Game Review: OMNIMUS

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

OMNIMUS is a visual novel with a sci-fi setting that recently released for the Nintendo Switch. It was previously released on Steam in Russian, and seems to have had a localization effort that's lead to its current form. Visual novels on the Switch are nothing new, but OMNIMUS changes things up with a story and setting that usually don't see in the genre, while still maintaining the romance elements and anime art style one expects. Since the game is rather short this review probably won't go into full depth into just how crazy unique that story is, but let's examine OMNIMUS fully and see if this is a world you're going to want to jump into!

Now before I talk about the story I must mention that this game has a lot of issues regarding its English text. There are countless typos, odd word choices, and other things that make it clear that localization isn't the developer's strong point. So keep that in mind as I try to explain I go into the story in general as there are a few odd points I never quite figured out myself. OMNIMUS opens sometime in the future, following a catastrophic World War III. Nations are all but wiped out and corporations now rule supreme; one of these corporations is the titular OMNIMUS. OMNIMUS is currently working on a new form of technology that allows one's consciousness to live on in the form of data uploaded to its servers. In order to perfect this technology, and to use it on himself eventually as he is suffering from late-stage cancer, OMNIMUS' top doctor has gathered together many terminally ill patients who are sent into the established virtual world and are tested to see if they'll be the ones to achieve a perfect, full upload. You take on the role of "Thirteen" and are allowed to pick an avatar and nickname to join these tests. The world within OMNIMUS' servers is somewhat "gamified" for ease of acceptance, and you're joined by some of the few remaining living test subjects. You fellow test subjects are Becky, a quiet mild-mannered girl, Kira, a hot-headed female elf, and Tesla, a half-elf who is Kira's friend. The latter two fantasy-esque avatars are a result of the aforementioned gamification of the world. Your tests are overseen by the enigmatic Curator, and you quickly run into a mysterious figure named Adam who I won't go into further so as not to spoil the story. Your goal is to pass all the tests, keep all your friends alive, and maybe romance either Kira or Becky along the way. OMNIMUS is a rather short game so going into more detail would probably strip much of the point of playing it in the first place, so let's leave the story explanation there for now.

WTF is this opening though?

A very anime-esque scene involving Becky.

Once you're dropped into the testing area you complete a series of minigames and quizzes that are largely unimportant to the story. This is a visual novel though, so what is important to the story are the dialogue and action choices you make throughout. These mainly affect your relationship with either Becky or Kira and also move you along certain endings' paths. These paths aren't exactly completely unique, with most of them hitting the same story beats with a few changes here and there depending on how many relationship points you scored with whichever girl. It feels more like the complaint people had with Telltale adventure games wherein you're pretty much only given an illusion that your choices are really affecting the game's story. Dialogue and action choices are pretty much all OMNIMUS offers in the way of gameplay, but there the tests do offer some variety even if it's minimal. You'll probably be more focused on trying to romance one of the girls though, and that's fine because the game's tests are never-changing, no matter how many times you replay the game. The romance scenes you get for successfully completing each girl's routes are probably the best part of the game, even though they feel like they came from something totally different. These scenes might not be everyone's cup of tea, but they're non-graphic and at least add a goal to the gameplay that pays off in ways that the actual game's endings don't. That said, I have to say that I personally pick Becky as best girl, even though Kira's design is probably my favorite in-game, but you can debate me on that in the comments if you so wish.

It's Gabdalf!

Ah, a Death Note reference.

Graphics and art are well-done, even if they won't stand out among other visual novels. We're never given much reason beyond "gamification" as to why there are elves in the game, but the variety between the characters, especially the two romanceable ones, is nice to see. There's also some cool backgrounds, large detailed CGs, and more in the game, even if they're few in number. Things don't always mesh together well as the Rorschach test (the first test you take in the game), and just about everything referencing the "real world", look completely different stylistically to the game's main virtual setting. Also, it's probably a bit of a nitpick, but I couldn't help but feel that character portraits in the dialogue boxes would've been a nice touch. There's clearly a spot for said portraits in every single dialogue box in the game, and featuring your avatar will feature a portrait in the otherwise empty circle. For some reason this doesn't extend to the other characters even though and it seems like such a simple thing that would've added to the overall production value. Speaking of avatars, the game starts with you selecting yours and you're shown some ones featuring elves, demon-looking creatures, and more. These are not selectable though and it made me wonder why they even showed them if character customization was just going to be a tease.

What does this prove?

A standard in-game choice.

