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.
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.
3 Comments
Okay but Sweetheart >>>> the entire cast of the game (see my review)
thank you both, and yes, I love Sweetheart, excellent antagonist
Yultimona
1 year ago
Overall, this some good shi