We’ve looked at several games over the past few months with a focus on fanservice: some of them offering cheeky, inoffensive fun in short bursts (Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Scarlet); others spicing up some lacklustre mechanics with surreal frivolity (Panty Party); others still that utterly fail to disguise boring gameplay with jiggle (Senran Kagura: Peach Ball). Following this run of diminishing returns, we approached Matrix Software’s Omega Labyrinth Life with a degree of caution. Defying the censors (on Switch at least) with the series’ first western release, we're pleasantly surprised to find a solid little dungeon crawler beneath the skimpy lingerie and absurdity, although whether it’s worth the hefty asking price is really down to your affection for the series.
It’s not a masterpiece by any stretch, but the foundation is solid, if unimaginative. The series started on PS Vita in 2015 but mechanically, there’s nothing going on here that couldn’t have run at lower resolutions on a PS1 and at times we wished it was a little more ambitious.
Besides the outstanding student body of Belles Fleurs Academy itself (more on that later), the pride asset of the institute is the Grand Garden that has been in bloom for a hundred years. Just before arriving, exchange student Hinata Akatsuki inexplicably finds herself flung into a strange multi-floored, monster-filled cave. One thing leads to another and the Holy Blossom that keeps the flowers in everlasting bloom is compromised causing the entire garden to wilt and die. Oopsie daisy.
It’s up to Hinata to discover the cause by making friends and battling through umpteen dungeons to recover the Holy Blossom and get to the bottom of things. You’ll be taking on monsters with a partner character (or alone, if you so choose) in a host of randomly generated dungeons, harvesting seeds, tending the garden and generally restoring the colourful academy grounds to their former glory. As the story progresses, you’ll find gear, befriend students and buff both with a variety of enhancements through the sexiest of means.
This includes sizing up unassessed items by grinding phallic ‘Ambiguity’ crystals between your character’s breasts, playing TFT (that’s ‘Tit-For-Tat’, a chesty version of Rock-Paper-Scissors) with your girlfriends and resident garden fairies, and ‘augmenting’ the girls by stimulating them in the greenhouse (not a euphemism). Skill Blooms involve touching various zones across their bodies indicated by flashing hearts to learn new skills and level up. Obviously, the touchscreen can be used for this interaction, or you can use a clumsy cursor to drive the girl into a frenzy until liquid sprays the screen.
Yes, all the fanservice you could want is present and correct, although after the third or fourth time of visiting the spa and watching the same event play out again, you’ll be thankful for the option to skip to the end and just get the stats boost.
The game is fully translated with English text accompanying Japanese audio. You can switch between five text speeds, hit ‘Y’ to toggle Auto mode or skip the story entirely with ‘ZR’. The writing is serviceable and might even raise the odd smile, although interestingly an f-bomb caught us totally off guard and felt conspicuously out of place; odd for such a supposedly ‘adult’ title, but Omega Labyrinth Life is fuelled by a juvenile appeal. There’s nothing wrong with that – it was just strange that a curse word felt so jarring in a game that’s very much 18+.
Significant character interactions take place with character portraits and text boxes and the ladies bounce each time they speak. Hitting the ‘+’ button at any time brings up a hand icon (or you can simply use the touchscreen) enabling you to ‘interact’ with them at will. The girls respond with varying degrees of embarrassment and/or irritation as you poke, prod and pull at their billowing chests. Whip-like jiggle physics make them wobble like blancmange; we found it comical and a little confounding.
The very first thing you’ll notice upon talking direct control of your chibi-style (in the dungeon view) protagonist is her strict 8-way movement on an invisible grid (hold 'Y' and it appears). There’s no interstitial animation between those eight directions and it doesn’t make the best first impression. From a visual perspective (putting aside the excellent character portraits), Omega Labyrinth Life is functional; assets are clean and colourful but no more– think 3DS grade but super sharp.
