Orion: A Sci-Fi Visual Novel

Even for a fiver, this cost too much to what it has. That's it. That's why I don't recommend it. Oh, it's get worse. As much as I just want to point out that the price is too high, considering how short this game is. I just wanted to leave it there but how the game pans out, I can't help to explain the contents of how bad the game is and I really hope I'm not being so harsh about this. I really do.

The game markets itself as a sci-fi visual novel. It's a slap together visual novel with a sci-fi theme too it. When you see it, you see how poorly tackled together the story is with the theme of it being sci-fi, then you see how the developer somehow takes away and monopolize the idea of it being a sci-fi visual novel. Somehow the developers has made the scif-i theme extremely generic like it's never been done before, only to find how narrowly driven the story is, maybe because the developers feels that it's their game and to respect it. There's loads of actual other visual novels from Japan that take the science fiction setting and their art is way better and somewhat stylish, then this game, to express that it's more entertaining if anything and doesn't take itself too seriously. This game seemingly does and places it as decoration.

The story, you play as a guy who gets thrown in the most predictable situations that have almost nothing to do with science-fiction or anything. It's Anything social, like having to stand up to a bully or be taken away by some ghetto styled characters. There's a woman character who's extremely stubborn and gets her friend to breathe down your character's neck and to gang up on you, to see if you can handle the situation and then that's really about it. Like we need a situation like that in a game theme like this? It does feel like it's being forced on you with the artwork and bullied into it. There's nothing else in the game, where you explore or find anything new, to feel lost or anything.

The more bizarre element about this game are the artwork you unlock as you progress and replay the game. The game normal presentation is the anime style illustrations but as you unlock scenes, you find these water-color painted style artworks which glow and bloom, like it's meant to be a 80s neon wash render of Logan's Run, which seems to be the award of playing the game and seeing the different endings. It's hard for me to understand why there was a mix of these to begin with. It looked like they were made for an entirely different game and assume us that we know that's meant to be the award, for playing and unlocking endings. They're nice but it doesn't fit or gel if there's one style to watch and then to see the other style. The ideas are smashed together to the point where I don't see where the game's story is going with.

This feels like it was written by someone fresh out of high school with a very shallow understanding of politics, human relationships, and life in general. There are some potentially interesting ideas here, but they are squandered by weak writing, unlikable cardboard characters, and mediocre voice acting. I really cannot recommend spending any time on it, even if it was free.

In Orion you play as Sam, an intelligent 16-year-old boy with a knack for computers. Sam lives peacefully with his brother Louca, in Section 6 of one of the many floating cities in Earths orbit. Reoccurring nightmares, however, has made life rather difficult to deal with, and suddenly getting a strange message from an unknown person named Virgil isn’t helping at all.
“The setting sun rises as the moon weeps.”

I didn’t hate Orion but I didn’t much like it either, and while I prefer to give it a “meh” vote, that’s impossible so this review is negative on the basis that if I could have gone back in time to stop myself from getting it, I would have.
The best thing about Orion is definitely it’s art, and the voice acting honestly wasn’t too bad either. However, there are a few things I don’t like about this game.

First – you need to play eight different endings to reach the true ending.
Second – It’s hard to reach any of the endings because if you deviate from the path even once, it doesn’t count so following a guide is necessary.
Third – all of the endings are incredibly underwhelming. The true ending is as mediocre as every other.

TL; DR: If you had an hour and thirty minutes of free time and are looking for a fun/interesting Sci-fi VN to play and pass some time… it’s not this.

You should buy this and play this but not expect too much. It's three hours and a little frustrating at times but I think it's worth it if you are bored like I was.
Well the whole game takes 3 (?) hours (feel like I played it forever which is always a good thing because length is important) if you listen to the voices and read at a pace to understand the story so it's not toooo short (still not long for nine endings) like other people are saying,
The art, story, writing, and voice acting are good.
My issue is I wanted longer endings since all the endings are all incomplete/abrupt.
It is very disappointing when you start out the game and get the first endings before the true endings but if you keep playing, you'll see why they did it so it's ok but the endings are really short.
It's still a good game overall if you make sure to get all 9 endings - if you play it once, you'll never get the full effect - you have to play all of it to get your money's worth.
To be honest, if I hadn't read the reviews, I would be so angry with the endings so that's why I'm saying it again.
SPOILER
I'm totally disappointed with the second half of the true ending but whatever - I just wanted a big final adventure.
The visual novel is kind of short for 13 bucks to be honest.
The true ending's finale didn't make sense to me. I get what they were saying but I would have liked some action. Basically, they skipped everything to three months in the future with no solid details including nothing about the MC's future either.

