Omega Labyrinth Life is the third game in the bust expansion mystery dungeon series, the first to come to the western world.

For those not in the know or only coming into the internet a bit late, Sony instituted a censorship policy a year or two ago. Basically they would bring a game to some western review board and decide if the game went too far with fanservice, if they decided yes, the game couldn’t come out without editing. This hit Omega Labyrinth Z hard, because it was basically release ready when they got their denial and the game just couldn’t be edited enough to pass or it wasn’t worth it. This resulted in us never getting the second game in English, and for this one to get two releases. A “Lite” version that skips all the fanservice for the PS4 only, and the Switch and PC version being fan service heavy as usually for the series. While I can’t confirm this, I suspect a couple of issues I have with the game come from this one not having the expected budget it would have had, and this one going from expected to be the second in English to first.

What follows are my opinions on the game, and after that some tips if you want to 100% the game. After that is a rant about one of the bonus dungeons and how unfitting it was to this game.

So the story is the main reason I bring up the maybe this getting altered in development to deal with this being the first game in the west. Mainly that while the previous two game are referenced, they are done so in a way to introduce what’s needed for a bigger plot and nothing more.

So Hinata, our protagonist, transfers to a school famous for its never wilting garden. On her first day, she walks through the garden and is teleported into some weird dungeon space. After being lead out by a mysterious voice, Hinata goes to school and meets the main cast. Come the second day, and the garden is dead. After a few people lay blame on Hinata, she decides to get to the bottom of this and her new best friend comes with. Cue something of an episodic plot of each of the playable characters gets a recruitment dungeon set, and then a final set of dungeons where the real big bad only shows up for the last dungeon.

Not much happens between those two points. A few more character are introduced, mainly different colored flower girls, and a character from Z is summoned into this one. Some of the girls do have short arc strories, but none of them really conclude. Hinata’s is that she is related to the first game’s protagonist, and the reason Hinata transferred into the school was she heard her disappeared mom went here. That is also the reason she got accepted into the school, but nothing comes of this except to set up a potential sequel. And this is why I think the plot got altered based on us not getting a game. Things are brought up that obviously reference the previous games, but they don’t go anywhere. They feel brought up to prep the audience for a game that actually deals with the origin of Omega power, the mysterious energy that causes everything. It gathers in a girls bust and increases their size(basically increasing the container to fit the energy while making the girl stronger because more energy), but it also makes fairies, made the principal not age, gave one the maids the actual ability to talk to flowers, and also fusion stuff.

The first game, from what I know, is about three girls wanting to increase their bust sizes and so they go into a cave in this same school where they can get their wish granted. Life, on the other hand, really only uses Omega power to explain why impossible things are happening and doesn’t focus on the boobs thing in the plot at all. While the plot does nod at the fanservice a few times, it doesn’t really do anything with it. All of the girls really just want to revive the garden because they like flowers. Which makes the plot kind of… weak. The reveals have no weight because the inciting event isn’t that big of a deal for the player. Honestly, Juri would have been a better main character since she actually needed the garden for something she wanted to do. But nope, instead she’s the pretend antagonist for half the game. Hinata’s actual connection to the events aren’t mentioned until an optional conversation I got near the end of the game, and Hinata herself never learns of her connection.

And before we go to game play, I want to take a moment to mention the yuri bating. The whole story thing of having characters who could be lesbians, but will never do anything. Nanami gets teased constantly for liking one of the other girls, but the game doesn’t do anything with it, mainly because no one has a story arc that does anything to advance them as people. This is an issue a lot of these fanservice games have, especially the all girl ones like Senran. The girls seem interested in each other, a few even have outright crushes, but the relationship is never allowed to do anything because we can’t have actual plot advancement that matters after introductions are done.

Yurika, on the other hand is a different kind of character I don’t like. She literally hits on every girl, kissing parts of their bodies and groping them at random, but no one really responds except for Juri, who’s obsessed with Yurika. To be fair, Yurika is a good read of character and has something of an older sister vibe when she’s not flirting, but she’s also kinda creepy. Make her a guy and suddenly no one would go near her do to how clingy and creepy she would be. I don’t mind the aggressive lesbian type, some stories need this to actually advance, but also making them get physical without consent kinda goes to far. Also making her go for a harem as really her only character trait, but yet again nothing happens there because the story isn’t allowed to do anything with the characters that would be long term. Juri is the only one who wants the attention, and she probably gets the least of it.

