This review contains spoilers
please excuse the wall of text here, for whatever reason I have a lot of thoughts on this game after beating the alternate path and stretching for 100% completion (which I STILL haven't gotten, smh).
to be honest, I didn't see myself going back and playing the hikikomori route in this game for a long while due to having to experience much of the same game again, but I seriously couldn't stop thinking about it. ultimately I think the experience outlined some different perspectives for me, and why I'm pretty much right down the middle on this one. for one, I think the hikikomori route is certainly more surreal, dark, and sad than the sunny route, which I personally found to be much more effective with all the real-world context I gained in my first playthrough. there's TONS of extra content that I didn't even know existed, which consistently impressed and surprised me. however, when comparing it to the true route, a lot of the conflict and growth of the characters is essentially lost in favor of HINTS towards something more sinister. the story is this route seems almost superfluous upon completion but in general I think it's meant to be experienced this way. the optional bosses and areas are legit the best (and most challenging) parts of the game, which I'm so glad I got to experience. Not only that but delving as far into black space/black space 2 as possible really made everything feel much more...grim. I do think this route is essential to the experience, as there are a good 10ish hours of amazing content behind 15 hours of the same game you've already played.
The biggest issue I have with this game though, which became much more apparent on this route, is the weirdly specific and annoying achievements, which seemingly pad out the run time of an already long and stretched-out game. with some kind of quality-of-life improvements to make going through the game easier, I feel like completing it wouldn't be so bad. However, with the incredibly long cutscenes, headspace sequences that seemingly mean nothing upon replay, and the endless grinding, I got a little frustrated. I know it defeats the point, but a chapter selection would seriously help to make this game much less of a headache.
All and all, I really love Omori. I think for its genre it finds ways to reinvent and experiment, while still falling into tropes and annoyances along the way. as an entire experience though I don't regret my time with it, and will still be finishing the rest of the achievements. no fucking way I'm playing through the whole game again though, so hate me or not ill be using save states to finish the real-world segments and move on with my life lol.
to be honest, I didn't see myself going back and playing the hikikomori route in this game for a long while due to having to experience much of the same game again, but I seriously couldn't stop thinking about it. ultimately I think the experience outlined some different perspectives for me, and why I'm pretty much right down the middle on this one. for one, I think the hikikomori route is certainly more surreal, dark, and sad than the sunny route, which I personally found to be much more effective with all the real-world context I gained in my first playthrough. there's TONS of extra content that I didn't even know existed, which consistently impressed and surprised me. however, when comparing it to the true route, a lot of the conflict and growth of the characters is essentially lost in favor of HINTS towards something more sinister. the story is this route seems almost superfluous upon completion but in general I think it's meant to be experienced this way. the optional bosses and areas are legit the best (and most challenging) parts of the game, which I'm so glad I got to experience. Not only that but delving as far into black space/black space 2 as possible really made everything feel much more...grim. I do think this route is essential to the experience, as there are a good 10ish hours of amazing content behind 15 hours of the same game you've already played.
The biggest issue I have with this game though, which became much more apparent on this route, is the weirdly specific and annoying achievements, which seemingly pad out the run time of an already long and stretched-out game. with some kind of quality-of-life improvements to make going through the game easier, I feel like completing it wouldn't be so bad. However, with the incredibly long cutscenes, headspace sequences that seemingly mean nothing upon replay, and the endless grinding, I got a little frustrated. I know it defeats the point, but a chapter selection would seriously help to make this game much less of a headache.
All and all, I really love Omori. I think for its genre it finds ways to reinvent and experiment, while still falling into tropes and annoyances along the way. as an entire experience though I don't regret my time with it, and will still be finishing the rest of the achievements. no fucking way I'm playing through the whole game again though, so hate me or not ill be using save states to finish the real-world segments and move on with my life lol.