Takaya Imamura has designed some of the most iconic characters across Nintendo’s history. Joining in 1989, his first major gig was creating the look of F-Zero’s Captain Falcon. Moving on to The Legend of Zelda series and Star Fox, he is also responsible for the unique art direction of Majora’s Mask.
After parting ways with Nintendo in 2021, he started work on his first independent project, a manga that he’s now adapted into an old-fashioned adventure that recalls the early days of the point-and-click genre. Omega 6: The Triangle Stars is a game that allows us some insight into a veteran designer returning to their roots.
Omega 6 sees a pair of robots set out to find a new planet for humanity. Instead they become amateur treasure hunters and stumble upon a campaign to find an ancient artefact. Protagonists Thunder and Kyla traverse a system of planets populated by a diverse array of creatures engaged in various kinds of socio-political turmoil.
The writing is sharp and funny, particularly the bickering of the leads and the animosity of rival treasure hunters. Shipmates Prop and Flavo offer comic relief, as well as tutorial chatter and general guidance on what to do next. There’s nothing overly complex here, it’s a simple tale that plays around with genre tropes and has some referential fun along the way.
There’s a cartoonish charm to its rogues gallery of alien enemies and quest givers. The variety of character design here — humanoid insects, skeletal sorcerers and everything in between — feels like Imamura letting loose on his own terms (he even puts himself in the game, as a boastful Mangaka).
The adventure plays out entirely on static screens, using a verb-based system to interact and traverse within environments. As much as it feels like a throwback to formative adventure titles from the ’80s and ’90s, it also knowingly pays deference to modern updates of that template. It’s self-aware in a similar way to Toby Fox’s Undertale and just as funny.
Progression is a mix of investigation and battles, both random and intentional. Our protagonists poke around Impostar and its neighbouring planets, being exploited by shady bureaucrats and shaken down by other hunters. There is the smallest hint of open investigation, but events play out in a mostly linear fashion.
An odd, sometimes frustrating quirk of the story is the requirement to purchase (in-game) a pass in order to visit other planets. These passes allow a certain amount of time (seemingly tracked by number of screen transitions) away from Impostar, ending abruptly when your allowance runs out. A residence pass grants permanent travel permissions, but this comes at a high price. Carrying out quests and errands will rack up enough credits to secure passage.
Combat is officially advertised as ‘card-based’, but these cards only come in three flavours – Rock, Paper, and Scissors. Our heroes fight bad guys using the time-honoured tradition of RPS. A set of cards are dealt at the beginning of each turn, a character’s specialism determines how many of that card they have and how many enemy cards are revealed. Thunder, for instance, is a rock guy so he gets a few rock attacks per turn and can see the enemy’s rock cards. It’s a simple, quirky battle system that is a mixture of patience and guesswork.
Power-ups are essential to chewing through an attacker’s health bar and the ship’s bonsai tree is a key resource for this. You maintain a series of plants in the ship, which sprout stat-boosting fruit. NPCs will also randomly appear to give you gifts…or steal from you.
Ultimately, Omega 6: The Triangle Stars is a fun and breezy retro adventure offering the fascinating opportunity to play a labour of love from a creator whose mind conjured not only Termina’s terrifying moon, but also the equally unsettling Tingle; Imamura’s style is clearly on display across all the denizens of Impostar, Igni, and Frostara. There’s a lovely soundscape from Shinobu Amayake, too, herself an ex-Nintendo luminary. The incidental music and themes are catchy and never wear thin.
Conclusion
Omega 6: The Triangle Stars is a small game from a big talent. It’s a bit too simplistic at times, lacking any taxing challenges beyond having enough credits and finding the right screen at the right time. However, the comedy is light, the action is breezy, and the combat system is deliberately accessible. Old-fashioned but frequently nodding to newer genre entries, it’s a well-designed passion project from an industry legend.
