Omori for Red Pilled people (real)
Such an underrated gem.
this game is so good ive played it maybe a hundred times
omori wishes it could be end roll. literally one of my favorite rpg horror maker games oat... so painfully underrated. i could play this game 100 times even with the rpg maker 2000 curse. you can also play for free!! here: https://vgperson.com/games/endroll.htm
Rip Russell you would have loved omori
russell did a silly: the game
end roll purified my water supply, revived my crops, cured my depression, and brought a genuine spark of joy into my life. that is probably the most misleading statement to make in relation to the mood and story of this game, but i mean it completely unironically. it gave me meaning. i just found this site. i registered because of end roll
i played it a few months ago via a recommendation to omori fans (an amazing game which i'd also recently gotten into) and BOY could i have never seen the sheer mental impact of this game coming. end roll is the definition of 'hurts so good' imo. it weighs on your heart, makes you wish things were better and would become better despite knowing that it won't, and yet there's a distance to it that can actually distract from one's own pain in favor of just... feeling for russell and all the pain in those surrounding him, in my experience at least—it probably varies from person to person, of course. i would die for russell. i would go to hell for him. i would gladly step into the lion's mouth and let myself be eaten for the mere illusion of him. i would also do the same for chris, who is possibly the most lovable and underrated barely present side character i can imagine. i would live for them
amazing art, amazing story, amazing soundtrack, amazing characters, amazing game. it's an entire experience created by a single person, and you can play it entirely for free
i played it a few months ago via a recommendation to omori fans (an amazing game which i'd also recently gotten into) and BOY could i have never seen the sheer mental impact of this game coming. end roll is the definition of 'hurts so good' imo. it weighs on your heart, makes you wish things were better and would become better despite knowing that it won't, and yet there's a distance to it that can actually distract from one's own pain in favor of just... feeling for russell and all the pain in those surrounding him, in my experience at least—it probably varies from person to person, of course. i would die for russell. i would go to hell for him. i would gladly step into the lion's mouth and let myself be eaten for the mere illusion of him. i would also do the same for chris, who is possibly the most lovable and underrated barely present side character i can imagine. i would live for them
amazing art, amazing story, amazing soundtrack, amazing characters, amazing game. it's an entire experience created by a single person, and you can play it entirely for free
The dev mentioned in their notes to the player that anyone streaming this or reviewing this should remain respectful so I will try my best to stay that way (and I am going to fail). For the value I got out of it, it was a neat little experience and quite detailed for something made in RPG Maker 2000. I also kinda personally enjoyed just how unapologetically brash the story is in its violent theming. It could very easily be written off as being over-the-top on purpose but I'm not within that mindset.
The way the story is presented, sadly, is about as blunt as a bat Russell probably used to bash someone's head in at some point in his life. You basically know exactly what happened to make a freaky event go on. As I've mentioned in my Imaginary Friends review, that's one of the key pitfalls of amateur storytelling. Not that it can't be done right; I think OMORI does a good job of doing it by spacing out harsh answers with periods of intrigue as you try and piece together the twisting plot. I know for sure not everyone will agree with me on that opinion, though.
Gameplay also suffers a lot. It's about as default RPG Maker as it gets. The customizable party members bit is neat, though not novel enough for it to jump out to me. In addition, enemy battles sometimes seem trivial with me mashing the auto button while the boss fights kick my teeth in with how quickly they wipe out my party. I assume when Nintendotubers talk about saying they hate turn-based JRPGs, they assume they're like that.
I was able to make it to about Day 4 before I gave up. Maybe the game gets way better after where I'm at but for now I'll put this off. When I'm a better RPG player I'll try and come back to this one. And I suspect I'll love it more then!
I will say, this game definitely deseves to be given the remaster treatment. It'd be nice to have this with various QoL improvements, widescreen, and Steam achievements considering how jam-packed with side content there is, almost overwhelmingly so.
All in all, this game has a ton of potential and I am for it but it was ultimately not for me.
The way the story is presented, sadly, is about as blunt as a bat Russell probably used to bash someone's head in at some point in his life. You basically know exactly what happened to make a freaky event go on. As I've mentioned in my Imaginary Friends review, that's one of the key pitfalls of amateur storytelling. Not that it can't be done right; I think OMORI does a good job of doing it by spacing out harsh answers with periods of intrigue as you try and piece together the twisting plot. I know for sure not everyone will agree with me on that opinion, though.
