One way to understand OMORI's relation to Yume Nikki, a game from which it lifts a lot, is to imagine a remake of Inland Empire that spends hours of screentime explaining why Laura Dern is so scared.
OMORI exists in the quirky and surreal JRPG lineage of the MOTHER series, LISA, and Undertale (among others). As far as those series' influence goes it does fine: you go on a journey with a bunch of your close friends; the characters are believable and human; the music slaps ass. At the same time, the game is atrociously paced and never seems to fall into any sort of rhythm. It's difficult to get a sense of its scope while playing. But aside from a just ridiculous, immersion breaking, and as far as I can tell unnecessary twist towards the end, OMORI is effective. I certainly cared more for the characters in this game than anybody in Earthbound or Mother 3.
It does well compared to other MOTHERlikes, but how does it stack up to Yume Nikki? Yume Nikki has barely any text. To be frank, it barely has anything. You wander through surreal and sometimes terrifying dreamscapes; you occasionally interact with things that may or may not result in consequences. Still: by exploring the landscapes of her dreams, the player begins to feel a connection to their character (known as Madotskui). You get some vague idea of her fears, her traumas, her general brain state. This is all communicated to the player by, again, functionally being a walking simulator. OMORI seemingly attempts to accomplish a similar goal: putting the player into Sunny's dreamscapes. But it does so by completely eschewing the subtlety that really made Yume Nikki special.
In one of OMORI's final explorations of dream space, he is sent into a room filled with doors. As he enters these doors and explores the rooms contained within, he is given "keys" that he uses to progress. This segment of gameplay seems deliberately designed to echo Yume Nikki, even beyond just borrowing the aesthetics as the rest of the game does. Inside of one room, the player can interact with bells: some of the bells make noises, but the other prompts a textbox, "this bell makes no noise." Why? What is gained by telling the player that? In Yume Nikki, a player understands an object can't be interacted with because an attempt at interaction with it simply yields no result. It's this kind of redundancy that slows OMORI down, and really impacts its effect.
OMORI taken in its worst light seems to stand for the suggestion that Yume Nikki lacked some kind of backstory. We need to understand Sunny's interpersonal friendships and their history, his family life and his interests. More importantly we need to be told about these aspects, and beat over the head with them. I don't think that's true: I think this game could have done more if it had less stuff in it. That being said the game succeeds more than it fails, and its always cool to see surreal dreamlike influence from Yume Nikki leak into mainstream shit. In the end, the degree to which the game pays homage to Yume Nikki just kinda triggers the "never remind the player they could be playing a better game" rule. Which is a shame because again, all told this game ain't bad.
OMORI exists in the quirky and surreal JRPG lineage of the MOTHER series, LISA, and Undertale (among others). As far as those series' influence goes it does fine: you go on a journey with a bunch of your close friends; the characters are believable and human; the music slaps ass. At the same time, the game is atrociously paced and never seems to fall into any sort of rhythm. It's difficult to get a sense of its scope while playing. But aside from a just ridiculous, immersion breaking, and as far as I can tell unnecessary twist towards the end, OMORI is effective. I certainly cared more for the characters in this game than anybody in Earthbound or Mother 3.
It does well compared to other MOTHERlikes, but how does it stack up to Yume Nikki? Yume Nikki has barely any text. To be frank, it barely has anything. You wander through surreal and sometimes terrifying dreamscapes; you occasionally interact with things that may or may not result in consequences. Still: by exploring the landscapes of her dreams, the player begins to feel a connection to their character (known as Madotskui). You get some vague idea of her fears, her traumas, her general brain state. This is all communicated to the player by, again, functionally being a walking simulator. OMORI seemingly attempts to accomplish a similar goal: putting the player into Sunny's dreamscapes. But it does so by completely eschewing the subtlety that really made Yume Nikki special.
In one of OMORI's final explorations of dream space, he is sent into a room filled with doors. As he enters these doors and explores the rooms contained within, he is given "keys" that he uses to progress. This segment of gameplay seems deliberately designed to echo Yume Nikki, even beyond just borrowing the aesthetics as the rest of the game does. Inside of one room, the player can interact with bells: some of the bells make noises, but the other prompts a textbox, "this bell makes no noise." Why? What is gained by telling the player that? In Yume Nikki, a player understands an object can't be interacted with because an attempt at interaction with it simply yields no result. It's this kind of redundancy that slows OMORI down, and really impacts its effect.
OMORI taken in its worst light seems to stand for the suggestion that Yume Nikki lacked some kind of backstory. We need to understand Sunny's interpersonal friendships and their history, his family life and his interests. More importantly we need to be told about these aspects, and beat over the head with them. I don't think that's true: I think this game could have done more if it had less stuff in it. That being said the game succeeds more than it fails, and its always cool to see surreal dreamlike influence from Yume Nikki leak into mainstream shit. In the end, the degree to which the game pays homage to Yume Nikki just kinda triggers the "never remind the player they could be playing a better game" rule. Which is a shame because again, all told this game ain't bad.