Myths Of Orion: Light From The North Review (Switch)

Review code used, with many thanks to Ocean Media

Another Cateia puzzler ported to Switch! These can be a bit hit and miss, but did this one live up to expectations?

Story and Characters

Myths of Orion LadiesGamers.com — *Not the worst place in the world to hide!*

Years ago, the evil wizard gathered knowledge from all over a Realm of Orion into 3 books that gave him ultimate power. Unfortunately, he used his power to incite chaos. The enchantress, Salina, managed to steal the books and escaped with her daughter, Meredith, to the very North edge of the world. They hid there for years, hoping that the wizard wouldn’t find them. Then, one day, tragedy struck…

Ah, saving the world again. It may be an old story, but there are so many possible variations that I don’t mind seeing it over and over. It was nice to encounter a small list of characters; there were only a handful, but each one was fully voiced and felt purposeful – no-one was there just to fill the character list out. I don’t want to dive into the story too much, as part of the joy of these games is discovering what happened as you make your way through the world.

Gameplay

Point-and-click puzzlers are wonderfully simple to play. Find the hidden puzzle or objects, and use them to progress. It’s a timeless style, and really doesn’t ever get old. Myths of Orion mixed it up a bit and unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely impressed with what we ended up with. There was the standard finding hidden objects, puzzles, and locations – some of which were actually really hard to spot, I was stuck on one section for ages because I just couldn’t see the bit I needed to click. Some special timed puzzles mixed up certain sections of the game, but any further details would ruin the fun of discovery! There were also, unexpectedly, mini locations to search in which I was required to find a number of objects. These types of hidden object games pop up frequently on mobile, and but in this instance thankfully aren’t accompanied by a timer.

I didn’t have a problem with things being mixed up a bit, and quite enjoyed the variety offered by the minigames as you didn’t always have the same type of list to work from; sometimes it was a list of objects, sometimes a list of shadows, I never knew how the list was going to present itself, and that kept it interesting. This variation, however, was ruined by the requirement to persistently redo the minigames to acquire different advancement items. I must have redone the same one 4 different times to get items, which grew boring very quickly and unfortunately ruined the otherwise enjoyable pacing of the game.

I only noticed one genuine problem with the gameplay, and that was that sometimes the UI bugged out. Sometimes I’d open my inventory and it’d flip back down instantly, then stay open when I retried, other times the lock icon would disappear from the inventory removing my ability to keep it open. It was definitely a bug, and annoying, but fixed itself after a save and reload so wasn’t exactly game-breaking.

Graphics, Sound, and Performance

Crisp, vibrant graphics are always a lovely thing, especially in a Switch port of a PC or mobile game, and for the most part Myths of Orion doesn’t disappoint. The landscapes are vivid and unique, the characters are beautifully designed, and the minigames are so colourful that finding the objects is a genuine challenge. Unfortunately, all that brilliant work is spectacularly let down by the animated cutscenes. They’re blurry and a little jerky, and a sad departure from the clean aesthetic found elsewhere.

The sound design is a little basic but adds a nice atmosphere to the game. The combination of fully voiced characters and appropriate sound effects for various elements aided immersion and really helped make the game a nice distraction.

The performance was pretty standard across the board; smooth transitions between screens is always a positive, and I suspect the slight jerkiness I sometimes spotted in the cutscenes was related to the graphics rather than how it was running.

Difficulty

I enjoy hidden object puzzle games, I’ve always enjoyed a game where I look at something and can go “Wait a minute… I think I know what I’m doing with this!” so I leap on every chance to review them. I like seeing the variation in the style and difficulty of the puzzles, and Myths of Orion is no exception. Some puzzles I figured out straight away, some took me a good while, and one particular zoom location took me a good hour to find which really annoyed me once I figured it out. Depending on your mindset, I imagine some of the puzzles are easier or harder for various people, but overall I would call them a low to medium difficulty, easy enough to be fun for most people.

Conclusion

I enjoyed my time with Myths Of Orion: Light From The North. There were a few frustrations, such as the sorely lacking cutscenes and bizarre UI bug, but overall it was a fun little experience that filled a fair few hours of my time. I might call it a little steep on the pricing, as it only took me around 6 hours tops, but I definitely recommend it for any puzzle fan’s To Play list.

Final Verdict: I Like It

Story and Characters

Gameplay

Graphics, Sound, and Performance

Difficulty

Conclusion

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