A portion of the WiiWare World review of Art Style: Orbient:
Back in 2006, Nintendo published a series of games on the Game Boy Advance in Japan called bit Generations. The bit Generations games were a sister series to the DS's Touch Generations games and were meant to illustrate the beginnings of video games, and one of the games released in this interesting series was Orbital. It's quite clear that Art Style: Orbient (or "Orbient" for short) is a remake of Orbital, but we don't want to spoil the details of the game in the first paragraph.
Let's begin with the premise. The bit Generations games really strip things down to the point where there is little to analyze except for the game itself, and the point of this game is rather simple. You assume the role of a little gray star, and you need to absorb stars of equal size (coloured blue) to grow and eventually become large enough that a "goal star" begins to glow yellow. Once this occurs, you must manoeuvre the grey star so that the goal star falls into your orbit to complete each stage. This is easier said than done, however.
Besides your little star, there are many other stars of various sizes within each stage. You can use the A and B buttons (sorry, no waggle) to use gravity and anti-gravity respectively to pull and push your star around the level. This helps avoid obstacles and allows you to bring your star into another's orbit. Keep in mind that when you're trying to move into another star's orbit, that you need to come in at a gradual angle. If you're on the right track to locking in to another star's orbit, this will often be indicated by a curved dotted line on screen, but don't rely on this as many levels require lots of adjustment in your trajectory. Once you're locked in orbit a little white line will circle around the larger star. To get out of a star's zone of orbit (indicated by a red circle around it), simply use anti-gravity to push yourself out. ....
"If you knew in advance that you would be stranded on a desert island, what games would you take to keep yourself entertained while you awaited rescue? Throughout this week, some of us will be answering that very question. Instead of a set number of games, each team member has been given 5000 Wii Points to spend on any combination of titles from the Wii Shop Channel, as well as the chance to nominate one game they just couldn't quite fit into their budget. What games will we choose to help pass the days, weeks and months isolated from civilization? Read on to find out!" -- Wiiloveit.com
Gaming Target examines Nintendo's Art Style series, the latest attempt at bringing experimental and avant-garde game design to the downloadable realm. From the article:
"Nintendo is a company not above resting on its laurels. As games continue to rise in cost, new and unproven intellectual properties are the first games to get dropped. So it should come as no surprise that the company making the most profit is content to use its established brands for all they are worth in the console space. The relatively new downloadable game realm, on the other hand, is slightly different. Familiar faces still do well but with lower consequences for failure, even a company as conservative as Nintendo can afford to take some chances. Enter their newest series: Art Style, cheap experimental puzzles games for your internet-enabled Nintendo systems."
GamesRadar writes: "It's the same as the GBA game Orbital. The graphics are a bit better and there are effects to inform you when you're attracting, when you're repelling and when you're in orbit, which are the only things you need to know. Play it and it'll all make sense. It's hardly rocket science, is it?"