Hmm... At the time I'm writing this review, reception to this game is mixed and I can understand why. This is a VN that features time-travel and tries to use it to get you to experience multiple, different, playthroughs until you get it right. Sounds great, right? I certainly loved this premise in the light novel "All You Need is Kill," by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. For better or worse, Orion doesn't quite offer that, or at best it's unclear. If our character were able to take his knowledge of previous timelines with him so he could iterate further, that would be great, but he can't. For instance, in one of my playthroughs, I was being escorted against my will when I crossed paths with a character I'd met before. I remembered this character had a strong reaction when I mentioned a name in the previous timeline so I thought, "This is great! My character will surely remember this too and utter the name so he can escape in the ensuing ruckus." Except Sam never did remember, and I was not given the option to do so. While you, the player, can make different set choices, the character goes through the same motions, what I ultimately feel did the premise a disservice. But wait! It later turns out that Sam does remember some things... sometimes... when the story thinks he should, yet your options in any given scenario remain the same in different timelines. Like I said, this was confusing at best.

Since it'll take you around 3 hours to unlock all endings, provided you auto-skip repeat dialogue, you can imagine the different routes you unlock aren't explored very thoroughly and, sadly, the characters you meet in these routes tend to stick to them. In other words, none of your "allies" will interact with one another, what kind of limits your options. That is perhaps the point, to railroad you into the game's "true" ending, though I'll admit I'm hard-pressed right now to answer why this is the desired outcome your AI companion, Virgil, was looking for. Still, Orion could've exploited its multiple endings to further entwine the time-travel narrative. One of the routes ends in such a way that I thought to myself, "Oh, that's clever, they're gonna use this to explain Virgil's origins." I should've known better. With tighter writing, every route could've served to unlock one more piece of the puzzle, but they give you small bread crumbs next to the info dump that is the true ending.

If I sound harsh, it's because I love time-travel stories and I am frustrated when I don't see them exploited to their full potential, in my eyes at least. Having said that, Orion gets a few things right. Voice acting is quite good throughout, but Virgil is definitely the show-stealer with his constant teasing. The art is very clean, right down to the backgrounds used though, admittedly, there is a clash between the CG and the sprites that I can't explain. Perhaps to add more gravity to certain scenes? The music wasn't half-bad either and that ending song was pretty good. Pity the soundtrack isn't up for sale.

I probably wouldn't recommend this game at full price, but if it's on sale and you're a fan of the genre? Sure, why not.

Honestly, after 3 times playing it through and getting a bad ending, I STILL don't even understand what this is about.

The game is for the price way too short. Too little is explained, too much is just hinted and it feels like a barebone of a game, that would have neede quite a bit more fleshing out. You make decisions but you have no idea what this is actually about, and it doesn't feel like a coherent story at all. I guess the basic premise could have led to something interesting, only it doesn't. Only good thing is the art of the characters and the space station.

Overall a completely dissatisfying experience.

The writing is horrible. Whatever story this game does have is half-assed and sloppily executed. Some of the dialogue regarding forgiving certain people is so ‘horrible fanfic’ level and terribly unrealistic with how easy the ‘forgiveness’ part is dished out with no tension, conflict, doubt or even remotely trying to talk about the subject at hand before granting the forgiveness.
The plot is very rushed, barely giving you the time to get to know any of the characters or the politics of Orion at all, before launching you headfirst into a convoluted story where all of the side-characters refuse to properly explain anything at all. You know, in stories like fantasy and sci-fi, the backdrop is half of what makes the story interesting. Not properly showing it off is a huge mistake.
There’s just too big of a difference in skill between the CG artist and the character artist. One makes the characters look like adults, the other makes them look like tall children (or like a ten-year old with breast, you know, that girl bully). It was the CG’s that made me think I was going to play an adult character, only to find out afterwards that the MC is a minor. In fact, I didn’t even realize that the character art and the one in the CG were the same person at first and kept waiting for this boring child to get off the screen so the ‘real story’ could start. I really don’t like young adult stuff, not now that I’m an adult. I prefer to play as an adult, which given the CG art I thought I was getting in this game. My mistake.
To be honest, I didn’t care about a single character in this story and started skipping through the story just to get to the endings, which were equally unsatisfying. Not a single ‘ending’ ever showed the consequences of your actions. (Well, maybe the bad ones kind of did, which is why they were only slightly more entertaining than the rest of the story.)
This is a huge fail as a writer. You want your readers to stay engaged in the story and connecting to your characters, not skipping ahead and thinking they don’t give a damn if the whole space station blows up right now. Ideally, you also want to write a satisfying ending that shows the resolutions and the consequences thereof (not skipping over them!), whether that ending is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (aka ends happily or unhappily).
This game failed on all three. It even failed on the art. Of course, there’s always going to be some differences between the character art and the CG art in a visual novel. But here, the differences were so great that the character weren’t even (or only barely) recognizable between the styles. Do I really have to spell out how bad that is?
The bullies suddenly becoming Sam’s friends is some higher order BS. I’ve been bullied, alright? They don’t just stop on a whim, no matter what you say to them. Virgil felt like the author’s self-insert, guiding you along to the ‘true path’ (the ending they wanted), while resetting if you’re on the ‘wrong’ one before even letting you properly see where that path and its consequences would lead. Because of the way the 'endings' were done, it ultimately makes any 'choices' you make feel empty and meaningless, since you're in essence always heading for the 'true' ending and any of the other 'endings' aren't really an end at all. You also don’t want your protagonist to come off as a whiny brat, that generally doesn’t endear them to your readers.

I wish I could recommend this visual novel. It had sone great concepts, the music and sound design are decent, and there was so much potential. The voice acting is also fairly good. I hold a particular fondness for Virgil. But the endings are dissatisfying, especially the true one. Its execution started off fine, and I commend the alternate solution Sam comes up with, but shortly thereafter it rushes straight to the epilogue without showing how things went down, which is just lazy and poor writing and totally anticlimactic and disappointing. Most of the characters felt flat and not very well fleshed out. There also should have been more reflection of the MC's ability to retain memories across timelines, like unlockable extra lines as you finish more endings. I also have a complaint about the artwork. Many, actually. Mari's sprites make her eyes look really weird due to the art style. Sam's sprites make him look way younger than he's supposed to be, in a way that doesn't match how the CGs DO manage to accomplish making him look his age. Also the differing art styles between the sprites and CGs are much more distracting than anything else. The same character looks way too different between the two art styles, creating a sloppy production effect.

All in all, this visual novel had too much potential flushed down the toilet due to sloppy writing and execution. I don't regret playing through this but it is not worth full price. Only buy if it's severely discounted or you receive as a gift. Or if you have a huge boner for plots that utilize timeline shenanigans and like sassy AIs who've mastered the art of sarcasm.

I think this is a good game and worth playing, as long as you are willing to complete all 9 endings. There are 4 bad endings, 4 okay/good endings where you're encouraged to continue figuring things out, and 1 "true" ending. The plot is overall interesting and the game took me about 4.5 hrs to complete fully.

For the 4 "good" endings you must take a pretty specific path. I struggled to figure out how to get to the last one out of the original 8. The developers have provided a guide for anyone else who gets stuck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5znc6YqFiPhMEVzbmNhZTgxQjQ/view?pli=1

Orion has an interesting concept(a genuinely unique concept actually), amazing artwork. The multiple endings work -- each game path supposedly works as a smaller puzzle piece. It has the basic requirements to tell a good story

But the game doesn't have enough details to give its ideas any weight. You simply do not have enough time to develop a bond with any of the characters, and there isn't enough room to give Sam character growth. This lack of details takes away any significance or any impact the story could have provided.

In short, this is a visual novel that had the potential to tell an amazing story, but the game is too short to achieve that potential.

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.

It was short and I in no way understood the ending. There was no resolution, what happened to this person and that person and why did the brother say something totally not making sense... BUT I bot it for $1.29. For that price is a thumbs up.

