2.5 Months for the Price of One

Alright, me, ‘monthly’, sure…

Last month (or last last month, i.e. October) I guess I just didn’t really feel like I had enough to write about. From now on I’ll try to keep the updates at least somewhat consistent if not monthly. I doubt these will actually end up being as long as the first unless I stumble into a topic I feel like ranting about.

I started working on a short little game that I hope to finish in the next couple months ideally (i.e. never!). More news eventually (i.e. never!).

Ludological Logorrhea

Wow, there were a lot of days this month. Surely I actually used that time to play some video games, right?

OMORI

What can I say? I just replayed it about a month ago, and what was I thinking acting like this isn’t totally up my alley? Okay yeah, it has a lot of potential issues for me to nitpick about, but the core of what’s here is outstanding regardless. Honestly I should probably have done a better job writing down my thoughts as I played, because it’s kind of hard to organise them in retrospect. Nevertheless I’ll do what I can.

The soundtrack. On my first playthrough I was little more lukewarm towards the OST, as my general impression of it was that it was a collection of fairly saccharine, overly video-game-y tracks with a few very beautiful pieces here and there. In a sense that’s still true, but I think I really failed to appreciate how well the soundtrack is utilized in-game, let alone how many tracks are beautiful regardless. I could easily dismiss many tracks, but the juxtaposition really makes the best parts of the game sting more. I could go into detail about my favourite tracks, I suppose, but I doubt I’d have anything too insightful to add. ‘DUET is peak’. What other inane opinions is this guy going to spew next?

In terms of gameplay, yeah, this is where I probably have the most issues. The more that I think about it, I can’t really name many JRPGs that I think handle their gameplay in the way I wished they would. That’s to say that whilst I’ve always dreamed of a challenging, strategic, yet otherwise not fairly by-the-books JRPG battle system, my search has been ungratifying to say the least. Okay, maybe that’s a lie, there’s plenty of JRPGs I’ve enjoyed, but usually the gameplay ends up being one of the lesser reasons, to my disappointment. OMORI does on the surface look quite promising from a gameplay perspective when considering the emotion and follow-up attack systems. Actually, I think they were implemented quite well. However, when through so much of the game you can just apply the same strategies over and over, it kind of defeats the point of having all of these moving parts to your combat system. I can’t really discuss this too much without spoilers, but I will say that I can understand why it feels unfulfilling. Things like this can be really difficult to balance. Games take effort to make, and sometimes a lot of effort goes into something that you think could have been implemented better in retrospect. Thus, whilst I can fault the game for gameplay that feels underutilized, I can’t really say it dampens the overall experience significantly. Few works as multifaceted as video games can meet their fullest potential in all respects, after all.

I would now talk about the story, but… there’s too much for me to properly talk about it. I like it. It hits a bit too close to home at points. Yeah.

...Okay maybe that’s a lie. This section will be mild-mid severity spoilers, so I’m going to use an ancient technique known as ‘difficult to read text colour’.

The Faraway Town segments really hit hard. Just like Sunny, you find yourself in a town that is less familiar to you than the fantasy that is Headspace. It’s pretty heart-rending seeing how his friends have changed so much yet otherwise the town remains cheerfully mundane. OMORI is a game centred around juxtaposition, to a degree that I think might be off-putting to a first time player. But, as pretentious as this sounds, life itself is nothing but juxtaposition. OMORI plays this up to the effect of accentuating harsh realities whilst making a point that life can and will go on.

However, if I have to criticize anything, I do still think certain sections of Headspace linger on a bit too long for the sake of pacing. During my first playthrough, I arrived at the opinion that the plot irrelevance of the Headspace dungeons, whilst essential to the games themes, was too restricting and was a waste of potential for deeper symbolism. I still agree with this sentiment to an extent, but I find I underestimated the symbolism already present, and to be honest I think it would start to wear thin if the game was constantly hinting at The Truth. So I respect the restraint there. However, I still think Humphrey should have optional or OMORI Route only. It isn’t a bad dungeon per se, in fact I think it’s far more engaging than a lot of a RPG dungeons I’ve seen. That said, it brings the game to a rather awkward halt right when things are starting to get really interesting. A little reprieve makes sense, but it does feel like some momentum is irrevocably lost because of it.

Other than that, game good.

Stuff (Other)

Haibane Renmei

Just finished watching it. Very good, thought-provoking anime that I will definitely need to come back to at some point. The art and atmosphere is fantastic, as to be expected from ABe. The music as well is excellent and certain scenes are definitely elevated by the use of the score. Lots of interesting symbolism and dialogue here that I hope will make this one improve with further watches. I do think the pacing at some points held it back a little, but it was worth it for that final episode.

One thing that I particularly enjoyed was how there was just enough said about the setting to create intrigue and leave you thinking about the significance of certain things. Beyond that, it’s just an interesting backdrop to provide some additional perspective on a story that is at its core about very personal, human struggles. Its restraint with explaining certain aspects of the story is really quite admirable. There are a lot of things that the audience can reasonably presume are the case, yet are never explicitly stated, allowing it to explore some of these topics without burdening the narrative with an unnecessary ‘reveal’. I would say more, but I think I’ll need to digest this one for a bit.

Shimeji Simulation

Cool manga with cute/pretty art and funny dialogue. Will continue and report further thoughts later.

Extra(neous) Thoughts

So yeah, I think that’s it for what I’m willing to write. Hopefully I’ll stop feeling so exhausted and actually get to work on some stuff so I have something more to say next time. In the meantime, here’s a couple songs: