Developer: Compile Heart/Galapagos RPG
Publisher: Idea Factory International
Platform: PlayStation 4
Tested on: PlayStation 4
Omega Quintet – Review
They are young, they are cute and fight monsters for the sake of mankind! No, we’re not talking about Tokyo Mew Mew, but the newest Compile Heart/Galapagos RPG title for the PlayStation 4: Omega Quintet! This JRPG/Idol Simulator has you step into the dancing shoes of five adorable Idols and their manager. While they work to gain the affection of their fans at the same time as keeping the end of the world at bay, we plunged right in to help.
Story
A strange phenomenon, known as ‘the Blare’, is washing over the planet, destroying the world we know by affecting the human brain and sending out dark creatures to kill whatever is in sight. Only a few towns and cities still stand amidst the chaos thanks to certain individuals, apparently usually girls, who gained supernatural powers to fight back. Once discovered, these young ladies undergo a quick training program to become ‘Verse Maidens’. These local idols use weapons, magic and their voice to battle the Blare and keep the citizens of their town safe, all whilst looking as cute as they can.
The story starts with the most famous Verse Maiden in town: Miss Momoka. As she has been doing this job for over 20 years, she not only has an enormous fanbase, but also sports an impressive set of skills. However, as the years go by Momoka’s powers demand more and more from her. Even though there are more Verse Maidens around, the senior wants to hog the spotlight for herself for as long as she possibly can; not only further endangering herself, but also the people she is supposed to protect. When an attack on two youngsters is getting out of hand and Momoka herself is saved by one of them, it becomes clear it is time for her to finally allow the younger generation to take over.
In Omega Quintet, you play as Takt (or Takuto in the Japanese original), a young male and one of the two teenagers having witnessed Momoka’s failure. As you’re a childhood friend to Otoha, the girl that saved your lives, both of you get dragged off to the local Verse Maiden HQ to start your personal training. Finally, Otoha gets the chance to work alongside four other Maidens – Kanadeko, Nene, Kyouka and Aria – as Momoka’s replacement . Meanwhile Takt is offered the job of overseeing the group’s adventures as their manager and bodyguard.
The main plot is brought to you in the style of a television show. This means it is divided into several episodes, each with an intro and outro. Each episode is filled with story snippets in between exploration and battles that either get triggered automatically or need to be started via an event point or side mission. While the overall story sounds promising, Omega Quintet makes the mistake of focussing most of the episodes on inconsequential and even downright irrelevant banter. While most of it fits right into the idea of a cute ‘what happens in the office’ show, the repeated ‘issues’ and jokes can get rather tiring. A little shift towards more and deeper discussions about the real problem, the Blare, could have improved the overall storytelling. We do need to say that, due to the fact Omega Quintet seems to specifically target Japanese males, some conversations held between the different protagonists can feel really awkward and uncalled for to Western players. However, it is important to note none of these are actually weird or out of place in Japanese culture and thus should generally just be treated as such.
Graphics
As we are used to see from Compile Heart/Galapagos RPG titles, the quality of the graphics varies greatly within the game. The story is being told using beautiful background stills with even more detailed character portraits doing the talking. These models are all slightly animated with moving mouths during spoken scenes, blinking eyes and heaving chests to show breathing. Furthermore, all of them have different versions showing all sorts of emotions, and even the difference between casual and Verse Maiden costumes. Of course the nicest art is found in the collectable fan service stills which, naturally, show off the girls’ bodies.
The ‘bad’ part however, comes when we consider the 3D in the game. While not every game needs to have stellar 3D locations, the problem with Omega Quintet lies in the fact there is a clash in styles between the environments and controllable characters. The latter are very detailed when seen from really up close, but due to the light pastel colouring look pretty dull against the darker surroundings while exploring areas. This makes both aspects of the game look out of tune with each other. Had Omega Quintet opted to use schemes that lie closer in colouring and style, this difference would probably have gone past us unnoticed, especially since the enemies do seem to fit right into their own territories.