Every step you take is a turn and enemies only move when you do. In a way, it’s not dissimilar to the Fixed Beat mode in Cadence of Hyrule, although tapping ‘Y’ enables you to change the direction you’re facing without using a turn. There are various control shortcuts to speed up dungeon traversal, although a hunger meter limits exploration time (unless, of course, you pack food).
Unlike Cadence of Hyrule, you press ‘A’ to attack the monsters and you can also move and attack diagonally. Defeating the assorted fiends unleashes Omega Power – stylised with the lowercase Greek symbol as 'ωP' – which accumulates and magically increases the size of your bust for the duration of your dungeon stay. Starting with Hinata’s C-cup (you can also play as other characters with different vital stats), a bountiful bosom increases your strength. If you thought that all that wallowing cleavage was simply for show, you’re obviously got a filthy mind.
Equipping your choice of stat-boosting bras and panties, you’ll find lingerie and all manner of loot strewn about the dungeon floors which you can collect and equip immediately on yourself or your AI partner (we usually wouldn't go anywhere near a pair of undies we found in a cave, but video games). This being a roguelike, dying will eject you back to the academy minus all your gear. You’ll discover ways to mitigate this risk – you can pay to ‘track’ up to ten items which can then be repurchased above ground, use Fairy Wings to retain your kit after being knocked out, or use an Escape Tome to scarper back to the academy with your spoils intact. Combining equipment using the synthesiser makes it stronger and you can add buffs in up to four slots, so you’ll want to ensure you don’t lose your best gear.
Shortcuts to menus, projectiles and special moves are accessed via the shoulder buttons. You unlock the ability to fast travel to locations rather than traipse through the flower beds of the school, although the menus could be more intuitive (and there’s no touchscreen input beyond touching the girls). The framerate chugs while moving around the garden – disappointing considering there’s nothing on display that should tax the hardware. On the plus side, the 8-way dungeon movement gives way to full analogue control, which feels more natural as you explore, chat with students, complete fetch quests, plant seeds and harvest nectar.
This ‘slow life’ section is a particular selling point (“Roguelike X Slow Life” the back of the imported box proclaims), although it amounts to tedious busy work. You soon unlock the ability to manage all your flower beds from the Bulletin Board, and even speed up time via a Flower Dial, but gardening is still a joyless grind and the surroundings are drab despite the searing colour.
The base dungeon crawler beneath all the bounciness and blushing is unremarkable, but solid. The variety of enemy types, weapons, potions and tomes are enough to entertain on their own and the game’s roguelike nature means you’ll soon be approaching rooms with the utmost caution and strategy, scanning for unseen traps, drawing enemies into corridors and using the dungeon layout to your advantage.
It’s rewarding, but it takes a while to get into. The first few hours are filled with unending tool tips and unlocks and an early difficulty spike forced us to build our entire inventory again by repeating previous dungeons several times over (hard resets don't work on the game's single save file). Soon, though, a whole economy involving Omega Power opens up, so as long as you keep some in reserve, you can expand the academy, do some landscaping and enjoy galleries of all the characters.
However, despite offering a change of pace, those 'slow' sections outside the dungeons never feel satisfying and could do with more polish. Many trees, bushes, fountains (interchangeable ‘curios’ as they’re called) have no collision detection and for all its colour, it feels distinctly 'budget' and old-fashioned. Elsewhere, inventory menus are a tad cumbersome. The dungeons are entertaining call backs to generations past, but returning afterwards to the stuttering, barren-looking academy hub cheapens the whole endeavour.
These things would be forgivable if this were a budget release, but D3 Publisher is charging full retail money for the base game, and there’s obviously DLC available for purchase, too. Simply put, the asking price is too high for an unadventurous genre game with a double side-order of fanservice. Strip away the sauciness and you’re left with fair roguelike dungeon crawler on a system with far more satisfying alternatives for a fraction of the price. Series stalwarts may find plenty to chew on, and the gameplay isn’t unsatisfying, it’s just unimaginative and there's very little to get your pulse racing.
