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I wish I was spooked by jumpscares and stuff. Traditional horror doesn't really do it for me-- that's why I need the slow-burning dread of psychological horror instead. Those "oh, huh?... oh?... oh?..... ohhhhhhhh gently caress" moments. Stuff like (endgame spoilers, plus a bit of personal grief) Sunny's escapism becoming more and more unhinged as the story in his real life progresses, to where he can't keep his own delusional story straight and it goes from being idyllic and fanciful in the first Headspace act (Vast Forest/Otherworld), to dark and dangerous in the second Headspace act (Pyrefly Forest and the dungeons of Sweetheart's Castle), to the frigid loneliness and unrestrained hostility of the third act-- the slow, empty route to Deep Well, the separation from his friends who, upon finding them, have forgotten completely about Basil so much that even Omori himself no longer remembers the mission (Mari won't even display it in the sidequest log). And as much as he tries to run away from his fear and guilt about Mari, she shows up in what feels like nearly every room in Last Resort, even the loving elevators. And then you move on to the completely alien and incomprehensible Deeper Well, into Humphrey, where the story no longer really makes any sense at all, and the goofy whale becomes unforgivingly predatory, as if Sunny has lost control of his own delusions and is just trying to destroy it all. Which he does, as Sunny's Headspace collapses into Black Space and spirals into a depressive episode that is bleak, surreal, twisted, and outright hateful, viciously mocking himself with gruesome representations of Mari and Basil constantly dying before his eyes, even being killed by his own friends in one scenario. Even being faced with the thought of killing Mewo. (and yes, I loving stabbed myself instead. The reason why I couldn't bring myself to play this game to begin with for a while is because our cat had cancer when I bought the game and she quickly went downhill around the time I started playing and we had to end her suffering, which completely destroyed my desire to keep playing for months). And all of this, all of this fantasy spiraling into delusion spiraling into suicidal depression comes to a head and spills into real life, as Sunny is forced to face his memories of that day, slowly and surely putting the pieces together, and confronting Basil about it, and either choosing to run away and lead to Basil's (and his own) suicide, or facing him and landing them both in the hospital, where Sunny finally faces Omori as a battle of his heart, the part of him that has regained a will to live and move on after reconnecting with his friends and facing the truth, versus his mind, so wracked with guilt, shame, hopelessness, and self-loathing that wants nothing more than to destroy that will to live. The pure, quivering, unadulterated self-destructive, hateful way Omori tries to break Sunny's will to live, and succeeding-- where the line between overcoming and succumbing is so thin that it boils down to Sunny's last desperate gasp of hope to choose to get back up and confront not only himself, but his fear, and face the truth not only in his own eyes, but to his friends. And you never know what actually happens. Sure, in the Backstage Aubrey, Kel, and Hero all tell Sunny they'll stay with him no matter what, but that's in Sunny's mind and not the reality of it all. Also, the fight with Basil, where all of the coping skills Sunny has learned to face his fears just... fail. You see him trying-- really loving trying-- to do it, and each time, he freezes up and becomes more and more desperate to make something-- anything-- work. And that's the most real poo poo there. You can learn as many coping skills and good mental health habits and self-affirmations as you want, but there is inevitably going to be a situation where it just does loving nothing for you. That's the poo poo that gives me the shivers. Not the "what" so much as the "why" and "how". That's the good poo poo right there. I knew returning to the game would require me to allow myself to be vulnerable again, fully aware that it was going to go places that were going to speak to deeper parts of myself that I try to keep suppressed because I don't have the energy to face it on a day to day basis. And it sure did. Consider it a complicated form of catharsis.
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Jan 5, 2023 17:34
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| # ? May 3, 2024 11:40 |
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One thing about Black Space: I'm pretty sure Basil dying in Black Space is about Sunny's anger, not his feelings of helplessness. The Sunny that knows everything also knows that Basil turned Mari's accidental death into a suicide, and Sunny's had several days of seeing how that hurt all his friends. So it seems plausible to me that part of the Black Space sequence is Sunny lashing out at someone responsible for that hurt... Which is why Basil is begging Sunny to forgive him, and why Omori responds by stabbing him. Omori, as the representation of all of Sunny's repressed feelings, isn't feeling very forgiving. But Sunny tries to push past that and confronts Basil, and then he sees that Basil really was just trying to help, if in a really messed up way, and all the anger gets turned internally instead. Omori is a good game.
