Omega Quintet Review (PS4)

If there’s one thing that current gen consoles lack in terms of games, is an exclusive current gen only JRPG and Compile Heart steps in to deliver just that. The developer best known for their rather successfull series, in the niche public of gamers, Hyperdimension Neptunia thought to develop a brand new IP to bring to the West, while still having the same feel as their main series.

The main goal of Omega Quintet, the PS4 exclusive JRPG, and the central focus of the story is to defeat and clear the world of this terrible phenomenon, the Blare which spawns an enormous amount of enemies, called MAD. The only way to battle these foes and eliminate the Blare is to use the power of song, which nly the Verse Maidens can do. The Verse Maidens are a chosen group of girls that represent the game’s take of Idols in the real world in Japan. These girls have the unique power to eliminate the Blare and restore peace in Omega Quintet world.

The game begins with the MAD attacking the main town of the game and the last Verse Maiden, Momoka is charged with the duty to defeat them. She succeeds but with struggle and she doesn’t have the remaining forces to eliminate the Blare once and for all. That’s when Otoha, a girl which is a big fan of the Vers Maidens, and her childhood friend Takt step in to rescue her. Otoha discovers her new powers and here is when the story unfolds and officially starts. Otoha will be the first member of the new generation of Verse Maidens, because Momoka is too old and weak to continue her job. Takt can be considered the co-protagonist of the game, since we see the events of the game happening from his prospective(for the most part) and he has the role of the manager of the Verse Maidens, mainly because serves as a decoy to justificate a male guy being so close with the Verse Maidens and becasue Otoha needs his friend to use her powers to the fullest.

The most of the time you’ll spend in Omega Quintet will be in the Office, where you can have access to special events involving each one of the Verse Maidens. These events consist for the most part of special dialogues, which feature funny moments between characters and the typical fanservice. In the office you are presented with lots of things to do: for starters, you can accept missions from the main manager Ayumi, that will serve to move forward the story from episode to episode. The main missions feature the goal of hunting MAD in the different areas of the game. You can also receive requests from the civilians in the town, which vary from hunting MAD, to show a particular skill, to perform a live PVS or just collect objects and raw materials.

The other activities consist in collecting coins around the word to exchange them for different objects or to unlock new outfits for the Verse Maidens or unlock CGs to watch or a set of art for each character; we have the make up activity which allows you to customize each Verse Maiden changing her hair, eyes and so on; the PVS activity which allows you to watch and edit a live show, with customizable songs and tunes; and the most important one right behind the mission, is the workshop which grants you the ability to create new equipment for the Maidens, to craft new objects to use in battle or to fullfill certain requests. You can do all of this by disassembling raw materials and special objects to gain EP and Arcanium which are required to craft items to use in battle.

Where Omega Quintet really shines though is in its battle system.The combat system is a typical turn based JRPG with its own little twist.  The combat is very, very profound and deep with lots of options and stats all over the screen. In fact, I got the full understandment of the combat system after a good chunk of hours because it is indeed really complicated. For starters, there’s the Attack command which consist in an average hit move by the player; but the skills are the fulcrum of the battle system: you have normal skill that are the magical atatcks(fire, water, wind, earth and null) and the mic skills which differ based on the weapon the Verse Maiden is equipped with(there are 5 different types of weapons). These skills require SP(Skill Points) to be used and some special skills require the Voltage Gauge to be filled at a certain parameter(which goes from 0 to 5). You can also active the Harmonics option to unlock the Chain Skills and to atatck the enemies with all of the Maidens consecutively. Or you can active the Live Concert Mode that uses the Voltage Gauge to unlock different perks for your characters. You can also summon Takt to help, the character you’ve paired Takt with, in combos or defense or to even use special moves. If you don’t pay attention, Verse Maidens’ outfits will lose durability during the fights and even go to pieces if you don’t repair them at the workshop so be careful.

The areas you battle in are average looking and varied enough. They are and feel “empty”, the enemies are visible on the field so don’t worry about random encounters, and they respawn after a few seconds in the same spot in case you need to grind for EXP or materials. As you go on with the story, new areas will be unlocked and you can obtain items all around the maps using the Verse Maidens own peculiar abilities like Elimination for example. There’s a lot more to do in the game and it’s best if you’ll find out for yourselves.

Overall Omega Quintet is a solid game, as you can tell I enjoyed the battle system the most even though it took a while to get used to and to learn all the stats. It has a very slow start and somewhat boring so don’t expect to have the game to click with you instantly. Even though it’s a PS4 exclusive, Omega Quintet doesn’t really push the game graphically, in fact, it looks more last gen than current gen honestly. But the game runs at a perfect framerate without any noticeable dips and without any glitches or bugs. The story and characters are pretty cliché so it’s not one of Omega Quintet’s strong points.