Omno Review (jgarthcl)
This is a lovely, mostly mellow third person exploration game with eye-pleasing graphics, a wonderful score, and the sort of (generally....) low stress puzzle platforming challenges that one feels a sense of pleasure and accomplishment from completing rather than tooth-grinding frustration.
You play some sort of nameless wanderer/explorer who is attempting to gather up particles/spheres of light to open up a pathway to enlightenment followed by other pilgrims before you, exploring ruins to gather spheres of luminous wisdom and tomes of glyphs that act as knowledge repositories, all the while identifying new creatures along the way.
Positives:
*Graphics* This could be referred to as low-poly, and you wouldn't be wrong, but some of the models, especially for a few of the larger creatures, do have a bit more detail than that.....call it mid-poly ;-) Regardless of what niche you stick it in, the game is glorious to behold, full of bright, colourful environments and striking ruins to explore and solve puzzles within.
*Gameplay* As I intimated above, the gameplay loop of exploration and (largely) light puzzle platforming is a sheer pleasure to engage in, and 100%ing each level/biome is not terribly onerous as far as video-game challenges go. Yeah, there's a few puzzles towards the end that require a bit more manual dexterity and good timing/reflexes, but even a relative clutz like me could succeed after only three or four (or five ;-) attempts on these harder puzzles, and I NEVER felt frustrated.....I always knew that it was an achievable goal and I just needed a few more tries to get it right. Also, the checkpointing is fairly generous, so that adds to the lack of frustration even if you plummet to your doom a few times trying to land on a distant block of stone or teleport into the midst of some glowing animals that will blow you upwards for an objective. Additionally, there are a variety of special movement abilities that you gain as you progress through the game, and they are introduced gradually, and there refinement as puzzle-solving mechanisms is handled in a very even-handed, incremental way that never leaves you feeling overwhelmed by a need for ambidextrous key-board zen mastery.
*Music* On the one hand, it's nothing special (standard sweeping orchestral score) but it really, REALLY suits the game to a tee, and it's a pleasure to hear the sweeping musical accompaniment as you gaze out upon some beauteous vista.
Meh: Some of the puzzles took some trial and error to figure out exactly what I was supposed to accomplish, and how I was supposed to accomplish it. Again, NEVER frustrating, just a little vague from time to time.
Negatives: None. Seriously, there's nothing here that ticked a box titled "Annoyances". It was that much of a joy to play.
So, in summary, a visually pleasing, nice sounding, highly enjoyable third person exploration/puzzle platformer game. Highly recommended!