Call me Vee....Captain Vee.....

It's been about thirty years give or take since I had encountered that ghastly damn fiddler crab. I trudged and shuffled my way through hill tops, chemical plants, casinos, and even oil spills to find all those sparkly gemstones competing in those half pipe challenges. The challenges themselves were quite a treat back in those days. They're a tad fumbly bumbly visiting them now, and the bombs are quite dastardly placed. I wouldn't expect any less from that egg-ish bastard, but that crab took everything from me. My time, my money, my gems, as well as my leg. That crabominable nincompoop took it off when I tried to jump on him, I don't know how he hit me, but he did. Underhanded he was, that's why as of this paragraph I have gone off on my expedition to track down that bloody wanker. I'm gonna get him back for what he did, I will have my revenge...

Been about a weeks worth of travel on the range, we stopped at the casino as a resting stop after my fox companion nearly got tetanus from a Grounder jumping out of the wall in those ruins earlier. Crafty bunch they are, constantly talking about buckets of chicken for some reason too. After I lost all of my rings diving headfirst into an oversized slot machine, we continued onward through the caves dodging those damn lightning bugs. We were getting closer though, closer to his habitat. I could smell the fumes of discarded fossil fuel, past this ocean, we will be within his lair. It's a shame no one has yet to do something about all this oil, I wonder if it's the seahorses keeping the cleaning crews at bay...their cheesy poof spitball can knock an echidna on their arse.

After a couple hours we finally made it, the fabled Metropolis Zone, often mistakenly known as "Genocide City" by some goers. Sounds like something owned by a blonde arms dealing supervillain living in a Nimitz-class supercarrier. My foxy companion was nearly knocked off the lug nut elevator that we were using by an exploding starfish, that's how I knew we were even closer. The music was awfully catchy for such a dangerous area, no idea where it was coming from. I can only assume that crab was behind it. We searched high and low for what seemed like hours.......perhaps even days....but then, it happened. I spotted him. Perched up on the ledge like he was last time, the crustaceous criminal.

Shellcracker. Shellcracker.....

There's no mistaking it, I could never forget such a smarmy little fucker. You could get an entire team of astrophysicists and mathematicians to construct a diagram of when and how this damn crab's hitboxes function, but they still wouldn't be able to figure it out. Baffled beyond recognition at the thievery of which this arthropod operates, science couldn't possibly understand it. I couldn't either, but I had to get it. My revenge. I cannot allow him to continue his antics, who knows how many countless others he has stolen from. How many lives ruined. All by this fiddling fiddler's debauchery and scandalous behavior. I ushered my kitsune cohort to hand me my spear...and I could see Shellcracker's eyes narrow, he knew it was me....I have come for him....only one will leave this area alive. The hunt is on....

My heart was racing, the adrenaline was pumping, the memories of our last encounter rushed back to haunt me. I took my trusty spear and clutched it in my dominant hand, I readied my aim at my arch nemesis. Shellcracker did nothing but sneer at me in confidence, his gigantic claw was ready to lunge at me any second now. I was at a disadvantage, but I was determined, determined to crack his shell. We glared at each other for eons, waiting for one of us to make the first move. Birds flew out of the trees that had somehow grown in this factory, and I suddenly saw his pincer rush toward me. My life flashed before my eyes, and I jumped skywards out of the way for my dear life. In the air, it felt like time had frozen. I could see him below me, now was my chance. I threw my damned spear as hard as I could, straight for his mug. I couldn't even see straight, after only a second I heard a loud "POOF" afterwards. After landing, I took a quick glance back at the enemy, a thick cloud of smoke where he once was. It was done, my revenge is complete. Shellcracker....has been cracked.....

After the smoke cleared however, a rabbit hobbled out of the wreckage of what was once a sinister shellfish. They looked at me for a few seconds, with an odd look that unsettled me. They seemed thankful, thankful that I had defeated them... something I was unprepared for. The rabbit ran off without a care, leaving me there with an almost empty feel. I got my revenge...a selfish act for sure, one that I knew made me no better than the crab, but... was it truly as selfish as that shellfish? I wonder how I would've felt if I had not seen that rabbit afterwards. I took a ponder to this during our return trip home. Riding the gondola down the skies of Hill Top, I remembered all those moments from our last adventure. The journey through the Chemical Plant outracing that vile blue jelly, exploring those aquatic ruins nearly getting my face taken off by an arrow... it's quite odd. My eyes became heavy as I stared off into the sunset, tears were felt running down my cheeks as I looked again at my new keepsake that was his claw. I spoke to him.

