Omino – Review

Our rating:

By: NoName games

Version #: 2.2

Date Released: 2010-07-21

Developer:

Price: 0.99

User Rating:

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Let’s face it: Super Mario Bros. is great, and everyone wants to capture the exceptional gameplay and experience that players have when playing this classic. Many people try, and few really hit the nail when it comes to the super responsive controls, and beautiful game environments. A new game by NoName Games called Omino aims to take a seat at the table of those who have been successful. They don’t pretend to be doing something new, just trying to provide a similar experience for iPhone users.

Right off the bat you see the inspiration the Omino has from the Nintendo classic. Omino is a basic platformer, with blocks of various types and enemies to avoid and to destroy. The levels progress to the right and consist of fairly easy platforming during the early levels. Enemies are found on top of blocks and are either ones you can jump on to kill or ones you can’t. Omino even has power-ups. Hitting some blocks from below will produce either a red hat or a blue hat. Red hats give you a fireball you can fire at enemies, while the blue hat will give you the ability to walk on water.

Unfortunately, even with a solid game mechanic set up, the developers have dropped the ball when it comes to the controls. The developers took the same path as Square did when releasing Crystal Defenders, and put the controls on the bottom half of the screen in their own area. This effectively shrinks the playable size of the screen by half. This would not be completely unforgivable if the responsiveness of the said buttons didn’t leave something to be desired. Often when pressing a directional button and trying to jump at the same time the buttons do not react immediately causing your character to miss the jump and at best fall to the ground, and at worse to land in a pit and die.

Omino utilizes the freemium business plan. The first two levels are free while the rest of the game can be unlocked with an in-app purchase. So if you enjoy the first two levels, you are sure to enjoy the later stages which are very similar in style. The developer says he will be adding Open Feint support soon, which will give you more incentive to gather the coins scattered around the level. Overall it is an ok platforming game that tries to be like Mario, and while not doing a horrible job, doesn’t quite make it. The levels are fairly basic, and the game itself loses its fun quickly.