Omori is a game I was familiar with before I had started my playthrough of it, I had prior knowledge of the story and the games events. However, that did not stop Omori from being one of the best game I have experienced in all the games I have played thus far.
I would like to start with the combat as I have the least to talk about. Featuring the emotion system it’s a simple and easy to understand system of rock, paper, scissors that may sound kind of boring at first, but coming to understand and utilise the emotions to win battles is very satisfying, the best parts of it are definitely the boss fights where strategising what emotions to yield the most damage was the best parts of the combat system for me.
The exploration is very rewarding and at no point did I feel exploring was a waste of time as every corner had goodies and equipments for you to find and make the main cast stronger. This also applies to the side quests which added to the overall charm of the game and allowed me to backtrack and explore previous areas for things that I might have missed. This also leads me to the world of Omori which is split into two different planes of existence, a fictional world and the real world, which parallels each other with elements appearing in both. I loved the contrast and similarities of both worlds and exploring the fictional land really complimented the real world making neither dull, I would also like to add that although the music wasn’t the biggest standout for me personally it made exploring and my overall experience of Omori more enjoyable.
The worlds would not be as interesting as it is however, without the incredible art direction Omocat used for Omori. It features the classic rpg pixel art artstyle for the majority of the game. But in combat, or when there’s a cute scene and especially in major moments in the story, there will be a hand drawn art work of characters that features a loveable cartoony style that made the characters feel real in a way which helped me grow more attached to them even more, their expressions from sadness, happiness and anger were all conveyed beautifully through that hand drawn artstyle. Besides the cute and colourful artworks, remember Omori is a psychological horror game, and when it needs to be that it will. There will often be horrific drawings that will be put into an otherwise cartoonish world. During sections of the game something will appear whether for a brief moment or a split second to scare and unnerve the player, this psychological horror is at full force in one of the sections where uncanny valley like artworks of both pixel and the hand drawn art are scattered about in segments which gave me goosebumps throughout the entire time of that section.
Moving on to the characters. Throughout your playthrough of Omori, you will grow fond and attached to the main cast and maybe even some of the side casts, Omori builds that attachment up until the climax of the game and pulls at your heart strings. One of the games main cast member I personally grew very attached to had me very emotional through various parts of the game, I found myself blankly staring at the screen or beginning to tear up at sections featuring this character because of the profound impact that character had on me.
Speaking of being emotional, this game will make you cry a lot, as I said before I had knowledge of events in Omori from watching someone else play. However, that not only did not make me feel less emotional but more, especially when the last act of the game hit. No piece of media has made me think about it for weeks after watching someone play it and even more now that I’ve played it myself, and I think that goes to show how incredible of a game Omori truly is.
Overall, I would like say that I do not regret playing Omori even with the stuff I knew about the game, and I wish I could play it again without that prior insight. So I highly recommend anyone that considers playing Omori to please give it a try as it is one of the most unique and emotional stories you will ever experience from a game.
