so, imagine you took silent hill 2 and earthbound, smushed them together, and then put a yume nikki on top. that's omori!
But in all seriousness, this game changed me. As somebody who finds it difficult to cry, and will at most shed a few tears when I watch a movie or play a game that makes me feel something, this game had me WAILING for its final hours of gameplay. Omori assembles its narrative in such a way that it just keeps on building and building and building until the crescendo that is its finale, and I cannot stress enough that it is an emotional rollercoaster all the way through. Omori, as a horror game, is SHOCKINGLY effective. That horror mainly comes from its narrative and its story- you're not going to be quaking in your boots because of monsters or what-not, however you WILL be cringing and looking on in visceral disgust and terror as terrible things happen to characters you've spent hours upon hours getting to know, care about and relate to.
And, as somebody who REALLY doesn't like RPGs, this game was just a BLAST to play. To put it into perspective, I didn't even really like Undertale or Deltarune that much, but Omori had me engaged basically the whole way through. I LOVE this game's combat system. It's just the right amount of complicated and easy to understand, and the moment-to-moment strategy is very fun and rewarding, if a little repetitive at times. I do have a pretty MAJOR problem with the game, however- and that's that by the end of the game, you end up with all these cool abilities and items with nowhere to really use them. By the time you've unlocked all your character's abilities, you're already done with basically everything. No more secret boss encounters, no more campaign, and you essentially just abandon all of that progress for what I wanna say is like, the final four hours of gameplay. It feels unsatisfying without a proper final boss to send it off. There IS a boss that you fight before it's over, and it is TECHNICALLY the final one you face, but it isn't a final boss and it doesn't pretend to be. So, basically, you just complete the questline and then immediately go to the final part of the game, made even more jarring by the fact that you have to WALK all the way there with no acknowledgement from any of the characters or anything. It was kind of unsettling and upsetting, so I guess maybe that was the point, but I still would've liked to have had some kind of difficult boss encounter before you left behind all your levels and items and stats for good.
With all that said, however... just play this game, man. Play it. Buy it at full price, even. It's worth it. The amount of effort, passion and talent poured into Omori is tangible, from its artwork to its soundtrack to its gameplay and sound design and story- This game will break you before picking you back up and shattering you further with the most emotional climax you'll ever lay your eyes upon. As somebody who has been, to put it lightly, struggling with my mental health, Omori was a brutal and beautiful reminder that before anything can get any better, it's probably going to have to get a lot worse, and that's okay. Change isn't easy, especially if you've been stuck somewhere for a really, really long time. But no matter how long you were there, no matter how deep your were, there is always a way out, and you can reach it at any time.
Omori has easily settled its way into a very special place in my heart. It captures themes of childhood, depression and tragedy INCREDIBLY well. I struggle to find words that could properly convey just what this game made me feel. It was so gripping and investing that I found myself fully immersed in the story, and by the end, every little emotional blow made me sob with feeling I haven't experienced in a long, long time. As corny as it might sound, it was a wakeup call. It spoke to a part of me long-buried under apathy and mounting stress. If you feel like you need to reconnect with a part of you that's been lost to time, to be left sobbing and mourning over fictional characters whose situation hits a little too close to home, play Omori. I guarantee it will provide.
