Platform: Exclusive to Playstation 4
Omega Quintet breaks away from the PSVITA waifu box and brings the first ever exclusive JRPG to Playstation 4. While this is Compile Heart’s first next-gen game, it doesn’t go overly bold and sticks to the formula the company is well-known for: bright and colorful, anime-style visuals, laiden with Jpop music set in an anti-mainstream world where your heroes are fueled by Japanese culture staples instead of shoujo-esque male leads and a heavily varied roster.
Omega Quintet is set in a world plagued by The Blare and humanity’s last hope is an singing idol group known as the Verse Maidens. These idols are the only ones with the power to fight off The Blare and save the rest of mankind.
There’s no going around the fact that it is one setup that is hard to imagine for many gamers out there especially those not familiar with Japanese and the idol subculture. Even a budding anime fan will have a hard time grasping some of the concepts of this game. And that’s exactly how Compile Heart presents their games like Hyperdimension Neptunia, pulling mostly from modern Japan themes and throwing away everything you know about JRPGs. Omega Quintet’s band of heroes resembles a band of Puella Magi Madoka Magica characters boasting a full array of anime character tropes from the shy and timid to the insanely bubbly. All of them clad in dresses Kotori from Love Live! would probably love to get her hands on.
Much of the narrative of the story focuses on the rookie member of the Verse Maidens, Otoha and along with her is bodyguard/manager/friend Takt. Sadly, Takt isn’t the coolest person in the world and his mouth just spews out so much nonsense, you’d wish there’s a Skip Takt option to just enjoy the girls’ lines. He is forgettable at best.
Gameplay for Omega Quintet revolves mostly around exploring the world, completing missions and combat. Other things to keep you busy in-game is customizing your idols, leveling up character relationship and a really decked-out PVS system where you can create performance routines for your idol group, albeit to a small number of music most of which aren’t really that good.
Combat is really where its at in Omega Quintet with a really, fast-paced system which should be very familiar with JRPG fans yet still easy enough to grasp, my 12-year-old brother actually has a more advanced save than I have. To make grinding easier, Omega Quintet can skip battle animations altogether which removes the need to watch fights needlessly. Delving deeper into the game are richer mechanics like the PVS and skill customizations.
Compile Heart has made efforts to make the framerates butter smooth and animations fluid but aside from the characters, the environment and enemy grunts lack visual details. Audio presentation is alright and for the OST, its quite subjective and for my tastes I find it so-so. The English VA is a good touch but could still use some improvements.
Exclusive to the Playstation 4, Omega Quintet is Compile Heart’s first game for next-gen but it isn’t a revolution in terms of anything. Omega Quintet tries hard to be a solid game and to some extent it holds up pretty well if you’re willing to explore. Otherwise, its good combat system and smooth presentation is buried under idol and Japanese culture references that will have a hard time appealing to those outside of Japan.