"Thank you for the memories, old chum."

I'm going to make it clear right now. I can't stand this game. I can't stand how people act like this was one of the definitive racing games in the era it was in. Playing through all the cups on every CC was suffering. I didn't like it back when I had it on the Wii VC and I still don't enjoy it at all.

The controls just don't feel good, the AI are such cheaters and it's not even funny how awful it is. I'm sure it's just as bad in some other games but it feels the worst here. The items are also atrocious here, a lot of them just don't work well like red shells hitting walls and green shells being slow making you hit your own shells most of the time. Some tracks are just awful like mirror Toad's Turnpike or Rainbow Road in general. Nintendo doesn't even bother to implement the Ghost Data system in later rereleases of this game even on NSO. It's a shame because the OST is one of the best I've ever heard in a game but the game itself is something I never want to play again. Also I used Wario and Toad in this game if anyone curious who I used.

Omori is... strange. Omori's story is the kind that can only be properly communicated through the dynamic and interactive medium of video games... but at the same time, it's the fact that Omori is a video game that holds it back from being truly amazing. It needed to be a video game, but the actual gameplay is the curse that prevents Omori from stepping into the sun.

There's so much good buried inside of Omori that giving the game a 3.5/5 feels like an insincere disservice to Omocat's darling pet project... but at the same time, a 3.5/5 feels awfully generous for what ultimately amounts to a decent but grindey Earthbound-like RPG that never fully understands the meaning of 'restraint'... or 'balance', for that matter. The more time passes, the more issues I have with this game. It is simultaneously misguided as hell while also being a genuine passion project, although I do think it leans more towards the 'passion project' side of things. It's strange. Omori is hard to nail down. Omori is both a genuine work of art and an intermittently-frustrating slog all at once.

Omori is too fucking long, for one thing. I was already starting to feel fatigue around Sweetheart's castle (a crying shame given how excellently-crafted the dungeon actually is, it's easily one of the mechanical highlights of the game), and realizing there was even more game to go through was a real killer. Omori is a serviceable eight-ten hour game that stretches itself out to twenty, and that's frankly unacceptable because there isn't a whole lot to actually do in Omori a lot of the time. There are several points throughout the game where Omori drags its heels and dicks around, seemingly because the game wants to use its bloated runtime to justify the $20 price tag. There are "sidequests", but they're pointless little endeavors that amount to you fetch-quest meandering all over the place for what amounts to a pat on the back and a slap on the wrist. There's a lot of interactable objects, but a lot of them just say basic things like "a fire hydrant, nothing special" or "a cutting board", momentary little time-wasters that add up over time because sometimes you click on something and it actually has something funny or enlightening to say, leading to this annoying cycle where you'll keep tapping Z on every object you see even though you know 85% of them are going to say nothing of merit. (In stark contrast to Undertale, where interacting with objects was one of the highlights of the game because it felt like everything had unique dialogue attached to it.)

Perhaps the biggest pacing issue is the fact that sizable portions of Omori honestly feel like filler. When the game starts and you're fighting charming, spunky characters like Space Boyfriend and Sweetheart, it's easy to enjoy yourself and simultaneously get lost in their zany antics while also acknowledging their psychological potential for Omori's character (it's clever how Space Boyfriend's lovesickness is a parallel for Omori's fear of connection, and how Sweetheart's obnoxious arrogance is a personification of Omori's own problems with self-love). But over time when you fight people like the Bread Twins and the shark guy Mr. Jawsum and those strangely hot mermaid slime girls and that dickhead whale Humphrey, you start wondering... what's the point of all this? What is this all building up to? And the truth is that it doesn't add up to much at all. So much of the goofy shit that happens in Headspace has honestly very little to do with the actual plot of the game: the character arc of Omori coming to terms with the loss of a loved one. After a certain point, it stops having much of anything to do about Omori or Basil or Aubrey or any of the main characters, really. All it does is reinforce the fact that Omori absolutely did not have to be this long - if they'd trimmed the fat and focused, then Headspace could have been a clever and creative tool to visibly demonstrate Omori's character growth. Instead, it's more of a playground of occasionally-great and hard-hitting moments underscored by frustrating backtracking, narrative aimlessness, and frankly unfair difficulty spikes.

