Orion: A Sci-Fi Visual Novel

Completed the game. It didn't take too long. In fact, in my opinion it was a little too short. Appropriate for the length of a standard EVN perhaps, but you wish that it took a bit more time to flesh out the world of Orion. So, the good thing is that the bones are all there. All the main nodes that should be there are there, and the logic as far as I can see it is sound. Unfortunately even a beautiful skeleton is just that, and the various flaws I want to point out still stems from the problem that there isn't enough content to flesh out Orion. To start with, Orion is a world of Unionism but you barely get a sense of it from complains mouthed by various characters. The main character is a naive kid who is shielded from this reality, but even then he should've seen some acts that are considered 'abnormal' in our society in his daily life. We don't get that. During the whole adventure, since you're constantly on the move there's no time to appreciate the world. All we get are verbal woes from characters we barely scratch the surface. In fact the only character you'll feel familiar with is Virgil. Everyone else, even your own bro Louca feels terribly distant, and while you can feel his (almost disturbing) love for the MC it... could've been more elaborated. I wonder how many people will feel tricked by the Mari CG. She totally isn't important at all in the story and could've been replaced by a faceless goon for all I care. Really, I enjoy the game quite a bit, but I must repeat again and again that there just isn't enough flesh or time to make these seemingly cool characters endearing or even memorable. I guess that's the tradeoff for having full voice acting in the game. This is quite high quality stuff, but can be seen hollow in the inside.

Orion is a science-fiction visual novel centered on the implications of time travel, artificial intelligence, and humanity's ascent to the stars. There are 9 endings in total including 1 true ending that can be obtainable after completing 8 of the other endings. [h1]The story[/h1] Sam Acacius has received a horrifying message: the section of the Orion Torus where he lives, his only home, will be destroyed. This information has been entrusted to him alone. With the identity of the messenger itself obscured, Sam must decide whether the risks of investigation are worth it. What could a single person do to stop the inevitable? To learn the answers behind this message, Sam must confront forces at the very core of society. Whether he succeeds or fails depends on critical choices he'll have to make along the way. [h1]Audio and Visual elements[/h1] Background art are generally smooth looking, actually I kind of like them overall, as for the sprites are average just that for some characters the sprites seems a little inconsistent. Voice acting is honestly good I can say that it does the job well, it manages to put a sense of emotion through the voice of the characters. As for the sound effects are used in the right way [these are for important for this certain visual novel because you will get met with black screen and sound effects will let you imagine what is going on] [h1]To sum up[/h1] I still cannot recommend this Visual Novel, why? The true ending is a very anti climatic and it is just not worth to go through 8 endings just to see a very anti climatic ending. [h1]Atogaki[/h1] I honestly would have recommend this Visual Novel if the ednings were more satisfying but sadly for this it is not that case, I felt it is quite a waste, they had the visuals and sound elements alright but the endings are just to vague and very unsatisfying.

NOTE: I was a Kickstarter backer for this game. I wasn't really sure if I should give this a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Ultimately, I enjoyed the plot threads, the music, and the character designs. However, a lot of the nine different endings were basically unsatisfying with a lot of different plot threads dropped. For the first eight endings, this is fairly deliberate as the premise of the game basically forces you to try different scenarios and keep playing to finally put most of the pieces together. And I use the word "most" in that last sentence on purpose: the ninth "true" ending is basically the ending that reveals the most information in terms of build-up but kind of the worst ending for all of the dangling plot threads and character development in the game. Which would really be my biggest complaint, I think, with the game. All the characters except for Sam and MAYBE Virgil are basically stock figures that don't get much life of their own, motivations given to the characters are weak or nonexistent, and the game spends far too much time going "WELP BYE!" to characters other than Sam and forgetting that they exist at all. Finally, I had a lot of high hopes for the political intrigue and worldbuilding that were mentioned in the Kickstarter campaign only to find that there's really only the barest nod to both. In the end, I don't think I wasted my investment on the Kickstarter campaign, nor was I bored during the two hours I was working out all nine endings. I even hope Reuben Lack and his team put together another VN in the future -- I just hope the do it with deeper development in the world and characters.

