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Thursday, June 26, 2025 3:28:12 AM

Heavenly Bodies Review (EonsNearby)

For context, I played this game co-op with 1 friend, we both used Classic mode (the default mode), and we both used a controller. You can apparently play this game with up to 4 players, but I don't know what that would entail.
In this game, my friend and I each controlled an astronaut in zero gravity that are tasked with completing various tasks in each mission. Each mission takes place in their own dedicated map. Each arm was moved with the left and right joysticks respectively, gripping things was done with the left and right triggers respectively, tucking in your legs was done with the left and right bumpers respectively, using an item was done with a face button, and attaching/detaching an item from a utility clip was done with the same face button. Having the same face button being used for attaching/detaching an item and for using an item is one of the issues we both had with the game. The devs really should have made it so that using an item was one face button and attaching/detaching was a separate face button. We didn't check to see if it was possible to remap these actions to separate face buttons, but even if there was, that shouldn't have been the default setting.
With regards to moving in zero gravity, you will either have to grip something like a wall or pole and move your body, kick off of something solid, having 1 astronaut "throw" the other, or basically do a swimming motion by moving your arms above your head and quickly swinging them down. The devs were aiming to make this a realistic representation of moving in zero gravity, and as you might imagine, its often awkward and can be very annoying to get to the position/destination you need to be in. But because we knew that the devs were aiming for realism, I can't say my friend or I ever became frustrated or angered while playing this. I should mention that there is essentially an easy mode that's supposed to make movement easier, but we didn't try it so I can't say what exactly its like (though do expect a bit of hand cramping from having to hold buttons down). However, a complaint we both had was that there were times where we werent' sure what was an actual grippable object and what was just the background.
Regarding the game's campaign, there's 7 missions total, with each mission taking anywhere between 30 minutes to a little more than 1 hour to complete. Each mission has you doing a different set of tasks, so while it never got repetitive, some missions we liked less than others. By far the worst mission was the one where we both had to pilot a ship to 3 different asteroids to mine minerals (I believe this was mission 4). However, I think the only way to actually fail a mission is for one of the astronauts to float too far off into space, and while my friend and I did come close to doing that a few times, we saved ourselves before it was too late. Each mission also has several checkpoints, so if you do "game over" or have to shut the game down, you shouldn't have to worry about starting over from scratch.
Overall, the awkwardness of moving/operating in zero gravity along with the other (albeit minor) issues we had with the game does keep me from saying this was a fun or enjoyable experience, I still found it a satisfying and unique game to play because of the devs focus on making a more realistic sort of space game that focuses on doing tasks that, while I'm sure are not entirely realistic, do give that feeling of "yeah, I could see astronauts actually having to do something like this in space".