I think Omori is too long, wayyy too long.

[GagaWillie]

why tf CANT I SKIP ANY OF THE CHORES IN THE CASTLE WHY DO I HAVE TO TEACH A CLASS HOW TO SING

Omori teases the player all the time with hints of dark themes but never does anything with it until the very end. it just tickles your balls then spits you out into 7 hours of garbage that is so out of no where and unrelated to the story that i wouldnt even call them sidequests, BUT THEYRE MANDATORY TO BEAT THE GAME.

Omori tries to tell a really interesting story, and it does! it does it well actually.
But to get to those cool impressive awe inspiring parts you must drag your balls through glass talking for hours then doing stuff for random people only for it to never matter ever for the rest of the game. oh! you really liked the space boyfriend? well he never shows up ever again. oh but you spent hours doing his chores? well be prepared for it to be irrelevant to anything interesting.

Omori is too long.
Theres too much pointless dialogue.
You should be able to skip the chores in the castle.

EDIT: Ignore the hours i just want to talk about how i think theres a lot of pointless dragged out nonsense in Omori

[puppygirl gaming]

40+? It took me 15, without skipping any dialogue, idk what the ♥♥♥♥ you were doing.

[GagaWillie]

Messaggio originale di Griefy:

40+? It took me 15, without skipping any dialogue, idk what the ♥♥♥♥ you were doing.

Hours aside i just want to talk about how i think this game has a lot of pointless garbage in it that drags it out longer then it should.

[Spartan Delta 27]

I think the "Pointless Garbage" is why I bought the Game. I would rather spend a really long time in "Headspace" rather than keep getting shoved back into the Real World.

Heh. Summary of my Life.


Anyhow, I have not seen enough of the Game (Either from playing or watching on YouTube) to say how much things get dragged down over time. It looks like the Sunny Route rips the Player out of the "Happy" World and forces them to go through a relatively Linear End Game, while the Omori Route allows for more open Exploration.

I have not really seen much so far that seems to slow down the Game significantly... It actually looks like it would be easy for some People to speedrun.

[GagaWillie]

Messaggio originale di Spartan Delta 27:

I think the "Pointless Garbage" is why I bought the Game. I would rather spend a really long time in "Headspace" rather than keep getting shoved back into the Real World.

Heh. Summary of my Life.


Anyhow, I have not seen enough of the Game (Either from playing or watching on YouTube) to say how much things get dragged down over time. It looks like the Sunny Route rips the Player out of the "Happy" World and forces them to go through a relatively Linear End Game, while the Omori Route allows for more open Exploration.

I have not really seen much so far that seems to slow down the Game significantly... It actually looks like it would be easy for some People to speedrun.

The best example of a moment that slows the player down is one i brought up earlier, THE CASTLE!

You cant leave the castle because theres a crowd at the door. Aubrey or someone says "Oh we gotta wait until they move so we can leave", and what that means is you must go through each of the castles 4 hallways, do the chores at the end of each (teach a class to sing, bake a cake, etc) each one takes a good chunk of time, and the game never tells you this is what you must to you just kind of have to guess and hope or google it online.

Once youve spent the last hour or so doing these chores the people at the exit door leave, letting you leave too and go to the garden. BUT ONCE YOU GET TO THE GARDEN YOU MUST GO TO EACH 4 CORNER AND DO A MINI PUZZLE WITH REALLY CLUNKY MECHANICS then go down into the basement dungeon type place and do that as well.

The whole section is incredibly tedious and boring, and the only thing that came out of it was a cool boss fight with the princess lady. (sorry if i dont remember names its been awhile since ive been there)

[puppygirl gaming]

Messaggio originale di William B. Wankings Jr:

Messaggio originale di Spartan Delta 27:

I think the "Pointless Garbage" is why I bought the Game. I would rather spend a really long time in "Headspace" rather than keep getting shoved back into the Real World.

Heh. Summary of my Life.