Orion is a science fiction visual novel developed and published by Cylight Studios. You are Sam Acacius, a bright young teenager living on the Orion station with your older brother. One day you receive a terrifyingly cryptic message on your holopad stating that the section of the space station that you reside in will be destroyed in just days. What will you or can you do to prevent this tragic circumstance from happening? Can one person truly make a difference? Since most of the visual novels that I've read to date have been fantasy based or occuring in present day I was very thrilled to finally get my hands on a V.N. with a science fiction theme. The premise in Orion is intriguing but somewhere along the storyline I seemed to lose interest in this novel and I just didn't find the protagonist to be very likeable as his personality rubbed me the wrong way on more than one occasion throughout the narrative. I must also mention a glaring flaw that I found with this V.N. which is that the quicksave or save function...DID NOT WORK! That's correct you can't save your progress in this visual novel through normal means but after some experimenting I finally managed to find a way to save. After starting the V.N. up you have to begin a new game each time then from there you will be able to load up an archived quicksave...how in the heck is anyone supposed to know that?! This is something that shouldn't even be an issue with ANY visual novel or game at all?! Over the course of a few months, I started this V.N. three times but always quit reading when I realized that I could not save. Nonetheless, after figuring out a way to save my progress after the third time...I finally managed to finish this V.N. to completion. Needless to say, after all of this my opinion of this visual novel really began to wane. Visually, Orion looks great with it's manga-inspired artwork and beautiful coloring. In fact I think it was the terrific art that first caught my eye with this V.N.. The dialogue is also voiced quite nicely as well even though I prefer non-voiced visual novels. I don't remember coming across any typos so if there was any then they were few and far in between which is excellent. Also, the sound is capable and there are even some ambient noises for immersion but the soundtrack itself is not very memorable in my opinion. To summarize, in the looks and sound department I found this visual novel to be in the above average range in it's great presentation. Sadly I got a bad ending with my first...er...technically third playthrough with this V.N. since I FINALLY figured out how to SAVE the novel. I know that I keep beating a dead horse about this and you can't see me right now but I am facepalming...no...double facepalming again at the moment, just as I'm writing this, over the mere thought of that "save" fiasco. I guess you could say that the "bad" ending complements quite nicely the "bad" impression I got of Orion because of the problems that I've had with it. With that said, there are a total of nine endings available so maybe one day I might try another read but at this point that's highly doubtful? As far as options go, there is a CG gallery and an original soundtrack but no Steam Achievements or Steam Trading Cards to collect. Not saying that these things are present in this V.N. but typos, short length or horrible artwork I could overlook but not being able to save is just unforgiveable. In summary, even though I found the story to be interesting, Orion's other flaws left a really bad impression on me so I don't recommend this visual novel to anyone.

Lovely artworks. Well arranged story. But there is a problem. If you want to unlock "Ture" ending, you should reach all 8 of "normal" endings. The problem is, finding those normal endings is pain without walkthrough information. The story is designed to play again and again to obtain the truth. But good or not, there is no achievement, so ... enjoy your way. I like this game, but think not worth full price.

Got this VN a while ago and decided to play it again to get all the endings. And… err… I really wanted to recommend this game, the art style is lovely, VA is pretty great, and of course, it’s sci-fi (which I happen to like a lot). But I can’t; everything is confusing about this story, there’s little background to explain how the “world” of Orion properly works. The characters are dull, I didn’t felt sympathy for any of them (not even Sam, the MC). The endings were simply meh and the true ending was bad. This story had potential, but it seems that it was so rushed that it turned out like this: a mess. What annoyed me the most was [spoiler]the fact that when Sam decides to react to the Kaitos siblings, they simply become friends?? Both siblings have been bullying Sam FOR YEARS, and out of nowhere, because Sam “proved he is worthy” now they can be friends? F*ck off, that’s BS and it annoyed me SO MUCH that I almost gave up on playing this.[/spoiler] Some stories work out when the MC is suddenly thrown in a situation, and little by little, we get to know them better and their world. But this doesn’t happen with Orion, they throw Sam in this situation like a bag of potatoes falling off a truck. 3/10, only because the art style and VA were really good. Buy it only with a huge discount if you’re too curious, but honestly, I don’t recommend this VN.

I wish we had a neutral, thumbs-sideways option. The UI is attractive, the music and sounds are pretty good, and the voices are okay though uneven. The backgrounds are clean and distinctive. The sprites are well-drawn, and some of the CGs are nice. The story ideas are fairly interesting. Here's why I'd give Orion a neutral if I could. As I frequently point out in my reviews, if a game is supposed to tell a compelling text-based story, that game needs an editor. Not just to find typos ("tume-jump"), but also to find changes in tense (between present and past in the narration), misused words and mixed-up idioms ("worried sick of my absence"), redundancies ("I hurry quickly"), and non-sentences caused by missing words ("What kind of trouble will adding something completely unexpected?"). The art creates problems for the story, too. The cartoony sprites conflict with the serious CGs and undermine the dramatic tone of the story, so you never quite get a feel for what's at stake. That conflict also contributes to confusion for the reader regarding characters' ages, especially that of the MC. Other reviewers have pointed out the rushed nature of the story, and how a failure to set a seemingly unimportant flag early on creates false choices later; I agree that the results are illogical and frustrating. And the true path cuts away from the most important actions the MC needs to take, skipping to three months later--that's not much of a reward for the reader. Ultimately, I've seen better in indie VNs--but I've also seen much worse. Orion has some aspects that are worth experiencing, but they're not worth going out of one's way for.

