Let me tell you, if I had to descend into Hades to rescue my wife, a lyre wouldn’t be my first choice of tool. I’d probably bring a long stick with something sharp on the end. Or, if we’re in modern times, I’d sail down the Styx in some sort of naval cruiser. Come to think on it, that would’ve helped Orpheus with the sirens, too. Hard to lure sailors when you’re atomised by a 127 mm shell. Orpheus: To Hell And Back keeps things true to the mythology, though. It’s all plucking at lyre strings and putting enemies to sleep. Probably makes for a better story that way. The cruisers will have to wait.
I fixate on the lyre because it’s a source of a lot of problems I have with Orpheus: To Hell And Back. I think it’s somewhat flawed as a gameplay mechanic. It’s a bit too hands off, and while it has some potential for puzzle solving, this isn’t used very well. That puts Orpheus: To Hell And Back in an odd place. There is a definite nostalgia for the Game Boy Colour here, and it has a related gimmick, but I think it uses that as a shield sometimes. It’s cute, no denying that, but it has very few strings to its, uh, lyre.
In Sweet Music Is Such Art
I won’t dwell too much on the plot of Orpheus: To Hell And Back. Orpheus’ love, Eurydice, is taken down to the depths of Hades and he has to go bring her back. To help with that, he has his trusty lyre. It has power over other creatures, and so will keep him safe. I’d still maybe take some plate armour with me, but there we go. The gimmick is that Orpheus can’t attack enemies directly, so he has to use his lyre to lure or repel them into danger. So if a skeleton warrior is coming at you then you frantically strum the lyre to force them backwards into a fire. This concept forms the basis of the gameplay, which is essentially a collection of puzzle rooms.
Orpheus has three songs he can choose from. One attracts enemies to him, one causes them to pause in place, and one repels them. It’s a mechanic that does have gameplay potential. I could see them being used to push and pull enemies around a maze to flip switches, for example. Unfortunately Orpheus: To Hell And Back is a lot more simplistic. You use them to attract enemies to flames or push them off cliffs, which opens the door. Sometimes you get them out of the way to slide a block onto a switch. It’s criminally underutilised as a mechanic, and the end result is rather dull. The puzzles in the last levels are on exactly the same page as those in the first level. There’s not much thought required.
Miserable Orpheus
It comes alive somewhat in the boss fights, where you need to time your songs to damage the enemy, but here we run into another issue. Orpheus: To Hell And Back is quite mechanically frustrating. First, the collision detection is complete nonsense. If you try and walk past a door, you’ll get sucked into it. You can also be hit by enemies despite them not being that near you. They can even hit you with their death animation, which is just weird. What doesn’t help is the very low amount of I-Frames, meaning that if you get hit once, you’ll normally get hit another one or two times before you can escape. That frequently meant that one mistake would insta-kill me. If I hadn’t been using the inbuilt save states, then it’d be right back to the start of the level. It was driving me mad towards the end.
If that last bit seems a little strange, it’d be because Orpheus: To Hell And Back does have one interesting gimmick. When you get the game on Steam, you get a ROM with it. You could then use this to play the game on your childhood console of choice. Even the Steam version uses a basic emulator to play it, complete with save states. I did indeed have a Game Boy Colour, but I highly doubt it’ll play anything any more. There’s probably a family of bats living inside the casing. Orpheus also has cute graphics that fit with the intended nostalgia, along with a fairly decent soundtrack. Aesthetically, then, it’s quite appealing. Unfortunately, I think it tends to hide behind its reliance on nostalgia. The brutal truth is, that even if I had played Orpheus on my GBC as a kid, I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed it.
Orpheus: To Hell And Back – Hiding Behind Nostalgia
On top of all that, Orpheus: To Hell And Back is very short, clocking in at under two hours. It is very cheap, though, so that balances that out somewhat. Still, I didn’t have too much fun with Orpheus. There were times where the premise had some promise, but it feels like they went the easy route at all times. The puzzles amount to pushing enemies and sliding blocks, and the action is just sitting around strumming at the lyre until the AI does what it’s supposed to. Outside of the bosses, where the difficulty occasionally spikes, it would be easy if it weren’t for the mechanical issues.
Alright, I’m almost out of nails for the coffin. I don’t like Orpheus that much, but it’s functional. It is, unquestionably, a game. It just doesn’t push any of its elements anywhere near as far as it could. The lyre is just used for bullying enemies. The graphics, while cute, don’t really do much to illustrate the wonders of Hades. Even the myth itself is fairly flat, as we’re just locked into teeny-tiny rooms, with all exposition given to us via signs. This could’ve been a fascinating world to explore. As it is, we’re just strolling through identical rooms, plucking a tuneless lyre.