I wouldn't call Omori 'hard' per se, but I would call Omori unfair if you go through it normally (without any substantive grinding, anyway). Omori has a serious balancing problem that permeates throughout the entire game. Grunt enemies can take away like a third of your health bar, and Omori loves surprising you with bullshit damage-sponge boss encounters that utterly cleave away at your health and barely give you any time to breathe. Any moment when you have to go on the defensive and heal/revive your teammates, you are absolutely at a disadvantage, and you're probably going to die. Healing items cost way too much money for a game with damage outputs as sometimes busted as this, and it commits the cardinal sin of turn-based RPGs: Omori dying ends the entire fight prematurely, an aggravating and outdated JRPG trope that, while it makes narrative sense given that it's all in Omori's mind, is annoying and counterintuitive to consistent game design. And as neat as the Emotion System is, I feel like it ultimately doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things compared to raw damage output. Most times I was just using it for the sake of damage output, like making Omori sad to improve his shanking skills (somehow), or making Aubrey & Kel angry to make their multi-hits hit harder. Once you find the singularly useful and damaging thing that any given Emotion can do, you're never given much reason to variate from that because this game can be demanding and difficult if you're underleveled or breaking even.

The game is practically screaming at you to GRIND. Grind for money, grind for items, grind for level-ups. Work for that bread. I had to grind considerably to even dream of making it through Sweetheart's boss battle, and even then she had me on the ropes near the climax of the battle. And frankly, I was overleveled by that point in the game. As much as I enjoyed being on the edge of my seat and constantly thinking in the moment, I couldn't help but realize "I would be fucking infuriated if I was at the recommended level cap for this". Now, grinding doesn't take too long in Omori, teammates level up fairly quickly. But the process of grinding in this game is boring, and I don't enjoy having to grind more than I'm inclined to in the first place. It constantly feels like a chore, and it doesn't make any narrative sense given that Omori's world is an escapist one.

So much about Omori frustrates me... that it completely blindsides me whenever the game decides to be good. Like, REALLY good. There are moments, decisions, and ideas in Omori that are absolutely stellar. The actual smallness of the real-world narrative paints a compelling parallel to the goofy grandiosity of Omori's dream world. All of Omori's friends are fleshed-out and well-written, and it's easy to genuinely care about them whenever something happens to them. The artstyle is wonderful, a blend of cutesy pastel colors and lively, anime-esque colored-pencil sketches that only adds to the dreamlike and psychedelic quality of the game's presentation. Sometimes the synergy of the battle system actually clicks and you're making thrilling tactical decisions just to stay alive (I like the interplay of passing attacks between allies and how every single pass between two people have different mechanics attached to them). The fact that there's an entire hidden second route ('Hikikomori Route') that you can access simply by choosing not to open the door when you wake up is fascinating. Omori is a wonderful silent protagonist, full of character and depth and nuance in spite of the fact that he virtually never opens his mouth; practically the entire game is an inside-out exploration of his deep-seated fears and guilt. The eclectic and energetic soundtrack is fucking terrific. Omori is genuinely funny, never letting the horror drag the comedy down or vice versa.

Some of the narrative moments in this game really fucking hit: the haunting Black Space, the peaceful yet heartbreaking Lost Library sequence, Aubrey in the church, the stark contrast between IRL Aubrey vs. Dream Aubrey, Omori following the trail of photos to relive the truth, the terrific ending of the game. And while not all of the horror really sticks the landing, most of the time Omori fucking nails it in the psychological-horror department, like the oppressive dark blues and blacks in Sunny's house late at night, the simple but haunting design of 'Something', the frequent but subtle usage of droning bass, and the aforementioned minimalism of Black Space, a genuinely inspired Yume Nikki-esque monochrome realm containing some of the most abstract and ghoulish imagery the game has to offer. Omori is genuinely unnerving throughout its runtime, and I have to admire that even if it sometimes lapses into eyeroll-inducing creepypasta territory (only sometimes; it's much, much better than DDLC in this regard).

