---
title: 'Orbitals Review: A Co-op Gem for Switch'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=85xMxPpbOXQ'
video_id: '85xMxPpbOXQ'
date: 2026-09-09
duration_sec: 643
channel: 'Skill Up'
---

# Orbitals Review: A Co-op Gem for Switch

> Source: [Orbitals Review: A Co-op Gem for Switch](https://youtube.com/watch?v=85xMxPpbOXQ)

## Summary

The video reviews Orbitals, a new co-op game from Shapefarm, highlighting its inventive puzzles and charming retro anime style. It compares it to It Takes Two and Split Fiction, discusses its length and price, and recommends it for Switch owners despite some reservations about the cost.

### Key Points

- **It Takes Two's Success** [00:24] — It Takes Two won Game of the Year in 2021 and sold 30 million copies, setting a high bar for co-op games.
- **Orbitals Introduction** [00:50] — Orbitals is a debut title from Tokyo-based studio Shapefarm, released last week, and might have been overlooked due to a busy release period.
- **Accessibility and Puzzle Design** [05:43] — The game is approachable for all ages and experience levels, similar to Hazelight's games, but the puzzles feel new and inventive.
- **Core Mechanics and Variety** [07:00] — The game uses a grapple, laser, and water gun in creative ways, with additional bespoke tools and perspective shifts to keep things fresh.
- **Length and Price** [07:26] — Orbitals takes about six hours to play through, and the $40 digital / $50 physical price tag is considered a bit steep for the runtime.
- **Friend Pass Feature** [07:53] — The game includes a friend pass feature, allowing anyone to play online with the owner for free, unlimited times.
- **Craftsmanship and Recommendation** [08:07] — The game is lovingly crafted with retro anime visuals, animated menus, and wholesome bonus content, making it a fantastic debut.

