Omen of Sorrow (PC) Review

A werewolf and a demon lady, a mummy sorcerer and a muscle-bound Dr. Hyde (yes, that's Doctor Hyde), a vampire lord and bloody - literally - Elizabeth Bathory, and so on. Omen of Sorrow is a nice assortment of myths and legends from the occult realm. There's a slight generic feel to it all, to be honest, as few designs manage to stand out, but for a gothic Mortal Kombat on a budget this looks cool, and appropriately sexy, as gothic horror tends to be… but maybe not as much as it could be. Even more surprising, though is the lack of violence. This is a horror-themed fighter, after all. Generally, the overall design of the game, from the menus to the actual battlefield, is unimpressive and shows a lack of polish as, apart from the characters themselves, it is somewhat boring to look at, with the sound and music being equally forgettable. That's forgivable. What about the lack of polish on the gameplay front, though?

Beginning with the good stuff, the characters are diverse enough, each one has its own unique set of skills, and they are somewhat well balanced, whether you prefer quick but weak, slow but strong, or just plain "strange." It keeps things relatively simple by being a four-button fighter, with one extra button used for throws, and one for a special, super-powered move. A nice, "push-forward" mechanic adds to your health regen and a boost to your combos when you remain in the offensive and close to the opponent, whereas being on the defensive for too long decreases defence, and even makes you slower.

Now for the… well, not bad, but slightly annoying stuff. For starters this doesn't have the nice, smooth feel of its more popular brethren. A bit clunky and with poorly animated attacks that occasionally make it hard to κnow whether you did the right thing or not - especially irritating when trying to mix together moves to create combos. Next, although the balance is ok for the most part, there are some issues here as well, with certain characters having attacks that are easily spammable, something that the AI makes sure to demonstrate quite a lot at higher levels.

In terms of content this provides the bare essentials. A straightforward arcade mode, a survival mode, and a story mode - and come to think of it, that's not even the bare essentials. The story mode is broken into three separate journeys, each dealing with specific groups of characters, and each one worse than the one before it, with poorly written dialogue that struggles with making players care about anything. It would definitely be much more entertaining if Omen of Sorrow leaned more towards the schlocky, b-movie-esque aura of classic horror, and just have everything be over-the-top, and purposely silly. Then again… who really cares about the story in fighters? After all, it's the online world where most will want to try their luck at. Right? Well, unsurprisingly, it's not something to write home about.

Even the triple-A behemoths of the genre have issues with their net code, at least in their early stages, so it's no wonder that the same happens with such an "unknown" indie production. Expect lots of lag and plenty of network errors, at least in the Steam version which was the one tested for this review. Of course, in order to experience all these flaws, you first need to find a match. Well, good luck finding one, as this turns out to be quite the challenge, since few seem to play it right now.

Flaws or no flaws, in the end, Omen of Sorrow belongs in that category just underneath the very good fighters, and right above the bad ones. It's ok. It's somewhat fun to play if your expectations are low. The biggest disappointment is probably the fact that it doesn't take advantage of its subject matter. AOne's creation misses the things people want from a title that features gothic horror monsters. It's far too… "safe" in the way it handles things, whether that's the expected violence or dark eroticism. Nice to look at for a while, but as a whole toothless.