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I'm the most hardcore casual

steamid: valefordm
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GOTY '23

Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event

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Gained 300+ total review likes

Epic Gamer

Played 1000+ games

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Found the secret ogre page

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GOTY '22

Participated in the 2022 Game of the Year Event

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Participated in the 2021 Game of the Year Event

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Participated in the 2020 Game of the Year Event

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Played 250+ games

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Favorite Games

Bloodborne
Bloodborne
Disco Elysium
Disco Elysium
Monster Hunter: World - Iceborne
Monster Hunter: World - Iceborne
NieR: Automata
NieR: Automata
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

1145

Total Games Played

010

Played in 2024

000

Games Backloggd


Recently Played See More

Guilty Gear: Strive - Additional Character 12: A.B.A

Mar 27

Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society
Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society

Mar 03

Astral Party
Astral Party

Mar 02

Judgment
Judgment

Feb 14

It Takes Two
It Takes Two

Feb 12

Recently Reviewed See More

This review contains spoilers

Partway through Chapter 1, Omori had already disappointed me in the way it refused to balance, in any way whatsoever, its diegetic and thematic narrative. The prologue hit very strongly by luring the player into a sense of security and cuteness with all the sugary vibes, readying the stage for the rug-pull that would snap the story back to reality and kickstart the “hero’s” journey. All the pieces showed thus far, metaphorical in their nature, would soon be paralleled by their counterpart in the true world of Faraway City, highlighting the complex coping mechanism that Sunny built for himself to escape a reality that had all the elements he once cherished and loved, but wrong, broken, different, and for the most part due to his own faults. While not groundbreaking, this is a very solid foundation for the fiction and meta-fiction alike, again a very intriguing and well built prologue.
But then the game stumbles, misses almost all the subsequent steps by acknowledging that the plot is happening during the countdown to Sunny’s departure from the city, his crime never to be discovered in the ultimate avoidance of responsibility, but at the same time the actual game still takes place in the dream world that Sunny built as Omori. This is a tonally deaf and utterly baffling narrative choice, especially because it rarely even matters by that point what goes on in the inner mind of the murderer. The pieces are already in motion, the dream world had already achieved its goal by stalling the player, as it stalled Sunny, in the incipit of the game and yet, long after opening the door to accept the real world again, we are still asked to travel inside a whale’s belly and fight magical slime girls. Lightening the mood to unwind after a big revelation is one way to show restrain for the emotional highs that Omori is capable of, but following an hour of strong bonding between the main characters, catching up after four years of separation, with a three hour castle dungeon to solve Sweetheart’s pointless marriage struggles is effectively blue-balling, none of this ever matters. The dream contents not strictly tying to any meaningful allegory wouldn’t even be an issue, if they gave insight to the characters, were engaging, fun or quirky in some way, but none of this is true; what actually happens is that the game, for ¾ of its duration, chooses to ignore what it’s actually trying to tell to become a distractingly standard RPG.
The last stretch of the game, as well as its most impactful scenes, are top class for the genre, with their stellar production values and emotionally charged writing, but anything in between is just fluff, cute fluff but nonetheless unnecessary padded fluff. The one great thing about even the worst of 16bit indie RPGs made in the last two decade is that they are straight to the point to a fault, Omori on the other hand feels like it needs to be 20 hours long because then it would be a real video game like the big boys on the Steam front-page, I cannot find any other reasonable explanation for all its disjointedness.

Limbo was once given for free on steam, Inside was gifted to me, so was Cocoon. I was never personally interested in any of these titles yet I had to play them, if anything out of courtesy. I have nothing against Jeppe Carlsen, I respect that he is able to fully commit to the games he wants to make, but from the moment I pressed start, without even knowing he was behind this game, I was already yawning, I can physically perceive my body aging and withering while playing this.

Edit: I got over myself. The game is fine to good for what is wants to do. Still boring

Hayashi Naotaka really improved his skills over the years, this is way better than Steins;Gate.