Omori Part #58 - The Sum of All Fears

Part 58: The Sum of All Fears

UPDATE 58: The Sum of All Fears

Oh... hi dad...

PINKBEARD: What did I tell you about that Sweetheart girl? I always said that you were too good for her... You should learn to listen to your old man for once!

Sniff... I'm... feeling tired... Can I just go to bed?

PINKBEARD: Bah! Enough with this nonsense! Don't waste your feelings on someone like that, boy! You will know true love when it happens. For now, you still have your crew... and you still have me!

The namecard changes this game makes are so good. I love those types of jokes and I'm glad this game is willing to constantly go back to them. We've also finished the Capt. Spaceboy plotline, he moves on from Sweetheart and goes on to live a happy life. Unlike Omori, who will never move on.

Only two things left to do in the Otherworld, first up we're gonna stop at the Sprout Mole colony. Yes it's still me, no I've not been taken over by a brain slug - I want to go here.

Just wanted Big Molio's blessing before we continue on. It makes me feel safer

And uh, there's a reason we want to feel safe. The barn door is open again...

There's shadow creatures wandering around this place too.

It's just two Salli creatures here. They go down easy... but what are they doing here?

...Oh.

These moments shining through Omori's subconcious trying to remind him of his horrible trauma feel legitimately unsettling - even after you know what they mean.

Anyway, that was the end of our second trip (or however many trips) to Otherworld. We will be coming back later for a few more slightly tiny reasons... For now though, we'll continue revisiting places by heading back to the Pyrefly Forest. Unlike every other picnic, this picnic actually gains dialogue by having Basil be there.

Huff... Breathe in... Huff... Breathe out...

Oh no... Hero, you really don't like spiders, huh?

Nope... If there's one thing my brother can't stand... it's spiders!

Why don't you talk some sense into him, Basil?

Ahh... Okay, I'll try!

Well... I think spiders are really misunderstood... They might look kind of scary, but they never attack humans unless they feel threatened.

Not to mention they're also one of my biggest helpers when I'm gardening... since they eat a lot of the pests that can hurt my plants. It's all about the balance of nature!

Or... S-Something like that...

Do you feel better now, Hero?

Darn... I guess that didn't work...

Awww... It's okay, Hero... We can take it one step at a time...

Huff... Breathe in... Huff... Breathe out...

.... Or you know... Crawling is okay too!

Damn, imagine having a crippling fear of spiders. Which I don't have, instead I have: *unrolls comically sized parchment that proceeds to unfurl down the stairs and out the door.*

Speaking of crippling fears, we're going to need to face our own by heading back down into the Lost Library - now that the way is back open again.

Lost Library

The music is just as beautiful now as it was then. It's maybe the most melancholic track in the game.

Unlike before though, this place represents a very real and serious threat to Omori. Previously, this place contained some old memories that Omori was still fond of. Now, they represent more ways for his subconcious to breach the veil he's placed over his life. As such, a lot of the shadow creatures we've met are wandering around here. These two are Sallis, we've met them several times already.

There's also a Cindi walking around here too.

This... is new, however. Say hello to Lilli, she fights the same as Cindi and Salli. A lot more eyes though.

Both sides of this floor feature a Dorothi, we haven't seen Dorothi since we were on that train to Orange Oasis. We beat her pretty easily then, it's a cake walk now.

Anyway, we aren't here to see the shadow creatures that protect this place now. This piano was a key feature of the laptop in White Space, which is why we need to investigate it.

Investigating the piano will prompt you for some Sheet Music, these can be found back over in the Deeper Well area that I'm avoiding talking about until the next update. However, the locations of the sheet music are:

In these three spots. It's worth noting that all the creatures in Deeper Well are gone. Well, all except one -

Anyway! We're going to place those three pieces of Sheet Music down on the piano.

Doing so, opens up three new areas for us in the previously hollow wall. There's also a picnic basket and some fruit for us to heal next to it... hmm, I wonder what's ahead...

As with the last trip to Lost Library, this was an abrupt shift to creepy.

Some familiar... hands begin to show up on the screen as we get closer to this door.

Fear of Stairs

ACROPHOBIA

So I hear you didn't like the fact that the real world Something fights were all basically story fights where you just learn a skill, use the skill, then win the fight? Well have I got the gameplay beat for you!