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Jan 5, 2023 17:58
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I relate way too hard to OMORI, and that's kind of depressing
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Jan 5, 2023 18:03
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Einander posted:One thing about Black Space: I'm pretty sure Basil dying in Black Space is about Sunny's anger, not his feelings of helplessness. The Sunny that knows everything also knows that Basil turned Mari's accidental death into a suicide, and Sunny's had several days of seeing how that hurt all his friends. So it seems plausible to me that part of the Black Space sequence is Sunny lashing out at someone responsible for that hurt... Which is why Basil is begging Sunny to forgive him, and why Omori responds by stabbing him. Omori, as the representation of all of Sunny's repressed feelings, isn't feeling very forgiving. But Sunny tries to push past that and confronts Basil, and then he sees that Basil really was just trying to help, if in a really messed up way, and all the anger gets turned internally instead. And that's the beauty of the story, really. What Basil did was probably the most atrocious thing in the entire story imo. Like yes, Sunny did kill Mari, but it was a sincere, honest-to-god accident. Basil took that accident and warped it into something even more twisted, and turned it into a dark, disgusting secret that ruined everyone's lives. Sunny's dad left, and Sunny's mom, stricken with grief, has decided to move away to escape the memories-- a home without Mari in it, the tree stump in the back yard. I feel like Sunny's parents (or at least his mom?) had to have covered everything up-- an autopsy would have clearly shown that Mari died of blunt force and/or a fall instead of hanging. They know what happened. Even Sunny's memory of his mom-- the one time you even see her in the game-- has her saying her only daughter is gone and she couldn't handle losing her only son. Sunny's entire world has fallen apart because of this-- it would have anyway because Mari's dead and it was his fault, but now it's a secret he has to wear around his throat forever. I wouldn't blame Sunny for resenting or even hating Basil for all that, no matter how noble his intentions were. Surely Sunny would have turned those feelings toward himself if Basil hadn't got involved, but because he did, he had something external to redirect those feelings toward (though still very clearly hating himself and being suffocated by the guilt and shame of everything involved). But Basil chose to make himself an accomplice and ended up traumatizing themselves even more. Yes, it's all actions done out of panic and gut reaction, but still. You can almost see Basil as an antagonist in the story in a way because everything was made so much worse by what he did, even if he absolutely didn't mean to. But he's not-- he and Sunny were just 12-year-olds who just made extremely poor choices. I'm having a hard time putting the way I feel about it all into words but the best I can say is that everyone is a victim in this story and everything loving sucks. Cat-shaped Witch posted:I relate way too hard to OMORI, and that's kind of depressing ...yeah. Depression be like that.  
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Jan 5, 2023 19:12
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Ventana posted:I also don't do well with jumpscares normally, and normally I avoid any horror-esque things that go for this, so I can kinda relate. I don't know if this is feasible for you, but one thing that helped me out was that I played most of the game with a friend I have good rapport with. It might not work for everyone, but it softens the edge out of the scary stuff for me. Thank you for your concern, but it ended up being too much for me. I ended up watching a no-commentary let's play on Youtube instead. Overall: pretty good game! Thought it was going to be a metaphor for depression, but it really isn't at all. It's more of a metaphor for loss, grief, and ultimately guilt, guilt so awful that it completely consumes Sunny. Of course all of this presents as depression/adjustment disorder to an outside observer, only Sunny and Basil know the whole truth. Maybe one day I'll be better at handling jumpscares and can record myself playing stuff like this, but it's not today!
