Omori is a psychologicalhorror that was published by Omocat in 2020. The game is very immersive with a broody and melancholic atmosphere. It draws the player in emotionally the more you play it. To start off with, I really liked the broody and melancholic atmosphere its very immersive. I also really liked the art and pixel style graphics especially as the game takes heavy inspiration from Earthbound and Yume Nikki, both cult classics in the JRPG world.
The story focuses on the titular Omori in Whitespace (a dream world) as he and his friends go on adventures, and they have toconquer their fears in order to survive the horrific world of this strange world.
The game is also well noted, for its depiction of very traumatic events from death and mental illness. The way these topics are handled is very realistic and just hard hitting if you or someone you know has went through such things. This game is definitely not for the faint of heart. The Blackspace, another alternate world was one of the scariest moments in the game and every second in there, you just felt constantly on your toes because of how creepy it was.
The music especially was incredible, and just seemedappropriate for each scene of the game. The tonal balance especially is really good from wholesome to really scary its subtle use of it in storytelling was awesome.
The game has many likable characters, from the main ones to the peripheral ones. They all had their own personalities, from the quirky and humorous to more somber and thoughtful. The puzzle solving was creative and fun to try. You have to use characters’ special abilities like Aubery’s baseball bat to get through heavy objects. As you progress, your characters’ abilities become more powerful too. There are numerous side quests to go through and also lots of hidden things to discover. Theres also lots of things to do outside of the main story to help keep you preoccupied with lots of easter eggs to uncover too.
The RPG gameplay was pretty unique. It is emotion based where certain emotions make you weaker or stronger and the more powerful they are, the more effective it can be. It's turn based and after a certain amount of time, an all attack can be used to deal massive damage to enemies. The locations were all unique and fun to explore and the picnics Mari had were useful and serve as reminders on what to do next. The pacing can be annoying at times due to how much sidetracked you can get in the main story due to random stuff happening frequently.
Overall, Omori is a really great game.
It gets 5 out of 5 stars.
If you enjoyed stuff like Undertale, then you’ll definitely like this game. Fun fact, Toby Fox composed one of the music.