Conclusion
Omega Labyrinth Life is a Whopper of a game – delicious and juicy on the poster, but it's really just salt and stodge. If you’re after some decent dungeon-crawling filler, it certainly does the job and there’s pleasure to be had, but there are far cheaper, more adventurous meals on Switch eShop that are ultimately more satisfying and won't leave you feeling mildly guilty. If you’re a curious onlooker whose interest is piqued, we’d wait for a sale; fanservice isn’t enough to justify the asking price at launch for anybody but diehard Omega Labyrinth devotees.
Comments 39
strange world we live in.
The gameplay seems like something I'm gonna enjoy so I'm looking forward to it. A bit too pricy digitally but for the physical copy I don't mind.
First time I’ve seen the Joys/Cons system, which I’ve just noticed is a very clever pun. The game doesn’t appeal to me however, it’s rather juvenile for an 18+ game. Where are all the games with an actually adult approach to topics like this?
@nessisonett As long as people will mass complain about games like these, and even banning them in the case of Sony, then more "mature" approach to the subjects aren't gonna come, because the subjects aren't deemed to be safe
Hence why it's an imperative to defend some of the more juvenile fan service games or even fan service in general, because they're the ones who will be the stepping stone into having good mature games about it
I prefer my fanservice with a bit more class than this. Just a bit. But it's nice to see the game is at least competent--some effort was made to make a decent game beneath the ridiculousness of it all. Surprisingly rare with a release like this.
Best mechanic ever, bless Japan. I hope it goes on sale soon.
@cool_boy_mew I get what you’re saying, it’s just a bit hard to defend games that involve rubbing the breasts of dubiously aged girls. I guess it’s the video game equivalent of dodgy low budget sex horror B movies, they have their fans.
So... not worth the anti-SJW hype, I assume?
I look forward to this game when my next import order arrives in a few months.
@MarioFan02 Yeah I was waiting for something lol. I don't mind the fan service as long as it's good and has some story too, sorta like the 3DS Senran Kagura games.
Got the Asian CE of the game. Personaly I think any Switch owner with respect for themself should check it out, even if waiting on a potential sale ^_^
Meh, I'll wait until it's on sale, as I'm a huge Mystery Dungeon fan, but Three Houses is lasting me quite awhile, so by the time I get done, maybe it'll be on sale by then?
Nice. Informative, well-written, and devoid of the cloying moralism peppering certain other recent reviews published on this site.
I tend to agree that the game is probably overpriced. $39.99 would have been much easier to swallow, but I guess that's what sales are for.
Not happy about the framerate dips, though. Makes me wonder how the Vita version performed.
I played it for an hour so far an enjoying it so far. Love dungeon/rouge games.
In before the sensitive boys come in about this game having girls in an anime style
Is this the game that had too much PLOT for Sony, or was that the other one?
I got the limited edition and have been enjoying it a good deal. The item system of collecting purses is fascinating as every purse has a different behavior, some have to be destroyed to get your items back from inside them. My biggest complaint is the gardens don't behave as orderly as they do in something like harvest moon.
@Anri02 This is the one. Sony completely disallowed Pqube from distributing a fully localized version of this in Western territories.
@Ralizah It’s Sony’s platform, they’re completely at liberty to deny a game’s release on PlayStation. I don’t agree with it as imo, the game’s kinda creepy but it’s not as overtly harmful as games like Active Shooter.
@nessisonett Sony being legally allowed to do something doesn't mean their actions were fair, decent, or advisable. Forcing PQube to swallow the costs of a fully localized title because they randomly decided to become puritanical with the content published on their platform was mean, and calls to mind comments NIS made about Sony not caring about smaller publishers. Hell, not having clear, strict content guidelines for what's allowable in Playstation games and forcing Japanese devs to communicate in English at ungodly hours of the night is mean, too.
I wouldn't like Sony's decisions on this matter regardless, but I'd be way less irritated if they had made their content guidelines clear, giving companies the means to know what's allowable and what's not without having to resubmit a game to their censors over and over, and if they had announced it ahead of time, so that companies like PQube wouldn't get screwed over in the process. I imagine they're being coy for a reason, though: they don't want to scare off bigger, non-asian developers like Rockstar or CDProjektRed that are known to insert nudity and sexual content in their games. They want to have one set of standards for these big developers whose games sell millions of copies on PS4 and (soon) PS5 and another for smaller ones from Japan.