I don't know. Omori is both really special but also really lost in its own sauce. Omori's style and presentation is wonderful, a darling blend of space-pastel pixel art, notebook sketches, and these off-kilter, oversaturated photorealistic backgrounds that heighten the dreamy aspects of the overall game... but it all starts to lose its charm thanks to samey dungeon design and an overt amount of backtracking and fumbling around. The main characters and some of the side cast are genuinely enjoyable and have a lot to say for themselves. There's some terrific character writing here, but sometimes they don't really get a proper chance to shine due to the aimlessness of the overall plot, a plot that manages to be both harrowingly moving and distressingly aimless. Omori has a powerful and heartfelt message at the core of its messy, poorly-paced story, but you have to be willing to wade through a fair deal of monotony in order to actually see the diamonds in the rough, see what makes the narrative special. It is wonderfully-written and confused all at once.

And I think that's the most apt description I could cook up for Omori. It has the core of a really great game, but a sometimes-hollow and unflattering shell that doesn't do its greatness any favors. The nucleus of the game is good. Really good, in fact. There's a fantastic video game hidden inside of Omori, just barely out of sight - you can make out the shadow of it most of the time, and sometimes you even manage to see the jewel in the emperor's clothes... but these momentary flashes of lightning in a bottle never last long enough to make the overall experience completely 'worth it'. Omori just being "pretty decent" is honestly kind of a pity. I love what it has to say, I love how it looks, and sometimes I find myself just loving it, indubitably and unambiguously... but frankly, it's a hard game to love. Perhaps if Omori had been shorter and had some sharper design choices, I'd be singing a different tune. It's so, so close to being great. But as it stands, Omori, as a video game, merely stands in the shadow of greatness, only occasionally stepping into the sunlight and making itself known... much like its own reclusive and deeply shy protagonist.

I think for some background context, I've known this game since around the time of its release before it really blew up online. while that's still late to the party when considering those who followed this game's development for the several years before release, I have known this game for about a year and a half now and from the moment I saw gameplay screenshots from someone in Discord and then watching the trailer on its steam page, I knew this would be a game to really grab me the moment I saw it. I never got to play this game for the aforementioned year and a half, primarily because I had no way to during most of that time, however during it I made sure to not look up ANYTHING related to the game until I played it myself, and eagerly awaited for when I would have a chance to play this.

Thankfully, my effort paid off and I managed to go just about entirely blind for this game. And as you have probably already noticed by my rating, my initial intuition was correct and I absolutely adored this game just about start to finish. This is basically my first review on the site ignoring the random Pokemon review I did ages ago, but I am someone to very, very sparsely give out perfect scores.

So where do I begin with this game? Well, the first thing to truly pull me towards this game when I first saw it was its art style. I'm someone who can be very easily attracted to media if its art style appeals to me, and that's been my main motivation to view multiple pieces of media, game or not. I love semi simplistic art styles and the sketch book-like style this game has is incredibly charming to me. Even when it comes to the sprite work and other overworld assets, this game is great and its environments are excellent, from the pastel, vibrant colors of Headspace, to the more uncanny, off putting visuals when things get darker.

To then go into gameplay, while not my main highlight of this game, I enjoyed quite a bit. Emotions are a fun system to play around with, and help a lot to add further character and personality to everything. This is further emphasized by the chain attack system, which with each interaction a party member has, helps reinforce the idea of this being a close friend group, especially with how each attack changes as the group's bond gets closer. My favorite detail with this is Omori at the start of the game getting hit by Kel trying to pass his ball, and becoming sad, vs near the end of the game, where he successfully reacts and hits the ball at the enemy, and growing ecstatic. If there is some nitpicks I can have about the combat, the main one is that between the emotion triangle, being sad never felt useful in nearly any situation, unless it was forced on the party or the enemy, since from the enemy's side, being sad tends to draw out fights and make the enemy take longer to die, while on the party's side, the fact that it saps away your juice after every hit makes pulling off strategies more inconvenient, as well as just drawing out fights since raw power is significantly more helpful than to prolong a fight by tanking damage, especially since there's multiple options to heal the party anyways.

