Developed by Spearhead Games Published by Spearhead Games Reviewed on PlayStation 4 (also available on PC)
Urralia is ending, the godless priestess is dead, and it is the world’s final day. The world is about to rip itself apart as the now unsealed Voden blankets the land and all will be destroyed. You appear as the Harbinger. Your arrival was foretold as a sign of the impending doom, a silent and ethereal blue creature represented in old stories. As the Harbinger, your goal is not to assist the demise of Urralia. Instead your are to save Urralia. To do so, you will loop in time by reliving the last day with key people who may or may have a helping hand in the death of a priestess, the freeing of Voden, and destruction of the land. You will use your skills and omensight to sleuth out clues, influence others, and hopefully save Urralia.
This is how Spearhead Games’ Omensight is introduced to the player via game description and opening cutscenes. Despite being categorized as an RPG, the game plays like a platformer with RPG touches and splashes of action. At the games start you are tossed into a simple tutorial that introduces the basic controls for movement, dodging, and attack. It is also here that you meet your first two character options to spend the day searching for clues with.
As you spend time with each of the various characters you learn more about the state of the world through their point of view. The game imparts this knowledge through the characters’ biases that’s revealed in dialogue and the days events. Both are the two driving forces behind the narrative. Additionally, each character offers a unique skill to the Harbinger that can be utilized as you accompany them. While you do stick with your companion character in a linear path there are some branches where you can find chests of Amber (the in game currency), character memories (in game lore), and some side puzzles.
At the end of each day, tutorial included, the world is destroyed. You are whisked to what is essentially your base outside of time by the power of the Tree and the Witch. Here is where you meditate to level and spend Amber on skills for the Harbinger. It is also where can go through your clues and make choices based off of what you have learned so far. How you process your clues changes on what difficulty you are playing the game.
Speaking of difficulty, Omensight handles it wonderfully. There are five levels to choose from which you can easily switch in game should the need arise. I love that the easier modes give you a clue board for tracking events and the option to just enjoy the story. I also love that the hardest difficulties literally suggests using a notebook to draw your own conclusions. Combat remains the same between difficulties, but the harder modes do have more enemies with more health.
Omensight has a simple but solid combat system. The abilities you gain through leveling and purchasing affect combat. Despite skill additions, the controls remain easy to master with no long series of attack combinations to memorize. Some unlocked moves will require energy orbs, but orbs are gained through successful combos using dodges and attacks during play. One interesting battle mechanic is that the Harbinger is impervious during a dodge, which is a flashy and fabulous maneuver as you move away from danger. Balance is kept by with the Harbinger being briefly vulnerable while spamming dodge. While you can get bonus experience for stylish combat, it is not required.
Difficulty and combat aside, if you jump off of the world you will die. Luckily for players, the game autosaves throughout the game and makes use of checkpoints. Falling is a quick way to discover that while you can not completely skip cutscenes, you can speed up and skip the dialogue you’ve seen for the umpteenth time.Â
The graphics have a great cel shaded, cartoony look. The use of color and composition are fabulous. The character designs are full of personality and most pair well with the cast of voice actors. With some effort, many could be cosplay friendly. Visually, the biggest drawback are the lack of camera controls. I appreciated the perspectives used in game, often executed to great effect in many areas I would not change. However, being unable to manipulate the full camera view did make some jumps frustrating and harder to judge. It was less annoying for battle, but would have been nice to turn the camera freely to see baddies hanging out behind you.
Due to the manipulation of time, I wouldn’t call the game itself linear, but the individual days (or levels if you will) are. It’s a bit like a Choose Your Own Adventure story where you keep starting over to see all the possible outcomes. Even with the some overlap, the game doesn’t feel overly repetitive. There is even an option to jump to new parts when repeating certain missions.
Another drawback, however, is once you reach an Omensight (which you can view as separating acts of the game, but is also a special ability) you have to use it and may miss seeing a version of a day. It can cause you to miss some details, and perhaps achievements, while making a short game feel even shorter. The game it about 12 hours if you’re not wasting time leaping your death. On the flip side, doing so it adds replayability to the title and the achievements are obtainable for avid trophy hunter . Â
Overall, the game is an enjoyable experience. It has just the right amount of mystery and character sass to keep you interested as even watching someone else play is enough to be intrigued and fall into the story. I would recommend Omensight as an addition to your game library.
