Part 59: The Abyss

UPDATE 59: The Abyss




Room For 4





Continuing on our adventure through Headspace revisted, we've only the underwater locations left to see before the Endgame of the Hikikomori route. It's time to go see Mr. Jawsum and see how the Last Resort has managed without Hero.











Hero... Is it really you?





Yup, it sure is! How's everything going?

Business is doing bad, Hero... REAL BAD.





Things haven't been the same since you left us. All of the investors backed out, construction has come to a halt, and we've been losing customers left and right! All the signs are pointed to the same thing! This ain't the path I'm supposed to be taking in life...

Don't say that, Mr. Jawsum! You're the best... and only boss I've ever had!

Don't get me wrong, I ain't putting myself down or nothing. This is just me learning a life lesson! I've got all kinds of successful side hustles going on, but... The Last Resort was a real passion of mine, you know?







Wait, Mr. Jawsum! You can't give up n-

Take this, Hero... This is for everything you've done for me.







Now you may be thinking this is one of those novelty giant checks... it's not, it's a check for one million clams. Can't just print that on a normal check, can you?


O-Oh! Okay, then. Thank you very much.

There's also... something else. Hero, I want you... to take over the Last Resort for me.









GATOR GUY: Here's your tie, bossman.

W-What? Are you sure? But I'm only 15 years old!

Hero! I've never been more sure of anything in my entire life! Don't tell the others, but... you were always my favorite.

Mr. Jawsum...

Heh... and with that, everything is settled. There's only... one thing left to do now.







IT'S TIME FOR A VACATION, BABY!! Ol' Jawsum is gonna have the time of his life! I'll see you around! Don't you miss me now! JAWHAWHAWHAWHAWHAW







Now that's what I call a hostile takeover. Oh sure, Mr. Jawsum may have just handed it to Hero... but c'mon, kid worked for free and then he tried to beat us up by sending a planetoid at us. Now Hero gets to run this... unprofitable, quickly sinking venture. At least we got the million clams.





Looks like Jawsum made sure to tell everyone who's now in charge as he ran out the door. I'm guessing he also told all the debt collectors too...





And we didn't even have to kill anyone for it! Well, maybe those gator guys... but they're just minions anyway! Everyone knows they don't matter when accounting for the protagonist's bloodlust.





Now that Hero owns the joint, most of the place has actually... emptied out. Not a good sign for future profit margins, but our playground friends have been released from their eternal contracts so that's a plus at least!





Remember these two? They actually did come to Last Resort and lost all their clams playing cards. Where did you think the million clams came from?





SILKER: I always think about the time you covered my work shift when I had a last-minute emergency. You deserve some kindness your way, too. Take this!











What kind of taxes have been levied on gifts to protagonists? Is this Sweetheart's doing? Continuing to cause grief even after she's been eaten by a whale, she truly is the worst.







GATOR GUY: You four look like a tight-knit group, but your statue's lookin' a bit lonely there, Hero. If you want me to make all of you together, I can do that for ya... But I'm just a humble sculptor... ain't makin' the big bucks like you. Still, I owe the old boss a big favor. If you want me to work, you'd still have to pay for the cost of materials... somethin' like 3000 clams each.


Similar to Rococo, once the Artist Gator is commissioned, you need to leave the area and come back for him to finish whatever he's working on. Unlike Rococo though, he does not go up in price! He will make 6 statues for a total of 18000 clams - a much better bargain than Rococo. Though the gator is also a lot more effort to get back to each time, so you pay for it in different ways.





And here's the result of me running around for ten minutes! After the party members are done, the artist asks if we want Basil and Mari to be included... and finally, he asks if he can be included too. We say yes, of course







Thanks for makin' me a part of this group, even if it's only as a statue. You guys are the real deal. Here's my phone number, boss. Just give me a call if you ever need some back-up.


