Omega Labyrinth Life Review – Dungeon Crawling at Its Breast

Dungeon crawlers are often met with skepticism, given that they are associated with being a little awkward. This is true to an extent, but a good roguelike always gives players just a bit more reason to head back into the dungeon and brave it all after suffering a death. While some RPGs give you the promise of new skills and abilities, D3 Publisher’s latest RPG Omega Labyrinth Life, gives players the incentive of seeing anime girls in lewd situations. It just so happens that was more than enough reason for me to get through the game. Surprisingly, it presents a little more in its RPG offerings than just lewd content.

https://youtu.be/EBshxuS_rsE

I’m no stranger to the Omega Labyrinth series. I’ve imported the previous two entries for research purposes. The series has typically kept to a typical theme of focusing on breasts, but Omega Labyrinth Life tries some new things story-wise that aims to add more context to the quest.

Players assume the role of Hinata Akatsuki, who has just been transferred to Belle Fleurs Academy. The school is known for its ever-blooming garden of flowers that never seem to die or wilt. However, a curse spreads across the lands overnight, and Hinata awakes to a field of dead flowers with the blame put on her. The rest of the story finds the cast attempting to bring the field of flowers back to its former glory.

I ended up enjoying the story for what it was. In the beginning, Hinata just wanted to clear her name, but then she continued to help the girls because they became friends. The game’s character growth comes from the students slowly putting their trust in Hinata as she restores the school to greatness. It’s a decent plot to send these girls on an adventure, and its more than I expected.

To clear Hinata’s name, she’ll need to seek out these spirits who will bring life back to the field of flowers. The dungeon layouts are what you’d expect from a dungeon crawler RPG. Players travel floor by floor until they get to a boss. Along the way, they’ll pick up items, fight monsters, and gain levels. Dungeons feature traps as well as other gimmicks, along with special events that tie into the story.

The dungeon crawling in Omega Labyrinth Life is definitely where this game shines. The developer knows how to make this a balanced experience for players to feel empowered to a point, but then slowly increase the difficulty with a mix of tougher enemies.

Without proper preparation, it’s easy to die in these dungeons and lose everything. Being a roguelike, each time you enter a dungeon, you’ll begin at level 1. This means that your items are everything. Thankfully, there are some useful systems that allow you to strengthen your weapons, but this means halting the story progression and spending time in dungeons just collecting items and stocking up.

What’s interesting about Omega Labyrinth Life is that it allows you to roam around the school and interact with other students. This was a hugely ambitious venture, given that the previous games were mostly played in menus. There are several mini-games to put time into, but the one that the game seems to want the player to focus on is harvesting flowers.

During exploration, you’ll come across seeds that can be planted in the garden. After a while, they’ll bloom, and you can collect the flowers to exchange for items or turn in for side-quests. This also allows you to receive Nectar, which is used to “Bloom” the girls. Blooming has the players tapping the screen with the girls in suggestive poses until they give you enough of this blooming liquid, which can then be used to add buffs to the girls in dungeons.

Suggestive mini-games are what Omega Labyrinth Life is all about. Aside from blooming girls, players can appraise items by rubbing them between their breasts, go to a hot spring and play around a bit, or even play rock, paper, scissors with their breasts against another girl. Overtime these all lose their novelty, but can easily be skipped with the press of a button if the player wants to get right back to the RPG action.

The issues come with the game having so much to do, but still filling like it lacks substantial content outside of its dungeon-crawling systems. The act of harvesting flowers becomes a chore, and I stopped playing the mini-games after a few hours as I found my focus more on creating mighty weapons. Furthermore, the character illustrations during dialog would have benefited from some additional movement. Aside from that, I found the menus a little confusing as they change when your in and out of a dungeon.

Still, the game offers some excellent audio tracks, filled with all the moans and screams that fans will love. I also enjoyed that the developer didn’t make the dungeon designs overly complicated or too broad, which made it far less taxing on my patience, especially in the later parts of the game.

Omega Labyrinth Life isn’t going to be for everyone, clearly. But what it brings to the table is a decent rogue-like dungeon crawler that we don’t get very often. The story is lighthearted but does offer its share of surprises and reveals, and the weapon upgrade system is kept simple and easy to manage. Sure, the game has plenty of lewd content to make the player laugh, but all that can be skipped if it’s not your thing.

I appreciated Omega Labyrinth Life for what it is. Although I found some of the new systems unnecessary, I found it easy to sink hours in the game leveling up my equipment and blooming each girl without ever really finding a favorite. Oh, who am I kidding, best girl is definitely Yuri. So know what you’re getting yourself into with this game, and I’m sure you’ll have a bit of fun with it. If you’ve never played a rogue-like dungeon crawler before then, perhaps this game’s lewdness is enough to convince you to check it out.