Omensight

this game's had my attention since before it came out, given that Stories: The Path of Destinies had seemed interesting and both are utterly gorgeous. it's taken me a while to actually give it its day in the Sun, even after playing through and loving Stories. (y'know, today. the other 2.5 hours on my record are from idling.)
Omensight is kinda like Stories 2.0, but with a different story. it hits so much harder in its mix of time loop sleuthing, unraveling the threads of doom that the characters all find themselves bound up in, and combat which melds action-RPG grinding (though not something you need to fret over too much on normal difficulty) and the Arkham style fights. you start feeling very powerful very fast, at least when it comes to the fighting. there's a palpable dread as you untangle the webs of lies and secrets, and get the sense that they're all fucked no matter what you do--even if that is obviously not logically the case. it's an absurdly riveting mystery that has been really cathartic piecing together.
though obvious, it bears mention that the game looks incredible (in terms of the aesthetic in itself, cinematography, the character design--everything visually), the music's great, and the voice acting is generally excellent. furthermore, the exploration is very satisfying, as secret areas and chests out of view are hidden well enough to be satisfying to catch.
occasionally there are some little bits where the camera perspective--which is gorgeous, mind you, fucked with my depth perception and I ended up falling to my death while platforming or using my down-thrust attack on a flying enemy. I also encountered the endless loading bug once so far (which largely seems to have been resolved though I've seen at least one other person in the forums who'd seen it after the fix in question), though I didn't lose any progress or anything.
all told, this is great, and another win for actually going through your backlog. totally recommended if you want a good, mysterious tale to unwind with. it has this sense of magic to it that is oh so enthralling.
for more thoughtful recommendations of the best games on Steam, check out my curator, The Absolute Finest.

It's a simple game, though I think a bit misleading. Just enjoy the story, music and gameplay for what it is and you'll find a ruby in the rough. It's not terribly polished, but it stands up on it's own and the soundtrack is worth it as well. I find myself coming back to it now and again for a fun slashing romp.

I picked this up after playing and really enjoying Stories: The Path of Destinies.
This did not disappoint. It builds upon the foundation and formula of repeating scenarios with different choices to get alternate outcomes and more.
The graphics are a bit more refined too and the colors really pop in certain areas.

The story and characters are all wonderful and charming, I found my self enjoying all the main cast, a hard thing to do.
My only complaint s the combat can feel a bit unwieldy and clunky at times, due to the finisher animations when killing an enemy, something Stories had as well.
That and for some reason the game is kinda demanding to run. It a nice looking game, don't get me wrong but it feels like it's pushing my PC harder than it should.

Overall it's a great little that you can play in short bursts since it's not super long. Would recommend.
RIP Spearhead Games, I loved your narrative, animal people games.

I played this game a while back and every now and then I just have an urge to come back and replay it. The game isn't anything special, it's a simple and nice hack and slash with some cool detective mechanics when it comes to the story. The difficulty is adjustable and the game can be either a nice relaxing experience or genuinely difficult. Very sweet and cool little title that I will always recommend.

Had a fun time playing the game, and beat it way back in 2018 for the first time, then recently came back in 2024 to play it again. I only found out this time around that once you beat the game and get a... not satisfying ending, you can load back in and play more to get a better one.
This was fun to find out, because it opened the option to pick which Omensight you showed the characters, in order to explore all available options. The game just doesn't tell you to open up your save again, and if you were like "Oh the game was ok but the ending was unsatisfying" and didn't go back in, then you just miss out.
If there's ONE THING that I really hated about this though, it's that you're required to be a complete asshole for no justifiable purpose in order to get the true ending;
When you show Draga the last Omensight and go with her to show Indrick, you have to fight him instead of showing him the Omensight you specifically went there to show him in order to get a piece of information needed to make progress towards getting the true ending, and the game makes you feel like a piece of shit doing it even though there's no other way to get that information that you need.

Received as gift
Note: For some reason, when entering the first level, the game would always crash... but this only happened on my older, less-advanced laptop, so keep that in mind. Worked perfectly once I upgraded.
It's a Spearhead game, which means it's got good characters (even if you might not see much of them) and story-- and a "back to the past" type gameplay loop. Spectacular voice acting and art. You pick a major character to accompany every day, and your knowledge and abilities affect where you go and what you learn. Then it resets at the end of the day. If it matters to you, the "detective" aspect is largely out of your hands- the game is good at building up the story and providing clues, but it doesn't rely on you to solve it. Still had a great time, but you might get a bit sick of the same three levels after awhile...

General Feelings
First playthrough was 5 hours and 47 minutes. Although I am a thorough player, I also am quite experienced. I'd say, go with around 6 hours of first-time play duration, give or take naturally.
Truly awesome game, kind of sad the OST doesn't really get that much relevance, but it did a great job at creating atmosphere. Immersive gameplay.. kinda? I mean, it definitely lures you into the story and the ending is certainly not what you would expect when you first start playing. Graphics are very interesting, it's a very nice mix of modelled 2D textures, not meant as a downgrade. Yes, it certainly is not a triple A title, but for around 20 bucks and for an indie game, definitely great game.
- Non-revealing story spoilers below -
The story is unfortunately linear, so there are no alternative endings, which kind of drops the replay value. It's definitely fun on the first playthrough, but aside from a 100% playthough? Not really much for replay. Though it is a good go-to if you want to just come back to it in the future and be like "oh what's this in my library?"
Performance and Feeling
It mostly ran perfectly smooth, usually when it loads between levels it experiences frame drops half of the time, but nothing that would impact gameplay. Had one or two frame drops during cutscenes as well. I'm playing on a 2018-era semi-high-end gaming desktop with full graphics settings and a 2560x1440 screen, nothing to complain really.
The camera perspective/movement can be something you'll need to get used to. It not only is during fights quite often placed in a manner that makes it quite hard to not get hit or even see the enemies, but it is quite unstable and loves to just yank around the character with no clear idea of where it actually wants to stay.
I played with Controller (and manual camera movement is basically useless, sadly), specifically a DUALSHOCK 4. The game does not have buttin icons for the DUALSHOCK series at all, only XboX controller buttons, which does lead to button confusion on occasion, especially in the head of battle. Character movement was pretty smooth but I dare say you didn't really have any ability to walk carefully. You don't need it most of the time, but there are certain level parts where your camera is placed inconventiently far away or in a bad spot and you have to step by step maneuver your character, which would be easier with more sensitive control. But it works fine regardless! You might just fall down or off the map here and there...
Story and Characters
Amazing and innovative story, the entire atmosphere and setting is also really nice. I am quite sad, however, that there are no character customization choices, at all. You play as a female supernatural being without a personal name, you just get called "Harbinger".
Characters, simply put, quite intriguing. Especially the voice acting did a really good job. Though, me personally, I did get a little annoyed by Ratika's voice every now and again (lucky there's forced subtitles).
Rating
I would give it a 9/10 villains brutally murdered in the end cutscene. Definitely has my recommendation, as long as you don't rely on having a lot of replay value.