If you’ve ever wanted to solve a murder mystery whilst time travelling, then I’ve got something for you. Omensight is a beautiful looking action roleplaying game developed by Spearhead Games, who also brought us Stories: The Path of Destinies.
In Omensight, you take control of The Harbinger, a mythical warrior on a mission to stop the end of the world by repeating the last day over again. You help her find clues, fight bad guys, and piece together who murdered the godless priestess; which causes Voden, the evil purple snake god, to devour the world. The premise of the game is pretty captivating; every twist and turn has you wanting to get to the bottom of the story as fast as possible.
As The Harbinger, you have access to the tree of life, a hub area outside of space and time that allows you to trade experience to level The Harbinger up. You can also check out the investigation orb and get advice from the Witch. The investigation orb keeps track of the clues gathered; it’s a nice little touch that feels like it’s pulled inspiration from the book of Reynardo, Stories’s main character, which also keeps track of what you’ve already done. It’s like a private investigator’s notebook.
In the hub area, you’re also able to choose which companion to start the day with; however, instead of having to replay the same day over and over again, you’re able to skip ahead to the most critical part of the story and start the adventure from there, which is a great feature. It manages to make the game feel a lot faster and less grindy, but you’re also pretty much guaranteed to find something new every time. When playing on harder difficulties, you aren’t able to use the orb, which can make it difficult at times to remember who you need to go see next to get the next big clue for the case, but I guess it also just means I need to be a better investigator.
The combat in Omensight feels great. It’s fluid and responsive, and you feel super strong taking out group after group of enemies. You can tell that Spearhead Games pulled inspiration from the Shadow of War/Batman series of games when it comes to combat because it’s very similar: reactionary counter-attacks with a mix of weak and strong attack combos. There are a couple of moments that ruin the flow of combat, like when the camera goes to a fixed perspective, which makes it extremely difficult to know what everyone’s doing on-screen. This is especially the case when you have to stop enemies from activating a detonator, but it’s made difficult by the camera’s perspective, so it’s hard to gauge how far you are from them and if you’ll hit them or not.
The art style of Omensight is beautiful, the backdrops and settings that each area has is something that never fails to keep me entertained. The first time you enter Rodentia, the homeland of Ratika, one of the main cast of characters, you’re greeted by a vast, snowy forest of red-tipped trees. The drop of colour backdropped by a canvas of white is eye-catching and memorable.
Omensight uses its design choice to bring some levity to the death, murder, and war that’s overtaken Pygeria and Rodentia. The cute, cartoony art style of the characters is a welcome contrast to the bleak outlook of the world The Harbinger has been sent to.
You can tell that Omensight is a spiritual successor to Stories, the world design alone has taken influence from Spearhead’s previous game, the atmosphere and the characters as well, but Spearhead Games do seem to love their anthropomorphic characters.
Conclusion
Omensight does a great job at mixing a lighthearted art style and character design with a gripping story about murder and world-eating gods. The combat is gripping and has a way of making you want to keep playing just to kick some more butt. At times it can be a little difficult to navigate, especially when the camera perspective gets in the way. However, this happens at pretty limited times during the overall playthrough.
Developer: Spearhead Games
Publisher: Spearhead Games
Platforms: PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One
Release Date: 15th May 2018