And this is where Hero learns gator-aid! An ability that, thanks to the power of editing, we have already seen in action. It increases the entire party's defense and also gives some words of encouragement. Useful while in the middle of a potentially late game trauma enducing battle.





Let's celebrate our newly gained statues with some nice sandwiches!





Check out these statues! We all look so amazing!

These statues look just like us! You're great at what you do, Mr. Gator Guy!

Heh, heh... You really think so, boss? I've always been the artsy one in the family. All my brothers come to me to get their pictures taken and stuff... It's more of a hassle than anything...

Pictures, huh? You know... my friend Basil here is really good with a camera! I bet he could teach you some tricks!

Yeah? You think he could do that?





S-Sorry... I'm not all that good... Or even trying to be really! I just take photos for fun!

Ehhh? What's your deal? You're way too humble, kid! How are you gonna sell yourself like that!?

B-But... I'm not trying to sell myself...

What? You're not!? Heh... I guess there are those types, huh... Well, whatever floats your boat, flower boy. You do you!


Make sure to carry this scene with you, since it's all downhill from here.

















Something I haven't always shown off and haven't given the game credit for is how many little instances of flavor text there are in the game. Even in the real world sections, every bed in town will be rated by Sunny and he'll give his own little opinion of it. I was recently thinking about Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass and this was something that was very much missing from the game. Very little can be interacted with outside of progression items. It really gives a lot more life to the game and it's very much appreciated.





While continuing on to our next stop, let's stop in at this old restaurant yeah?







That One Song But Mermaids





Thanks to Hero taking over the Last Resort (and freeing everyone from slavery), all the mermaids are back at the diner! Nothing else changes besides them saying they're happy to be back but it's still quite nice to see. I heard the song on the soundtrack prior to seeing this so I kinda assumed there'd be a quest to help them reunite... I was kinda disappointed there wasn't. It just feels weird to have these characters and... just have their storyline resolve like this. It feels anticlimactic, I guess.





Finally... at the end of the endless highway... there's a new character there awaiting us. This is who we are here to see.





HITCHHIKER: It goes by many names... the Dark Void... the Deep Pit... the Shadowy Chasm... Here in the Deep Well, we call it... the Abyss.





There's a reason the update is named after it... let's get to it...









Welcome to the Abyss. There's no music here, just an ambient noise of... well, something alien. It's very unsettling.





Here's the special thing about the Abyss. You cannot enter without collecting every single letter of the alphabet. Z is located here at the doorway, but the way forward will not unlock unless you have collected the 25 prior keys. And when you do collect that final letter, well...





Z




Hangma??















The game will straight up crash at this point. The only crash I experienced in the entire 105 hours I had it open. It will always crash and despite knowing it was coming, still caught me off guard. The game doesn't use too many meta elements, but this is very effective.





When you open the game back up, it will start up right here. The only instance of the game doing that, it's a very very effective moment at weaving the story into the gameplay. After this, the ground will shake no matter where in the world you are when you collect that 26th key... and...





...the way forward opens up. You know the phrase, bury your pain deep? Yeah, what if Omori was already burying his pain deep? We're about to go even deeper than that.





Here's what happens to the hangman game after the 26 letters are collected. Like it never happened.









Undertow





The area above the Abyss is a mostly maze like area that I'd be annoyed by if it didn't add to the desire to turn back and pretend this doesn't exist. Which hey, Omori wants to do too!





There's a lot of great healing items to get here, but with the amount of money you can get at this point, healing items only really matter if you are underleveled. Which could be the case if you manage to get here straight from fighting Humphrey, in which case OH GOD TURN BACK.







There are some reverse mermaids here that can be easily quashed in the first area. Somewhat kills the mood a bit to be honest.





The next level has some shark fins too. The Abyss is not as intimidating as it first appeared.





Ah, there we go! Now we're getting to the creeping horror! The third level also introduces multiple ways down to proceed. A majority of the ways down will work, but sometimes a ladder will take you to a dead end with a fight at the end of a tunnel.





