Omensight is a game developed by Spearhead Games released on May 15, 2018, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam. It is a Spiritual Successor to Stories: Path of Destinies and the two games take place in the same setting.
War is brewing between the Pygarian Empire and Rodentia who wish to be free from their rule. During this bloody war, the one person who could have mediated a truce, the Godless Priestess Vera, is murdered in cold blood.
On the day of the battle between Pygaria and Rodentia, the Harbinger, champion of the gods and sign that the end is upon the world, appears to investigate what went wrong before the great beast Voden destroys the world.
This game consists examples of:
- Action Girl: Ratika, Draga and, of course, the Harbinger herself.
- Anti-Frustration Features: On completing the game once, not only will you be able to return and show the characters any previous omensight, but the game will show you the paths in which you still have to find information in order to reach the Golden Ending.
- The Bard: Ratika, it's even stated in her lore she uses "bardic magic".
- Black Speech: If it wasn’t for subtitles, you’d never know what Voden was saying.
- Broken Bird: Pretty much every major character but especially Indrik: he was pretty much kidnapped from his family at a young age without the hope to see them again, mentally abused by a strict man that punished any kind of sentimental demonstration and was taught to be merciless in his formation to be the next emperor. Showing him the third omensight gives him an extreme My God, What Have I Done? moment in realizing that all he was actually doing was making everybody else as broken as he is.
- Cardboard Prison: Once you show Ratika your first Omensight, she simply teleports her way out of the prison cage she's being held in. Presumably, she could have done that at any point should the guards be distracted.
- Cartoon Creature: It's not clear to anyone, including the mooks, what species the Harbinger is supposed to be.
- Combination Attack: Grabbing and tossing an enemy towards an ally character will have them perform a finisher on them, with the exception of Indrik.
- Creator Thumbprint: Just like in Stories, we have a noble feline Dark Action Girl. Also like Zenobia, Draga fervently serves The Empire but will pull a Heel–Face Turn once she realizes the terrible things The Emperor is up to.
- Deathbed Confession: Ratika, at the end of Draga's second omensight route. Dying of her wounds, she'll tearfully confess to killing Vera, then asks Draga for two favors. The first is to tell Ludomir that his sister's been avenged. The second goes unheard forever because Voden picks that moment to show up.
- Despair Event Horizon: Showing Draga the third omensight, but then killing Indrik, will push her over the edge, driving her to attack Harbinger in the belief that she's secretly an agent of Voden.
- Developer's Foresight: Indrik is the only companion who has no special move, nor will he finish off any enemies you throw at him like the other three do, and he has specific, voiced dialog telling you as much if you attempt to press the button, or throw enemies at him to no avail. He even has additional voice lines apologizing for his lack of support after his Heel Realization, since his motives have changed from him not bothering to help you to being too ashamed to hurt others.
- Die, Chair, Die!: Breaking objects like barrels, chairs and tables gives you crystals to buy skills and fruit to refill health. As in Stories, the characters you're with sometimes have things to say about that.
- Downer Ending: The original timeline at the beginning of the game drops the Harbinger into one of these, with both Ludomir and Draga dead, and Voden arriving shortly afterwards. Playing with the other characters reveals that in the same timeline Ratika summons the void and becomes Deathless, while Indrik goes in search of Kladen and gets killed by the hidden cult.
- Really, most timelines end like this. Even when you've got all of the other characters working together, you're still in the wrong timeline to defeat Voden.
- The normal end of the game isn't much better. Voden is defeated and sealed away again, but Indrik and Draga still die, Ratika still becomes Deathless (and goes on to become a worse tyrant than the emperor was), and Ludomir continues his spiral into alcoholism and is eventually murdered.
- Eldritch Abomination: Voden.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: The final level has you acquire Kladen, which basically one-shots all but the toughest of mooks.
- Establishing Character Moment: By and large, each of the main characters get introduced as their worst version of themselves and helps establish the flaws that need to be overcome for them to succeed.
- Ludomir first appears in a bar, drunk out of his mind and in a blind fury over Vera's death. It takes discovering that Vera summoned Voden for him to accept that his revenge was just a means for him to avoid thinking about his guilty conscience for not protecting his sister.
- Draga is introduced as a person of sound mind and conscience who deeply cares for her men: but still chooses to blindly follow orders rather than investigate unless pushed. Only by disobeying the status quo and uplifting other oppressed citizens of Pygaria in the Golden Ending does she find happiness.
- Indrik is introduced as a godly, arrogant figure with the power to back up his tyrannical attacks. The third Omensight forces him to realize how his drive to "push" his people to greatness isn't helping anyone, it just makes them as broken as him.
- Ratika is introduced first as the emotionless and brutal Deathless, then as a caged mouse singing a somber tune, then as a goofy, mischevious bard. The transition from her normal personality to the Deathless makes it clear that while Ratika is a friendly person, she carries a lot of weight as her people's leader and is willing to make difficult choices for the safety of her people. Such as kill Vera.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Vera learned this the hard way, thinking she could use Voden to end the Pygaria/Rodentia war, only to find herself unable to control it and murdered by Voden's followers.
