another game best experienced blind
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omori as a game commits emotional terrorism on the player in areas that i didnt think a game could ever touch. from fear to anxiety to depression to even pure utter emptiness this game stabs you in the back with it all even when you’re most expecting it. the characters are full of life, the art style is wonderful and the rpg sections keep you occupied between story scenes. one of those games i wish i can play for the first time again

Wanted to leave a review for this game after giving it another playthrough (making that my 6th) but ya i'm just gonna drop some thoughts and leave it alone for good.

I'm also gonna leave three links to tweets that feature my amazing steam review as a way to confess to my sin of being cringe
This review haunts me
I dont agree with it anymore
I refunded and bought the game again just to 100% it

So to start, this is a pretty atrocious game overall, from its dev time to the not so important controversies surrounding the creator in both lack of development updates and liking young boys from afar, I mostly just wanna focus on what the game does poorly cause it really doesnt do a whole lot right. Starting off is the length of the game, which is too long for what Omori wants to be. If the game clocked in at lets say 10-12 hours, that would be much better than the ~25 hours bloated mess the game is. There are whole sections in this game that add nothing to either the story or overarching experience and are clearly there to waste time (im looking directly at that stupid whale).

Characters are up next, and they are inconsistent. More so Headspace characters, as I have no issue with the Real World characters, i thought they were written just right to keep me invested. On the other hand, the characters in Headspace are badly written and come off annoying more than anything else, which idk if is on purpose given what Headspace is but thats up to theory. Although, i will stand by my belief that Basil is a nothing character that is only there for false sympathy moments. I didnt care about them, but I see a whole lot of people who do and it sure as hell isnt for what they do in the game, its more so the silly, warm dialogue and friendly demeanour, so removing them from the game would serve 0 change so why have them included in the first place.

The "horror" aspects of the game I thought would be a highlight, as I love a good psychological horror as it was so generously given the tag of, but aside from "the big story moment" nothing is "psychological" or "horror" about this game. Now this is completely down to my perception for what is scary and not scary, fully aware, I've seen quite a lot of horror media so im more desensitized to the themes presented in this game, but I also feel like how the themes are presented in the game dont do enough, its all abstract or obscured, so the creepiness comes from that angle rather than the full picture.

Now for the single paragraph where i say nice things :). I vibe with a few of the songs on the OST and the art direction and environments are cool. The Real World is the part of the game I was the most invested in which is a shame that its used as the "break in the action". I would've loved to see more impactful moments displayed in the real world, rather then saving those moments for Headspace (big exception for the last hour of the game before the ending cutscene, that goes extremely hard)

I would have loved to sit down and praise this game as so many other people have, but I just cant see what they see. I think there are games that have done its horror better and its story better, it plays out like someone who was inspired by better games and mushed those best parts together without the prior impact those parts had, leaving something almost soulless in its place.

I also wish I was an uber cool smart individual to express my points better, this review doesn't come from a place of hatred or hostility, more of disappointment

This feels like the first great Yakuza game i've finished. The game looks great running on a new engine, so good it has my GPU work overtime to render the particles and reflections. The combat felt like it had a true facelift, making it easier to get in and out of fights, with less staggers and knockdowns, and with muscle soda the combat becomes trivial to the point I felt bad for ending boss fights in 5 seconds. Skill tree progression is kino i loved the list system they had, and how you can gain those points through basic things had me always progressing through it. The story was also a banger I loved the contained subject throughout the game, even if the beginning took a while to kick off and the ending left me baffled that middle section is phenomenal.

Hoooo boy. This game is going to be impossible to review.

Never before have I seen a sequel so simultaneously better and worse than its precursors. In every single aspect, RF5 changed from previous entries in bizarre ways.

RF5 introduced many new quality-of-life features like picking up items automatically. But only some of them? And other quality-of-life features were removed. In fact, RF5 is one of the clunkiest in the series, especially since you are juggling so many more different things.

