Omega Bot (Switch)

Omega Bot is developed by Simon Carny and is being published on consoles by Red Art Games who have the habit of bringing fantastic Steam titles over to the consoles. Has their keen eye picked up another Alpha title or are you Beta off spending your money elsewhere? Read on to find out!

Omega Bot is a 2D platformer described as being “Mega Man Inspired”, you control a robot and are tasked with cleansing the land of corruption which has taken its toll on man, machine, and beast. The narrative starts a little empty and it isn’t until you reach the end of the first stage that you have a little light shined on what’s going on when you start meeting a few members of the game’s cast.

The narrative isn’t something that is going to blow you away by any standards but it does help paint an interesting mystery in a title that didn’t need one, the old-school roots were enough to just paint an adventure but the developer has gone one step beyond in providing an Etzel for his world and characters.

Omega Bot features a charming and chunky pixel look with plenty of bloom and more modern effects to create that effect where it looks like how you remember 16-bit games.

The animations for the main character are all smooth as butter and the bosses are especially well designed, some of the enemies felt a little stock in the first world but it soon picked up as the game went on. The game employs a cute meets apocalyptic almost cyberpunk world art style and while it is quite an overused style at the moment, Omega Bot still manages to look and sound unique.

So Omega Bot is a traditional 2D platformer set across a handful of stages, you do the usual in walking from left to right, taking down enemies, and making precarious jumps until you reach the end of the stage which results in a boss fight.

The main gimmicks here are your energy meter which depletes with every shot fired and when it has run dry will render you defenseless and makes you slower than the snails you take on in the first stage. To make many of the jumps you have to tackle you’ll be using your gun as somewhat of a booster to give you a little more upward momentum or slow down your descent, it isn’t something that’ll send you to the moon but that little extra movement is essential when it comes to seeing the credits in Omega Bot.

The stages are brilliantly designed and have plenty of secret areas for you to discover, these usually reward you in “Cogs” which can be used to purchase upgrades for your little Bot when you go back to the HUB world which is accessible once you’ve defeated the first stage boss.

The boss fights as with any game touted as “Mega Man Inspired” should be great and thankfully here they are, they do feel a little on the spongy side but the attack patterns are quite recognizable and shouldn’t pose that much of an issue for any retro enthusiast or someone willing to pay attention to tells that the bosses put out before trying to take you down.

Omega Bot isn’t the longest game out there and can be completed around the two to three-hour mark depending on skill level, it has its tough moments but it isn’t certainly something I would decree as “if Dark Souls did platforming”. Fortunately, the world is coming around to more games being shorter and containing more killer and filler and that is certainly the case here.

While I flew through the story mode I felt there wasn’t a single bit that felt like it was just there to pad the experience and it kept me engaged to the point I’d pretty much completed the game in just one sitting because I was that hooked. Omega Bot does nail that 16-Bit platformer itch and manages to keep the inspiration of Mega Man while crafting its own identity, albeit a little darker in the bits of narrative it has on offer and having much longer stages than the Blue Bomber.

4

Summary

A fun and short experience, won’t set the world on fire but a damn fine time.

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Straight from the streets of SouthTown, all Dunks Powah'd and ready to Bust A Wolf. Catch me on Twitch/YouTube.

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