This review does not contain spoilers.
OMORI is a game I find myself thinking about often, which is why I'm writing a review for it after not playing it in years. If you enjoy RPG maker games, especially ones with mature themes and occasional horror elements, you'll enjoy OMORI greatly, and I recommend you stop reading reviews and go in as spoiler-free as possible. It is well worth the price of admission, and earns my recommendation. However, OMORI is a deeply, deeply flawed game, and I will likely never play it again.
Firstly - The game's music is truly outstanding, and is overwhelmingly the best part of the experience. I often return to the soundtrack and thoroughly enjoy it every listen. The art style, tone, broad story direction, and overall creativity in its presentation are also excellent. The game is full of interesting surprises and misdirection, and I was thoroughly invested in its story while playing. The characters are bursting with personality, and while they err on the simple side, I grew quite fond of them. The horror aspects are also quite well done, with some genuine scares and terrific atmosphere and tension.
The worst part of the game is, unfortunately, the fact it's a video game. The JRPG portion of the game, including its turn-based combat, is utterly miserable to play. The RPG maker format was just not the correct fit here. OMORI is an experience that desperately needed to be a comic, web series, or other semi-interactive medium instead, which to my understanding, is how the setting and characters originally started. There are a few key moments where the game uses its format as a JPRG to surprise and shock you, and those moments are really quite excellent, but the vast majority of the gameplay is tedious, repetitive, exhausting, and is what you’ll spend the majority of your time doing. I've seen some praise for the way emotions are used as status modifiers for your party, and it is an interesting idea, but it's a skin-deep mechanic, and the overall quality of the combat falls very, very short of contemporaries like LISA, Undertale/Deltarune, Fear and Hunger, etc.
OMORI has rightfully received a lot of praise for its story, and the story is why I continued to slog through the RPG portion of the game. I was enthralled with the premise and was very invested in seeing it through to the end. Unfortunately, the story ended up being the second worst part of the game. Without getting into spoilers, there is a large reveal near the end of the game that is meant to contextualize the rest of the experience and characters, and the game rightfully treats the moment with a lot of gravity and seriousness. However, the actual events that occur are so nonsensical, so impossible, so tone-deaf, and so unfitting that it utterly shattered my suspension of disbelief, and largely ruined the experience for me. I don’t even dislike the premise – with a few small changes I think it would work totally fine – but the execution of that premise is what completely fails. It was the part of the game that I felt was the biggest letdown.
OMORI is a game that bleeds creativity, passion, and vision. It’s a work of art, and the folks who made it should be very, very proud of what they’ve made. Again, if you enjoy this kind of game, or are interested in what the game attempts to do, I heartily recommend it. For me at least though, OMORI fails to live up to its best ideas, and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed as I watched the credits roll.
