There are some gaming experiences where I realize that the best thing I can do to enjoy them is to shut-off the analytical side of my brain for a while and just go on whatever journey the developers have crafted. If for no other reason, I will always remember Omori for the way it just does "whatever it feels like doing."
But there are certainly more reasons to remember this experience and no matter how eccentric it got, it never felt like it forgot the player. This was an experience made to be shared.
[A Sketchbook World]
The most regonizable elements of Omori is also one of its strongest. The crayon and color-pencil art was executed so wonderfully. Every sprite and scene glows with character. The color palettes are often extravagent and playful but never to me felt "childish" or gaudy, and when the tone shifted drastically the purpose behind it could be felt and was never jarring. Animations were often fairly simple in terms of frame count, but they accomplished what they needed to and sometimes more.
I'm also quite in love with the way they used blurring and shading effects to give that feeling that you were sometimes looking at actual paper puppets.
[It is a JRPG]
It actually was a bit of a surprise to me how much traditional JRPG gameplay was here. There is a lot of exploration, sidequests, secrets, and combat. From the exploration side, I had a delightful time scouring Headspace and Faraway Town. They both presented all sorts of unexpected events and neither got too expansive, making sure you can hit all of the key points without derailing the pace of the game.
What a I really loved was that it didn't use checklists or neuron-firing loot rewards to bait you into it. I explored because I wanted to see where the long chain of destructable traffic cones would take me, or if the next NPC I talked to would show me another hilarious doodling of theirs.
The combat was fairly well done as well. It's never a demanding system, but it's engaging enough and is executed with the same sense of charm as the rest of the world. "Spectacle" isn't quite the word I'm looking for, but what carries it is something like that. There's a lot of little Quality-of-Life details as well which was nice.
If I want to get technical (which I can't help it, I do) I think the 'emotion' system was underdone and too easy to bypass entirely, especially late game. There could be an argument there was some intention to this, but it's very implicit if that's the case so I won't write it off as such.
[I can't process how much work this OST was]
179 tracks, most of which are very distinct and cover a fairly wide range of styles and instrumentations. From the synth/bit-tunes of Headspace to the nostalgic piano pieces and even some EDM combat music with a harpsicord mixed in, yet it all feels right in context. The music here is incredible and yet it never felt "forceful." It was an accompaniment to the visuals and narrative not the dictator.
[A painful narrative but not a bleak one]
My biggest concern going in was that the story would be either hamfistedly clumsy or esoterically pretentious. A concern that probably didn't come from the game at all but rather my own perspective on modern discourse around psychological matters.
I don't wanna write that essay now (or maybe ever), so I'll put it this way: for all the more abstract elements of Omori, it knew when to touch the ground and speak clearly without becoming long-winded. I really appreciated that.
A lot of elements of the story felt very familiar to me, so that hurt a bit. But a good hurt, I think.
[Yes]
I'm firmly of the belief that video games are a form of art. Omori is a good "game" but that's not the reason I would recommend anyone play it, that's just a nice sugar coating on a journey that wants you to experience a lot of different things, and one that was crafted with a lot of care and effort. Like all art, it will mean something different to every observer, and it might not mean anything to you. But, if the mood seems right, I can absolutely recommend looking for yourself to find out.
But there are certainly more reasons to remember this experience and no matter how eccentric it got, it never felt like it forgot the player. This was an experience made to be shared.
[A Sketchbook World]
The most regonizable elements of Omori is also one of its strongest. The crayon and color-pencil art was executed so wonderfully. Every sprite and scene glows with character. The color palettes are often extravagent and playful but never to me felt "childish" or gaudy, and when the tone shifted drastically the purpose behind it could be felt and was never jarring. Animations were often fairly simple in terms of frame count, but they accomplished what they needed to and sometimes more.
I'm also quite in love with the way they used blurring and shading effects to give that feeling that you were sometimes looking at actual paper puppets.
[It is a JRPG]
It actually was a bit of a surprise to me how much traditional JRPG gameplay was here. There is a lot of exploration, sidequests, secrets, and combat. From the exploration side, I had a delightful time scouring Headspace and Faraway Town. They both presented all sorts of unexpected events and neither got too expansive, making sure you can hit all of the key points without derailing the pace of the game.
What a I really loved was that it didn't use checklists or neuron-firing loot rewards to bait you into it. I explored because I wanted to see where the long chain of destructable traffic cones would take me, or if the next NPC I talked to would show me another hilarious doodling of theirs.
The combat was fairly well done as well. It's never a demanding system, but it's engaging enough and is executed with the same sense of charm as the rest of the world. "Spectacle" isn't quite the word I'm looking for, but what carries it is something like that. There's a lot of little Quality-of-Life details as well which was nice.
If I want to get technical (which I can't help it, I do) I think the 'emotion' system was underdone and too easy to bypass entirely, especially late game. There could be an argument there was some intention to this, but it's very implicit if that's the case so I won't write it off as such.
[I can't process how much work this OST was]
179 tracks, most of which are very distinct and cover a fairly wide range of styles and instrumentations. From the synth/bit-tunes of Headspace to the nostalgic piano pieces and even some EDM combat music with a harpsicord mixed in, yet it all feels right in context. The music here is incredible and yet it never felt "forceful." It was an accompaniment to the visuals and narrative not the dictator.
[A painful narrative but not a bleak one]
My biggest concern going in was that the story would be either hamfistedly clumsy or esoterically pretentious. A concern that probably didn't come from the game at all but rather my own perspective on modern discourse around psychological matters.
I don't wanna write that essay now (or maybe ever), so I'll put it this way: for all the more abstract elements of Omori, it knew when to touch the ground and speak clearly without becoming long-winded. I really appreciated that.
A lot of elements of the story felt very familiar to me, so that hurt a bit. But a good hurt, I think.
[Yes]
I'm firmly of the belief that video games are a form of art. Omori is a good "game" but that's not the reason I would recommend anyone play it, that's just a nice sugar coating on a journey that wants you to experience a lot of different things, and one that was crafted with a lot of care and effort. Like all art, it will mean something different to every observer, and it might not mean anything to you. But, if the mood seems right, I can absolutely recommend looking for yourself to find out.