Battle graphics are a lot better, due to the fact you can see the girls up close. Attacks and movement look very fluid and flashy, giving the player a wonderful show when hammering down on an enemy. The battle screen is full of information, yet doesn’t actually feel crowded. This of course is a huge plus in a game with an enormously varied battle system.
Sound
A game about idols saving people with the power of song can’t exist without a good soundtrack. While a lengthy RPG like this one could have used some more variety, background and Idol tunes are of a very good quality. Anyone liking girl-centered anime and J-pop songs will surely like what they hear in Omega Quintet.
With the exception of certain parts, the game is fully voiced in English and Japanese. Switching between languages can easily be done, making sure any fan can pick the language they prefer. The voice-acting in both languages is also really good, which might make picking a preferred language harder than one might think.
Gameplay
This JRPG/Idol Simulator might push around a lacking story, but the battle system and video creation are what make this game. General environment-exploration outside of the HQ’s office is done by manoeuvring a Verse Maiden through mazes full of Blare monsters, called M.A.D.s. These labyrinths hold a various amount of items. These elements are either useful or linked to a mission or side-mission, making it always worthwhile to go and look for them. Maps hold many more interactable objects which either can be accessed by anyone on the team, like save points, or demand the special power of one of the Verse Maidens to be activated.
The Blare itself, which is visible as a colourful haze or mist scattered throughout the maps, is one of these objects. The phenomenon makes it so that killed M.A.D.s will always return to the map after some time as long as at least one Blare is active. Because of this, it is of course of utmost importance to use Otoha’s special skill and remove them whenever possible. The Blare however come in different degrees of power, which means you need to return to previously visited locations during various times throughout the game in order to dispose of all of them. While keeping maps full of monsters is one role of these Blare, the other is to restrict access to certain labyrinth pathways. This way maps are reused often throughout the story while still making the experience different enough by widening the explorable areas with every new episode.
M.A.D. occupy set areas in every map and will dash towards you when you are noticed. Should they catch you off guard, the battle will start with the advantage for the enemy. Attacking creatures before they are able to reach you, logically results in an advantage for your Verse Maiden team. Of course, not all battles start with one team in a favoured position. Simply bumping into monsters will start a battle in which both teams start without a set of bonuses.
Omega Quintet has some of the most elaborate fight-mechanics in the genre. While it holds on to the traditional turn-based system, the game offers interesting variations. The more classical points concern the basic attacks of our five Verse Maidens. The weapons held by these supernatural girls, either hammers, rifles, spears, drill gauntlets or fans, each have their own specific ranges on which they work best. As the Maidens can be positioned in a front and back row, positioning them according to their weapon ranges can obviously prove most useful.
Next to weapon-based attacks, every Idol has access to a handful of skills that can be unlocked and altered by the player in-between battles. Skills are divided into elemental magic and special abilities that are weapon-type (or ‘Mic’) dependant. These abilities can be unlocked by spending points on the Disk grid, which can easily be done in-between battles.
No matter how you attack, you’ll always have to keep your range, affiliation with certain moves and the weaknesses and strengths of your enemies in mind. While it is very tempting to spam special abilities in order to counter range-disadvantages, keeping them ready for stronger enemies is always the better option. As it happens, all special skills require a certain amount of SP points that can only be replenished through the use of an item or by going back to the offices. Because of this, early skill-use might actually leave you without them when you need them most.
While Takt isn’t a standard part of the team, mister manager/bodyguard does have a very important role. Players can link the young man to one Maiden at a time to have him follow up on her attacks with his own sword and even help block attacks for her. Successful uses of Takt can result in a raise in the level of ‘Voltage’. This gauge can be used for various things like powerful special abilities and the activation of a Live Concert, which nets higher stat boosts and even better rewards and experience points when certain tasks are met. Takt can switch girls to make better use of him, though boosts vary according to the affection level between him and the Maiden of choice.