Anyhow, I have not seen enough of the Game (Either from playing or watching on YouTube) to say how much things get dragged down over time. It looks like the Sunny Route rips the Player out of the "Happy" World and forces them to go through a relatively Linear End Game, while the Omori Route allows for more open Exploration.

I have not really seen much so far that seems to slow down the Game significantly... It actually looks like it would be easy for some People to speedrun.

The best example of a moment that slows the player down is one i brought up earlier, THE CASTLE!

You cant leave the castle because theres a crowd at the door. Aubrey or someone says "Oh we gotta wait until they move so we can leave", and what that means is you must go through each of the castles 4 hallways, do the chores at the end of each (teach a class to sing, bake a cake, etc) each one takes a good chunk of time, and the game never tells you this is what you must to you just kind of have to guess and hope or google it online.

Once youve spent the last hour or so doing these chores the people at the exit door leave, letting you leave too and go to the garden. BUT ONCE YOU GET TO THE GARDEN YOU MUST GO TO EACH 4 CORNER AND DO A MINI PUZZLE WITH REALLY CLUNKY MECHANICS then go down into the basement dungeon type place and do that as well.

The whole section is incredibly tedious and boring, and the only thing that came out of it was a cool boss fight with the princess lady. (sorry if i dont remember names its been awhile since ive been there)

Not every game is perfect, you've pointed out one bad section of the game, and that's your only basis for the game being too long.

[WinterzShadow]

This game is not long at all. You are just slow.

[GagaWillie]

Messaggio originale di Griefy:

Messaggio originale di William B. Wankings Jr:

The best example of a moment that slows the player down is one i brought up earlier, THE CASTLE!

You cant leave the castle because theres a crowd at the door. Aubrey or someone says "Oh we gotta wait until they move so we can leave", and what that means is you must go through each of the castles 4 hallways, do the chores at the end of each (teach a class to sing, bake a cake, etc) each one takes a good chunk of time, and the game never tells you this is what you must to you just kind of have to guess and hope or google it online.

Once youve spent the last hour or so doing these chores the people at the exit door leave, letting you leave too and go to the garden. BUT ONCE YOU GET TO THE GARDEN YOU MUST GO TO EACH 4 CORNER AND DO A MINI PUZZLE WITH REALLY CLUNKY MECHANICS then go down into the basement dungeon type place and do that as well.

The whole section is incredibly tedious and boring, and the only thing that came out of it was a cool boss fight with the princess lady. (sorry if i dont remember names its been awhile since ive been there)

Not every game is perfect, you've pointed out one bad section of the game, and that's your only basis for the game being too long.

Do you want me to get into all the other sections and what i think could be removed? cuz i can i just said the castle section because its ONE of the best examples and to save time for whoever is reading cuz ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ theres a lot of other stuff i could go into.

Not once did i say anything about the game being bad. I genuinely loved it.
and if someone enjoys the headspace more then the real world more power to them! Theyd enjoy the game way more then me. but it was the real world that got me hooked on this game and the headspace having LITERALLY 0 connection or impact to the real world other then references to objects (Kel's rock being his dog, treehouse, etc) or situations (basil and mari) made me lose interest in it really quickly.

We start looking for basil but then end up helping some space boyfriend relationship issues for no reason and its mandatory, you leave after that with the only impact on the real world is you see a poster of him and a cutout and go "wow its that guy!". and its only impact on the headspace is that we see him once more later on in the castle for a minute.

The casino is forgettable other then the boss battle.

The Humphrey section is tedious with uninteresting "villians".

Im obviously not gonna go into detail about each section cuz all i get as a response is one sentence.

I want you to name a single chapter in the headspace that had any influence on the real world, or anything after that chapter in the headspace, cuz at the end of each chapter the characters are forgotten and thrown to the side.