As for the game part of this game, it’s mostly easy. It’s a gear focused roguelite(specifically, a mystery dungeon game), for all the sense that may make to anyone else. Basically, if you die in a dungeon you do lose all your gear and money, but if you complete the dungeon or have have one of two items when you die, you take all your stuff back to the hub. A hub that exists for two things. The main one is to upgrade your weapons via gardening and synthesis. The other is the social kinda character arcs you can see.

So the hub is the garden you are trying to save, and after a short while into the game you can start growing flowers in it. At first there is no point in doing this beyond the random fetch quest for maybe a good item, but soon you unlock the ability to place stat ups and resistances into your gear using flowers you grow. Doing this is your main method of getting stronger, and why I consider this a loot focused game. There is another method of character growth, skill blossoms, where the most unique/varied fanservice in the game occurs. Skill blossoming gives a character new passive and usable skills and raises their stats a bit in exchange for nectar, a resource you get more of from gardening lots and is way more valuable then Omega Power is. While useful, a good sword is going to be more important then the stats gained here. There’s also a girls cup size which influences her stats as you fill up the letter gauge of her current size until it fills and they go up a cup. This is mainly useful for getting more uses of their active skills, as the stat changes are usually not that important. Though the ultimate attack at Z cup is a great emergency option.

Growing flowers is pretty simple, and the game does an okay job explaining it so I wont get into that. But you should pay attention to the type of underwear the girls get from there personal dungeons, as using that girls fluids obtained from skill blossoming on the flower type you get from the dungeon gets you better flowers for synthesis.

As for actual dungeon crawling, it’s an overhead type turn based game. Each move you make lets every monster on the floor move, and your goal is to get to the end of the dungeon. There’s a lot of traps and each monster type has something about it that makes it bad news, surprisingly. I didn’t expect the monsters to be challenging in this game, but until you get really good stuff that blocks status effects, each monster can end a run or ruin something. Whether it’s changing items, throwing your items out of your inventory(which is limited to 30, and you use purses to increase it but those rip if thrown out of your inventory), weakening your gear, or just putting you to sleep each creature type and recolor has something special it can do. Not to mention that wide variety of traps, which until you get a way to deal with them your best bet is to attack every time you move to a new space, which unveils traps if one is present. That of course uses up your stomach gauge, or Belly, that once it runs out you take damage per step until you eat food, which the enemies are going to ruin your food constantly.

Note, I’m making the game sound harder then it is. Once you get some decent stuff and do the Sage Trials(a set of dungeons specifically to teach you what items and monsters do what), most the rest of the game falls into place with some stat checks here and there. It becomes smooth sailing until the post game dungeons which honestly, there’s no reason to do. I’ll get into that at the end with a rant about “A Far Garden”, one of the bonus dungeons that I despise, on why the post game isn’t worth doing. Mostly because of time. I beat the game at 50 hours. My final play time is 160. A good chunk of that is, I hope, just letting the game run overnight so that I don’t have to do dungeon runs in one sitting but it still took an entire (I go to work) day to do one run of the main bonus dungeon. For the hope of getting some stupid swords for synthesis.

Omega power, the all powerful energy that causes everything is your premium currency. Dungeon merchants trade it or items, but otherwise its main use? Buying pictures and different objects to shove between the girls boobs. Also redecorating the garden. Omega power really isn’t used for much gameplay wise, it’s mostly just for aesthetic stuff.

Anyway, while I think the later dungeon stuff takes a bit to long to do, the overall game is easy and enjoyable, especially of the fanservice. Each girl gets 5 main cgs of sorts. 4 Skill Blossoms, mostly the girls cosplaying and halfway through there clothes are blown off in some way with there important bits still barely hidden, and a hot springs cg. Skill Blossom is the standard rubbing minigame, and honestly I don’t really know how to talk about it. You click hearts on the girls that get them turned on, then once they get enough hearts you spam clicks on their boobs or butt to get experience hearts, then time stops for some pointless lots of clicks, the girl basically squirts and done. New skills unlocked. Most of the fanservice comes from this and honestly I did like a lot of the shots. They stayed in character and the girls themselves look good. But the Skill Blossoms don’t feature the main gimmick of Omega Labyrinth. No, only the Hot Springs cgs feature the bust size stuff.