A lot more effort was put into the dating mechanics and the unique dialogue with each marriageable candidate. Also, there are no restrictions on gender (hooray)! However, this additional effort only goes to reveal how generic most of the characters are. The most interesting characters are locked behind other story content. Dating is incredibly slow, tedious, and sometimes obtuse.

The jump to 3D graphics was a complete failure. The game looks utterly bland. There is barely even foliage to break up long stretches of ground. The town is weirdly huge and undetailed. For some reason, the later game areas look much better. Similarly, the main story is extremely confusing and poorly written at the beginning, but it picks up later. The ending villains are genuinely awesome. I would love to know what production shenanigans happened to cause the early game to be so shoddy.

Meanwhile, the combat and crafting are the best in the series! More mechanics, crafting ingredients, and enemies. There are obscure ways to make overpowered gear and post-game that requires it. NPCs are also genuinely useful in battle and you can take multiple with you at a time. Dungeons are mazelike, but there are plenty of them. The open-world segments are good. There's a lot to explore!

I stuck through RF5 all the way to the end, but I'm not totally sure if I'm glad for it. This entry has the most to offer, but it's marred by clunky controls, bad writing, and a pivot to 3D that was entirely unnecessary.

Where it Shines:
Anime Cute Characters - 9/10
Being in the World - 10/10
Music - 9/10

The Good:
Look, I know most people HATE Genshin. Most people HATE gacha games. I personally did not expect to like it as much as I did.
I found, for the most part, the gacha stuff to not be obnoxious. It's far from being a Mobile Legends type game where you play notification clicker clearer for ten minutes every time you log in with fifteen different types of currency and tickets and stardust or whatever else nonsense.
They also seem to take the money they make and honestly add quality content. There's always new characters, new worlds, new music, new voice lines, and they don't just copy paste stuff. They seem to really care about spending the money they earn well, and it shows for the most part.
I also really just enjoy spending time in the world. Every time you wander around or climb some hill or tower, you are rewarded with stunning views, awesome landmarks to enjoy, and just really some great vibes. It's a video game world I'd love to live in.

The Bad:
Obviously any F2P game is going to have a lot of bad stuff. I'm not going to rehash what others say about it, and I can easily see people hating the game for those reasons alone. But the things that are outside of F2P that could use some work are:
- stop with all the jargon. Jargon does not equal story. I don't need to know how Fatui of the Adepti went to Stormterror to gather the Prometheus Artifact from the General of blah blah blah. Like my eyes gloss over every line of dialogue at times, it's overwhelming
- Paimon 😫
- repetitive enemies in the world
- overwhelming amount of things for new players

Summary:
If Genshin wasn't free to play, cost like 20-40 bucks, and had DLC for each expansion or something and got rid of the MTX gacha system, I think it would honestly be an AMAZING game. One so good that people would support it forever. But the F2P aspect does drag it down overall, although not nearly as much as I expected it too. It was a huge surprise to me that I loved playing this game, and I only bothered because a friend with good taste recommended it. I'm glad I played it, I will play it more for sure, but I can't say for how long.
If what I wrote sort of resonates with you, give it a try - it may surprise you. But if you avoid it simply for the F2P vibes, that's totally valid.

****note on my ratings:
half ⭐: hot trash garbage
⭐: below average, needs work
⭐⭐: average
⭐⭐⭐: pretty good
⭐⭐⭐⭐: excellent
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: all time favourite
half star ratings between those mean it's slightly better or worse than stated in this list.
*