Gameplay also suffers a lot. It's about as default RPG Maker as it gets. The customizable party members bit is neat, though not novel enough for it to jump out to me. In addition, enemy battles sometimes seem trivial with me mashing the auto button while the boss fights kick my teeth in with how quickly they wipe out my party. I assume when Nintendotubers talk about saying they hate turn-based JRPGs, they assume they're like that.
I was able to make it to about Day 4 before I gave up. Maybe the game gets way better after where I'm at but for now I'll put this off. When I'm a better RPG player I'll try and come back to this one. And I suspect I'll love it more then!
I will say, this game definitely deseves to be given the remaster treatment. It'd be nice to have this with various QoL improvements, widescreen, and Steam achievements considering how jam-packed with side content there is, almost overwhelmingly so.
All in all, this game has a ton of potential and I am for it but it was ultimately not for me.
This game is the most horrifying, disturbing, and frankly, fucked up piece of media I've ever had to experience, and I don't think I would want it any other way.
I came in with zero expectations (mainly just expecting a depressing RPG Maker game), and came out absolutely stunned.
I came in with zero expectations (mainly just expecting a depressing RPG Maker game), and came out absolutely stunned.
Endroll is an amazing horror inspired RPG maker 2000 game. By all means it should be played and I believe this is my favourite RPG maker game, even more so than Omori. You play as Russell, a serial killer who has been sentenced to death and takes part in a medical trial where he's given a drug named "Happy Dream", whose purpose is to make him develop guilt and regret his crimes. The whole story takes place inside his dream, where a nameless village with very kind inhabitants is created. You will very quickly uncover the truth about the inhabitants and every day focuses on one of them.
This game doesn't beat around the bush and you could compare it to Omori's creepiest parts. Take that and make it creepier, and then make an entire game out of it. While I thought it looked fairly standard at the beginning, the game hooked me very quickly with its pacing and how on point it was. Almost the entire game has a creepy unsettling atmosphere and it only gets worse as you progress, but it is just translating the game's themes. At its roots it's still a Mother/Earthbound-like game, though, and there's also a lot of comedy.
One of the most interesting things about the narration is that half if not more of the game's content is optional. If you only do the main plot, I estimate you'd beat the game in about five hours, but the game has a lot of side stories or requests from the villagers which make it last longer. Every in-game day, you can talk to them to learn rumours or get a request, and you can revisit previous places to see if any change has happened. Oftentimes you'll stumble upon an entirely new dungeon by revisiting a previous location, or realise that every NPC has new dialogue and an event is on-going and unlock new locations too. After every main quest, you will also advance the day to night time, and the world is very different (and dangerous) at night, some events being exclusive to it. The side content is honestly amazing and it feels like you keep discovering darker secrets continuously. A lot of them will develop the characterisation of the villagers and the creepier story elements.
I think one of the game's most original aspect for me was that unlike Omori, the main character is perfectly aware of his past and it is the virtual characters of his world which are confronted and shocked by the truth. The main character simply develop his guilt by watching their reaction, trauma and protecting them. Often, the quests will actually reveal the story of these characters rather than the protagonist, whether they are stories imagined by him or things he knew, and represent those characters overcoming THEIR obstacles and not Russell. Essentially, the game has several arcs which focus on one character but you can further explore them by revisiting locations related to their story. If I had to give a main theme to this game, it would definitively be the feeling of guilt. I found it very easy to sympathise with what the protagonist would be feeling during the events of the game.
The game also has a very interesting combat gameplay. While it may seem pretty standard at first, it actually has a good focus on buff/debuff and elemental weaknesses. There are also multiple status that enemies can affect and which you have to deal with. One of the more interesting aspects of combat is that you can go to a great extent to customise characters. For example, you can buy spell books to teach a specific ability to a character and turn them into a healer or magician, and there are stat increasing seeds all to increase a specific trait. There are even two seeds which will increase either physical or magical abilities to a very great extent, but they will decrease the opposite one by a great amount too. And the most fascinating is that every character has at least two weapon types, a more magic-focused weapon and a physical-focused one, with different skills being available depending on the weapon type you are using which makes every character very versatile. Did I mention that you can almost freely customise a party of four with NINE characters? They all have fairly unique skills too, even though they can serve almost any roll. The game also doesn't lack challenge and the optional zones will offer great combat value, with the last ones being fairly difficult albeit I never needed to grind.
