In the world of Omega Quintet, humanity is under siege from the terrible and almost unstoppable Blair. The Blair are a mysterious foe, who appear without warning to kill anything it finds. Humans have been pushed back to one last city on the planet and they still have no way of defeating the enemy. It all seems so bleak, yet you couldn’t play a more upbeat and happy game if you tried. It is a very jarring experience.

 

To protect themselves from the Blair, humanity trains Verse Maidens to defeat the merciless foe. They are teenage girls who have a natural and rare gift to be able to battle the Blair and banish them with their singing. On paper, it sounds quite progressive. The game takes a strange turn when it is revealed that the Verse Maidens’ battles are broadcast to the city in order raise moral in the city, and all of the self-titled fans are all middle-aged men. They whoop and cry watching their favourite heroines slay monsters and declare their love for these teenage girls and it is rather weird to experience.

 

Outside of the strange setting, Omega Quintet is a competent JRPG with standard turn based fighting mechanics. Choose a move, and wait your turn. Enemies often have weaknesses to exploit e.g. fire and often look very cool. Some lower level Blair can look boring, but are mainly used as cannon fodder to farm XP from, but as you progress through the game, there are some awesome, hulking monsters to spar with. When running around the map, it is possible to sneak up on enemies, by pressing square before an engagement to gain an advantage of two extra moves before the enemy gets a turn. This is too easy to do and can be very easy to spam out with every encounter. If it was a little harder to achieve, it would feel more rewarding.

 

Missions are very repetitive too. Missions range from killing a specific enemy on the map to killing multiple specific enemies on the map. There is very little variety in the game and you often fall into the motions of just blasting your way through enemies until you hear the ring of a quest being fulfilled. There are a lot of side quests, but none of them offer anything more than the main quests do.

 

Character customisation is extensive, allowing you to pick armour for your Verse Maidens, and each character can also use a variety of weapons to choose from. With this in mind though, it is important to stick with a weapon choice as the more a character uses a weapon, they naturally become more and more skilled with it. Resetting weapon type can stifle progress and if you need to, farming XP is important. On the other hand, character customisation can feel a little… creepy. The Verse Maidens under your control wear durable, but rather revealing, dresses instead of armour. Chests are bare, often sided with a lot of cleavage and skirts are incredibly short. And remember, these characters are supposed to be teenagers. It can feel a little perverted when choosing a dress for your Verse Maiden and the better one reveals more skin than it covers.

 

And you can also customise their underwear.

 

If you don’t keep your Verse Maiden’s dresses repaired, they can break and literally disintegrate in the heat of battle. This leaves her vulnerable to enemy attacks… and in her underwear. The underwear consists of… very little. Combine this with the knowledge the city is full of middle aged, male fans who are desperately crying out their affection for them, the Verse Maidens often feel like they are being a little objectified by the game, you and the developers. I kept saying to myself that the story was going to explore this whole concept of objectifying these girls. It didn’t. I just felt like I needed a shower after a few hours of playing the game.

 

Omega Quintet is a good game; I will give credit where it is due. The combat is tactical enough for experienced JRPG-ers but simple enough for beginners to adopt quickly. Characters can be fun to talk to and the customisation is broad, if a little too broad in the underwear department. The story, however, moves so slowly at times it is painful. It almost sent me to sleep a few times because conversations where unnecessarily long and boring. The world created is interesting, too. The heroines of the city are basically celebrity pop stars with weapons and they are used to keep the morale of the city high. It just never explores the concepts given with anything meaningful and baubles along trying to be as neutral as possible to any real life problems.

 

With that in mind, it is a case of female objectification and I am not entirely comfortable watching the ‘fans’ basically wanking themselves to sleep every night at the thought of the Verse Maidens.