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Jan 5, 2023 23:35
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Omori Route spoilers: Not remotely as emotionally impactful as I thought it would be, really-- though maybe I'm more annoyed that I had to go through the entire game again to reach the endgame content. I'm glad Past Me left a save at the first Faraway Town day so I didn't have to play the entire game over again, but still. It's more of a backloaded impact, realizing that at the point of endgame, Sunny is fully absorbed into Omori and has become fully reclusive in his delusions-- a world he has control over and will never have to actually face reality. Having everything basically back to "Normal" after the first run through Black Space was pretty chilling. As for the endgame stuff... it's okay. Doesn't really feel like it was worth all the time I put into it, but the superboss fights were fun. Space Ex-Husband was painfully easy, which kind of surprised me. What also surprised me was how much of a hard time I had with Bossman Hero. I think I Game Over'd to him more than anything in the game. The Abyss and the Lost Library stuff was kind of neat to go through. Being able to actually fight the fears was satisfying, and the fear of drowning one almost kicked my rear end. Mutantheart and Perfectheart were fun fights though. I made sure to leave a save right before them so I could fight them again later if I wanted to. I'd say Perfectheart is the Final Boss Experience I was hoping to have at some point that the Sunny route sorely lacked. I also did the whole Boss Rush on my first try, but I've stopped with that for the night. I knew about being able to play just with Omori and Basil to have a fight with your friends, but I didn't realize I'd have to do the entire loving Boss Rush again with just Omori and Basil and that's a headache for another day. Other than that and exploring Black Space 2, I think I've finally reached a point of satisfaction with Omori. Overall: Game Good. Was glad to have some satisfying fights even if I felt the emotional impact was weak compared to the Sunny route. Maybe that's the point.
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Jan 10, 2023 06:38
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For the record, there is one last thing to the Boss Rush besides what you mentioned that elevates it at the very end. That's all I'll say.
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Jan 10, 2023 07:10
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I know of it. It's just going to be kind of annoying getting to that point.
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Jan 10, 2023 07:23
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Ugh, I've only recently started to get into this game and really want to talk about my experience and thoughts so far, but I'm not sure how to tag it in a way that won't spoil myself or others, so here goes: (Beginning of chapter one discussion) drat, it was such a bombshell finding out that Mira has been dead for years now, only for the PC/Omori to return to the dream world. I know the dream world is a safe space for Omori to retreat to to escape from his psychosis or whatever, but drat all these dream representations of his friends from the "good old days" just all feel like frauds. On a related note, I do like the game so far, but some of the overly saccharine and cutesy poo poo feels a bit forced. I understand from a design standpoint why the game is this way (ie soak in the cutesy poo poo to make the traumatic parts stand out more), but I feel myself more motivated to get to the next shocking grim and dark part and trying to mash the Z button to skip past the filler like running around town fighting Mikhail or whatever. Also, I'm getting the feeling that real-world Basil has some severe codependency issues and that Omori isn't the only one with mental problems. If anything, I think Basil has it worse than Omori does. Still, I'm dying to find out the specifics behind Mari's death, what drove Aubrey away, why Kel seemed so oblivious and nonchalant in his apology, etc. It'll all come out eventually, I suppose. I'm predicting that Omori will unlock the ability to Stab in the real-world and it's gonna lead somewhere horrifying. Also, at the end of 3 days Basil will probably freak out and try to kill Omori to stop him from leaving in a "if I can't have you, then nobody will" kind of way. Also probably Mari's death was probably secretly Omori's fault and it got covered up and he's feeling trauma and guilt over it. It would help to explain why his mom is so absentee all the time. Plus the constant hands imagery probably symbolizes some incident related to sexual assault. All speculation on my part for now, anyway. Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Feb 23, 2023 |
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Feb 23, 2023 05:58
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Those are interesting takes and it'll be interesting to see how those change as you play through, but absolutely do not skip through the "real world" stuff. It's not filler, it's worldbuilding-- almost everyone has a little story arc that makes you care about them a little bit more. There's some stuff that is definitely not necessary and exists strictly for the achievements/badges (for real, the pet rock stuff gives you a fun bit of flavor for each character involved but it's a huge timewaster since each game makes you talk to the character again, watch the title cutscene, listen to the bonk... bonk... bonk... of each selection... you don't get any huge exposition for doing any of this). Try to see those portions of the game as a dungeon of exposition rather than battles. There's a lot going on in there each day and I thought I scoured it all and found out I still missed some stuff at the end. Omori is a story driven game first and an RPG second imo-- the worldbuilding, characters, and general flavor of the game color the experience more than the battles and stats and items and stuff do. I do suggest trying not to rush through it just to get to the next shock moment. Framboise fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Feb 23, 2023 |
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Feb 23, 2023 12:07
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Live concert of the music going on right now, this version of World's End Valentine absolutely fucks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG6HJRpqs_8
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Mar 2, 2024 03:42
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happy Mari day
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Mar 2, 2024 03:56
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