Little Bot, Big Gun

There is an old saying, “what you see is what you get” and I am here to tell you that no game exudes this more than Omegabot; having been released on Steam last year by solo developer Simon Carny, the little bot that could blast his way onto consoles. One look at a screen shot from Omegabot and you know what you are getting, its bright colors, 2D platforming and pixel graphics exude the 90’s charm of Capcom’s resident bot Mega Man. And so it is that the core gameplay of Omegabot will feel instantly familiar to any fans of the Blue Bomber.

In Omegabot, players take on the role of the titular bot to stop a plague that is turning creatures and even people into horrible robots. Players will learn that in the early days of the outbreak, 5 heroes stayed behind in an effort to save all humanity, well that didn’t quite work out and they end up being the 5 bosses that players will go up against during their adventure. What was most surprising to me was the amount of NPC’s and overall backstory that is presented in the game. The developer does a good job of dropping enough hints and tidbits for players to piece together what the world was before this plague took hold.

MSRP: $12.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $12.99

Combat in Omegabot is a pretty standard affair, the little guy is armed with a blaster that has a myriad of uses. But first one must understand the power bar that is associated with using it, once full ‘Bot’s energy blast will do more damage but fire a tad slower as the battery drains into the second bar the blast will become smaller and come more rapidly but at a decrease to damage. This also will help with overall navigation as the full charged blast can break through metal blocks, were as the less powerful model can only break rocks. So instead of the typical side scroller where you can just continuously let loose a barrage of fire, in Omegabot players will need to be more tactical in their thinking. Because if Omegabot runs out of power he will move more slowly and be susceptible to more damage until it refills, which happens automatically over time.

But if you thought you only needed to worry about the enemies then you’d be wrong, because Omegabot’s weapon is also used for navigation purposes. Meaning when he jumps, players can hold down and fire and use the gun as a semi-jetpack to get across spike traps or bottomless pits. I will say that this is A LOT easier said than done, I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I died because I just couldn’t figure out the proper angle to make some of these jumps. Now mix all that up and what you get is one helluva time trying to make progress in a level, there is a checkpoint system but they are few and fair between which means players will repeatedly see the same levels as they try and progress.

There are hidden collectibles to uncover, passages that will require the player to shoot at walls and other things to open hidden paths to goodies. Players will earn currency while playing the game and will in-turn use this to power up their Omegabot, these upgrades include things like increasing the overall battery. One thing that doesn’t change for some reason is the fact that Omegabot’s gun is seemingly too powferul for him. When fired all full charge the little guy is knocked backwards with every shot, there is no real reason for this that I can tell and is just a personal gripe because it seems to be there for nothing.

Just as in any good old-school side scroller, Omegabot is challenging and that includes the boss fights. Fights will force players to utilize all their skills for shooting, platforming and of course figuring out which weapon works the best on each boss. All these things brought back some fond memories, but my aging reflexes I will admit caused me to have more trouble with this game than I would have liked. The story and combat were all engaging and fun, and even the bosses; while certainly difficult they did cause that ‘sigh’ of satisfaction after vanquishing one and as gamers know there is no better feeling coming off a difficult challenge. While I don’t mind the pixel graphic games, I would love to see us move beyond that as the indie developers as a whole seem to be overly relying on them. Omegabot isn’t a bad game by any means, and proudly wears its inspiration on its sleeve, in a world where you have to be unique to stand out it stands in the middle of the pack, not great, but not at all terrible, but worth a shot if you are having Mega Man withdrawals. (thanks a lot Capcom)

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Bright colors and retro tunes
  • Surprisingly deep world building
Bad
  • Checkpoint system can frustrate
  • Combat, navaigation and battery management felt like a lot to juggle
6
Decent
Written by
Terrence spends his time going where no one has gone before mostly. But when not planning to take over the galaxy, he spends his time raising Chocobo and trying to figure out just how the sarlaac could pull Boba Fett’s ship with its engines firing FULL BLAST into it’s maw with relative ease; yet it struggled with Han Solo who was gripping *checks notes* SAND!