Nitro Gen Omega

Genre: Turn-Based RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Note: This review has been directly sponsored by a kind donation from Jamie and His Cats. Thanks again for your generous contribution!

Nitro Gen Omega is a Turn-Based RPG released in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where artificial-intelligence-controlled machines have forced humanity into taking refuge in cities high in the air, this game focuses on a crew of mercenaries piloting an aircraft that makes brief expeditions down to the surface in a mech, taking on jobs and scrounging for resources.

The presentation is pretty good here, using cel-shaded anime-style 3D visuals seemingly deliberately presented at a low framerate to give the impression of a retro anime-style animation. This is backed by catchy soundtrack with plenty of electric guitar that fits the retro anime aesthetic well, with the Normal Battle theme and Northern Area Capitol theme both providing good examples of this.

However, while the presentation is fairly unique, it’s the gameplay that really sets Nitro Gen Omega apart. Battles in this game are a highly tactical affair, but not in the way you’d play a Strategy-RPG. Every turn in the game presents players with a timeline showing different times your mech and enemies can take actions, with the player and enemies taking turn choosing moves to place on that timeline. To succeed in battle, players must anticipate enemies’ actions and plan out their own actions to counter the enemy or exploit their mistakes.

Players’ mechs have four characters piloting them, each responsible for a different type of action – there’s a driver who can move the mech to one of four grid spaces to either get close to or move away from enemies, or alternately melee attack an enemy in the same quadrant; a gunner fires different kinds of long-distance weapons, but must also manage reloading; an operator utilizes tactical abilities to get added information about enemy moves, or deploys countermeasures to evade attacks; and an engineer makes sure the mech doesn’t overheat, and also helps with some other support actions.

What’s more, your characters have a relationship system where they can form bonds that enable additional synergies between them, and between battles players must manage these relationships, as well as the moods of their pilots. A pilot in a bad mood may perform poorly or ditch your crew altogether. What’s more, pilots in a section that takes massive damage may permanently die, forcing you to recruit a replacement.

There’s a lot of really enticing gameplay mechanics here, on top of expected stuff like replacing mech parts and managing your mech’s energy output compared to its’ parts’ energy usage. Unfortunately, the game does a poor job of explaining these game mechanics, forcing players to be very patient with the game to get a feel for how everything works.

Overall, I really like the brilliant originality of Nitro Gen Omega, but I’m frustrated that its complex game mechanics are explained so poorly, making this a difficult game to get into. If you’re the sort of player who doesn’t mind taking your time digging into the workings of a game, I think you may well find the great originality here to be well worth taking the time to do so. However, at the same time, I think the average player is likely to find that these issues may keep them from enjoying its wonderful depth. In the end, whether or not you enjoy this game really depends on which of those two types of players you are.

tl;dr – Nitro Gen Omega is a Turn-Based RPG where players control a team who pilots a mech in a post-apocalyptic world overrun with hostile machines. This game has some truly unique game mechanics, from its combat focused on planning out the timeline of your moves to its character relationship management. Unfortunately, these deep mechanics are poorly-explained, and whether or not you enjoy this game will really depend on whether or not you have the patience to figure out how things work.

Grade: B-

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^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Jaka, Jared Wark, Gabriel Coronad-Medina, Francis Obst, Kristoffer Wulff, Seth Christenfeld, and Vince Verrinoldi. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}