The day after Christmas 2016, I got my PS4. A couple months prior, I finally got back into Playstation gaming after strictly being a Nintendo Fanboy for years. With my PS4, I got the Uncharted Collection, Uncharted 4, Skyrim, Little Big Planet 3 and Final Fantasy XV. I couldn't wait to dive into all these games I wouldn't have even given a chance years before. Fast forward to early April, I decided on a whim to pick up Persona 5 only a day after it came out. I knew almost nothing about Persona besides my one friend always recommending the series so I took a chance, and ended up loving it. Fast forward to May 2017, I pick up NieR Automata. That one friend who recommended the Persona series, would also show me gameplay of the original NieR. At this time I was still in the middle of playing Persona 5, but knowing I took a chance on that and was loving it, I took a chance on Automata as well. I didn't start it until June and didn't beat it until August of that year, but from my memories of 6 years ago I remember absolutely loving it. Fast forward to today and I decided I wanted to replay this game finally. I was wondering all this time if I'd love this game as much as I did back then, because 2017 was my absolute favorite year ever...at least that timespan of like April-August and it could have clouded my judgement. Well my thoughts are complicated but as you can see by my score, I do indeed still love this game overall.

When I first started this, I decided to replay it on hard. It had been 6 years since I played it but I figured I could do it. After dying 10 times in the super long intro, I decided to bump it down to normal. It might be a skill issue but I didn't find it fun to die in 2 or sometimes even 1 hit. I played the entire game on normal and I don't feel bad, I just wanted to have fun. Though tbh, on my first playthrough through Route A...halfway into it I kinda wasn't having much fun. My main issue was, I kept comparing every little thing to Gestalt which is the consequence of playing this immediately after that. I kept missing the main cast of that game and just wasn't digging Automata's cast much. By the end of route A, I was disappointed in the game...and disappointed in myself for feeling this way. I absolutely adored this back in 2017...did I change? Was I too cynical now or something?

My main reason for being disappointed was because my favorite aspect of Gestalt, the cast, was not even comparable in this game I felt. My favorite character was 9S and his best scenes don't even happen until the later routes. The cast of this game is solid I'd say but doesn't come close at all to Gestalt's main cast, at least for me. That was my main hangup during route A, and is still even now the biggest downgrade this game has compared to Gestalt.

During route A, even though I was disappointed by the end of it, there were still plenty of things I liked about the game and several improvements compared to Gestalt. The combat for one is definitely improved overall. Yes the combat is not on par with something like Bayonetta or DMC, but it's still flashy enough so that it feels good. You have two weapons at once and it feels good to switch between both. You also have these Pods that act as the Weiss of this game. You can switch abilities with them, and some of the abilities are straight up ones from Gestalt which was cool. Same with the weapons, some of them were ones from Gestalt so you know I had to use my beloved Beastbain. I also really loved the movement in this game compared to Gestalt, dashing around this post-apocalyptic world...especially in mid-air on top of buildings, god it feels good.

Speaking of the post-apocalyptic world..this a bit of a running gag in my discord server that I have a major hard on for it. And that's correct, I still absolutely adore the world in Automata. The world is not as fleshed out as actual open worlds, but that's partly why I love it. I think the world is the absolutely perfect size for a gaming world. It's small enough where I don't find getting around to be a chore, even if you can fast travel...and big enough where it's fun to actually explore and take in the amazing locales. Goddamn I love the aesthetic this world provides. The starting area is a ruined city overgrown with plant life and that aesthetic is like my #1 aesthetic now thanks to this game. You also have a massive desert with a whole city half buried in the sand at the end of it. You have an abandoned amusement park full of celebrating machines. There's more ruined buildings on the coastline. There's a forest area that leads to a grassy castle. Right before that area, you go through a little shopping center that's full of overgrowth. There is no area I dislike going to because every single one has such a cool aesthetic which really does it for me. The world/setting of the game was my absolute favorite aspect when I first played (besides the OST) and even now it's still probably my favorite aspect. If there's any single one thing that this game destroys Gestalt on, it's definitely its world.

Speaking of the OST, it is still fantastic 6 years later. While personally, I do prefer Gestalt's OST by a fair margin...Automata's is still awesome. Back then my favorite themes were all the area themes and while they're still great, I really like a lot of the battle themes now. Grandma Destruction and Emil Despair, obviously because they're remixes of Gestalt songs but A Beautiful Song may be my favorite totally originally Automata song now, it's fantastic. The OST is indeed objectively amazing but I think the reason why I don't like it as much as Gestalt's now is because the songs have way more going on in them while Gestalt's are more simple. Automata's songs are also generally more epic and fast paced vs Gestalt's more elegant sounding songs. I still do love Automata's OST tho and it's definitely one of my favorites ever. Honestly tho I think Gestalt might have my favorite OST ever in any game, at least as of now so ofc that would be hard to top but Automata certainly isn't that far off.