## Transcript

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Given that critical and commercial success, I think many of us were hoping to see an influx of similar couch co-op experiences in the years since, but we kind of just didn't. I mean, the only game I can think of to even come remotely close to EPEX 2
was the next game from Hazelight, which released some four years later, Split Fiction. Also a great game that did very well for itself. I think we all wondered then if maybe Hazelight were the only developer willing and able to give us these kinds of games,
and then maybe we'd have to wait another four years for the next one. Not so, thanks to a game that released last week and might have slipped your radar given this hectic release period, Orbitals. This is a debut title from Tokyo-based studio Shapefarm and publisher Kepler Interactive,
as we clearly know how to pick them between Sifu, Pacific Drive, Claire and Stuart, Expedition 33, and now this, a co-op adventure that feels like someone finally picked up on what Hazelight was putting down, and it manages to be every bit as inventive and full of heart as its inspiration.
Orbital follows the story of two kids, a human girl, Maki, and an alien boy, Omura, attempting
to save their space vessel and its denizens from a destructive cosmic anomaly. A little twist here is that everyone's consciousness, or souls, are housed in incubators of sorts. They still age, and time is unfortunately getting the better of most of them, but their
physical bodies can be infinitely cloned, acting as both an interesting narrative device and a clever justification for why Marky and Omara are able to infinitely respawn.
The story isn't doing too much, to be honest, but it does lead to a nice message about how the younger generation might work with the old for a better future, rather than being preoccupied with aggressively putting heads on ideals.
A touch idealistic, perhaps, but I appreciated that it did shoot for something at least a a little topical and meaningful, but for the most part though, I enjoyed Orbital's story for all its beautiful locations that it takes you to, some of them feel quite early Ghibli
inspired. I also enjoyed its overall light and playful tone, which felt quite aligned with the fact that you playing as two kids who refuse to let impending doom get in the way of their goofy banter and wide optimism Sure some may find Orbital dialogue too on or dare I say cringey at times but for me all that felt very fitting to this family anime affair
I couldn't help but find the bubbly, cheery relationship between these two heroes so infectious. Portable Eastman Attractor is awesome! Portable Attractor? Or, Portable Fury.
Ooh! What's your name, you little thing? The main draw of Orbitals, though, is its retro anime vibes and puzzle design, both of which Shades Farm has absolutely knocked out of the park. From the cutesy character design, to the pastel colour palette,
to the funky synth-pop soundtrack, all of it feels ripped straight from the pre- and early 2000s, giving Orbitals an identity that feels wholly unique and authentic. It's the subtleties that really drive that authenticity home, I think.
There's the slight blur and film grain overlay, but also the animation. Shape Bombs aren't just cutting every second frame as a short cut method to mimic 2D animation, but they've actually made sure to animate everything here using the same principles and constraints as traditional hand-drawn animation,
snapping between extreme key poses with finer in-between animations reserved only for emphasising weight or personality. And this doesn't just apply to the characters, but also in things like VFX and environmental hazards. Similarly, rather than giving the entire game the same vibrant cel-shaded look to give that 2D illusion,
and Shape Arm has been very selective about what gets this treatment and what doesn't, with most environments actually retaining their 3D stating. Not only does this help tremendously with visual clarity, but it feels so faithful to retro anime,
since shows like Initial D and 2003's Astro Boy series, which has a special place in my heart, also had a similar look when they used CG to render backgrounds. Less subtle about its inspirations, of course, is the game's actual hand-drawn 2D cutscenes,
which look as good as they do, because it was produced by a proper anime studio called Studio Masked. There's again been a restrained approach to animating here, and that, alongside the appropriately overdramatic voice acting and sound effects,
makes you immediately feel like a kid again, tuning into the next episode of your favourite anime after school on your parents' TRT TV. All told, Orbitals has embraced its retro anime hook at every turn, but that it's impossible not to catch yourself smiling ear to ear the whole time,
bar seeing the warm, cozy nostalgia of it all. Go ahead, do the side-step. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! On to the puzzles now, and first of all, I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to play a game where the characters aren't calling out the solutions to these puzzles two seconds
after you've encountered them. Orbitals trust you to look with your eyeballs, to fumble around and experiment until you've earned for yourself that light bulb moment where it all clicks into place and away you and your player two go These puzzles are so wonderfully designed as well I think it goes underappreciated just how
difficult puzzle design is in video games. The key to good puzzles is, I think, striking that fine balance of being both challenging yet intuitive. Like I said, it's a tricky thing, but doubly so if your game is all puzzles, and I'd say even more so if you're making a co-op
only game that needs to be approachable to people of all ages and gaming experience. Hazelight managed to pull this off with It Takes Two and Split Fiction, and one concern I had going into this was that maybe there'd be a lot of puzzles we'd already done in
those aforementioned games, only dressed up differently, but that's not the case. The vast majority of puzzles here feel completely new, and the breakneck pace at which the game introduces and then discards new mechanics only further showcases Shake Farm's inventiveness.
For example, in this mission, we needed to activate two lasers, and on the way to just one of them, my partner and I had to use our grapple hook and laser cannon in three different ways. But then this opened up to a whole new area, which then tested our rhythm skills through various platforming, memorization, and button pushing challenges, each of those also completely different to one another, and all of this in just the first 15 minutes of a 30-minute mission.
A non-automatic drone. Nice! Oh, cool. Yeah, some of the challenges you come across do feel similar to those of Hazelight, but even then, there's often an extra layer of multitasking involved.
This leaning sequence, for example, wasn't just about coordinating positioning, but also I had my partner using her grapple hook to swing us around tight corners while I had to illuminate the area by lasering crystals. I won't lie, things got pretty heated between us in this section.
As shown in these examples, despite mostly relying on two of the same three tools, a grapple, a laser and a water gun, J-Files has managed to squeeze so much out of them through
the puzzle designs, but they also keep things fresh by throwing in some extra bespoke tool to either one or both players, or switch up the perspective, or a bit of both, interspersed with the odd spaceship sequence to ratchet up the action.
So, Orbitals is an absolutely fantastic little game, but it is little in the sense that it will only take you about six hours to play through. For that reason, the only thing that did give me pause here was the price tag.
Orbitals retails for $40 US dollars digitally and $50 US dollars for physical. I personally think that's a touch too steep for a game of this runtime with limited replayability, but everyone's going to feel differently about that. Somewhat alleviating the price tag, though, is that owning the game gives you a friend
allowing anyone to play through this online with you, even if they don't own it themselves. They just download the free friend pass from the Nintendo store Even better this can be used an unlimited number of times with as many different people as you like Overall this is such a lovingly crafted game
You can really feel that in the things I've mentioned in this review, like its commitment to the retro anime visual style and its inventive puzzle design. But you can also feel it in other small ways, like all the menus having these wonderful animations,
all the easily missable details and interactables in the ship, And at finishing the game, unlock some wholesome bonus content that totally didn't need to be there, but Shay Farm went the extra mile anyway. If you're looking for your next split-screen cogs game to play with your friend or significant other, and you own a Switch too, please make the time to play Orbitals when the price is right for you.
It's a game that is bursting with creativity and charm and heart. It's a fantastic debut for this new studio, and I recommend it to you. Oh my god! You'll have noticed that we just launched a website, thisweekinvideogames.com.
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