The psychological horror game OMORI has a reputation for its massive emotional impact. It’s Steam description reads, “Explore a strange world full of colorful friends and foes. Navigate through the vibrant and the mundane in order to uncover a forgotten past. When the time comes, the path you’ve chosen will determine your fate... and perhaps the fate of others as well.” Now, this doesn’t really indicate at all what the game is about—friendship is a main theme, but so are trauma, forgiveness, and escapism. It’s ultimately a game about choosing between a devastating truth, or escaping into a comforting lie.
What I find
most fascinating about OMORI’s take on escapism, and what I think makes it so
effective, is that the thing Sunny is escaping from and the thing he is
escaping to are almost the same thing. How the protagonist and player
choose to deal this central paradox is what ultimately determines the ending they
get.
Initially,
the narrative follows the protagonist Sunny through the vibrant imaginary world
of Headspace, and later on, if the players wants, through the real life town of
Faraway where Sunny grew up with his sister Mari and friends Basil, Aubrey, Kel,
and Hero. We, the player and Sunny, begin in ignorance of the paradox. Prior to
the start of the game, it’s clear that Sunny has been living in White Space,
and only occasionally goes to see his friends in Headspace for picnics and
games.
This
fragile peace is broken when Headspace Basil a picture that reveals to him of
the tragic event Sunny is trying to repress. Headspace responds by removing Basil
entirely, prompting Omori and his friends to go search for and save him. This
is where things get really interesting: as will be revealed later, Headspace
Basil is being removed because his real-life counterpart is the only other
person who knows the truth. At a certain point it is revealed that this cycle
of losing and finding Basil has been occurring for a while now.
Why do Headspace
representations go looking for him even though it means the demise of their
world? They’re ignorant of it, of course, but Sunny’s subconscious is not, and
it’s from his subconscious that they are formed. True, his Headspace friends
start to forget about Basil later, but wouldn’t it be so much easier to just
ignore him from the very start? Then Sunny could go on living in Headspace,
fear and guilt forever out of mind and sight.
Except
that’s not what Sunny wants. He wants to return to the innocence and
peace from before the Event, sure, but he also wants hang out with his friends—and
they wouldn’t be his friends if they didn’t care about Basil. Their
kindness and care for each other is so fundamental that even their Headspace
representations cannot abandon these qualities.
The search
for Basil drives Sunny and friends, as well as the player, to adventure through
the whimsical world of Headspace. An adventure that is interrupted by only the
occasional splash of Nightmare Fuel emitted by the stirring of Sunny’s
repressed memories. Other than that, though, the world of Omori is colorful,
playful, and filled with things to do. According to this video, there are thirty two bosses (14 required, 10 are optional, and 8 exclusive to
the Hikkikomori route) countless side quests to complete and Easter Eggs to
discover, and amusing characters to speak to.
For
instance, you can follow a long trail of cones, which you have to tediously
individually slice, to reach a sprout mole at the middle. When you do finally
reach it, it says this:
and tells
you: “I went through all this trouble to isolate myself
from society, and then you show up and ruin everything! YOU BETTER FIX THIS
RIGHT NOW!!”.
I love little details like this. I also think this particular event is
emblematic of the function of extended headspace world: it’s silly and engaging
and you feel like you spend forever there. That feeling that you never have to
go back is the essence of escapism. I also really enjoy how Lone Mole’s
dialogue reflects Sunny’s tragic real life isolation through a more comical, irreverent
lens.
The
contradiction shows up again as we go on continued adventures with Headspace because
we begin to bond with and care for them, as well as their real-life counter
parts by extension. If the player chooses to ignore those real-life
counterparts, i.e takes the hikkikomori or neutral route, then our
confrontation with the contradiction is much less severe. If instead, we do
step out of the house the bonds we have forged make it all more tragic when the
suffering the real-life Aubrey, Hero, Kel, and Basil are still going through is
revealed. This bonding and care for the ‘real’ characters is driven by the very
adventure that is meant to distract Sunny and us from thinking about
reality. If we project these feelings of care and love onto Sunny, we are led
to understand that prioritizing his Real Life friends means he must take
responsibility for his actions.
This
understanding leads to the resolution of the central contradiction. I said that
what Sunny is escaping to and what he is escaping from are almost the same
thing; his friends. I say almost because there is an important difference
between the Real Life and Headspace versions of his friends. Sunny feels
unworthy of the latter due to the pain his actions caused, while he has never
hurt the former, who are unmarred and pure. This divide is initially not so
significant. The first real life character we’re physically introduced to is
Kel who has the same uncomplicated, friendly attitude as his Headspace
counterpart. The only difference is physical; he has grown up, but he still
wants to go on adventures around the town and hang out with Sunny like in the
days of yore. This mutual desire is what coaxes Sunny out in the first place.
The first
real divide occurs with Aubrey who has undergone a much more dramatic shift in
both personality and appearance: her hair is now bright pink, and she’s far
more aggressive towards the world, and especially Sunny. This stems from her
difficulty in coping with Mari’s death. This divide between Headspace and real
life is further emphasized when, during a fight with Aubrey, Sunny brings out
his steak knife as a weapon. This is a somewhat morbid weapon, even in headspace,
but it's absolutely not okay in real life.
As the divide becomes apparent, the care Sunny and player feel for the real-like friends is what leads to the True Ending. This is an incredibly hopeful ending that says even if reality seems insurmountable, you still have to try because people are complicated and difficult but, above that, they are kind. It’s left up to our interpretation what happens after Sunny reveals the truth, but there are hints that Sunny won’t be abandoned, like the dialogue on the last day before Sunny leaves.
In contrast
to this hopeful ending, there is another, darker way to resolve (or perhaps not resolve) the
contradiction. Rather than face the real-life consequences of his actions, Sunny
can instead choose to go full on isolationist. There are variants of this
ending, but in all cases, to resolve the paradox, to prevent the cycle of blissful
amnesia and pained recollection, Sunny must separate the Headspace and Real-Life
versions of Sunny’s friends along the dividing line of innocence. And then he must
choose the innocent side. The tragedy of this ending is not just that Sunny
abandons the friends he’s cared about for so long, who were the original cause
of his love for their Headspace counterparts. The tragedy is also that he must abandon
himself.
At his core,
he cares about his friends, just like at their core, they care about each
other. He cannot contain the contradiction so he cannot truly be part of the
escape he longs for.
OMORI is a game about choosing between painful truth or comforting lies, but not just the historical truth, but the truth of one’s identity and core values. It’s about choosing to feel love and care or burying those feelings to avoid the hurt of loss. The endings give room to interpretation, but between real life friends promising to not repeat the mistakes of the past, and Daddy Longlong’s revelations, it’s strongly suggest that the pain is worth it, because there is always a way forward, and the alternative, shiny and simple as it may be, is hollow.
Credit to really
queer Christmas’s thread on “Let’s Play Archive” for some of the screenshots, this site
by goat for some of the quotes,
and of course to the Omocat team for making this beautiful game.
