The Apple Arcade game remastered for Nintendo Switch, Little Orpheus is the latest sci-fi/fantasy adventure that takes you deep into the heart of the earth. This time, a rather incompetent Russian cosmonaut, Ivan Ivanovich Privalov, recounts his three years missing to General Yurkovoi at gunpoint. Ivan’s giant excavator engine is basically a giant nuclear bomb, and the General wants to know what happened to it.
This leads to a rather wild story from Yvan that the player will live. Anyway, it will be a fun adventure.
The Nintendo eShop article for Little Orpheus claims to have been inspired by “classic movies like Flash Gordon…” but rather than Sam Jones’ 1980s masterpiece, the black-and-white serial starring Buster Crabbe. Each “episode” ends with a cliffhanger in which Ivan stares into a certain death, but only the beginning of the next episode safely sets him up for the next chapter.
The biggest threat doesn’t come from the future creatures and prehistoric beasts Ivan encounters in the story, but, understandably, from the general who has trouble believing his words. Ivan is always on the verge of execution if he wants to and can’t reveal the location.
Yeah, the timing with the Murderous Army Russians isn’t the best. In fact, the console release has been delayed from March 2022 because of a real-life Russian military killer. Film reel-style footage of the interrogation may not be the intended comedy source.
Anyway, real-world connections are quickly forgotten once you enter any of the nine platforming gameplay levels. Ivan spends most of his game run (and sometimes staggering) jumping and sliding through beautifully detailed environments. The opener is a banger.The setting is clearly inspired by Russian folklore, but this one seems to be a direct nod to the original king kongup to the dinosaurs in the background.
The cinematography is superb, and it’s easy to get lost in the lighthearted action. There are no hard-to-reach platforms, no hard-to-perform button presses. I died a few times trying to figure out where to move or when to jump, but the deaths were more comical than frustrating. It ends with limited moves, but if you fail, the game does a good job of placing you at a nearby checkpoint. It was just a bonus level.
It’s a bit disappointing that none of the nine levels lived up to the grandeur of the beginning, but they were all interesting enough to keep me going. There are also some variations in gameplay. Some levels focused on stealth, some on speed, and some on timing. Of course, the visuals change dramatically with each one, and even changes in gravity pop up from time to time to keep things fresh.
Even if Ivan has a hard time traveling, the player doesn’t. The controls are simple and crisp, with only the occasional character placement for device manipulation (pulling levers, pressing buttons, etc.) being quirky.
Through it all there are comical exchanges between Ivan and the General. I both felt the same way — the desperate fear of Ivan’s execution and the General’s growing frustration with this ridiculous thread. Judging by the somewhat unsatisfying ending, the writers seem to have felt the same way.
While Little Orpheus is running out of steam towards the end (the added bonus level is arguably the worst), the game doesn’t last much longer than it welcomed. If you devote an afternoon to it, you can complete it in one sitting. We found a good pace to shoot a few episodes at a time over several days.
Once completed, you can replay the level and try to find spheres that unlock additional dialogue and dev notes. However, spheres are easy to find and obtain, so they don’t challenge an already simple game. So I left it to my son and it was fun just watching.
Perhaps General Yurkovoi and I have something in common.