With just these aspects, Omega Quintet would already have a great battle system. However, it brilliantly manages to add even more. While turn order is always important, three more aspects are added to make combat even more engaging. One of these are turn boosts. These appear on the Action Turn Bar and can be awarded to your Verse Maidens or the enemy team, depending on the round they are attached to. More importantly, depending on their proficiency with the weapon they are carrying and their results on the field, Verse Maidens gain extra action possibilities within the turn they are in, making it possible to chain various attacks together and increase total damage. The greatest way to pounce down is by using Harmonics, though. This special options makes it possible to have more than one girl attack during the same turn through skill links, blasting combo-damage through the roof. This however can only be done according to certain conditions, for example when the characters knowing the skills used to activate a combo all have turns one after another in the right order. A little trial and error while setting up your team and Maiden abilities with this in mind can thus really turn your Idols into ultra-stylish Blare-killing death-traps.
Outside of battle and exploration, the player takes control of Takt to manage the girls’ past-times. In the town there are plenty of opportunities to get to know the girls better, but you can also take on side-quests from citizens in need. While these usually consist of fetch-quests or the killing of certain monsters, some of them are actually important to the story. As side-quests are episode specific, forgetting to do one can cripple your chances of getting a good ending.
In the office there are plenty of things to do too, like accepting main missions and triggering story sequences. Yet there is a lot more. Should you find your team in need for a good grind, the group can hone their abilities in the Blare-ridden training facility! Or maybe you feel more in tune with your Idol-manager side and prefer to create upgrades and clothes for the girls through the game’s crafting-corner or to maybe create your own Promotional Video System -or PVS- music videos. Though crafting in this game is rather limited, it still has the important feature of adding boosts or ‘Amps’ to the girls dresses. Furthermore, as taking too much damage can tear up your Maidens’ outfits, the station becomes an important place to stitch them back together. Of course more outfits and accessories can be ordered or created by using remains of destructed items in order to dress up your dolls just the way you like it. And yes, should you wonder, you can change their underwear too…
The PVS mode is, next to the training facility, the most elaborate one that can be found within the office. As you are managing superhuman Idols that clearly dote on the affection they get from their fans, creating a promotional music video is just part of the job. The moment you open PVS, you just know you’ll be stuck in there forever. There is an enormous choice in camera-angles, dance moves and even singing-turns for players to toy with. At first only one song will be available, but the further you get in the story, the more will be unlocked. PVS can look very complicated at first though and only features songs in Japanese. While the mode is fun, it unfortunately doesn’t seem to have any impact on gameplay and can thus easily be forgotten.
The unfortunate parts of Omega Quintet, next to the story of course, are the slow paced and dragged out first few episodes. While one can still sigh and sit through the sometimes impossible dialogue, the real pain starts when the many, many, many, many tutorials appear. These ‘Verse Maiden Rules’ appear to be plentiful at the start of the game and try to explain aspects of the gameplay in far too much detail by means of far too crowded stills with far too much text. If that wasn’t enough, a lot of them also appear on screen to explain things you will only unlock levels later. While this can confuse the player greatly at first (it sure confused us), they later come back at a more appropriate time just to pester you even more. The tutorials are clearly overdone and the moment they disappear, it feels like you finally are allowed to actually enjoy the game. So don’t worry if you are unable to get into it right away, the feeling is -luckily- only temporary.
Conclusion
While Omega Quintet does not shine in the story department or in its environmental design, the great combat system makes up for most of it. The many possible strategies, beautiful attack animations and over the top combo or boost mechanics make you wish every battle would last longer than they usually do. While the idea of superhuman Idols saving the world through song, dance and a lot of heavy damage attacks is very appealing, the game fails in completely meshing the Idol-management and general JRPG aspects to make it work perfectly. Songs are really catchy and the creation of your own music videos does make you feel like you are in control of a group of singers, but as the PVS mode does not translate into anything usable in battle, it feels like mini-game dressed up as a missed opportunity. Fans of cheesy dialogue, a good portion of fan service and of course great fights should definitely check out this title. However, those that prefer story over combat or generally dislike J-pop better leave this one be.
Omega Quintet – Review,
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