[Tellah]

I mean... It probably doesn't help the fact you might not have liked the sections or found them tedious, but (vague plot spoilers) I mean as I understood it, the whole point of Headspace was to keep Sunny distracted by unrelated things so that he didn't think too hard about his issues. It felt very deliberate to me that things in Headspace had less and less to do with Basil, since Basil was connected to what Sunny was trying to forget about.

[Skub lite]

Messaggio originale di Tellah:

I mean... It probably doesn't help the fact you might not have liked the sections or found them tedious, but (vague plot spoilers) I mean as I understood it, the whole point of Headspace was to keep Sunny distracted by unrelated things so that he didn't think too hard about his issues. It felt very deliberate to me that things in Headspace had less and less to do with Basil, since Basil was connected to what Sunny was trying to forget about.

I'm pretty sure you're right, I came away from those sections with the same idea, and I've seen a ton of people say similar things as well

Messaggio originale di Boys that Squirt:

but it was the real world that got me hooked on this game and the headspace having LITERALLY 0 connection or impact to the real world other then references to objects (Kel's rock being his dog, treehouse, etc) or situations (basil and mari) made me lose interest in it really quickly.

I think you're totally right that the Headspace sections had basically zero impact on the real world stuff at all and I agree with you that the Headspace sections feel pretty lame in comparison to the real world stuff because they're so detached from it, but (I can only speak personally here, everyone's obviously gonna feel differently about this stuff) at least for me, I think that that design somehow made me appreciate the experience the game gave me even more.

At first, I didn't really mind the Headspace sections at first because I didn't really know any better: the cutesy aesthetic and the superficial characterizations and dialogue were all fine enough because I didn't have any basis of comparison. As the game went on and we were introduced to the real world, though, Headspace almost immediately paled in comparison for me because of how obviously vapid and irrelevant all of the dream world stuff was, just spinning in circles without end. It didn't go anywhere or contribute anything to the broader narrative and that really did start to drag on me. That contrast only became more apparent as the game progressed.

That said, that weird juxtaposition of emotionally rich real world segments and surface-level Headspace segments left me with this sense of longing that's really hard to capture with words. I found myself feeling almost like a prisoner within Sunny's mind as the Headspace portions dragged on, and I remember thinking, "damn, I wish I could be out in the game's real world right now spending time with Sunny's actual friends, just hanging out and fixing issues and finding shapes in the clouds."

Actually, I didn't just think that; I really felt it, on a deeply personal level. It felt to me as if OMOCAT had bottled up the bittersweet nostalgia and regret that had tormented Sunny for all those years and made me live through it myself. In those moments, I had the impression that I'd understood something about Sunny's thoughts and feelings for the past four years in a way I never would've been able to if the Headspace sections had been extremely engaging and not too drawn out. I knew how badly he wanted to return to all of that because I myself had been conditioned, through the game's structure, to want to return to all of that just as badly as he did.

Those are just my personal experiences, anyways. I can at least confirm that you're not the only one who found the Headspace sections significantly less interesting than the real world ones (though if I'm being honest with myself, I still did enjoy the Headspace segments, just way less than I did with the real world). I don't know how much of all of this OMOCAT intended, but for me personally, the end product really worked, even if it meant that I had to sit a bit discontent waiting for something to happen for however many hours in Headspace

[fdar313]

I agree that Sweetheart's Castle drags on too long. Though it is true that Omori is trying to impede the search for Basil.

I would have personally preferred more Headspace relevance as well to be honest (this is one part in which I liked End Roll a little better), but it does do something. The Headspace sequences characterize Omori as an individual. No matter which explanation for him you prefer, Omori does display a lot of independence from Sunny, and so counts as a character in his own right.

Omori's rage against Sunny wouldn't have the same impact otherwise. Why would he care what Sunny did to Mari if Omori didn't care about his own version of her? Why would he speak against Sunny about Sunny's friends if Omori didn't like his own friends who were based on them?

