What if Majora's Mask was a hack-n-slash murder mystery? Omensight! If you loved Sly Cooper, Jak & Daxter, and other PS2-era classics, this game will feel like a blast from the past with an engrossing story and beautiful level and character art. Got it for Christmas and couldn't put it down until I'd sniffed out every secret!

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Omensight is quite the unusual game, however I believe I can definitely say it's a unique genre blend.

Technically, Omensight is a hack n slash' fantasy action game with an extremely simple RPG upgrade system, however it's really a detective game at heart. The basic premise is this: The world of Urralia is on its literal final day as the eldritchian entity, Voden, is unleashed, and the only people capable of stopping it are distracted by the war between Urralia's two major nations, Pygmaria and Rodentia. You play as the Harbinger, an ancient warrior whose existence is said to either warn of the apocalypse or bring it, and your goal is to use time travel to rewind the final day and discover who caused the apocalypse, how, and how to stop it before Voden devours the World Tree which is the source of all life and what allows you to time travel in the first place.

To facillitate your investigation, The Harbinger can soul bond with certain people whose corpses you find in the past. This allows you to travel back to wherever they were at the beginning of the last day and follow them around in order to gather information on the events which precipitated Voden's release. Before your imagination goes wild, there are really only FOUR major players in these events with a hidden fifth for the true ending. However, whenever you come across a major revelation, The Harbinger will gain an Omensight which will allow you to show that revelation to the characters you're following and change the course of events for the day so you can learn more.

Bizarrely investigating isn't all you're doing as Urralia is in the middle of a major war, and you're allying with people of opposing factions throughout your investigation. This means that you will often have to take up your sword to defend yourself and your partner, and this is where I think the make or break of the game will be for a lot of people. The combat in this game is perfectly serviceable for what the game is, and you have a decent toolset and enemy variety to keep things mostly stimulating. However, depending on how you play the game, you might be doing a LOT of combat, and you might have to replay portions of days multiple times in order to progress which can make the combat of the game feel even more repetitive than it actually is. It doesn't really help that you can trivialize combat quite easily on lower difficulties by just exploring the levels and looking for as much upgrade currency as you can. The game tries to keep up by throwing a lot of shield enemies at you later on, but all that does is just make you spam heavy attack. Personally, I didn't have a problem with the combat, and I especially like the partner system with different area attacks depending on who you're paired with for the day (except Indrick cause he's a git), but Ithink it's going to turn off a lot of people with how shallow it is or those just looking for a detective game without a completely different gameplay style inserted to extend the length of the game rather than mechanics which better suit the genre.

This game is an acquired taste is what I'm trying to say. I was personally into it for the story and the characters, plus going through the levels and looking for hidden secrets like the breakable walls was fun for a time. I just think the runtime of the game is a tad too long and the action gameplay wears out its welcome as a result. Either more options needed to be introduced to the action gameplay later on to keep that side of the game stimulating, or the game could have been shortened toits benefit. Still, I would wholeheartedly recommend this game to people who are into narrative games and detective games as that side of the game is quite interesting, and I love the characters.

As a side note, True Detective Mode wasn't thought through. It allows you to investigate on your own without hints, but it also takes away the Investigation Orb which is little more than a way of keeping track of the information you've gathered throughout your playthough. Considering it's visual representation of your progress and if you need to replay certain sections of the game for more information, playing without it is a waste of time and could lead to frustration lateron in the game.