As for the soundtrack, I don't usually factor them too heavily when evaluating a game, simply because I have very open tastes and more often than not I like a game's soundtrack, even if the rest of the game blows. Not to discredit the soundtrack of this game however with the above disclaimer, because it has some amazing tracks to it. "World's End Valentine" and "BREADY STEADY GO" were two songs I spoiled for myself before I played the game and are easily my favorite boss themes in the game. "Finding Shapes in the Clouds" is an excellent track for conveying the nostalgic small town feel of Faraway Town. "WHITE SPACE" does perfectly to convey the eerie, isolated, yet comforting feeling of White Space. "By Your Side", "DUET", "Good Morning", and "My Time" are all tracks that, while I am likely biased by their narrative connections, especially stick out for the emotional feelings they convey to me.

Finally, the story. Although I saved this for last, I don't want to discuss specific details of what happens, as I believe experiencing this game without knowing is truly special. This is a story that got me to cry by the end, which is an incredibly rare reaction for me. It's not uncommon to be sad, but to cry is something else. This is indeed a sad game, but that sadness would be hollow if it wasn't for how real the characters feel. Aubrey doesn't feel like a character, she feels like a real person who's gone through plausible life experiences and reactions, and this is something I can echo for the other characters like Kel and Hero. Sunny is obviously the main focus, and while I can't imagine (and hope) many people can relate exactly to what he goes through, nothing about him feels exaggerated. The trauma and depression expressed through him is something many have likely felt before regardless of exact circumstances. It's this pure reality to everything in the story that really makes it hit home.

This review went on for way longer than I meant to, but I ramble easily. I'll try to tone it down for future reviews, but I usually can't help myself, especially for games I really like. Please play Omori, if you've ever written it off from the memes of it being yet another Earthbound inspired indie RPG, you've done it a massive disservice. And it's there where I would say that even if you end up not liking it nearly as much as I did, i'd like if you simply gave it a chance, don't write it off, don't go with what the internet wants to echo at that time, give the game a chance for yourself.