[st0pnsw0p]

Messaggio originale di Tellah:

I mean... It probably doesn't help the fact you might not have liked the sections or found them tedious, but (vague plot spoilers) I mean as I understood it, the whole point of Headspace was to keep Sunny distracted by unrelated things so that he didn't think too hard about his issues. It felt very deliberate to me that things in Headspace had less and less to do with Basil, since Basil was connected to what Sunny was trying to forget about.

Just because it was deliberate doesn't make it good. If the point is that Sunny is wasting time with trivial nonsense to distract himself from his problems, that's all well and good, but that point could have been made in a fraction of the time that the game spends on it. It's the equivalent of padding out a school paper with meaningless words just to meet the required wordcount; these segments simply don't have enough to say to justify the mount of time spent on them.

[Xorik]

We need to keep in mind that there are two perspectives/experiences in this game:
1. Opening the door during Three Days Left and see what's become of the world outside (Good/Bad Ending Route)
2. Take a nap and abandon the real world altogether (Hikikomori Route)

First comes world building. OMORI's friends are strictly manifestations of Sunny's memories of them.

The Prologue in Vast Forest introduces the main conflict in Headspace, the main characters, and the Keys. Otherworld reveals the character relationships, is the tutorial for their gameplay roles in Headspace, and the start of the cyclical adventure with friends. After Otherworld is our first dive into Black Space through the holes that represent the leaking of dark thoughts/memories (depression, trauma, etc.). This whole experience ends up being the main structure of story and gameplay in Headspace.

In Three Days Left, Pyrefly Forest reveals more character background or reinforces what we know about them, and if you found the secret area, this reveals the origins of Headspace which is key to understanding why everything is so "colorful" and potentially meaningless to some who saw the Real World. Sweetheart's Castle is where the gameplay roles are reemphasized again. Each corner of the castle requires one main character's expertise. The garden is an easy puzzle with a hint of Black Space nearby. Post Sweetheart's Castle is the exposure of Sunny's dormant memories and beings of the Abyss. It's the same story/gameplay structure as introduced in the Prologue, and it's what we experience in Humphrey later.

At this point, it should be understood that Headspace and its gameplay design serve to inform us of what Sunny's friends were like and how strong their bond of friendship was before he isolated himself from the world for four years. The adventure reinforces their character traits and personalities while still following the main plot of Headspace. The main plot was never their adventure. The cyclical adventure was a means for Sunny to forget himself and live in Headspace. This cycle is explicitly mentioned in the room after Humphrey and visually hinted in various parts of Headspace. This cycle is probably why some of you are annoyed by Headspace and the gameplay in there, but it means that Headspace is serving its purpose both story and gameplay-wise. It serves as an obstacle to bar you from the main plot, which is Black Space and Sunny's secret that is constantly repressed. Though, we need to remember we are assuming Sunny's role, experiencing his life in isolation or as he rejoins the world outside, awake or asleep. Hence why in Headspace, we need to go on this adventure that he has been on multiple times and changed based on how it ended previous times (hinted by Sweetheart's Castle and the voice in the room after Humphrey).

From first-time playing perspective, Headspace's design completely fulfills its purpose for the Hikikomori Route. You only know Sunny's friends by his memories, and you can assume his dark secret but never know why it happened. When the dark memories and thoughts attempt to reach him, he represses them. You continue your endless, cyclical adventure in Headspace until there's nothing left to do. Through your own observations and living through him, you choose his end during One Day Left.

The Real World fulfills its purpose for the Good/Bad Ending Route by diminishing the value of Headspace story-wise and letting players discover the truth. You see how the world outside has changed and how irrelevant Headspace becomes in the present and find the references for the contents of Headspace. Eventually, in the Good Ending Route, Headspace is abandoned. In our world, this is what happens to most children who grew up with an imaginary world when reality changes in a way that makes the imaginary world no longer necessary.