Something I definitely loved this time around was the Gestalt connections I wouldn't have ever gotten when I first played. Like certain lines reminiscent of Gestalt, or really obvious things nowadays like how the desert machines all wear Facade-like clothing. There's a quest in the desert that even has you finding hidden items that were all connected to Facade which was amazing to discover. Speaking of quests, I honestly think they were a lot better in this game compared to Gestalt. Sure, you don't have the amazing banter between NieR and Weiss. However as a whole, I found there to be less fetch quests and more memorable quests that felt somewhat impactful towards the worldbuilding. Obviously, the single best quests are the Emil ones for me just cuz they connect to Gestalt so heavily but that was gonna be a given. Oh yeah, Emil is back...his side quests were awesome as stated before but besides that he's only really here as a shopkeeper which is okay I guess. If he didn't have either of the side quests, he would have been a big disappointment but those salvage his appearance I'd say. Also up to the end of Route A, I'd say the bosses were solid overall but none of them really wowed me besides Simone who was amazing. That's partly because A Beautiful Song plays during it but still. Also Also, I forgot to mention I did do every side quest and of course upgraded all weapons to max. For what you get from doing that, which is some of the best content in the game imo, I think it's worth it.

Anyways, a lot of things have been improved from Gestalt but the big downgrade being the cast hampered my enjoyment of the 2nd half of Route A cuz I kept comparing the two games the entire time. I established this before, so you'd think Route B would be even worse because it's pretty much a retread of Route A except with small changes here and there, kinda like Route B in Gestalt except not nearly as good. Well here's the weird thing, I honestly enjoyed myself more with Route B than A. That's weird because usually people hate Route B from what I've seen but idk I digged it. Maybe it's because I was playing as 9S who I enjoyed a lot more than 2B. Or maybe it was the addition of hacking which I honestly quite enjoy even tho I know many others don't. Idk but once I beat route B, I was definitely enjoying myself more than I did at the end of route A. So I don't get when people say Route B is bad, it's different enough that it's fun to play through again. Then Route C is next and that's where the story has it's peaks...and where the game definitely won me over again.

Route C is totally different from A and B and that's a huge change from route C in Gestalt. There it was the exact same as Route B except with two new endings so Route C in Automata is definitely a big improvement. There's tons of twists, reveals and heartbreak and it's 100% the best route no question. I still don't think the story elements or character interactions come close to gestalt in its ending, but they're definitely very good. I think story-wise, I like it less overall then Gestalt's just because of the inferior cast but it has some really emotional singular moments and so I like to think I love the moments in this game more than the entirety of its story which is opposite of Gestalt. Going into those moments though, and they both happened in Route C, they were the final super boss that you access by getting every weapon to max...and ending E.

The final super boss I knew would get me because of its connection to Gestalt, and they are huge connections, but I didn't think the waterworks would flow as hard as they did. Even more surprising was ending E. I still remembered what happened but idk man it really got me. When that certain part happens and you hear the choir, I broke down. This is THE moment I'm giving this game a 10 for now. I was contemplating whether to actually drop it to a 9, and I still might eventually who knows, but the fact I cried to something that had no connection to Gestalt really...that made me realize I do still love this game even without the Gestalt shit.

I may not be in love with the game's story or cast, and I think the OST is somewhat of a downgrade..however. The combat being improved, the still wonderful OST, my favorite world in any game and the worldbuilding and connections to Gestalt I do love. And so as of now I'm going to keep this at a 10, again I might drop it down eventually but Ending E won me over for now. I do definitely love Gestalt more now as you already know, which is so weird because I once had this at a 10 and Gestalt at an 8 lol. Funny how things change.