A Bad Omen.
I remember during the ’90s when every publisher was racing to get a fighting game out. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken were kings of the genre, with some of the other big publishers of the time getting in their own hits with Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, and Capcom yet again with Marvel Vs. Capcom. However; smaller publishers also got in on this as well, crowding the market even more, releasing unknown titles like Bio Freaks, War Gods, or Mace: The Dark Age to name a few. These titles barely live on in memory as being largely forgotten, often fodder for “worst fighting games ever” videos on Youtube, and well, let’s add one more to that list with Omen of Sorrow, a game that does little to justify its existence and looks to offer even less than the bare minimum.
Despite releasing back in late 2018 on PS4, and eventually, on PC in 2019, Omen of Sorrow finally has arrived on Xbox One, but oddly, the game that players have had access to on Sony’s platform for the past three years isn’t entirely here in the same capacity. You see, the Xbox version of Omen of Sorrow lacks any sort of story mode, something that just isn’t the case on PS4. Here, on Xbox One, you have access to Arcade, Versus, Survival, and Practice, as well as Online battles. It’s a shame story mode is not here considering some of these characters are begging to be explained as personally, I dig some of the designs and the uniqueness that they bring as fighters themselves. Arcade modes have often shown to at least have some sort of ending cutscene for the fighter, even as little as some sort of artwork wrapped around a closing narrative. Here, when you beat it, you get a Game Over screen and you’re thanked for playing.
On paper, and through much of its marketing, Omen of Sorrow should be right up my alley, It’s monsters, beasts, and a lot of fan service in its designs, with a cast of characters that I should, by all accounts, be fascinated by. However; while I really like most of their designs, the game is just so barren and disappointing that it feels like a chore to put in any time to it, which is counter to how the achievements are positioned here, such as playing for 5 hours per character, or collectively for 100 hours. I’m not shocked that the percentage of players that have done this is at 0%, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. That said, while I aesthetically enjoy the game, visuals can only get you so far and for as much as they perform a lot of the heavy lifting here, there isn’t much they can do to save this game from fading into obscurity.
Fighting games are as popular as their community is vocal, so it’s always a bad sign when a game is not seeing an active community playing it online. I tried for days to find even a single match. Did I find even one? Anything to test its online lag, its real-player balancing? No. Not a single match. I had to read other reviews or watch gameplay videos to even get a glimpse of what online has been for those actually playing and it’s already looking like it’s been just as dead or sluggish even when a miracle occurred and they happened to match up with another player. You can create a profile card as is the standard for fighting games these days, but with no one to show it to, does it really make a sound in the forest. No, wait, wrong analogy…
Omen of Sorrow ships with 12 fighters that range from vampires, mummies, werewolves, monsters, and eternal goddesses, to the likes of Dr. Hyde and Quasimodo. You do get a good sense of variety here in what is offered and many of them feel incredibly unique from one another, often using fantastical powers instead of any physical contact, such as the blood obsessed Erzsebet, who can fight with a blood dragon, a move that you can spam till your heart’s content and no one will even get close to you. Then you have Zafkiel, a 265-year-old Guardian, who looks like if Cassie Cage was a cultish-angelic warrior, who works alongside Gabriel, a metal-rocker looking knight with a mysterious supernatural heritage that rouses more questions than answers.
A lot of the remaining cast look to play off of existing monsters such as Adam, who is by all accounts Frankenstein’s monster, to Vladislav III being this game’s take on Dracula, to other more unique threats such as Thalessa the Invisible Queen, and Arctorious, who is her once human servant, a fate determined for him when she killed him a long time ago. Again, I love these characters and their designs, and their deep and rich history all sounds great, but with no story mode present in this version to flesh them out in any significant way, the brief narrative write-up we get at the start of the arcade mode for each character is pitiful when paired along with such a potentially interesting cast. If the story mode is on its way, then great, but this isn’t new content or anything that wasn’t released already three years ago, so the question is, where is it?