I was impressed by the beautiful art (kudos to Badriel), but also by the protagonist being an actual character with personality. The voice acting really sold the emotions and even fight scenes. I suppose the setting itself isn't super unique, but the time powers are interesting and Virgil's pretty awesome.

Now to the gameplay/replay. The short version: it's a Renpy with lazily designed flags and endings, although this lack of control ironically matches the theme of it being difficult to control the timeline. The long version: The four paths are accessed by specific choices, while the endings are determined by flags. Based on personal experience and the walkthrough, these aren't the good flags based on points; it seems like everything has to be exact to get the good ending. This is what we call "fake difficulty", where the game gives you choices that don't actually work so it feels either counter-intuitive or broken (unless you're already familiar with these types of VNS). An opportunist could say that it matches the theme of not having total control; and the good endings do feel satisfying with the aforementioned acting. It's just a shame that they give you a "gameover" message even on the good endings to push you to unlock all the endings.


Overall, I enjoyed this experience quite a bit after getting it on sale. I just can't recommend it as a game at full price. Grab it when it goes on sale, and don't try unlocking all the endings at once.

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.

5 routes in. Updated this a bit.

The game is short if you're a Skip Jockey. If you're a "do a route now and then" kinda gamer like me, I think the length is fine.I take my time reading VNs so be warned it will likely be shorter for you.

Considering the cost of a movie ticket, I think the price is fine. Voice, art, music, writing and sound effects cost money and this is well done.

This is a visual novel, not a point and click or sim. Look it up if you haven't "played" one before.
This is sci-fi not otome. I can only read so much fluff before needing something to chew on.

Its a VN with 9 endings with several choices along the routes. I'm noticing there are main branches and others just give bits of flavor text. Some routes are definitely more detailed and its not intuitive to get to some of the parts that divulge major character backgrounds. The flow of the choices and what you get from making them are the only area I can pinpoint for mixed feelings, that not intuitive, not quite satisfying at times part. Not sure if its a "when you do a route amongst the others" mechanism that starts bringing things more into alignment or that I just stumbled on vague for the first two before getting more into it.

I won't talk about the storyline or plot, as going through it is the most fun of these VNs and I'd hate to lose an "Oh!" in the midst of playing to a review without enjoying the set-up within the VN, especially with a short VN.

Voice acting, sound and music give a premium feel that really go the extra step for immersion. Its a tough choice between Cyrus and Louca being my favorite characters. Voice, writing and character are just such a good mix, but it took a bit to get there. Still, "NO! Keep eating." had myself and most of the folks in the room chuckling. Voice acting isn't over the top, good tone for the characters and were nice for the feel of the game. Really glad to see more of the VAs from other VNs I've enjoyed.

Art was split with sprites being more cartoon art (which I happen to like as a nice change around all the anime style I also enjoy). CGs have a much more graphic novel feel (what I read when not in VNs) with a good use of color and lighting to add to drama / feel. The backgrounds felt more a mix of the two styles. They had a good level of detail and some added to the feel in a more cinematic way than just showing a kitchen, bedroom, theater. i.e. characters interacting in the background making speeches or crowds of people shoving around. Would have asked for more of those. Kudos to the background artist for playing in both styles and working to bridge some of the disconnect that using such opposite styles in a single game can cause.

Writing... I have to go through more routes. Not like I need it to discuss, but I WANT to go through more routes, which tells me its good. They're tackling 2 tough things in this story: 1. Time travel and all the trip-ups, intricacies and just literary physics you have to keep track of for plausibility. 2. The only voice really telling the story is a 16 year old clueless boy, who's purposefully been kept in the dark about everything his entire life, and is describing things in the first person. In the telephone game, this means you as the reader are even more clueless. It manages to be intriguing and frustrating simultaneously which I guess is part of that immersion thing again. I'm assuming this isn't the writer's first VN or if it is, I admire your "go bold or go home" self. Nothing like skipping the bunny hill and going straight for the black diamonds.

I'm off to learn more of the story. I know there's a lot hidden and I hope the majority makes it into the light through Sam's eyes.

