gameplay looking, check out the forums, wait for more updates. This game is getting weekly devblogs like rust back in the days. DLCs are coming out working to rework the core mechanics of them game. Give this game time and come back to it/keep a watch on its updates. It will be worth it in time.

(Before reading understand that majority of players use Oculus quest to play this game and it has a much higher rating and player count than steam shows.) *ahem* Imagine this: You're walking through a town, there is groups of people on the side of the main path all having separate conversations about varying topics of magic or questing. As you proceed further, you see more players running into nearby shops with their friends following nearby, they are completing tasks to rank up; the roar of excitement sails through the air as you make it to the center of the town. You realize you don't actually know what you're doing, so you look around for a way-point or something obvious, but you come up empty handed- the town stays busy around you. As you look around you notice a group of 5 very serious looking players. Their massive decorated armor and weapons do not even compare to your starting stick... You begin to feel intimidated. the sound of their laughter and distribution of loot from the last "raid" is all you can hear. You approach them and swallow your pride, "ahem... can somebody help me please? i don't know where to go." you ask, One man steps forward, his enormous body towers over yours, You become terrified. When suddenly his tiny voice squeaks over the mic ''YEAH ITS REALLY EASY ROFL" He points you in the right direction He musn't be older than 9! If he can do it so can you! Currently the best VR-MMO-RPG to date. Also free till level 10 so you have nothing to lose by trying it.

Being honest, Orbus is not the vrmmo that I have been longing for. There are a handful of annoying bugs that you might experience, the graphics take some time to get used to, the world (at least in the early game) seems bereft of any meaty lore and it can be incredibly confusing to know what you're doing and where you're going at first. But...this is the first VRmmo. There is an interesting first take on how to do VRmmo combat and it's actually pretty satisfying and varied between each class. There is a nice selection of non-combat minigames, including dragon racing, which turns out to be a pretty fun experience. There is a great, friendly and fairly large (and growing) community. All this adds up to great value when you consider the low price, and even if you aren't sure it's for you, that is something you can check yourself with the very generous demo (which I would certainly recommend before you buy). When you realise you've spent more time in the free demo than you have in other VR titles costing twice the price, and you haven't even scratched the surface, then you'll probably make the same decision as me and buy this game. You're unlikely to regret it.