Orion is a little strange for a visual novel. It features above-average voice acting and beautiful CGs. For a visual novel to have decent voice acting is usually a sign that it is a Good Visual Novel With A Budget. I'm not so sure if Orion actually qualifies as good, though. It has many intriguing plot ideas, but the execution of said ideas is very poor. The average scene in Orion is as follows: 1. Meet a character 2. Learn some background information 3. [2-5 minutes later] PSYC! Plot twist, none of that information was accurate. 4. Virgil laughs 5. Repeat There just isn't enough time for the first round of information to feel like the norm before a plot twist is attempted. I felt dazed and unsure of if anything anyone said could be trusted, and the impact of the twists were severely diminished because I ended up never believing the established information in the first place. Due to its rushed and poorly executed storyline, head-scratching (and not in a good way) path to achieving the true end , and general incoherence, I can't recommend Orion UNLESS you are solely interested in the voice acting.

Rather short Visual Novel. At least if you only watch one of the 9 possible endings. Need to do this later. Overall it is a nice game with a good soundtrack and nice visuals. The combination between a spoken dialog and a monologue the player has to read himself is nice. Reading spead can be changed in the settings, but this is only needed if you are slow in reading and have set to "auto". If not you have to click everytime you want the next text. As stated before I only played one ending and had about 5-10 decisions (haven't counted). Took me about 2 hours to complete. I can recommend it, but I guess you want to wait for a good sale or a bundle to grab this one.

Орион: НФ-новелла - неплохая новеллка на тему будущего и путешествий во времени. [h1]Сюжет и язык.[/h1] Язык английский, не самый сложный, и тем не менее. Это стоит учесть. Далекое будущее, 25 век. Люди расселились по Земле, объединенные идеологией Унионизма (мир-труд-май, все люди братья и прочее, социалисты в общем), а для тех кому места не хватило было создано несколько космических колец на Околоземной орбите. И живет на одном из них, названным Орион, простой парень по имени Сэм. Живет с братом работающим инженером, устраивает с ним перепалки по поводу вечной яичницы, ходит в школу стараясь избегать местных товарищей любящих над ним поиздеваться, все как обычно. Пока нашему Сэму не придет на лэптоп таинственное сообщение о возможном уничтожении его отсека станции. Ну а дальше нас ждет нехилый клубок из интриг, конспирации, путешествий во времени, генной инженерии, и братской дружбы. К плюсам тут можно отнести достаточно много рутов и взаимопроникновений концовок, ведущих в итоге к истинной. Да и в целом все прописано неплохо. К минусам - общая беда многих новелл с большим количеством рутов, и путешествиями во времени - логика действий иной раз проседает, да и истинная концовка дико смазана. Плюс многие моменты сеттинга не раскрыты до конца (тот же Унионизм идет фоном, хотя мог бы сыграть и большую роль). [h1]Геймплей.[/h1] Читаем текст, делаем выборы. Все как обычно для новелл. Развилок очень много, при том что новелла достаточно небольшая. По счастью разработчик не пожадничал поделиться прохождением, которое в случае затыка можно посмотреть здесь - [url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5znc6YqFiPhMEVzbmNhZTgxQjQ/view] Orion: Ending Walkthrough [/url]. В целом геймплей норм для жанра. [h1]Графика и звуки.[/h1] Арты делали несколько художников и это сказывается. С одной стороны у нас много "гламурных" и излишне слащавых (на мой взгляд по крайней мере) артов главных героев, стилистика тут своеобразная. С другой иконки персонажей в диалогах изображены ближе к традиционной для европейских ВН около-анимешной стилистике. Задники же делал вообще третий человек, и они неплохи, но их мало. В целом это все друг с другом смотрится нормально, и все же разнородная стилистика в глаза бросается. Отдельный прикол это английская озвучка - сделана она в целом на приличном уровне, хотя Вирджилу хочется дать по виртуальной морде, настолько истеричный товарищ. Музыка приятная. [h1]Как итог.[/h1] Приятная визуальная новеллка на тему путешествий во времений, заговоров, далекого будущего, и братских взаимоотношений. Новелла не идеальна, есть шероховатости, однако в целом на это вполне можно закрыть глаза. Любителям НФ и ВН-жанра, прочесть можно. 6 назад в будущих из 10 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1126011506 [i]P.s: если этот обзор был для Вас полезен ставьте лайк, а также добавляйтесь в друзья и подписывайтесь на меня как куратора - [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28776273/] Обзоры онлайн [/url][/i]