I may update this review if things change, but I'd say it comes in next to "Octave Higher" for me which means some good depth of work, world creation and concept and in the upper ranks of VNs I've tried, especially for indie.

Oh, my God, the true ending is amazing! And the credit song blew me away. Honest to God, I teared up. Ironically, I got all of the bad endings first, but every new ending gave me a little piece of the puzzle, and a little more about the characters I interacted with. Sam Acacius is an amazing young kid with a really good outlook on life; despite all of the crap thrown at him, he keeps a level head, and doesn't cave, staying true to himself the entire journey. I will admit, I had my doubts, mostly when I kept getting the bad endings, wondering if it was worth it, but holy hell, was it ever! My favorite character was Virgil, his sass made me laugh out loud so many times. Truth be told, I'm normally more of a fantasy gal than a sci-fi gal, but the trailer piqued my interest, and I don't regret buying it in the end. Great story, solid characters, beautiful art, and the way Sam handled the difficult moral choices thrown at him made me question my own moral structure (just a bit). VERY highly recommend this game, to anyone even remotely interested.

i would recomend this Visual novel if you have the time to kill~

I really enjoyed the plot but I do feel like it could have been a longer game. i think instead of a visual novel if it was a point a click puzzle game or something along those lines. but, then, like i said just being longer would make me happy. there was so much more potental for more endings and Character development and subplots. and i woudl ahve happily sat for many more hours unlocking the endings.

the art is beautiful as is the soundtrack ( I actually brought from the creators site after finished the game) the voices are amazing and i actually felt like the main Characters had genuin emotions.

I followed the development and some of the VA's like Jonah Scott on tumblr and ultimately I wasn't disapointed
i really do recomend at least one playthrough just for the story. and I hope that the creators make more games.

soundtrack 10/10
voice acting 10/10
art 9/10
story 9/10
Characters 8/10

This VN is amazing. The story telling and concepts the game portrays are very interesting and pulled me in immidietaly. I almost instantly fell in love with many of the characters, and although that may depend on the person, I picked a few favorites very quickly that I found to love through out the whole entire VN

In addition to the fantastic story-telling this VN has many different paths in which may lead to a "bad end" or a "good ending" and you need certain specific ones to get the "True Ending" Which makes the game a ton of fun, I always found myself thinking about which choice I was going to make over and over again, knowing that my decisions do have an impact on the game.

For those who beleive the game isn't that long or they felt as if the ending wasn't complete, that is because it wasn't. It was not the True ending and they most likely picked the wrong choices which in my opinion is one of the best parts about a Visual Novel. Trying to trust your own self in order to see how your own actions reflect in a game is one of the most rewarding feelings even if it is the "bad" choice.

Furthermore, the sound design in this game is very nice, which made reading this visual novel even better, I found myself enjoying the music more than I realized because it fit the mood so well of what I was reading. The art is also amazing, and really portrays the game very nicely. This is a Full-voiced game which is incredible since all of the voice actor is done very well. I never found a voice that I thought was annoying unless the character was, in fact, suppose to be annoying. Basically, the voices fit all the characters really well and it was done very nicely. You will fall in love with the voices, sounds, and art of this Visual Novel.

Over all, I believe that this VN deserves more credit than it has recieved, and if you enjoy reading visual novels in your spare time, you'll fall in love with this one. :3

I'm only in chapter 4 of the game, but I have some constructive criticism. I've had multiple "choices" to make so far in the game, however many of them appear to be completely inconsequential. Stuff like "stay here" vs "make a run for it." Except the "make a run for it" option has you recaptured a second after, and there doesn't seem to be any indication that it has any impact on the story that "stay here' wouldn't have had.

In chapter 3 I ran into two choices, both that led to really vague game overs. Speaking of which, the game overs I've been getting have been very oddly written. It seems like the game expects me to be discovering these endings on replay, because they don't make very much sense. Almost as if I were stumbling into the end or middle of a game's story without any context. Like in one ending I successfully meet a character I needed to meet. Then the game ends with "Was this the right one?" "No. But I can't say why. Sorry."

It is too early to really render a final verdict, but my initial impression isn't as good as I was hoping. If you're a fan of VR's, itching for a new one to play, and don't mind dropping the 11-12 dollars, then based on my current impressions I'd say maybe go for this.

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.