Looking back, while I don't agree fully with everything I said in this review anymore, my overall thoughts and feelings presented in this text towards the game remain unchanged. I’ll rewrite it at some point.

~~~

I once heard someone say that the only thing keeping video games from being considered art, are the people who play them, and I cannot imagine a better example of this than what the overall perception of OMORI seems to be.

Something I feel has become a bit of a problem in video game culture, especially in the last couple of years with the rising popularity of indie games, is people buying, and then playing games they do not think they're going to like.

Video games are unique, in that every aspect of every game usually differs from others.
One game could be 2 hours long, while another is 500.
One game could look incredibly realistic, while another uses 8-bit sprites for everything.

One game could be very plot-heavy and character driven, while another mostly focuses on gameplay and/or just making the player have fun. That one is pretty important when talking about games like OMORI.

First and foremost, I want to clarify that yes, it is essential to try out new games, new genres, etc if you want to develop a good sense of quality and/or taste, however, some people seem to have this mindset that every game they buy is, and should be, made for everyone to enjoy, and if that individual does not enjoy the game, that must mean it is an objectively bad video game.

I'm not exaggerating, I have genuinely seen people online give OMORI 1/10, while giving a game like Bioshock Infinite a pure and perfect 10.
Am I saying Bioshock Infinite is objectively a worse video game than OMORI? No, of course not. They're two wildly different experiences that have absolutely no business being put up against each other.
However, if you enjoyed a game like Bioshock Infinite to the point of it being a 10/10 in your eyes, you are probably going to have a bad time with these types of games, and despite what some people might have you believe, that is perfectly fine.
It is fine to just enjoy video games that are fun. It is fine to mindlessly shoot NPCs, and it is fine to exclusively play games for fun. OMORI just isn't the type of video game you find interesting, and that's fine.

OMORI is a game that at times is tedious, time consuming and bland. It is fine to dislike OMORI, despite being a fan of games that closely resemble it, because at times, it is a bad video game. It is a game that does have some fun gameplay, and a really good OST, however unless you are interested in the central plot, it probably won't keep you playing. This is is a plot-heavy game, it relies on your interest in it's story, and it's easy to dislike the way it's presented. It can take you up to 25 hours to get through it if you take your time, and that's a big ask for a game like this.


At the end of the day, however, these are, in relation to everything else, minor things. At least to me. When looked at as a whole, OMORI is truly, truly something special.

It is a video game that wholly understands the medium of video games, making use of it to its absolute fullest, with gameplay segments, story beats and music tracks that seem so magically woven together, you'd think magic was literally involved in the creation of it.

It is a game that, more-so than any other I've ever been in contact with, knows how video games differ from movies or books, and how you can use that difference to create truly incredible experiences.

OMORI is truly great. Not every part of it, of course, but it is truly, truly, great.

I found out about this game around 2018 where i was searching on YouTube for music and found a video called “Omori – Imagination” and didn’t know that it was a game until late 2019. I thought to myself that this is going to be another Yandere Simulator and I’m very surprised that this game actually got released last December. Omori is a game that made me feel a lot of emotions. It made me laugh, it made me happy yet it also made me sad. The nuances and the creativity of this game is amazing, i found myself immersed on every idea this game provides from the concept of the dream world, the themes, and its flawed characters.

Omori was an amazing experience i had with a video game in a while, It reminded me of the days where i was at 4th grade playing around with my friends until i moved to another house and its through Sunny and Omori’s character that its able to made me feel that way. Omori/Sunny is the perfect silent protagonist that gets characterized early on in this game, a shy boy that carries a lot of guilt and burden but tends to bottle them up or run away from the horrors of reality thus creating the dream world. The dream world itself is very realistic and very charming, most of the time it doesn’t make sense because we have the ability to manipulate it and like dream itself, it can also seep the fears of reality within it. Also within the dream world, there’s a lot of creativity and wonders that i found myself spent a lot of time just staring at the screen, looking around and doing side quests that just elevates my experience with it. The use of the horror genre to tell its story and to associate with Sunny’s fear is a brilliant method that utilizes its genre as a whole.

There’s a lot of themes they tackled within this game such as escapism, the dichotomy of dreams and reality, nostalgia, friendship, and many more. But to put it into a single idea, it would be facing your fears. The fear of burdening one another, the fear of the truth, and the fear of facing yourself. It teaches me that it’s not good to carry your burden alone, that it’s okay to cry, and it’s okay to reminisce and feel nostalgia every now and then.

As i mentioned before, the casts of Omori is flawed yet also ties with its themes. Each one of them has their own unique personality and their own way of copping the event that happened making them truly likeable and alive.

The Gameplay aspect is also very fun and enjoyable. Each character have their own role in battle and the emotion system make battles very intense and satisfying. Although the game leans more to the easy side since it gives you a lot of items to help you throughout the gameplay but overall it was super fun and i really don’t mind that at all.

The final moments of the game is one of my favorite moments in all works of fiction, i can’t describe in details but it was a beautifully executed that it pays off the mystery and left an impression on me

Overall Omori is a genius craft that's filled with subtlety and nuances that utilizes its medium and genre to tell a story that made me feel a rollercoaster of emotions. It’s a game that I’ll hold dear and i think everyone should play it once in their life