Alongside its bland and generic presentation, not to mention an announcer that sounds like the most bored person alive until they say “Attack” with all the gusto of a blown speaker, most of the game is not in English, with a large cropping of moves being in another language altogether. While the Latin phrase “Audentes Fortuna Iuvat” which means “Fortune Favors the Bold” is splashed upon the versus screen, it’s unlikely that many will even register its true meaning and take it as another example of this game not having a full translation in its presentation. I also want to point out that while I think the design for the traveling map during the Arcade mode is interesting, it feels like this type of presentation to be more story focused with how you travel to these places, marked with a character, and then engage in some sort of banter. But, it’s really just a mode where you cycle through the list of fighters and ends up being just a fancy way to move from fighter to fighter.
Omen of Sorrow features a system called Fortune and Fate. This is indicated by a gauge in the bottom corner. Fortune is colored in blue, and Fate in purple. This system is based on how aggressive you play. If you head into battle hard, you earn Fortune whereas being defensive earns you Fate. Having too much Fate is where you don’t want to be. If you are knocked down while obtaining too much Fate, you’ll achieve Doomed status. While this only lasts a few seconds, Doomed characters will lose access to Decimation moves, throws, and special movies; effectively screwing you over to really rebound from. While you can guard against some attacks, this can result in a guard break, so keep that in mind. Since the gauge is shared between Fortune and Fate, having more of one means having less of the other. Fortune determines how fast your health recovers, the damage modifier applied to your attacks, and whether you have access to Bold Counters, or if you are Blessed.
Blessed is a special state that is activated should you reach full Fortune. During this limited time, your combo possibilities are greatly expanded, and to be honest, it’s really only while being Blessed that you have any actual combo attacks at all. Each character only has a few moves and combo attacks or stringing together linking attacks is just not where this game is focused on. Bold Cancels are also only accessible when Blessed and allow you to cancel into a special move or run from a move you normally would be unable to when you deplete at least two thirds of your Fortune gauge. While being Blessed is the treat for following the path wanted by the game, being on the other end of it is brutally punishing and makes this combat system far too much about being aggressive than playing smart.
Another problem that results around the combat system comes in the form of how stilted and clunky movement feels as there is just no fluidity in anything the game does. Characters have long strings of attacks, which are not even in English, and making them connect doesn’t always feel like you’re pushing in enough, resulting in a lot of missed attacks, leaving you open and thus increasing your Fate amount. While I like that character’s like Radegonda can fly in most cases, it feels like I am far too open instead of it being a tactic I can rely on. While there are a few fighters that seem to have less of a problem in moving, such as Zafkiel, who is far and away the best character to control here, some of the more interesting characters from a gameplay perspective are just not fun to move around.
Despite the lacking combat system, and the other details I’ve cataloged, I will say that the environments and music really do allow a lot of this game’s atmosphere to breathe. Everything from burning forests, bell-towers, to a street that would feel like home to Jack the Ripper, I was constantly impressed in its locales and enjoyed a lot of the detail and work that went into them. The music itself, when it works is solid, it’s just a shame that other aspects of the audio don’t quite hit those same highs. Each character has an intro before the battle starts, and while there is music that plays, things like Caleb howling, or the electrical sizzle of Adam’s bolts, are met with intense silence, making these intros just hollow in their presentation.
Omen of Sorrow is a game I feel sounds incredible on paper, but the process from thought to finished product just fails in nearly every capacity. It’s also a shame that the Xbox One version doesn’t contain a story mode that has existed on the PS4 for years now, and I even reached out to the publisher, and based on their response, it’s unlikely we will see it added any time soon or even at all. It’s a shame considering that while these characters seem vastly interesting, they are just not given anything to make them actually be interesting. The combat system is certainly not going to be for everyone, and the clunky feel of performing the few moves available just isn’t that fun. Omen of Sorrow is another one of those fighting games to be part of many “worst of” lists, and that’s a damn shame.
Developer - Aone Games. Publisher - EastAsiaSoft. Released - Sept 14th, 2021. (Xbox) 2018/2019: PS4/PC. Available On - Xbox One, Series X/S (BC), PS4/PS5 (BC), Windows PC. Rated - (T) Violence, Blood, Suggestive Themes. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X through backwards compatibility. (BC) Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.