As with all Something fights, the kids besides Omori will start the battle afraid. Until someone fixes this, all they can do is do basic attacks - which is fine with the shadow creatures, a lot less so in these fights.

Something will inflict fear on any non-Omori kid that gets attacked, but it's at least easier to deal with if you have other kids around who can fix that rather than just damage dealing Omori.

The gimmick for this fight is that you have to beat Something before 10 turns have passed. You just get a game over, no special scene or anything. So bringing the hammer down and quick is a very good idea!

Something's don't change emotion states so just go in on stat reduction/buffs and damage dealing - red hands on Omori, and beatdown on Aubrey.

Sadly, beating Something is very anti-climatic. You just go straight to black, not even a fade to black and get a new ability. Granted these new abilities are very very good. Vertigo will deal damage to all foes based on Omori's speed and also greatly reduce attack for everyone. Incredibly handy for dealing with enemies that have a lot of minions. Stare's still slightly better if there's only one foe, however.

Lots of creepy crawlies already, I wonder which fear this is going to be.

Fear of Hanging

Arachnophobia

There's no turn gimmick for the spider fear boss like there was for the Stairs. The spider still has it's ways though...

First order is getting everyone out of being afraid. Any item works, but getting anger buffed will also make them do more damage on just basic attacks so I stick with casting anger.

The spider can do quite a bit of damage too, nearly half of Hero's health in one go ain't a joke.

Sure, you may have thought, that was decent damage done to Hero - but a single attack isn't anything to be afraid of. Well, how's about if it was an all party attack?

This boss is definitely the most meh of the three. The all party attack is a very "Oh shit" moment, but it's otherwise got nothing else going for it. The most interesting thing about the fight is that I can talk about the background of the spider... there's an open window... of a certain tree. The other interesting thing about the fight is Cripple - the ability you get for beating it. Cripple deals crit damage to all foes and greatly reduces their speed. It's a great opening move from Omori to allow Aubrey and Hero to be able to go before the enemy rather than at the end.

Time for us to face the final fear... again.

Fear of Water

Thalassophobia

Unlike the previous fight, this fear fight has a gimmick for us... but we'll have to wait before we can see it in action.

Get rid of fear status, yada yada, it's the same setup as before.

So yeah, here's the gimmick in action. At the end of the turn, the Something will cause a whirlpool which will lower everyone's speed and also do a bit of damage. It's not too bad right now, but Hero's every turn is basically going to be all party heals to keep everyone topped up. It is worth noting that only one turn has passed and I've already got 9 points of energy saved up AFTER using a follow-up.

Here's cripple in action. It's quite good and will greatly slow down the Something.

Hero uh, uses a move that I haven't showed us off getting yet. I'll talk about how we get it next time, but it basically raises the whole party's defense. It's quite good and saves my ass later on.

Especially when Something is doing half of Omori's heart in damage a turn.

Whirlpool and then the party slowly drowning does 100 points of damage total at the end of each turn. Yeah, this fight is a significant step up in difficulty.

After enough damage is done to it, we advance to stage 2 of the fight.

That means drowning does 100 points of damage every turn now, and if you get unlucky - whirlpool gets added to the regular attacks. This is around 200 points of damage per turn - 150 of it being passive. If you don't do at least a snack time from hero every turn at this point - it's admitting defeat.

I think we've earned this.

Sadly, this wasn't quite enough damage and we just go to phase 3.

Which means we still have to deal with a passive 200 per turn damage now - more if Something wants to actually attack us.

And with that... the three fears have been forever conquered. Hooray!

Well... we didn't need it anymore anyway. What we do need is suffocate! Suffocate does 400 damage to all foes and greatly reduces their defense. We now have a skill to deal with all three elements of debuffs while also attacking. Combine this with red hands and Omori is set up for the rest of the game. You may think this is overkill... and it is... for the most part.

We've one last task and yes its so worth it to come back to this cursed fucking castle to do so. That fucking wizard has already begun chasing me! I hate this place and I can't wait to raze it to the ground.

The Keeper of the Castle asked us to come back when Sweetheart left on a journey. Well, she's certainly... gone at this point. So we're back to see what exactly he wants to offer us.

KEEPER OF THE CASTLE: You with the empty eyes. You are here now. Your soul is split, but you can only choose one path. It will be interesting to see what you will make of this dwelling.