I only finished Omori on Saturday, and I'm extremely thankful I've had a bit of time to sit on it and reflect before needing to write this entry. It was never a question of where this would rank on the 2022 list. My question is whether I would rank this higher than Persona 5 Royal. I had been eyeing this for months but only bought it a couple weeks ago, and now I just wish I had this game in my life sooner.
Now, I will not be discussing anything plot related past the Prologue/start of Chapter 1. This is the one piece of media I want to spoil for anyone the ABSOLUTE LEAST. I can not discuss this game or its impact at all without setting the scene a little though.
At the start, Omori is a fun little RPG Maker type game (think Undertale) where you explore a colorful and vibrant world with your friends. You do things like play Hide and Seek, take pictures with your friends, have picnics in the park, etc. It's a super cute game inside Headspace. There's plenty of "enemies" to grind against like slimes and bunnies, nothing too dangerous. There's also a unique gimmick in the combat of this game: Emotions. It's sorta a Rock/Paper/Scissors type thing, where your emotion and the emotion of your enemies WILL play into how much damage you are doing/taking. As you can probably assume, it doesn't stay super cute and wholesome for too long though.
Once you reach Basil's house at the end of the Prologue, the game officially reveals some of its cards. You're hit with the first of many jumpscares and then proceed to wake up in the real world as the ACTUAL main character, Sunny. Everything that you just experienced in Headspace is, as the name implies, all in Sunny's head. It turns out his big sister, Mari, died 4 years prior to the events of this game and the Mari you see in Headspace, who is the sweetest character in the game, is only a figment of the imagination of a still grieving 16 year old. While in Headspace you're out fighting princesses and space lords, in the real world Sunny is trying to piece his life (and friend group) back together 3 days before he moves out of the town he has lived in his whole life.
And there you have it. I'm not going to actively spoil the plot further. But I'm going to get into the impact this game has had on me now.
First off, this game ran me through the whole gambit of emotions. There's some batshit insane moments that will leave you dying of laughter. There's plenty that will tear your heart in two and leave you a sobbing mess. Plenty of shocks, surprises, twists and turns. There's even moments that fill you with genuine fear and make every step you have to keep taking forward scarier than the last. But you have to keep moving forward, because when you finally get where this game is going, you won't be the same.
Much like Celeste tackles Anxiety and Depression in an extremely nuanced fashion, Omori tackles some pretty heavy shit too. This game is a masterclass on Grief, Guilt, and Forgiveness. I'm not talking about forgiveness towards other people though. More like... Forgiveness towards *YOURSELF.* We all hold ourselves to a higher standard than we hold other people. We have an easier time forgiving other people their mistakes and wrongdoings than we do ourselves. It's never OUR fault that something bad happened, it was something behind you! Someone else made you do it! Coming to terms with your past and learning to love and accept yourself despite your past are major themes of this game. Something happened this year that, while I have absolutely no intention of discussing here, did fuck me up in a way that's left me having a hard time reconciling with myself on it to this day. But this game taught me that it is possible and, if I just hold on, I can get there.
Omori is a little psychological horror RPG with a lot of heart. To this day I still listen to a certain endgame song and break down, thinking about both the game and my own life. This is in contention for my favorite game of all time. It should go without saying, but I can not possibly recommend this enough.
PS: There are 2 routes to this game, divided by the single most innocuous choice of the entire game. You will miss out on SO MUCH if you choose not to open the door to Kel in the morning.