Controls in OMNIMUS are somehow weird, even though they're pretty simple generally speaking. PC ports often have the problem of choosing non-standard buttons for what you think would be obvious choices and OMNIMUS commits this sin in a few places, mainly in regards to the menus. I beat the game 100% and still can't accurately tell you how to select options in the menu, and more than once I accidentally deleted a save file since that's done by selecting one with the B Button instead of the A Button. There's also no way to exit any menu except for selecting the "Back" option and this can be annoying as you'd think that game-deleting B Button would be the way to go to exit said menus. Also, I never quite figured out how to work the Fast Forward feature with a button press, but thankfully touching the button on-screen worked just fine. So while the game does have a wonky control scheme, I found it interesting that the game features full touchscreen controls. I didn't realize this until I was nearly done with the game though, but their addition mitigates many of the issues I had regarding controls. Since it's a visual novel there isn't much else to say on this topic, but I'll lastly mention that game allows you to move backwards in all conversations with a button press, a feature that you don't always see in visual novels even though it's something I'd like to see replace standard text logs.

This castle plays into most of the endings.

"Gamification" is the word of the day.

Music is probably OMNIMUS' weakest element. Since the game is pretty short there aren't many tracks in the game, and what's here isn't too bad. I wish that was all I have to say on the topic, and that I could leave with saying that the music is just generally mediocre, but there is also the subject of sound effects. There are several moments in-game where alarms or sensors go off and the sounds they make should somehow be filed under the very definition of shrill and annoying. It honestly felt like whoever created this parts put some key inputs and noises into a sequencer and hit the randomize button. There wasn't any rhyme or reason to the aural vomit you're subjected to and it always goes on for about ten times longer than you feel they need to. It got to the point that it started to affect my view on the music itself as I came to associate some tracks with the bombardment of the horrible sound effects. There isn't even much you can do to fix this in the sound settings as some of the sounds seem attached to the soundtrack and others aren't. You just have to keep a steady finger on the volume control to keep your sanity in check. I could go on a bit more about this, but I think you get the point. Lastly regarding sound, there isn't really any spoken dialogue to speak of except for the opening scene and that's in what think is Russian, so I can't really comment on it. Just don't expect any voice acting here.

It's the law of the sea.

I bet Adam would LOVE Twitter.

Now OMNIMUS is a really short game. If you somehow manage to not hit a bad end your first time through, you'll still hit one of the endings in maybe two hours at most. There are a handful of endings to see, but beyond some the ones that cut your game short, they're all sort of variants of each other. What you're really after is the romance scenes touched upon earlier. These are a little hard to get if you don't know what you're doing as you only see your score with each girl upon the game's completion. I ultimately had to look up a guide for the Steam version to figure them out, but this small bit of "cheating" was only because I didn't want to spend an hour or so of trial and error in each dialogue choice. You'll probably want to look up that guide too as you have to get a perfect score for each girl to get their respective scene and there's no way you'll get that on your first playthrough. Getting these scenes might be a big goal for many, myself included, but they're probably the most random parts of the game. They don't fit in thematically at all with the story and seem to only be in the game due to genre expectations. Beyond getting these scenes there are also some achievements to get that mainly involve getting specific endings, or completing in-game events a certain way. I managed to 100% the game in less than five hours so it's a bit hard to say that the game offers a lot of replay value.

Don't look at Kira's ass.

Out of place romance scene is out of place.

I have big mixed feelings when it comes to whether I should give OMNIMUS a recommendation. It's not the best looking game, definitely not the best sounding, and it's not even very well-written, but it does have a certain charm to it. Its price point of $9.99 on the Switch seems a bit much for the amount of content that's here though. This is a bit insulting too as you can get the game for $1.99 on Steam. Personally I feel that the game shouldn't cross the five dollar mark, even when released on consoles. It's not that I don't recommend the game, I think if you're looking for a unique visual novel that provides the level of entertainment of a good movie then this might be the game for you. I just feel that you should probably grab it only if and when it goes on sale. I doubt I'll ever see another game from this developer, but I'm curious what other interesting game ideas they might have up their sleeve. Anyway, that's OMNIMUS in a nutshell, and I guess you can excuse me while I go commission some fan art of Becky.

For More Information on OMNIMUS:
https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/omnimus-switch/

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Story: B
Gameplay: B
Graphics: B
Music/Sound: C-
Value: D

Overall: C

Pros:
+ A unique setting for a visual novel with romance elements.
+ The graphics and art style are mostly well-done, if not rather limited.
+ The story does have some well-written sections and delivers some twists and surprised along the way.
+ Multiple endings, two romanceable characters, and achievements add a bit to the game's replayability.
+ OMNIMUS' cast is pretty small, but the characters and their motivations seem better written than the scenario itself at times.

+/- The title "OMNIMUS" is all but impossible to Google due to its resemblance to other actual words in English. Namely "omnibus"

Cons:
- The tonal shifts in the game can be very jarring at times.
- OMNIMUS' unique world is barely even explored or mentioned in-game.
- Translation errors, clunky dialogue, and typos ruin the game's immersion.
- Sound effects are either below average or downright annoying most of the time.
- A very short experience that can be fully completed in an afternoon.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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Who the hell is Thomas Aquinas?