- Evil Tainted the Place: As Harbinger goes through each loop, sickly black areas of void will begin appearing through the levels, progressivly getting worse the longer you take to complete the game. None of the characters ever react to this, aside from a late comment by Indrik, who suggests that he can only see it as a result of Harbinger's presence.
- Exploding Barrels: All over the place. They can be struck and they'll detonate after a short while, or they can be thrown at enemies.
- Expy: Draga is similar to Zenobia of Stories: The Path of Destinies. Both are noble feline generals of The Empire who serve out of a sense of duty.
- Fastball Special: When accompanying Ludomir or Draga, they will help you up high ledges by tossing you upwards. In contrast, Ratika and Indrik will just warp you upwards or make a magical block for you to jump on respectively.
- Friendly Fire: As an Ally, Indrik's fireballs can and will hit you in the thick of battle. The Harbinger cannot deal damage to any allied characters, but they will get rather miffed if you try to anyway.
- Heel Realization: Starting the day with Indrik and use 3rd Omensight on him will cause him to realize that he might have pushed Vera past breaking point to try to summon Voden. Right after he's desperately pleading everyone to stop fighting. Even his It's All About Me attitude are completely dropped. In the best ending, he relinquish the title.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: The Harbinger's superhuman fighting prowess is acknowledged by friend and foe alike, with enemies even surrendering if the player fights well enough.
- Golden Ending: In the Definitive Edition, returning to your save file after reaching the normal ending will allow you to return to any point in the story to collect undiscovered clues. Once all clues have been collected, you will be able to return to when Vera was alive, showing her and Indrik the consequences of her attempt to summon Voden. Vera and all of the major characters join the Harbinger in sealing Voden once and for all, which leads to a peace treaty between Rodentia and Pygaria. Indrik and Ratika both step down from leadership with Indrik rediscovering his love of entomology while Ratika vanishes to parts unknown. Draga leaves the military, but opens a fighting academy that welcomes members of all races. Ludomir stops drinking and eventually joins his adopted sister Vera in hunting down the remnants of Voden's cult. As for the Harbinger, she returns to the tree and protects it until she is needed again.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The Harbinger jumps into the same day over and over trying to stop the end of the world as well as find out who killed the Godless Priestess Vera.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Enemies killed by the Harbinger are sometimes cleaved in half either at the waist or vertically.
- Heroic Mime: The Harbinger never says a word or cries out in pain. Ratika's quite happy to hold both sides of the conversation for her.
- Instant Expert: Once the Harbinger sees someone unlock a seal, she's able to use them all over the game world not just for plot, but also exploration.
- Instrument of Murder: According to Ratika's memories, it's the enchanted balalaika that gives her teleportation and Bullet Hell abilities.
- Interface Spoiler: As well as unlocking the second Omensight when you see Ratika stabbing Vera, it also reveals a node in the Godless Priestess's death timeline. It's in the first half of the timeline, so it's fairly obvious that it's not going to be so simple.
- It's All About Me: Indrik refuses to help the Harbinger open doors, and instead just blasts them open without waiting for her to get out of the way first. He also doesn't have any tag-team ability, and if the player uses the bind for the tag-team ability anyway, he admonishes Harbinger for expecting him to act on her command. He also has a bad habit of shooting you along with everyone. However, if you start the day with him and show him the 3rd Omensight, he realizes his screwups and completely drops this attitude. You still can't tag-team him, but he'll sheepishly apologize to you instead of smugly saying that you can't command the emperor.
- Land Shark: The tougher mooks are muscular anthropomorphic violet sharks.
- Large and in Charge: Emperor Indrik towers over all other characters. Ignoring the fact that he's constantly floating, he's the tallest of the characters.
- Leitmotif: Each of the four characters the Harbinger can partner with has their own leitmotif, which plays when you select them and at key points in the story. Ratika even sings her own leitmotif, "A Cage is a Cage", which also plays over the end credits.
- Luck-Based Mission: Two of the achievements, Opportunist and Masterful Denial, require enemies to perform in very specific ways that you have no control over.
- Motor Mouth: Ratika has a habit of talking a lot, rambling quickly without giving others much chance to chime in.
- No-Gear Level: The first section of the final level has the Harbinger defenseless and only able to run and jump away from the Ciphers and Voden’s traps until she gets Kladen as a weapon to fight back.
- Non-Standard Game Over: In Act IV, you can choose to kill Ratika while allied with Indrik, despite there being no benefit for you to do so. Indrik, having just made a Heel Realization, is so incensed that he immediately kills the Harbinger. Unlike other choices, this game over quickly reboots you back to before your choice instead of returning you to the Witch.
- Oh, Crap!: When following Ludomir after showing him the second omensight, out of nowhere Voden suddenly addresses the Harbinger directly. It's subsequently the reaction of the Witch when Voden interrupts Harbinger returning to the tree.
- Older Than They Look: Ratika's short stature and childish mannerisms give the impression she's the youngest of the cast, but in fact she's the second oldest after Indrik, at 42. It becomes more obvious given her presence in a memory of the last time the sealing ritual was performed, which was before Vera took up the mantle as the Godless Priestess.