The Hitchhiker will also start appearing here on every floor and will take you back to the Deeper Well if you get lost or, well, just want to stop. We are continuing, of course.





...Well that's new.





As is that thing that I didn't even see because it blended in so well. This way ended up being a dead end, so let's go back up and try another ladder.







OK THIS WASN'T THE RIGHT WAY.





Say hello to Angi and Merci. Angi is the angler fish and Merci is... whatever the fuck that thing on the right is. These two enemies are the only two shadowy creatures that are a bit worrisome if you aren't max level. They can both do quite a bit of damage, especially since you'll always start afraid.







Angi can do quite a bit of damage, as you can see. Merci didn't attack round 1, but uh, somehow just saying "Liar" definitely did a bit of psychic damage to me. I didn't get Merci to attack me, but let's copy what happens when it does!

The Omori Wiki posted:

??? touches CHARACTER's chest.

CHARACTER feels their organs being torn!

??? makes a horrifying shriek!

CHARACTER takes damage!

Some great stuff! Merci is the only shadow creature that actually goes all in to how horrifying these things are. There's a lot of really good ideas in the Hikiomori route, I do think it needed a bit more time in the oven to really be as amazing as the Sunny route.







Just some more dead bodies hung from the walls, nothing really to see here.







Were you ready for a teleporter maze? Because I sure as hell wasn't! The remainder of the Abyss gets very confusing to progress through at this point. So let's just pick up the highlights:





The Baseball cap gives 10 defense, 15 speed and also lets Omori finally call his Mom.





The Paper Bag gives the wearer 13 defense, 40 heart, and prevents all emotions. It's actually a potentially interesting item since it's the only item in the game that takes away the emotion system.







...M-Moving on.











Welcome to the deepest layer of Headspace - The Abyss. Population...









One.







Abbi - Blind




Abbi





Meet the boss of the Abyss - Abbi. Abbi can be quite difficult on top of being... creepy as hell. So what makes Abbi difficult?





Every single tentacle is another enemy. 5 attacks per round hitting our team can go sideways quick if they all target one character.





As is usual, we need to get out of afraid status so our team can actually use abilities. It's best to have a non-Omori person do this since their turns are basically useless until they stop being afraid anyway. I didn't figure that out until this very fight, which would have made the Lost Library easier...







Here's suffocate in action. It's quite good! Only ever doing 400 damage is a bit weak, but you're going to be using it anyway since the defense down is so good that the damage is basically icing on top.





100 damage isn't too much... except there's going to be about three more of these attacking before the round's over. On top of that, the tentacles can make a character afraid again - requiring someone to waste their turn and fix that. Using a status effect on Abbi or her tentacles is a very bad idea because of this.





The tentacle can also just do a stats down on one party member, or just do a regular attack without inflicting fear.







The tentacles don't have too much health, and if you target them - they should go down quickly, which will make things much easier.







Though, only for a short time. Abbi can raise a tentacle at the end of every turn forcing you to either divide up your attacks or focus down Abbi and risk getting overwhelmed.





When she drops to half health, Abbi will make a pained gasp. She's got 8K health so a few rounds of focusing on her will get the job done if the tentacles don't start to get in the way.





Abbi isn't too bad if you come in after the Lost Library. The all party attacks you get there are super invaluable for this fight, and can make the difference between this being a slight increase in difficulty or ball bustingly hard. Aubrey's Windup throw combined with Kel's flex and rebound may also get the job done, but not as well as cripple and suffocate do. Especially since suffocate drops defense as low as possible.







ABBI: I am eight small pools... red tentacles... across Headspace... I am bring... offerings there...





