---See where this game landed on my Metroidvania Tier List beneath this rec!---

MIO feels like a combination of Ori: Will of the Wisps and Hollow Knight. It will be a very strong contender for metroidvania of the year, no doubt about it. It cracks into my top 5 of the 400+ metroidvania games I've tried.

Movement and platforming remind me of Ori quite a lot in how you can do big floaty jumps and there's many sections where you're platforming around brambles/killzones. Late game has a lot of very tricky platforming sections that even bring Aeterna Noctis to mind, though it mostly only gets that difficult in sections that aren't required to get the easiest ending.

If you're easily irked by runbacks to bosses/losing currency on death (and you can't go back and collect it)/permanently losing HP at some points in the story etc. then you probably won't enjoy it, but that stuff didn't matter at all to me. ..well almost: There's one section where the runback to a boss takes 45 seconds and you're mostly just riding an elevator. The boss will kill you in 2 hits (hits harder than any other boss in the game) and in just a few seconds you'll likely die. ..and this will happen over and over again until you eventually start to learn the attack patterns.

At first, you have no map. You will soon obtain one, though it isn't portable until you upgrade it. I had this resolved in my first couple of hours, but it was irking me until then. Once you have the fully functional map, it will only update what you have explored when you tap a checkpoint (or when you die and respawn). I kinda like this system, it has you a little bit in the dark at times, but can quickly be rectified. Also, you can place markers on your map, though I didn't see a reason to use them.

There's quite a few extra bosses that you can encounter which aren't required for the easy ending and I had a lot of fun exploring the games map. I consulted some guides a few times when I was totally stuck.

By the end of my time with the game, I had unlocked almost every achievement: I was missing one HP upgrade and 2 items that don't do anything (old cores) - the game doesn't at any point reveal where to search for your missing collectables and my map appeared to be fully explored. Online maps won't help with that because they'll list all of the old cores and hp upgrades and you won't know which ones you're missing unless you revisit all 70+ spots on the map and solve it through a process of elimination.

I loved this game. It's a pity that it has mostly positive review scores. There are many other fantastic metroidvanias with mostly positive scores: Aeterna Noctis, Cathedral, Elderand, Rebel Transmute to name a few. I highly recommend MIO, but not to people that are the type to utter phrases like "doesn't respect your time" or people that give up and get quickly frustrated at any spike in difficulty. The game does have some accessability features but I didn't really look at them, so I can't comment on what they are.

I've included my Tier List below, but the games I didn't like (D & E tier) won't fit into this review due to Steams text limit:

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My Metroidvania Tier List (PC) (excluding Metroid & Castlevania titles)
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-Not an objective list, purely how much I enjoyed the games-

S+ Aeterna Noctis |
S Tier (Truly Special) Astalon: Tears of the Earth | Hollow Knight: Silksong | MIO: Memories in Orbit | Hollow Knight | Master Key³$ | Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom |
S- Blasphemous 2 | Cathedral | Crypt Custodian³ |

A+ Afterimage | The Last Faith | Oolo³ | Supraland³ | Supraland: Six Inches Under³ | Frogmonster³ | Little Big Adventure³ | Little Big Adventure 2³ |
A Tier (Amazing) Elderand | Ori and the Will of the Wisps | Doomblade^ | BioGun | Zexion | Chronicles of the Wolf | Kotama and Academy Citadel | Blossom Tales 2³$ |
A- Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights | Depths of Sanity | F.I.S.T. | Pampas & Selene | Ender Magnolia | Mandragora |

B+ Blast Brigade | Haak | Turbo Kid | Nine Sols | Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus | Biomorph | Minishoot’ Adventures³ | Banjo-Kazooie³ | Banjo-Tooie³ | Donkey Kong 64³ |
B Tier (Really Enjoyed) Animal Well | Alwa’s Legacy | Steamworld Dig 2 | Islets | Blasphemous | After Death | Pronty^ | Mortal Manor* | Escape From Tethys | Outbuddies DX* | Monster Sanctuary | Elliot Quest | Rebel Transmute | Moonlight Pulse | Environmental Station Alpha | Twilight Monk | Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown | Death’s Door³ | Pipistrello and the Cursed Yo-yo³ | Yooka-Laylee³ |
B- Shadow Labyrinth | Haiku, the Robot | The Mobius Machine | Ultros | Voidwrought | Crystal Project³ | Unsighted³ | Tunic³ | Prey (2017)³ |

