RTS is a video game genre that I absolutely adore. What keeps the love bound between us strong is my desire to constantly improve at it. There is a lot of room for improvement, that cannot be denied. It’s a slow process, at least for me. I’ve seen a lot of people getting good at it at a much faster rate, wherein’ I still struggle with keeping a good APM and optimal decision making. Even so, the usual learning curve is very fun and appealing to me. It’s like solving a real- time puzzle that’s constantly changing the pieces and the rules. I like to challenge as many unique and difficult RTS games in the future as I can!
A genuine heart throb [!]. I was really hyped to try out “From Orbit”, because of my curiosity regarding the current state of modern RTS titles. The fact that it was also by an indie developer further added more pepper on to the steak. Seeing the trailer, the game looked pretty exciting, but I didn’t get a whole lot of additional information on the overall structure from just watching that alone. Even so, that didn’t hold me back. I jumped blindly into the game and… it was kinda thrilling. It has been a while since I had this feeling playing a video game – Facing the exciting unknown. But…
This is something I should probably save for the end, but I feel like writing it down now.
“From Orbit” tries to do something unique with the RTS genre. It’s an approach that one might easily misunderstand, either by lack of knowledge on the subject or the other way around. But let me be straightforward here – A lot of corners are being cut here and there, to the point where the game loses stability and slowly begins to lean away from the general idea it is supposed to follow. Eventually, it finds support on another leaning idea from the other side. The game becomes a weird hybrid, who unfortunately lacks the best of both worlds.
➕ “From Orbit” is a game about a spaceship and a crew of robots who are exploring the galaxy and depraving planets of their natural resources. Their goal is to reach a wormhole, which would lead them to who- knows- where? Where did they come, where will they go, that’s up to your imagination, Cotton Eye Joe!
💼 “Plot is simple and flexible. Goal objective is clearly stated.”
➕ The music in this game is pretty great. It suits the targeted RTS genre quite well.
💼 “For how few music tracks there are in this game, they are at least pleasant to listen to, if anything.”
➕ The graphics and general visual aesthetic are very good! Although 3D has always been looked down upon when it comes to RTS titles, this is actually one of the rare cases where I really enjoyed it.
💼 “Of note are especially the unit models. I ADORE the desert beetles A LOT!”
➖ The map and the stages are all randomized per each run. The variety of planets that you can visit is small, but that’s not really the main issue here. The game does not have a lot of elements to enrich the whole randomizing gimmick. In a nutshell, if you’ve played through the first stage, you’ve pretty much played through everything the game has to offer you. Progression feels boring, because you get to do more of the same, with some [numbers] being tweaked slightly in order to give the idea of increasing difficulty.
💼 “I still think the whole things is commendable for trying something new for a change.”
➖ Your spaceship act as a main base. It does not produce anything however. On each stage, it will attract waves and waves of enemies, which spawn from structures that cannot be destroyed. The longer you stay on a stage, the bigger will be the increase in enemies spawning and attacking you. HOWEVER! Their HP and Damage does not seem to change. The spaceship also has a self- defense mechanism, which does a pretty good job in frying enemies, especially during the early stages of the game. You can use the ship to leave a stage at any point, but once you do so, you cannot go back to it! So if you missed on any resources, they are gone for good!
💼 “The game is more about defending your base while trying to scavenge as many resources that you can find in a short period time. There’s not really opportunities for strategic moves, as there aren’t any additional objectives to work around with.”
➕ Units and buildings being setup by hotkeys in the form of a simple click- on interface helps a lot when it comes down to micromanagement.
💼 “The mini- map is helpful when it comes to objects display, but layout navigation in not presented and that can be a bit of a hassle, especially in later stages, where their overall mass volume is increased significantly.”
➖ On the stage select map, you can access a menu with upgrades, which can help with the improvement of your units and building efficiency. Each upgrade requires resources found on the planets you visit, so aiming to clean up everything you find on a stage is pretty rewarding. The upgrade variety is pretty good, going from simple stat number increase to even giving your units an additional new abilities. However, what I don’t like about these upgrades is that at some point, they just overwhelm the difficulty completely. You can pretty much have a base that cannot be breached by any number of enemy forces whatsoever. They also make the final challenge of the game really… inadequate.
💼 “The land mine ability feels pretty useless at any point of the game. For its overall research cost, it is not as efficient as other upgrades, that can pretty much cover for the entire lack of it really well. The infantry guard stance also gives you way more control and let go than it should. The two ship upgrades nullify any threat in the early stages of the game. Given their low cost, it’s a very unbalanced trade- off.”
