NITRO GEN OMEGA Review

I’ve always thought giant mechs were cool (doesn’t everyone?), so NITRO GEN OMEGA had my attention from its initial announcement. A stylish title inspired by classic anime, you control your own crew of mech pilots as they travel a post-apocalyptic world trying to survive.

NITRO GEN OMEGA definitely looks the part, but has developer DESTINYbit’s tactical RPG got enough substance to back up all this style? Let’s find out!

After AI has taken over the world and brought it to ruin (sounds pretty plausible to be honest), the last remaining survivors cling to life. Humanity now lives in towns and cities in the sky, safe from the destructive machines below.

Flying from settlement to settlement aboard their airship, your team of customisable characters must create a united front and save the world from the deadly machines. But it’s not all hero work, as you’ll need to take care of the day-to-day things such as hiring new team members, upgrading your mech, scavenging for resources, and, most importantly, relaxing!

NITRO GEN OMEGA doesn’t have the most engaging story, with little bits here and there between missions given to you as you progress. What I did like, though, was the more personal stories that develop from your team members interacting with one another. Maybe two of them will become fierce rivals. Whilst another two may form an everlasting bond as BFFs. You have little control over these relationships, so it feels organic and makes each playthrough slightly unique. This procedural storytelling can make the writing feel a bit shallow and lacking the more emotional moments that you’d see in a more structured videogame narrative.

I am a huge fan of NITRO GEN OMEGA’s aesthetics. It reminds me of anime such as Kill la Kill and Gurren Lagann (both great, by the way, go watch them). The environments are rich and vibrant, characters and mechs have a retro charm with wildly overexaggerated animations, even the user interface has a stylised look to it! That said, I did find the UI during combat to be a bit confusing, with a lot of information to process at once.

As for the audio? Well, it’s more of that nostalgic goodness already mentioned. The soundtrack goes heavy on the guitar and is exactly the sort of fast-paced, high-tempo energy that meshes so well with the visuals. The battle theme is a particular highlight, getting me hyped up during every combat encounter. A lack of voice acting may be off-putting to some, but there isn’t all that much reading involved, thanks to the mission-based structure of the narrative.

Thankfully, the game remained at a solid 60fps throughout all my flying around the world, heated rivalries between pilots, and explosive mech battles! Sure, it’s not the most visually demanding game, but as we’ve seen with other games of this gen, getting a consistent framerate even without high fidelity visuals can be a challenge…

The most in-depth aspect of NITRO GEN OMEGA is the combat. It takes four of your mercenaries to pilot a mech in the turn-based battle system, and it all revolves around a timeline at the bottom of the screen. This shows when each of your four actions (one per pilot) will play out, as well as what action the enemy may perform, and when. This then allows you to coordinate your strategy based on what your opponent will do.

Each pilot has his or her own part of the mech to control.The Driver positions your mech in one of four areas (North, East, South, or West) on the battlefield, which is essential for any melee attacks as you’ll need to be in the same area as the enemy.

The Gunner is up next, and, you guessed it, they control the weaponry! With a range of offensive capabilities to add to your mech, there are plenty of ways to defeat those pesky AI robots.

Next is the Engineer, who acts as the healer of the team. Not only can they repair your mech, but their abilities can also lower your Heat Gauge. This gauge rises when any action is used, and keeping it as low as possible is crucial… unless you want your mech to explode!

Finally, we have the Operator. They have defensive abilities, such as masking your location with a smokebomb, as well as the ability to scan enemies to better identify their next moves.

Once each action has been queued up in the timeline, you’ll see a short sequence of the action. If your opponent is still standing, then it's on to the next round to rinse and repeat. Combat can be brutally challenging and I’ll admit I wasn’t a fan of it at first. There are a lack of tutorials, and going into a fight unprepared can end up with you getting wiped out very quickly. Eventually, everything started clicking into place, though, combat became rewarding and a lot of fun. I still got my arse handed to me more times than I’d like to admit, but that was down to my lack of foresight, rather than any issue with the game.

It’s not all about battling, though, as you also have an open-world map to explore. The game is fairly non-linear when it comes to exploration, and you can stop at various towns to pick up contracts, hire new pilots to bulk up your roster (or replace ones that died, RIP), purchase upgrades for your mech, etc. There aren't any on-foot sections, just your airship flying around in an isometric viewpoint, but I did enjoy the downtime between the intense combat sequences.

Earlier, I mentioned how pilots interact with each other and form relationships; this is all done within your ship. Acting as a hub, you can spend activity points to have pilots cook, play games, or just kick back and relax. Doing so raises morale and reduces fatigue, both of which can cause a pilot to freak out during battle if they’re not cared for enough. Not only that, they’ll also learn new skills and their stats will increase, so there’s more to it than just looking after them for the sake of their mental health (although mental health is very important, folks!), as not only can your team members die, they may also just outright quit on you. Not ideal, especially when hiring new crew isn’t cheap.

Of course, your mech will also need looking after. Parts can be upgraded or swapped out, which raise the mech's base stats or unlock new abilities. It’s not complex, but tinkering and experimenting with different builds was fun and often necessary due to the challenging combat.

Overall, I was very impressed with NITRO GEN OMEGA. Sure, it could be brutally tough and had a disappointingly unengaging story, but the gameplay and aesthetics make up for that. I loved the stylish presentation and over-the-top animations, but just be wary: this is a challenging RPG that doesn’t take it easy on you!