C+ (Fun) Lone Fungus | Lone Fungus: Melody of Spores | Guns of Fury | Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night | Ghost Song | Kunai | Kingdom Shell | Axiom Verge | Treasure Adventure Game | GigaSword* | Infernax | Flipwitch# | Momodora 4 | Momodora 5 | HunterX | HunterX: code name T | Gestalt | Alruna and the Necro-Industrialists | Super Roboy | BladeChimera | AntiChamber³ | Blossom Tales³$ |
C Tier (More or Less Enjoyed) The Throne | Plague of Yamorn* | Constance | Column on the Sea | 9 Years of Shadows | Jrago* | Laika: Aged through Blood | MF-01 Aerostrike^ | Xanthiom Zero | Carrion^ | Chasm | Wuppo | The Mummy Demastered | Catmaze | Curse of the Sea Rats* | Death’s Gambit: Afterlife | Castle In The Clouds DX# | Omega Strike | Aggelos | Midnight Castle Succubus# | Overbowed | Rabi-Ribi | TEVI | Far Star | Sheepo | Skelethrone: The CoE* | Unworthy | Undivine | Somber Echoes | Oirbo* | Ato | Side Scape³$ | And All Would Cry Beware³ | Lycanthorn 2³ | Vomitoreum³ | Maid of Salvation³ | Grumpy Jack³ | Jedi: Fallen Order³ | Arkham Asylum³ |
C- (Meh) HeroSquare | EldritchVania | Plus Ultra: Legado* | Beholgar* | Astronite | Cookie Cutter | Rusted Moss^ | Grime | Moonscars | Elephantasy | The Messenger | Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth | Iconoclasts | MindSeize | Momibosu | Axiom Verge 2 | Hijiri in the Succubus Castle# | Ebenezer and the Invisible World | Mars 2120 | Luna’s Light* | Tales of Kenzera: Zau | Gato Roboto | Itorah* | Dystobel* | The Knight Witch | Stardust Demon | Kong: Survivor Instinct | Vision Soft Reset | Primal Planet | Weapon Hacker | End’s Reach³ | The Shaman’s Ark³ | Elephantasy: Flipside³ | Kharon’s Crypt³$ | Bloody Hell³ | Powerslave: Exhumed³ |
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^ = Mouse & Keyboard are STRONGLY advised.
* = Very raw indie or contains some jank or lack of polish.
# = Pornovania.
³ = 3D game or different camera perspective: Not a 2D sidescroller.
$ = A Zelda-like.

I'm giving this a negative review because it's more of a precision platformer than it is a metroidvania. It's got metroidvania aspects to it, there's secrets and upgrades to find, but the game is actually pretty small and a lot of the gameplay ends up being precision platforming. As much as I like a lot of the game, I just can't give it a positive. As I've seen some other reviews say, the look and advertising of the game is very much misleading to just how difficult it is.

If you're expecting a chill metroidvania this is absolutely far from it.
If you really like precision platforming, like to the point where you're making use of every inch of what you have including normal attacks, then this is your game. If you don't have the time or patience to run precision segments over and over repeatedly then you're gonna have a real bad time.

I personally picked this up due to advertising. I was like oh this looks cute, the music is chill, the story is interesting, so it's probably a decent metroidvania and I love metroidvanias. I was irritated to find out I'd spend most of my time just running it back because of forced chokes in tight precision. Path of Pain from hollow knight is something I thought was really difficult but fair with a proper learning curve, especially since it was optional, but what they throw at you to work towards your final skill and true ending requirements for this game felt really cheap.

- The story IS good. I personally like it.
- Despite the permanent loss of health, the game works around the concept really well as it is integral to the story. Bosses will have missing health as a result of your permanent loss of health.
- The combat is pretty damn forgiving and convenient. There's a clear * indicator when enemies attack and parrying is quite easy when you're on time with the indicators. Bosses have a ridiculous amount of health and pushing for every inch of damage really doesn't seem to help much though.
- The Spider climbing is cool and I loved using it for the most part.
- The artwork is really well done, I love the shading of it all.