This all gels with other comments Sony has made of late, and communicates one consistent message: we only care about big games and big publishers. Which is a pretty interesting approach considering small games and small publishers helped Sony immensely in the early years of the PS4.
@Ralizah Agreed! This is a solid review that mentions the sexiness without getting judgy, and does a good job of critiquing the other elements. Well done
It's too bad in dungeons you have the bigger head chibi style art, not a huge fan of that or else maybe i'd be more interested. However I also wouldn't want to pay the asking price.
@Anri02 Yes
Finally, someone brings up a game with sexual themes and gives it a reasonable and fair judgement and score, and not call the audience who play these games "Guys who live with their parents and jack off to loli".
Still not buying it for that price.
@Ralizah re: your last paragraph, not just the PS4 but the Vita as well, half its library (I exaggerate but not by much) is Japanese raunchy games in various styles-dungeon crawlers, visual novels, etc., and they were fine accepting them then because let's face it, they couldn't do otherwise or its already poor library would be decimated.
So I heard this game has kisses between girls, how true is that? And it goes somewhere?
I am a total sucker for cute anime girls. #noshame
But I just don't think this is worth it just for that. Cute anime girls are not exactly rare and I think I can find a better use of my game time - which has like 27,296 games competing for my attention at the moment.
@graysoncharles people should learn how to ignore things they don't like. This applies to both sides of the aisle
finally a proper review without deducting points on fan service.
Another game with "fanservice" so clearly this sites review complains about it... Now if it was another flavor of the month Pixel art platformer... then they'd give it a 10
Generally good review, but... f-bomb? Like, really? For real?
The word is common language nowadays. It's not a "bomb" or a major sort of swearword. Heck, in several languages it's now just part of the dictionary because it isn't as one-dimensional as it used to be.
If we can't even say a word that is by now so regular, normal and honestly more of an expression of the level of emotion someone has towards something, this world is going places. Hellish places.
The silliest thing is the fact that stuff like this is 18+ when the people who would likely enjoy it the most are teenagers.
On the other hand, if they can get the money together, the e-shop is their oyster...
I wonder if the creators of the original Rogue ever dreamed that their 1980 little gane would result in something like this 40 years later.
“...you’ll be thankful for the option to skip to the end and just get the stats boost.”
‘Peggy, that’s not real boggle.!’
I watched someone stream this game. It made me feel violated.
@Ralizah
The niche games never were the main focus for PS4/PSV, it was more of less the only viable option for Japanese developers as Nintendo had their audience who wouldn't touch anything non first party unless it feels "exclusive" and no one buys XBOX in Japan. We only had good games from Japan over the last few years and these games simply don't fit the narrative
But the big issue is the companies stretched the limits of the rules Sony given them. Pushing for as sexual as it gets without hitting CERO Z and thus behind the counter status which is a death sentence for these budget devs who consider 10k sales a success. But Sony isn't going to put up with low effort games relying on fanservice gimmicks instead of saying "Yup we are going to have mature sexual content in our game".
@nessisonett
Western games do when they have sexual content, but they are beyond such juvenile opinons
@nessisonett i love you so much right now ❤ i've seen your comment's before on the post about gun pixies -or whatever that game is called and i agreed with you. Lovely response, lol.
@Blizzia Don't take it so personal, there's absolutely no need to justify cursing in this world as people are going to do it anyway. Some people like it, some people don't. I wouldn't force someone to like it as you wouldn't want to be forced to NOT like it. What the reviewer was saying is that it was a weird placement for the word in a game which is colorful and charming and positive to some degree and the way it was used almost just seemed out of place entirely. They aren't saying it shouldn't be said, they are just saying it wasn't expected, which is completely fine. Like I said, don't take it personal. Goodness.
@Xeraphis August 2019...
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