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Omensight has the premise of an action/murder-mystery game where you must prevent the apocalypse; and a bit like Groundhog Day, you have to repeat the same day over and over – albeit in this case, that day is the end of the world – and once you’re done, life can move on.
When I first saw this, it looked a little *too* RPG-like, as those sorts of games aren’t really my bag, but thankfully, it’s not like that at all, and focuses more on the combat. Engage in lots of fighting to get points which, inbetween levels, you can use in levelling-up weapons and strengths with ‘gift amber’ (just go with it. It’s not as complex as it makes it sound) – and what do points make? …I just told you: levelling-up weapons and strengths.
Fighting is mostly a typical case of hack/hack/slash with the X button, while Y gives a stronger attack (unless you’re using a different controller, but I used the Xbox One controller with my PC), although using Y takes a little bit of time to build up, and while the action was very frenetic, there’s no time to think about such a thing as you’re being shot at, so a lot of ‘X’ it is. Either way, you can chain attacks for stronger punches.
As you progress through each level, you’ll collect ‘money gems’ (I can’t think of any other name for them, but they’re gems that add to my points) and ‘health apples’ (you get the idea), the former of which zoom up to you to ‘hoover’ them up, a bit like Crash Bandicoot.
You start off playing alongside a character called Draga, and then Ludomir, before going through a level with Ritaka. Note that this is a single-player game, so the other player is AI, and it’s good at how they work alongside you. Amusingly, Draga was castigating me for stealing ‘money gems’, as if there was no reason for doing so and that they belong to someone else, yet this is exactly how this sort of game works. I guess she hasn’t played any before 😉
Along the way, you’ll repeat parts of the same day, but as a new adventure, so while you’ll first complete separate days with one character, for a later level, you’ll revisit the same area but things change such that you go off in a new direction and meet up with one of the other characters, so it’s a bit like elements of Back To The Future Part II. You can go through the whole of the same day again up until the new direction kicks in, but I just skipped what I’d already done – I had enough of that on the occasional time when I died in a fight 🙂
There are lots of collectibles such as memories (this will make sense when you see them) and clues, which pop up once you’ve completed a ‘day’. Looking at these is classed as investigating them, via which, you’ll eventually solve the murder of the Godless-Priestess. For someone who’s not played too much of this type of plot in a game, I’m not always totally sure what’s going on, plot-wise, even though the playing of the game isn’t as complex as you might think and not confusing when it comes to replaying the same day over and over, but it does look fantastic.
To extrapolate on that last bit, the graphics are first rate and a bit cartoony but in a stylish way. However, the camera angles leave a lot to be desired at times, since you have to do a lot of jumping about, and this takes a bit of getting used to since some of the angles mean you’re very likely to fall to your death as you can’t see where you’re going. A tip for jumping is that your shadow appears directly under where you are, so that’s one thing to look out for.
However, why they couldn’t allow proper manipulation of the environment with the right analogue stick, I don’t know, since it only turns a few degrees… which is nice to see, but completely ineffective when it comes to helping see where you’re going. There are often times when the world turns as you move about the level, but again, having more control over this would be a nice touch. Still, for that, this is the style of the game.
Each level you play through is linear, but that’s okay because it’s effortlessly gorgeous. Note that this doesn’t account for when you start a new level which involves replaying part of a previous one.
When it comes to what your ears here, there’s standard hack-n-slash audio for the fighting, but it does have a wonderful and engaging movie-style score.
As I said earlier, I was a little confused by the basic premise at times, but on the whole, it’s a glorious-looking game where you have to get from A to B, defeat the baddies and progress up the ladder as you go, acquiring more and more abilities.
It has an estimated completition time of 8-12 hours, so that’ll most likely double with me as I end up making a complete prat of myself and going the wrong way, too often 🙂
Note: On PC, there’s also a Collector’s Edition includes a downloadable Omensight artbook, featuring concept art, sketches, level mockups and commentary from the team. Plus, it includes the original soundtrack ,written and performed by Vibe Avenue.
One last bit which I’ll mention behind a spoiler header:
Omensight is around £15-19 and is out now on PC, PC Collector’s Edition and PS4.
Important info:
- Developer: Spearhead Games
- Publisher: Spearhead Games
- Players: single player
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
Music: Vibe Avenue
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GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT |
9 9 8 9 |
| OVERALL | 9 |
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.