Omen of Sorrow Nintendo Switch Review 7/10 "The Horror! The Horror!" 👊 @eastasiasoft #IndieGame #GameDev

When one thinks of horror icons pugilistically going at it hammer and tongs in a video game environment, the Darkstalkers series springs to mind.

Bright, cartoonish and 2D, Capcom’s ‘90s one-on-one fighter stood apart from others in the genre by having instantly recognisable archetypes from the pantheon of horror for players to choose from and rain down violent misery upon their opponents.

The gothic horror lover in me always enjoyed the games and especially the characters within.

Eastasiasoft’s Omen of Sorrow takes the same idea in a different direction and the 3D visuals and gloomier, darker, more gothic take on things result in a solid fighting game, but one that perhaps doesn’t quite bring the personality that makes a game a classic.

With multiple modes on offer (arcade, versus, story, survival and practice), there are a lot of ways to approach the game. Initially, I worked my way through the story mode, which sees each of the twelve available characters face off against each other in a series of three-bout battles.

The characters are a highlight, as it feels that a lot of the various horror pillars of historic literature are represented here, and the styles are spread evenly. Want a lumbering powerhouse? Boom, Adam (Frankenstein’s Monster) is your man, with electricity-based moves charging things up. Maybe you fancy some nimbleness in your action? Quasimodo’s mechanical arm and grappling gun can really spice things up! In between we have vampire hunters, succubi, a werewolf, an Egyptian deity (effectively the Dhalsim character) and others that all feel well-balanced and have their own moves list, which can be accessed in a ‘Tekken-like’ way by pausing the game.

As I worked through the lengthy – but pretty bland – narrative of the story mode, I was attracted by certain aspects of each character, but then got twitchy when I played the next role, it’s a good sign when you feel a pull between different characters, as it hints at the longevity that lies beneath, as you want to spend time mastering each one. An early highlight for me, though – was the vampiric Vladislav III’s bitch-slap. I don’t think I’ve come across a more casually disrespectful attack in all of gaming, wonderful stuff.

The characters are great, the arenas are suitably moody and the music all rumbling doom-laden drums and distant, ringing bells...so what’s the issue?

Well, for all the blend of subtle goofiness and austerity, the fact that the arenas all boil down to pretty backgrounds with no environmental interaction and the overall sense of perfunctoriness means that there isn’t that strength of personality to make this stand out from the pack.

The move set is mostly weighty but never brutal, and the aforementioned austerity throughout means that the game can never get overly silly, so it feels middling in presentation.

I hope a lot of people dive into this, as the actual mechanics, selectable characters and setup are ripe for expansion, but it would be great to see more personality shine through in future instalments.

SUMMARY

If you are looking for a more hands-on, realistic title to get hips deep into, and there’s a darker side to your tastes, Omen of Sorrow will tickle that itch, but I’m not sure for how long.