Omensight (Small game review)
7 years ago
Awoo ! Hi everyone ^.^ !
If you have played "Stories: the path of destinies", this game is an improved "spiritual successor" of it.
Like Stories, Omensight is a heavily narrative driven game with hack n'slash/RPG style combat and elements of dialogue, with choices aimed to unfold the course of the events that brought the world around you to the current situation and will bring you to the final battle later on.
However, while being very similar there are still some differences between Stories and Omensight.
On a gameplay level Omensight is an improved game as the combat is more polished and has more variety.
On top of a hack and slash button mashing that is easy to understand but hard to master, you also have other abilities at your disposal such as being able to slow down the time, charge insta-kill attacks, dash thorough the enemies, and even different allies each one with different abilities of their own.
On a narrative level, Stories and Omensight are two different kinds: the first being like a series of various tales with the same characters, while the second is a big tale made of smaller ones - each with it's own character.
This gives Omensight a more complex writing, as every character has their own course of events to unfold that will always ends up crossing another ones path creating a "big picture" for you to find out piece by piece.
Talking about defects other than being a bit repetitive, Omensight has only one true FATAL flaw: it has no replayability whatsoever.
Once you finish the game, it just ends, and everything you gathered becomes pointless as there is no "New game +" or anything like that. If you want to play again you start over and lose everything like you never played.
So should you get this game ? As i said in the small review I made for Stories: the path of destinies... if you like narrative driven games - yes, go for it and give it a shot, especially if you liked Stories. Otherwise... don't bother, you would be better off playing an actual hack and slash button masher.
Personally, the moment i installed it i couldn't stop playing it as it kept me hooked wanting to know and see more of the story everytime @.@
Also, despite the effort and work the developers have put into this game, the one big issue of the lack of replayability make me say that you would be better getting this game on discount rather than at it's full price.
FA+

The only defaults I can give it is that the voice acting is kind of average (though Ratika's singing voice is... wow), and if you already played Path of Destinies, some of the twists may not surprise you so much.
All in all, a must-buy for its price, considering all the 50€ crap regularily published.
One minor regret that I have, though, is that Omensight's mechanics have a lot of potential, and I felt that they were underused. When I went through the first levels, I expected more freedom, like having to solve puzzles by showing the right vision among several to a specific character, or influencing NPC movements throughout the day so that some meet, and some not; but the game is rather straightforward: you choose a path and go through the day with the selected character.
For those reading this journal and playing the game, here is a list of *strong* advices:
* Don't head left and unseal the temple's crypt until you played the first version of Ludomir's day entirely
* Don't unlock the Rodentian seal of the vault in the second version of Draga's day
* Don't unlock Vera's seal on the tree in the third version of Ratika's day. Also, remember to play Indrik's day, as his day is only mandatory on the final act