If you play the Good/Bad Ending Route and typically only play story-based games once, it's likely and understandable that Headspace won't appeal to you and will discourage you from experiencing the Hikikomori Route. If you play the Routes in reverse, Headspace feels like a chore because you have to do a lot all over to find out what the secret is, so much that you might overlook the subtle differences between the Routes. If you are familiar enough with the battle system and the bosses though, the mandatory Headspace content can be completed in under 4-6 hours for replay purposes. Most other hours are spent examining objects, speaking with NPCs for the humor aspect of the game, or obtaining and finishing quests. You can save several hours by skipping these aspects of the game.

[st0pnsw0p]

Messaggio originale di Xorik:

This cycle is probably why some of you are annoyed by Headspace and the gameplay in there, but it means that Headspace is serving its purpose both story and gameplay-wise. It serves as an obstacle to bar you from the main plot, which is Black Space and Sunny's secret that is constantly repressed.

I understand that this is the point of these segments, but it was still really poorly executed. That the headspace serves as a distraction from the real world could have been established in a considerably shorter amount of time. As a new player, you don't know that there are extensive real world segments which explore the part of the story that you're probably going be most interested in, so it's natural to play along with the headspace story and try to build up your party and do sidequests and all that RPG stuff because you assume it's going to have a payoff. Then when you go out into the real world for the first time, the game basically tells you that all that stuff you did was a huge waste of time and had no relevance to the plot.

It would have been better if the devs had kept the first forays into the headspace short and to the point, and only made them more expansive once the players decide to commit to the imaginary world over the real one; that way players won't feel like the devs tricked them into wasting time.

[Skub lite]

Messaggio originale di st0pnsw0p:

Messaggio originale di Xorik:

This cycle is probably why some of you are annoyed by Headspace and the gameplay in there, but it means that Headspace is serving its purpose both story and gameplay-wise. It serves as an obstacle to bar you from the main plot, which is Black Space and Sunny's secret that is constantly repressed.

I understand that this is the point of these segments, but it was still really poorly executed. That the headspace serves as a distraction from the real world could have been established, in a considerably shorter amount of time. As a new player, you don't know that there are extensive real world segments which explore the part of the story that you're probably going be most interested in, so it's natural to play along with the headspace story and try to build up your party and do sidequests and all that RPG stuff because you assume it's going to have a payoff. Then when you go out into the real world for the first time, the game basically tells you that all that stuff you did was a huge waste of time and had no relevance to the plot.

One way to address this would be to keep your first forays into the headspace short and to the point, and only make them more expansive once the player decides to commit to the imaginary world over the real one; that way players won't feel like you've tricked them into wasting their time.

I think a lot of it comes down to personal tastes. I'm only speaking personally here, since the way a certain design choice makes someone feel is a pretty subjective thing, but for me, it didn't feel poorly executed: the way that the game was structured with the lengthy Headspace segments left me with this really intense sense of longing and intrigue that I haven't felt before and which really moved me. I feel pretty strongly that it helped me relate significantly more to Sunny than I would've otherwise, and I think it's a definite part of why I loved OMORI so much. While it meant that I had to deal with a stretch of gameplay that was long and largely removed from the main story, I really am glad that it gave me the experience that I got from this game.

That said, I absolutely get what you're saying about the fact that Headspace was a distraction from Sunny's real world problems could've been established much more quickly and think that you're right that they could've established that idea much more quickly if they structured things differently. I also think that the idea you offered to address your issue with OMORI could definitely work and would create a different experience that could definitely also be engaging if done right. The specific structure that OMOCAT went with, imo, has its strengths and drawbacks and can either excel, fail, or fall somewhere in-between depending on who's experiencing it: for me, it felt like it drew out this really engaging experience, whereas for you, it felt poorly executed, and those are both completely valid reactions, I think.

It'd be cool if you could revisit the game some day and find that it hits you in the same way that it hit people like me and some others here, but everyone's different and it might really just never be to your personal tastes, and that's totally okay. Obviously, there's absolutely nothing wrong with not liking these design choices, just a matter of what different people value and how their brains are wired and whatnot

[WinterzShadow]

Game should have been longer. That's what RPG'S are all about, kids. Learn