➖ There are two types of resources that you can gather in this game. The main difference between them is that one is mined relatively slower than the other. That type of resources is also supposed to be a rare find, so when it comes to upgrades, it is also required less. However, on the long road, you actually end up with more of it, while being in more desperate need for the other, that’s more common to find. The cost balance in the upgrades is somewhat uneven when it comes to comparison of these two resources.
💼 “I like the small bits of resources scattered around that you can gather by having a unit walk over them. It promotes and rewards exploration. I wish there were more collectables like that.”
➖ Enemy units aggro. Oh, boy! [!] Enemies that do not come from a spawning point would usually patrol an area. If you kill them, they are gone permanently. If they come into an aggro range with one of your units, they will usually chase it for a while, after which they will go back to their original position and resume patrolling. If an enemy unit that has been spawned draws aggro to one of your units, it will chase all over the map, until it is killed. This can be a real problem for units that you send on exploration or mining, because if they draw a huge army of spawned units, they will have to pretty much drag them to the base where they can be dispatched safely. Foes would not allow you to mine resources in peace if you draw aggro and it can be pretty easy for them to make a deadly surround, especially if additional units are being dragged in.
💼 “While exploring, I had to move my unit many times aside from the main path of the attacking forces in order to avoid drawing aggro. It becomes in a very unusual fashion, a stealth game. This could have been good, if the god- damn enemies didn’t move so SLOW!”
➖ Your crew of robots are the only units that you get to control. What’s interesting is that they can transform into different types, according to your needs – Infantry, engineers, gatherers or medics. There is no cost for switching between these types, apart from the robot being in a second of stasis while doing so. I don’t like this gimmick, because it really narrows down the decision making in this game, to pretty much “Hey, just pick the type of unit you need for the situation”. RTS games are fun, both because of their rewarding and punishing system. With this transformation banjo nutcraker, “From Orbit” is really generous towards the player to a point where it kinda gets boring.
💼 “Infantry units with the solid stance upgrade ensure that no enemy would ever be able to touch the base. Combined with a nearby medic who can always patch them up, it creates a situation that’s impossible for the enemy A.I. to break through, regardless of the number of units it generates. Engineers can just stay near the ship and repair it indefinitely. There is no cost to repair, which makes it pretty broken. Taken into consideration that you can make your ship really tough to crack up creates an additional issue for the poor enemy A.I. , that can only send against you waves of units, who are just walking up to their doom. Now, given that some stages have also additional rules, like harmful atmosphere, where you units are constantly losing HP, or meteors, where your buildings are being damaged per short periods of time as well, you would expect the transformation ability to require decent micro or anything. But the reality is, you can have a single type of each unit lying at your base to defend it, while you explore with a gatherer for resources. The fact that you can switch up at any time to heal back your gatherer to full completely negates any challenge whatsoever when it comes to unstable environment in the stages. It’s just really hard to lose your units when you realize how easy it is to make them take no damage whatsoever. You start up with two robots and you can only acquire additional ones either by finding them on other stages or if you lose all your crew (I cannot see that ever being possible…) you can buy a single new one. But only one, no more! Yeah, having the maximum amount of robots that you can acquire lets you do whatever the hell you want later into the game.
➖ There are only two buildings that you can create – Turrets and automatic miner. They each cost a small amount of resources, but you better believe they are worth the price! Turrets are really strong! With upgrades, they become a real nightmare for the enemy! One is enough to wreck havoc through numerous lines of baddies, let alone imagine building additional ones. Because resources carry over throughout the game, you can just clog up later stages with turrets and the enemy won’t have any answer to it. Given that engineers can repair them as well further makes them even more broken.
The automatic miner is something I really liked. It’s very efficient when used on mines with lots of resources in them. You pay a little to get more at a faster rate. Because of that, your gatherer is also free to continue exploring for additional resources. However, be careful where you place them, as they draw aggro and enemies will make a short work of them. Meteors also target them constantly, so make sure they don’t fall too low on HP.
💼 “It would have been great if there were more type of turrets you can build, at least. Again, because the enemy units only scale in terms of quantity rather than quality, turrets end up being very overpowered.”
➕ The last stage features a pretty neat boss battle. The thing you fight looks pretty cool and it packs quite the punch. What I like about the fight itself is that you need to defeat the creature three times in a row. However, the creature will spawn far away from your base, so for a bit of change, YOU actually have to make the advance here! It would have been pretty good if the game made more events or objectives that require that and not just reserve it for the boss itself.
💼 “More unique boss fights could definitely have made this game better!”
My final verdict on this game:
If you are someone who is trying to get into the RTS genre, this game is a really stable starting point. It will teach you some simple, but very key elements, like exploration, time management, base defense, ect.
For veterans though, beyond potentially being impressed by the unique nature of this game initially, you are bound to be fairly disappointed further on.
Lab. Room 19 