So before I talk about the cgs and bust size things, I want to talk about the actual sizes the game uses. Despite claiming the girls go from whatever they start at to Z, the girls only have four real sizes. Starting, big(H or so for most girls), bigger(K), biggest(Z). Only these change images, the rest of the sizes just existing for some boob shaking and stat stuff.

So hot springs are the main cg that uses the different sizes, and I like how not just the boobs change. The girls expressions reflect how hard it would be to have the larger boobs and do add some personality to what is essentially just four shots per girl with only boob size differing. The other thing that reflects the changed sizes are tit for tat and size up. Size up is identifying items using tits, by rubbing up and down on an oblong object. It’s very obvious and while funny and kind of erotic, I hate the cg which is just a closeup of the girls boobs. Compared to the other art, the size up shots are colored differently and look like they are trying to be more real, I guess? And as a result look worse. It’s probably because of the amount of animation used here. Tit for tat uses the same images as size up, but for Rock Paper Scissors using tits. How they tell what you threw is beyond me, it basically just amounts to tit shaking. With the camera being about six inches from there chests. I don’t really care for either of these, despite Size Up basically being the main gimmick that sold the series in the first place. Bust expansion and identifying items via tits were all I knew about Omega Labyrinth until last year. Apparently this has less total cgs then Z did, which is either because of a bigger cast or more likely, budget do to what happened with Z.

Overall I liked the game more then I expected. I wish the story meant more or had an actual theme to explore instead of love flowers. The fanservice was good though I wish there had been more Skill Blossom/Hot Springs style stuff instead of the tit for tat and Size Up stuff taking so much of the gallery. The actual gameplay was satisfying beyond a number of issues I had with the end game. I do wish there was some costumes you could unlock in game instead of all of it being dlc, the girls unique dungeons even hint at giving out some underwear for them specifically to wear, only to get flower based equipment I never used. In f act I wish the game had more odds and ends to use Omega Power on. You just get to much of it for what few things you could use it on.

PC Save for Omega Labyrinth Life

Two saves for this. One without dlc items, but everything else. Filled out item book, gold medal on all dungeons, all cgs purchased for viewing, everything. The other save just has the dlc weapons and armor bought on top of everything else. I’ll update the dlc save if anything new comes out(there’s apparently girl specific weapons and three grind only dungeons that might come out at some point). I skipped doing the NG+ styled no skills mode where you replay the whole game for nothing other then some challenge. Spent enough time on the game as it is.

Gameplay: 7/10 Eroticness: 8/10 Story: 4/10

Completion: What it took-

Beat the game, beat every dungeon with their 3 challenges, and get all items/story bits. Of course cgs as well, though honestly getting all cgs is the easy part. For most of the game, getting everything you can is easy. It is a bit grindy getting all the conversations for the gallery, but its not to bad.

The real problem is the all items bit, and  of course the final post game dungeon. I complain about that dungeon below becasue it is horrible. The items were also bad. In order to get the final tier of weapons and shields, you need a weapon and shield only found the in the easier 99 floor dungeon. The items you need only show up in maze rooms, lake rooms, and the two shops after floor 60. I had a few runs where I got zero. Runs took 3+ hours each. This was torturous, honestly. Biggest issue is that the actual weapons aren’t worth it since there is nothing to really bring them to, nor is there a reward other then an achievement for getting everything. This is a great example of beat the game and be done with it, the post game and completion stuff just is not worth it.

