Omensight begins with the bad news: The world is ending. It’s not this week’s Twitter angst. It’s very clear early on in the game that everyone dies. Fortunately, you’re an all-powerful being called The Harbinger whose entire mission in life is cancelling the apocalypse. IF YOU COULD TURN BACK TIME…IF YOU COULD FIND A WAY.
Omensight
Developer: Spearhead Games
Price: $19.99
Platform: PC (Reviewed), PS4
MonsterVine was supplied with Steam code for review
Ahem.
It turns out a very important priestess, who is not supposed to die in any permanent sense, is dead in a very permanent sense. This unleashes the snake that consumes the world who, as the name implies, consumes the world. What we have here is a murder mystery wrapped in the candy shell of a slick little action RPG, because The Harbinger’s solution to everything is to hit it with her enormous sword until it stops moving.
Once the preliminary apocalypse is out of the way, Omensight’s gameplay loop is clear: There is a handful of people–look, they’re anthropomorphic bears and cats and birds, but we’ll say people–that were key players in the end time. By traveling back in time and running through their version of events–hitting lots of things until they stop moving with your sword–you unlock a few more secrets and truths about what happened on that fateful day.
With that little bit you learned, you find another character and show them what happened with your Omensight. They instantly believe you, because you’re The Harbinger, and then you run through their last day and find out what they were doing, unlocking a few more morsels of the mystery. It’s a lot more like one of the Sherlock Holmes games than anything you’re used to seeing in an action-RPG, so it’s an intriguing reason to issue beatdowns to all and sundry.
Combat is slick, though Omensight is nigh unplayable without a controller, and follows the usual upgrade paths you’re familiar with. Level up and collect currency to unlock new abilities and gimmicks which, conveniently enough, help counter the gimmicks of the people you’re fighting. The world itself is colorful and cartoony and while Unreal Engine does have some limitations, they are (mostly) tolerably papered-over.
In other words, There are a lot of conveniently placed doors in between big set piece battles so the game can load without noticeable slowdown. There’s a lot of jumping puzzles. I suspect most of them are ways to section off various areas to improve performance. Some are fine. They are not my favorite thing but not overly Gotcha. Some are harder than they need to be because a character is busy talking and it’s like, “Great, lady, could you shut up while I’m trying to doublejump here?”
Omensight’s loop begins with the ending: You finish the stage you were on and the world ends. The Harbinger teleports back to an in-between place (as far as I know, it’s unnamed) where there are shrines to level up and buy new powers. The Witch telling the story is there. There are also statutes of certain important people in the narrative. When you’re ready, you touch your chosen statue and go through the last day from that character’s perspective. You learn a few more things. Eventually, you’ll have enough information and unlock a few more abilities to run through their day again and find out a bit more. Continue.
Much of the game is playing the same levels over and over again, so there’s got to be a gimmick to make that tolerable. Omensight has done a very clever thing by unlocking various abilities and skills as you play through and befriend the companions. It’s entirely possible to unlock a different area and wander off the main storyline for a bit. Funnily, this is one of the few RPGs I’ve played to comment on the trope of: “Main story of impending doom? That’s great but I’ve got this secret area to explore before we do.” One of my companions was like “Um well okay but I’m still going to do what I was doing?” and charged off to his fated death when I wandered off.
As for the story, it is kind of funny. Being The Harbinger is like being Batman. The way it’s written, The Harbinger only has a vague idea what’s going on. The witch that serves as narrator has to tell you things like “You’re The Harbinger and your job is to stop the apocalypse.” Amusingly, everyone else knows all about you and that you are an omen of the Big Deal End Times. But despite knowing that, they continue doing what they did before that got everyone killed. It’s like Batman showing up in the middle of a battlefield, everyone pausing to go “Hey, it’s Batman!”, then continuing about their day. You’d think an omen of the apocalypse might give them pause. It also makes some of the companion chatter funny. “Your combat abilities are wondrous.” Yeah, no shit, I’m the Harbinger of End Times.
The Final Word
There’s a little jank here and there, but if you like action-RPGs and want something a little different–and not nearly as grimdark as those have been–I’m sending you a vision. Woooooo! Buy Omensight! Wooooooooo! Spooky!
– MonsterVine Review Score: 4 out of 5 – Good