- The Paladin: Draga, who is a mostly-heroic knight who fights with a sword and shield as well as magical blasts of light.
- Playing Both Sides: The Children of the Void manipulated both sides in order to unleash Voden into the world, including helping Vera summon Voden before killing her and sealed her soul into Kladen.
- Purple Is the New Black: Ciphers, amber, the Deathless and especially Voden are purple which is this game’s evil color. It's also the color most strongly associated with Vera.
- Recursive Reality: One is created as the means of defeating Voden for good. In the default ending, Voden is simply re-sealed inside the sword Kladen... but in the Golden Ending, Voden is sealed inside the sword Kladen, while already still sealed inside the sword Kladen, creating a prison within a prison that is borderline inescapable.
- Reward from Nowhere: You get amber (money) for pulling off combat moves, which the Harbinger then sacrifices to upgrade her gear. Where's the cash coming from? Who knows?
- Shared Universe: One of the loading screen tips states that this game takes place in the same setting as Stories: Path of Destinies. A portrait of Reynardo can be found in a locked house in Ekka and in Stories a statue of the Harbinger can be found in the Iblis Stone desert temple, at the end of the side path that takes the player back outside. Draga's soldiers also mention that they should send them to get something called "the core", which might be the core for the Sky Ripper. However there's no direct mention towards the events of Stories or how the backstory in this game fits in the timeline of the first game, though it's possible that Omensight takes place several decades after Stories which would explain how different everything is.
- Signature Move: Draga, Ludomir and Ratika each have special abilities which the Harbinger can call on. Draga has an AoE, Ludomir does a Ground Punch that stuns enemies and knocks over scenery, and Ratika plays a Super-Empowering melody which ups Harbinger's attack damage and speed.
- Spanner in the Works: Vera's body was stashed in the sewers by the cult, but they didn't count on Ludomir not only finding her but moving Kladen as well.
- Sword of Plot Advancement: Kladen, the blade used to seal away Voden.
- Teleportation Spam: If you play with Ratika, she will just teleport you instead of helping you jump to the ledge.
- Throw the Mook at Them: Enemies can be picked up and thrown at other enemies to stun them, or they can be thrown at your teammate for them to deal with.
- Top-Heavy Guy: Ludomir.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: No one seems phased by the fact the city of Ekka is on fire, the bodies of its citizens littering the street.
- Updated Re-release: The Definitive Edition fixes several glitches found in the original release as well as restoring the alternate ending that was
accidentally left in. - Video Game Cruelty Potential:
- Some enemies will drop their weapon and surrender when they feel they are going to lose the battle, invoking reasons such as "I have a wife and children" or "I just don't wanna die". You can absolutely still kill them on the spot and there's even an achievement for it. Worse, they can surrender while you're in mid-swing and there's nothing you can do about it.
- Certain paths lead to the Harbinger and her current Ally character facing off against another Ally character for a boss battle. Most times, the option is given to show the other character the current Omensight, and avert the battle entirely. This trope applies to those paths where killing them would in no way advance the plot and would be detrimental to what you're attempting to accomplish. One is necessary for getting the best ending, no less: attacking Indrik while on Draga's day instead of showing him 3rd Omensight will have him send you and Draga to the sword vault. After finding that the sword isn't there, Draga reveals the information that Voden can assume a form of anyone it consumed, and assumed that the Harbinger is one such agent and attacks. This information is later used by Vera in the best end to bring Harbinger's predecessor out from Voden to help the Harbinger trap Voden in a recursive prison.
- That said, do the same with Ratika when Indrik is trying for a ceasefire and he'll kill you on the spot.
- Also, the way the Harbinger kills Ratika after the fight when you confront her with Ludomir about the second Omensight is just downright brutal.
- Wham Episode: Each of the Omensights you get are these involving Vera.
- Vera is confronted by Emperor Indrik.
- Vera is impaled with Kladen by Ratika.
- Vera was the one summoning Voden.
- This last one is an even bigger Wham for Ratika, who was convinced that she was the one who murdered Vera, and is elated to discover that she didn't - before quickly realizing the implications.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Draga's memories imply she was trained by someone from Rodentia, but it's never made clear who. It's also later revealed she freed a prisoner she was in love with, though who that was, and whether or not it was the same person as the trainer, is left up in the air.
- In the Golden Ending, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it piece of dialogue between her and Ludomir implies that the two of them had fought side-by-side in the past. Whether this is related to either/both of the aforementioned pieces of information, or a Noodle Incident of its own, is similarly unaddressed. In what may be a Stealth Pun relating to the trope itself in the same ending, after helping clean up the mess of the war Ratika disappears and is never heard from again.
- What happened to Fyobor is also not mentioned given his role in the Children of the Void.
- World of Funny Animals: Everybody’s an animal in some form or another. The Harbinger stands out as looking mostly humanoid and enemies will lampshade this. That said, her helmet and tail do seem to evoke jackal imagery, and she meditates to improve herself at a jackal statue.
