I've been doing my regular Monday trawling of Kickstarter to keep on top of all the latest inventions and gaming goodness from the retro gaming community (I promise it was work and not 'start of the week procrastination'...) and have come across a new game that's launching its official Kickstarter Campaign this Friday. It's called 'Orpheus: To Hell And Back' and comes to us from Italian studio (always a bonus for me) Studio Loading.
If you're not aware of the story of Orpheus and haven't watched the Jeff Goldblum series Kaos on Netflix (definitely watch it!) then here's a quick recap. Orpheus loses the love of his life Eurydice after she is tragically killed. Unable to live without her, he battles his way to the gates of hell in order to bring her soul back from the underworld, thwarting Hades in the process. It's a moving story and one of the great Greek tales, and it's exactly what you'll be doing in this game.
My first impressions from playing the demo are that it looks and feels like The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons in its design and colour palette. That's high praise considering how much I love that game, and while the demo is very short, it does show a lot of potential for the full game.
So far I've picked up a lyre and made my way to the underworld, pushing blocks to open doors and using my lyre to attract enemies towards objects that will destroy them. It's a unique way of dispatching enemies that certainly made me think rather than just going in all guns blazing and attacking, a little like how the battle mechanic in Echoes of Wisdom switched things up.
Admittedly, some of the localisation needs to be worked on for the full release; I know all too well that when translating things from Italian to English there tend to be certain gender articles that come with words, but that's something that I"m sure will be sorted by the time games ship out. I would also like to see full words sitting on lines rather than being split between two lines in the cutscenes.
Graphically, however, the Anime artwork is brilliant and captures the 8-bit spirit of the Game Boy Color perfectly, and I've spoken to Studio Loading and told them as much. The transitions between screens are smooth and Orpheus' character sprite is very well-detailed, especially when playing his lyre.
The full campaign for Orpheus: To Hell And Back goes live this Friday on Kickstarter, but you can play a demo of the game now by visiting the game's Itch.io page. Grazie mille per il gioco, Studio Loading!