Well now, here's a phrase I've seen before. Now's a very good time to bring up something the Branch Coral told us... a long time ago

Update 33 posted:

THE BIG YELLOW CAT


BRANCH CORAL: Before this world was created, there existed three great creatures... the oldest, the wisest, and the favorite. The oldest is alive, but not the same as he once was. Age has removed his conscience and he has evolved into a parasite within himself. He lives here, just beyond this cavern. The wisest, against her reason, committed an act that opposed the Dreamer's will. It is an act that is not even known to me. As a result, she was stripped of her wisdom and banished to isolation... a special prison somewhere deep, deep down. The last and favorite, the BIG YELLOW CAT, was chosen to watch over the Dreamer's most precious room. He remains the Dreamer's favorite even to this day... watching diligently... waiting for something to happen.

We've met the oldest, in fact, we've been inside the oldest. We've seen the Big Yellow Cat who did indeed, wait for something to happen. And now, we've met the wisest - the final of the three great creatures. Though, Abbi has clearly fallen on hard times after committing... whatever crime she committed against Omori. Let's spare and forgive her.







That's it for Abbi. As you would expect, there's a LOT of speculation over what exactly happened and who Abbi was to begin with.





Meet Tako. A character that was a part of the original Omori blog series. Tako can be seen here preventing Omori from killing himself and was likely one of Omori's closer imaginary friends. Tako is one of several beta characters that were originally slated to be in the game that did not make it in. It's very likely that Abbi... is either what remains of her original concept, or what remains of the character itself. As for what horrible thing Abbi did, well she knew the truth and opposed the dreamer. My guess is she encouraged Omori to stop this nonsense and you've seen how well that goes.









It goes something like this. Abbi's eye was at one point either the most powerful item in the game, or a useless one depending on how you look at it.





All non heart and juice stats are raised massively, and you'll get to know which character is getting targeted. This may seem like a glass cannon set up, but Abbi's eye also used to bestow immortality on Omori. Sadly, this was a bug that was patched out and now it's back to being basically useless. Like sure, you'd get massive stats but you've seen that juice stat right? You're only ever attacking or using items for the rest of the game. Granted, even if the bug hadn't been fixed and you couldn't die holding down the attack button for 20 minutes isn't my idea of fun. We aren't gonna stick with Abbi's eye, instead we're going to take her up on her offer.





There are 8 tentacles scattered throughout Headspace that each have a unique endgame item. Some are good, some are great, some are near gamebreaking. Below are the tentacle locations and the items you can find there.





Underwater Highway: Ol' Reliable. Hero's ultimate weapon. Raises heart, juice, and attack by 20. Snacks also heal 50% more health and juice in combat.





Vast Forest: Basketball. It raises juice by 50, attack and luck by 15, but has 100 less speed than the chicken ball.





Neighbor's Room: Baseball Bat. Aubrey's ultimate weapon. Raises heart and attack by 20, speed and luck by 10, and doubles hit rate.





Otherworld: Headband. Raises juice by 20, attack by 10, defense by 3, and speed by 15.





Snowglobe Mountain: Pretty Bow. Raises heart by 50, attack by 10 and defense by 3.





Sweetheart's Dungeon: Red Knife. Omori's ultimate weapon. Raises attack by 13, defense, speed, and luck by 6.





Pyrefly Forest: Cough Mask. It raises heart and juice by 25 and attack, defense, speed, and luck by 10. It also prevents the spread of transmittable diseases but doesn't protect you from others unless you're wearing a filtered mask. It's been 15 months of a pandemic and you'd be shocked how many people still don't grasp this.





Orange Oasis: Chef's Hat. Raises defense by 15 and restores about 5% of juice every turn.


The Red Knife is special in that it immediately replaces the Rusty Knife Omori was carrying around to begin with. Otherwise, all the weapons go on the characters immediately. They're all fantastic. On top of that, the Chef's Hat goes on Hero because he can now throw out any ability and not have to worry about juice ever again. The Headband goes on Aubrey, and Kel has the cough mask. The only thing that doesn't get used is the Pretty bow, sadly. The juice and speed bonus from the Headband is better to me than the extra 50 juice. Next time... we revisit some old friends and some old... "friends".