Omega 6: The Triangle Stars (2025, Switch/PC)

Developer: Takaya Imamura, Happymeal, Pleocene
Publisher: Clear River Games, CITY CONNECTION
Clear Version: Switch
Clear Platform: Switch
Clear Date: 5/6/25

---

Why should I care?
For me, the guy who brought Captain Falcon to life automatically earned a purchase on his first solo effort. For everyone else, there’s still a cute VN in here.

---

Jan! Ken! Pon!

If you’ve been following the blog, you’ll know I recently traveled to (and from) Japan. That involves two pretty lengthy flights. I’m not usually the type to do much gaming on a domestic flight — I find the act “cringe,” which definitely is a problem with my self-perception or whatever and not actually true — but a long enough flight will have me yearning to mix up my entertainment options. Much like my flight to Argentina last year got me to play the two Famicom Detective Club remakes, I decided to play another visual novel in transit to Japan: Omega 6: The Triangle Stars. It’s pretty fine.

It drew my attention mostly because it is the creation of Takaya Imamura. Mr. Imamura is a wannabe manga artist who unfortunately had to settle for a 30-year career at Nintendo making video games. The first game he worked on at Nintendo was at F-Zero. Among his many duties on the small 10-person team was the design of Captain Falcon. A pretty straight line can be drawn from his creative output at that time to how I have spent a pretty staggering amount of my life between my F-Zero and Super Smash Bros. obsessions.

In 2021, Imamura left Nintendo after a decorated career to pursue other endeavors. In addition to teaching at a university, Imamura finally made his manga dreams come true by writing, drawing, and publishing Omega 6: The Triangle Stars in France in 2022 (to be localized elsewhere soon, as I understand it). This year, he released a video game spinoff thereof.

The game takes the form of a visual novel with rock-paper-scissors-based combat. It’s got SNES-style art (including a 4:3 aspect ratio) and a sort of plodding, methodical pace that would’ve been fitting for a VN released back in those days. I think it is in many ways an homage to, like, PC-98 shit that I really don’t even have any knowledge of. Someday maybe. The well of things to know about video games is truly endless.

“Omega 6” is the name of the cyborg protagonists’ ship. The two, Thunder and Kyla, are traveling from Earth on a centuries-long mission to find a suitable new planet for humanity to settle when Earth becomes uninhabitable. Unfortunately, rents on other planets are awfully expensive, and they haven’t had much luck so far.

During the game’s exposition, they suddenly find themselves cruising through a flurry of flyers advertising a treasure hunt on the planet Impostar. Whichever lucky treasure hunter finds it is guaranteed fabulous wealth. The Omega 6 crew sets course for the planet figuring it’s as good a lead as any they’ve had so far.

Predictably, fishiness abounds as soon as they set foot on Impostar and begin inquiring about the hunt. Mild amusement ensues as you’re sent on a series of goose chases hoping each might get you a little closer to that precious prize.

Of course, other hunters will be after the treasure too, and sometimes you’ll have no choice but to fight them. This is where the RPS system comes into play. Each round of combat, you’re dealt a hand of cards featuring hands in the shape of the RPS objects. Your opponent is as well, and you have limited visibility into the contents of their hand. This can be improved with powerups, but a lot of the game comes down to luck, not unlike normal RPS. It’s decent. I get that VNs are generally supposed to be low-engagement, and this is a kind of clever way to design the combat so it asks a little of you and gives it some stakes, but the random nature of it all makes wins feel hollow and losses feel annoying.

Suffice it to say this game didn’t move me much. I picked it up mostly as a tip of the cap to a man whose work had a big impact on me, and I don’t regret that. It’s a silly and cute, but I really wouldn’t say it’s especially good in any way. If you’re really a fiend for VNs with light combat, this’ll probably tickle you, but for me it was a good way to burn a few airplane hours.

This one probably should’ve just stayed in manga form, and I’ll certainly give it a look to see how it holds up in that format.