One of the most critical factors in a game’s success is the ambition driving its creators. It’s not a simple case of more is better however, instead ambition needs to be tempered with the ability to realise it. I’ve often chided developers for reaching beyond their grasp, attempting to emulate others with far better means and ending up harming their game in the process. There have been many great examples, even recently, where a focused vision results in a much better experience. Omensight is one such game where the concise focus on what makes this game unique has produced a well rounded experience.
You are the Harbinger, a mythical warrior who only appears in times of crisis. The land of Urralia is torn by war, and as night falls, you witness its destruction at the hands of a dark God. As the eyes and the sword of Urralia, it is up to you to reverse this fate. All you know is that it started with a mysterious murder of the Godless-Priestess, a deity whose soul is destined to return upon her passing. This time however her soul has failed to return and it is up to you Harbinger to find out why.
Omensight presents a highly stylized cell shaded aesthetic, lavished with bright colours, numerous glow effects and particle systems galore. It may not be a particularly unique art style but it’s certainly one of the better crafted examples I can think of in recent times. The environments are absolutely swimming in detail from the large vistas that show wide cityscapes to the closed in dungeons littered with various miscellania. This is undoubtedly helped by the fixed camera angles, allowing the artists to focus more time on what the player will see and leaving out detail where they won’t. My internal bias initially made me think that it was built on Unity but it is in fact running on the Unreal 4 engine, something which the developer Spearhead Games has some experience with. This, coupled with the low-poly art style, ensures that this will run pretty well on nearly anything you care to throw it at.
Billed as an action-rpg murder mystery Omensight could have easily made the mistake of trying to include far too much but, thankfully, the developers instead chose to focus on a few key mechanics. The combat is reminiscent of the Arkham series, a kind of tempo based beat ’em up style that rewards combos and utilising your environment to pull off flashy fighting moves. Gaining levels is done in the usual way and each of them either grants you a new ability or improves one you already have. The upgrade system allows you to further refine those abilities as well as base things like health, stamina and damage. Whilst there are a few simple puzzles in each of the level the main one is the overarching murder mystery. This takes the form of deciding which one of the main character’s day you want to relive in order to gain more information about the death of the Godless-Priestess. There is, of course, an optimum route but it seems no matter which path you choose you will get closer to your end goal. Overall Omensight might not be the most complex or comprehensive game I’ve played but for the things it does it executes them well.
Combat is a largely enjoyable experience although rarely is it a challenge. Even in the beginning (and on the hard setting no less) most of the enemies can be dispatched pretty easily and since there’s not a lot of them most encounters are over pretty quickly. As you level the difficulty does increase but so do your abilities with some trivialising some encounters. For instance the time warp ability coupled with the speed up from one of your NPC friends can make quick work of basically any group of enemies and even bosses. Considering the amount of replay you have to go through this probably isn’t the worst thing though as there’s nothing less fun than repeating the same encounter a dozen times over, especially if it takes forever to do. One thing that I was never quite clear on though was what counted as being a “flashy fighter” to get the XP bonus at the day end. I had many encounters where I pulled off multiple combos and got nothing, whereas there were other days when I did nothing but left click all day and got it. I’m sure the exact requirements are out there somewhere, but the game never explains it to you.
The platforming in Omensight, whilst not the weakest point of the game, is certainly one of the less great parts of it. Like all 3D platformers there’s a bit of awkwardness when it comes to jumping around which is helped a little bit by the dim shadow showing where your character will land. The real issue though is the fixed camera angles and how they interact with your movement on screen. You see it’s hard to tell just which direction you’ll move in when the camera starts to move on you and sometimes this happens just after you’ve jumped. This leads to some frustrating moments when you’ll try to course correct mid air and end up dying because of it. Similarly it can be hard to control your character along narrow ledges and other obstacles because the camera reoriented (and thus your controls did too), leading you to walk off a ledge when you thought you’d walk along it. Once you know the level layout, and by extension the camera changes, it becomes less of an issue but I’d be lying if it didn’t make the first couple hours of the game a real chore of trial and error.
Progression comes with a nice cadance, ensuring that you’ll either level up or be able to buy an upgrade or two at the end of each day. This also means that if you find yourself struggling for whatever reason you’re never too far off being able to remedy it. Indeed there was one point where I noticed I was taking a ton of damage from certain enemies and all it took to counteract that was a few choice defense upgrades I got after finishing the level. Omensight rewards those who explore the levels, hiding a lot of upgrade currency and XP in chests strewn throughout hidden pathways and passages. It starts to get a little ludicrous towards the end once you have all the seals, giving you enough upgrade points for 3~4 upgrades per run. I didn’t bother trying to max out my character as past a certain point the upgrades are just for convenience sake more than anything else.
Omensight’s greatest weakness however is the repetition of each of the levels. There’s about 5 or so main levels you’ll visit in your travels and you’ll visit each of them multiple times throughout your playthrough. Not much changes between visits: maybe an additional path is unlocked, different dialogue since you’re there with a different NPC or the environment changes slightly, but by and large they’re much the same each time. The game does grant you some small mercies if you’re replaying a day by allowing you to skip to the critical moment but for most of them you’ll have to trudge through the same areas time and time again. I’m all for focusing effort where it will be best utilised, and indeed the environments they have crafted are fantastic, but asset reuse on this scale is something that’s pretty hard to ignore.
The story does make up for this somewhat though with the additional bits of narrative revealed to you on multiple level completions aiding in your understanding of the overarching plot. There are some holes that appear due to the game’s non-linear nature and depending on which paths you choose when some elements will make sense whilst others won’t. It’s slow going at the start where you seem to be treading already well worn ground but it does start to pick up as you’re allowed to change the flow of each days using your Omensight. I could do without the trite revelations (Oh that thing you saw happen, that wasn’t exactly what it was! groan) though, especially considering the major ones are all basically exactly the same. Overall whilst it might not be the most emotionally engaging narrative it’s still enjoyable, even with its flaws.
Omensight executes well on its vision, focusing in on the things that matter to the core game experience. The graphics, level design and combat are all well executed making Omensight a game that’s easy to play for hours on end. It falls down in a few key areas though, namely the extreme reuse of each of the levels and the platforming, both of which significantly hamper the otherwise enjoyable experience. Still for those who, like me, are struggling to find titles worth playing in the yearly AAA draught that plagues us Omensight is a great game to fill the gaps until your next big title fix.
Rating: 8.25/10
Omensight is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One right now for $19.99. Game was played on the PC with a total of 6 hours play time and 74% of the achievements unlocked.