Some tips from a guy who 100% the game-

1. Keep two of every 1 and 2 star weapon and shield until you do the fusion stuff with them, and keep 4 magician’s rods. In one of the weirder fusion trackers I’ve ever seen, even if the end result is the same, the game tracks different orders separately. So if a buckler and another shield make the blade shield, then you need to reverse the fusion order to all the synth recipes, for some reason. Later on they actually make separate equipment so it makes more sense.
2. On a related note, the Fan[Bamboo] is probably the rarest weapon in the game, mostly because it only appears in two or three dungeons you don’t need to enter more then twice very rarely. Grind the first 5 floors of the Holy Fire Cave for it, Escape Tome, and go back in. This is the quickest way to get it. You need two of course.
3. Save flower materials until you can get reflect magic, float, and protect. These three effects make most enemies fodder that can’t do anything. Once you have two of each of the above on separate gear, just keep fusing them into any upgrades you get. Those three make the game a much different experience. Stop item change and stop unequip are also very useful and you should probably get those asap as well.
4. When doing the 99 floor dungeons, don’t be afraid to use the attack that reduces bust size to your original one. Getting skill uses back by going back up sizes is more worth it then the stats you lose for a short while. If for whatever reason you do go into Far Garden, one of the 99 floor dungeons, buy a Tome of Descending if a merchant is selling one. It’s the only way to get that item, and the only unique item to that dungeon.
5. Protection guards against all status effects except bust down, level down, and most importantly instant death, among a small list of others that magic reflect takes care of.  Guard Instant Death is needed only in the Clocktower bonus dungeon, which is also the only bonus dungeon you will run more then once.
6. To get the strongest weapons and shields, you need True Omega Swords and Ochain Shields, which are gotten around floor 70-98 in the Clocktower, mostly from random merchant inventories. This is the endgame grind. Nothing else in the game needs you to beat the postgame stuff, so if you don’t care about achievements or 100% just grind Omega power after the final boss to buy everything.
7. The girls have hidden relationship values which dictate when you can see their scenes with other girls. These scenes are then added to the gallery. There are 329 scenes in the game. Generally, beat the game then talk to each girl with another two to three times then go to another girl, and let the day end and listen in on different girls chatting. Repeat until your numbers are- 118 (Story), 18 (Hinata), 18 (Berune), 17 (Mei), 17 (Mio), 18 (Nanami), 20 (Juri), 17 (Yurika), 6 (Rinka), 16 (Yuyu), 15 (Momo), 10 (Flora), 39 (Nem/Pai)  Note- the shop talk option has tutorials, which are saved in the gallery. About 20 scenes come from this.
8. The girl you play really doesn’t matter, your gear will mostly decide end game stuff. Mio has the worst final stats, but is the only character that makes projectiles good. Berune is the best for getting items, and about half the girls are physical and the other half magical based. After that it’s entirely preference, though I would suggest sticking to the damage type a girls skills do, as that is usually her higher stat as well. Also do make sure to have a physical and magical attacker, it makes the entire game far easier.
9. Strength and Magic are what decides skill damage, weapon stats don’t influence it. So you can use whatever weapon you want. Make sure to give your partner something with some kind of reach, of the opposite damage type of yourself.

I wanted to separate my thoughts on the bonus dungeon “A Far Garden” from the rest of the post, because I despise this dungeon. From it’s very concept in this game, I hate that this is a thing. Unlike most the rest of the game, “A Far Garden” doesn’t let you bring your equipment in. For people who have played the game, you might bring up the Sage Trials or the girl dungeons that also don’t let you bring things in. The Sage Trials are single floor active tutorials, and the girl dungeons are gimmick based 10 floor affairs that are kind of cool. The Far Garden is a 99 floor dungeon with a single unique item in it, that doesn’t unlock anything. So for trudging up this multi hour long affair with every enemy type in this game about preparing yourself before entering dungeons with your loot, you get nothing.  No images, no stock of fusion materials, no special equipment. You get a few books you can make do other book effects, and the fusion stuff for the ultimate shield and sword, which you probably already made if you were going for 100%. Really this is the issue with the entire end game of this game, there’s no point other then completionism. Beating the game at least rewards some extra hot spring and size up images you couldn’t unlock otherwise, but for beating any of the three bonus dungeons you get at most a new piece of underwear you don’t need. It just bothers me that the post game features no real player rewards. No banter between the characters, no new images, no extra epilogue, nothing except for some gear you don’t need if you can already beat these dungeons. It doesn’t help that nothing you do in Clocktower or Rinka’s trial, the other bonus dungeons, matter for Far Garden. Far Garden is putting a rogue like dungeon as the final thing to do in a rogue lite, and it makes no sense. I built up that entire armory of stuff for nothing to use it on. Rinka’s Trial is to easy to beat if you finish Clocktower, and Clocktower is just a grind spot for the swords and shields needed to fuse the final items. There’s nothing to use those final items on, meaning there’s no point to the entire end game, other then achievements. Of the two 99 floor dungeons in the game, one is prep for an end game that never happens, and the other is a completely different game style. What a let down from a mostly solid game.