There's an assist option to help with parts of the game. Only one of those barely helps ease the frustration with some of the faults and all 3 assists are found as equips in the game, the most useful one being rather late into the game when it could be most useful earlier on, which I suppose doesn't matter if you really just need to enable the assist option anyways.

You start off with your double jump. The double jump is more of a buffer for precision platforming than anything else. Everything this game does when it comes to traversal puts the skills you learn to an extreme in usage for platforming. You will make use of every inch of it and even push for a little extra at times with your normal attacks. Once you get your spider climbing ability you'll see segments where you're like "oh maybe I need something else to cross this" nope, it looks nasty and it looks ridiculous but you've hit peak, you literally have to work your way into it with what you have.

One specific example I'd give of this is a vertical hallway with several ice bullets shooting down. You'll reach that and there's no indication from the game with how to deal with it. You're supposed to spider climb and parry at the same time while still spider climbing. The only indicator of this being a thing to do is the fact you get an achievement for executing it, and I don't even think this particular movement is required ever again in the game. It barely works in this segment as intended and it feels more like you're trying to pass through on hit iframes than anything else. There's so many more weirdly sketch parts that you'll barely scrape on by with the tools at your disposal but I feel like I'd be explaining the entire game listing them all.

My first frustration with this is that it is not forgiving. There is a demand for every inch of skill usage for the precision platforming and no leniency in that regard. You'll notice this right away and they do not let down; it only becomes exponentially worse after the "chase" segment.

My second frustration is that a lot of these segments throw in a weird loop out of the norm to force a choke in the precision platforming and you'll most definitely die and have to run it back and learn to deal with the weirdness to progress. It's a matter of learning and it's frustrating as sh*t when doing a certain end game segment as a lot of these chokes are thrown in the middle of pure jumping chaos.

I wanted to like this game, i was really attracted by its looks and i was not disappointed for that. For all my run it was beautiful to look at, my eyes were having a blast. My sincere compliments to all artists to worked at this game, they did an amazing job. This game has also cool looking bosses and enemies. On top of that, all animations are clean and very well made, fair and telegraphed. The music was somewhat generic, but appropriate for every level, with some peak moments. These are all the good things the game provides and i'm not gonna lie i respect everyone who liked it, i can completly understand that and i don't want to discourage everyone to play it, if the reasons listed above are enough for you, go on and buy it, the game has also a very honest price tag. I cannot, however, give this game a good review, because my experience was tedious to say the least. This is not me being triggered by any specific part, or boss in particular, it's just a mix of bad things that converge in one single key point: this game does not respect your time. At all. Never. You are slow, you don't run, don't dash ( i know that there is one combination of abilities, but that is not a proper dash ) and the majority of the gamplay is just you walking around. And it's such a shame, because i do think exploration is very well encouraged and rewarded appropriately, so it's fun to discover secrets. Every boss has a 1/2 minute runback, plus enemy in the middle, plus platforming sometimes, plus an elevator trip, plus a 10/15 second animations at the start of every try, plus can't heal during the battle and of top of that they are tanky as hell ( yes i did have damage upgrades and a strong build ). The game is not hard, i killed the average boss in the 1 to 6 tries range, but it was very very boring. There is a lot of platform in this game too, which i love in games, but here i don't think it was well made. It's not a reactive platform, where you have to combine skill and reflexes and be able to do chains of game mechanics. Here is very passive, you are victim of what surrounds you, you wait for a thing to bounce on, then you wait for a stream of wind, then you don' even know what's next so often you take damage, restart and next time you go on by having the section memorized, not because you got better at it. I was not bothered by the health loss during the game, it made sense by the end of the story and enemies were weaker as well, so it really didn't matter to me. I'm not angry at the game, i do think it's a valid one, but there is such a lack of quality of life combined with some punishing design for no reason that i cannot on good consciousness give it a good review, because i would love for the next game of this studio to be a lot better, i do think there are the talents to make a better job. I don't want to do comparisons with the top games of the metroidvania genres because i don't think it's fair. This is not a masterpiece, but it's better than the average metroidvania.