If it has any flaw, it would be that it seems primitive, considering it's RPG Maker 2000 and there are obvious limitations such as only being able to change maps when you're walking on a road or the hitboxes of buildings, but it didn't bother me once I realise how much depth this game had and once you get there, you have a really wonderful game and in my opinion it is just as great as Omori.
You can get the game for free and in English at: https://vgperson.com/games/endroll.htm
This game doesn't beat around the bush and you could compare it to Omori's creepiest parts. Take that and make it creepier, and then make an entire game out of it. While I thought it looked fairly standard at the beginning, the game hooked me very quickly with its pacing and how on point it was. Almost the entire game has a creepy unsettling atmosphere and it only gets worse as you progress, but it is just translating the game's themes. At its roots it's still a Mother/Earthbound-like game, though, and there's also a lot of comedy.
One of the most interesting things about the narration is that half if not more of the game's content is optional. If you only do the main plot, I estimate you'd beat the game in about five hours, but the game has a lot of side stories or requests from the villagers which make it last longer. Every in-game day, you can talk to them to learn rumours or get a request, and you can revisit previous places to see if any change has happened. Oftentimes you'll stumble upon an entirely new dungeon by revisiting a previous location, or realise that every NPC has new dialogue and an event is on-going and unlock new locations too. After every main quest, you will also advance the day to night time, and the world is very different (and dangerous) at night, some events being exclusive to it. The side content is honestly amazing and it feels like you keep discovering darker secrets continuously. A lot of them will develop the characterisation of the villagers and the creepier story elements.
I think one of the game's most original aspect for me was that unlike Omori, the main character is perfectly aware of his past and it is the virtual characters of his world which are confronted and shocked by the truth. The main character simply develop his guilt by watching their reaction, trauma and protecting them. Often, the quests will actually reveal the story of these characters rather than the protagonist, whether they are stories imagined by him or things he knew, and represent those characters overcoming THEIR obstacles and not Russell. Essentially, the game has several arcs which focus on one character but you can further explore them by revisiting locations related to their story. If I had to give a main theme to this game, it would definitively be the feeling of guilt. I found it very easy to sympathise with what the protagonist would be feeling during the events of the game.
The game also has a very interesting combat gameplay. While it may seem pretty standard at first, it actually has a good focus on buff/debuff and elemental weaknesses. There are also multiple status that enemies can affect and which you have to deal with. One of the more interesting aspects of combat is that you can go to a great extent to customise characters. For example, you can buy spell books to teach a specific ability to a character and turn them into a healer or magician, and there are stat increasing seeds all to increase a specific trait. There are even two seeds which will increase either physical or magical abilities to a very great extent, but they will decrease the opposite one by a great amount too. And the most fascinating is that every character has at least two weapon types, a more magic-focused weapon and a physical-focused one, with different skills being available depending on the weapon type you are using which makes every character very versatile. Did I mention that you can almost freely customise a party of four with NINE characters? They all have fairly unique skills too, even though they can serve almost any roll. The game also doesn't lack challenge and the optional zones will offer great combat value, with the last ones being fairly difficult albeit I never needed to grind.
If it has any flaw, it would be that it seems primitive, considering it's RPG Maker 2000 and there are obvious limitations such as only being able to change maps when you're walking on a road or the hitboxes of buildings, but it didn't bother me once I realise how much depth this game had and once you get there, you have a really wonderful game and in my opinion it is just as great as Omori.
You can get the game for free and in English at: https://vgperson.com/games/endroll.htm
É o meu jogo de RPG Maker favorito. Recomendo para qualquer pessoa que goste também dar uma chance para End Roll.
I will never forget the atmosphere in the hospital
If Memory Girl has a million fans, I'm one of them.
If Memory Girl has 5 fans, I'm one of them.
If Memory Girl has 1 fan, that one is me.
If Memory Girl has no fans, I'm no longer on this planet
If the entire world is against Memory Girl, I am against the entire world
If Memory Girl has 5 fans, I'm one of them.
If Memory Girl has 1 fan, that one is me.
If Memory Girl has no fans, I'm no longer on this planet
If the entire world is against Memory Girl, I am against the entire world