perfect example of a "7/10 game"

a game of memorable highs, uninteresting lows, but ultimately a lot of forgettable middles. this game feels a lot like someone's first game and the fact that it is shows. it's about 10 hours too long (it took me about 20 hours to beat with avoiding a lot of the random encounters, not doing much side-content), the stuff happening in the dreamworld doesn't really have any bearing on the story 95% of the time, and most of the characters feel very ignorable, superfluous, and slightly annoying due to their constant presence.

that being said, the game is VERY ambitious in its scope, which i appreciate. it feels like a few interesting ideas and discussions that are weighted down by the game's need to feel "gamey" and long due to typical RPG bloat. can't wait until people fully abandon the RPG genre as the de-facto means to tell a story in a narrative game!

Recommended by XenonNV as part of this list.

Partway through OMORI it dawned on me that there's a timeline where this game managed to release when I was in high school and I would've 100% made it a core facet of my personality for years.

OMORI is more likely than not the game that comes to everyone's mind when they think of the quintessential "Quirky Depression Earthbirth RPG", the hypothetical dead horse that encapsulates a lot of people's gripes with the modern indie scene and all it's eccentricities, and, to concede to that stereotyped image somewhat, it's for the most part true. OMORI is part lighthearted and surreal RPG about the titular main character and his adventures in the wonderfully quirky dream world of Headspace, and part mental health story about Omori's real-life counterpart Sunny and his struggles in the mundane reality of Faraway Town with his own mental health and relationships. The primary issue with OMORI however is not really with it's oft-maligned aesthetic or subject matter, but rather the fact that it's a complete tonal mess.

Headspace, as a dream world inside of Sunny's head, is obviously allowed to be a little surreal, as it's where most of the game's Earthbound DNA is apparent, from it's cutesy enemies to it's fun cast of eccentric NPCs and elevated sense of reality where anything goes. It's where 90% of OMORI takes place and is, for the most part, incredibly charming and fun. The tonal issues start to become apparent though when the Headspace sections lead into the Faraway Town segments, where, despite supposedly taking place in reality, still have a little too much whimsy and Earthbound-esque atmosphere. There's still wacky NPCs to talk to and goofy part-time jobs to have, which, while still enjoyable, isn't enough of a contrast to Headspace and doesn't mesh well with the relatively grounded and serious interpersonal drama between the core cast that revolves around grief and loss. It results in OMORI feeling like two disparate Quirky Earthbound-likes being duct-taped together without any real cohesiveness between the two halves, and only causes more issues down the line when the plot in Faraway town starts to actually go somewhere.

Headspace initially starts off as a low-stakes kid's adventure, which is perfectly fine for the Prologue, where it uses that initial impression to disarm the player when they first enter Faraway Town in the real world, but as is soon made apparent, Headspace is pure fluff, a complete nothing-burger that only really serves to pad out the runtime. Compared to the snappy pace and relative brevity of Faraway Town, Headspace tends to drag on for hours at a time with absolutely jack-shit happening, both literally and thematically. The various sprite animations, fancy textbox effects and UI is very charming and appealing at first, but the frequent use of them & their annoying length results in a start-and-stop gameplay flow that delights in wasting your time, and it's an issue that only gets worse as the game goes on, where long stretches of overly-goofy filler plot happen without anything substantive to bite into, that do nothing but pad out the runtime so the game can hit an arbitrary length quota. In addition to this, the idea of Headspace reflecting Sunny's inner thoughts is frankly underutilized, when that connection to the main character's subconscious could've been used to give the lengthy Headspace segments some more weighty thematic story relevance beyond simple visual callbacks to Faraway Town.

Despite the long stretches of nothing filler that feel like having a sugar crash, when OMORI wants to get serious, it can actually deliver more often than not. The subtle underlying horror of Headspace is pretty effective when it wants to be, and the drama of Faraway Town, while coming across like an afterschool PSA more often than not, is actually quite engaging and emotionally competent, but because OMORI is trying to maintain it's pastel Sanrio Lo-Fi Kawaii Future Bass Tumblr aesthetic at all times, this results in even the serious moments lacking punch because of the fact it's edges have been sanded down as smooth as possible for the sake of palatability. This is made most apparent with it's final plot twist at the very end of the game, which, without going into spoilers, is an insanely dark and out-of-left-field bout of tonal whiplash that is not only a massive misstep in the solid framework of the game's plot up until then, but is scrapping against the game's Instagram Self-Care™ Awareness Post-ass final message of overcoming depression and self-doubt by not being afraid to rely on your friends for help. It's way too big of an elephant to ignore and not something you can just drop in the player's lap and treat with the same levity with which the more mundane mental health struggles are in the plot. It's the most frustrating aspect of OMORI by far because I can see how it could work! It's not even presented badly in-game (in fact, the reveal is one of my favorite moment of the game bar none), but it's consistent adherence to the vibe initially established by Headspace ends up dragging what should be a master-class twist down hard.

OMORI is a frustrating, mixed bag of a game I want to like more than I do. It's playing all the right notes, and even manages to tug at my worn-out heartstrings with a surprising frequency, and I can see the appeal behind it; how it's managed to gather such a devoted fanbase that was emotionally wrecked by OMORI's style and presentation. However, it's too bloated, too messy and too toothless to make the landing it desperately wants to make. The video game equivalent of eating raw sugar by the handful.