OMORI is a painful masterpiece. A very emotional review

OMORI is a difficult game to review. Not because it's bad, mind you. Quite the opposite. It has a gripping narrative, a distinct art style, beautiful music and charming characters. But its story and subject matter is... a lot. It's a game where I can't really talk about what makes it so special without providing multiple spoiler warnings and at least one content warning. And let me tell you, avoiding spoilers for this game for six years was a challenge in and of itself. But I managed to do a (mostly) blind playthrough of this game, and now I'm going to tell you all about this very tragic, but very engrossing experience.

Official box art for OMORI, featuring the titular character. Image found on Wikipedia.

Before we begin the review properly, here's a quick content warning. OMORI is rated M for Mature by the ESRB, for violence and profanity. It is also a horror game, with a heavy focus on mental illness during its story campaign. As such, the game features themes like loneliness, depression, grief and self-harm, and how people respond to those problems. It cannot be stated enough that this one of the darkest video games I have ever covered in the history of this blog. Viewer discretion is advised.

But what exactly is OMORI? It's a psychological horror role playing game developed and published by OMOCAT. It was released on December 25th, 2020, just in time for Christmas. OMORI is inspired somewhat by Toby Fox's UNDERTALE, which was in turn inspired by 90's and 2000's era RPGs like Earthbound, Final Fantasy and OFF. The comparisons to UNDERTALE were what drew me to OMORI in the first place, as UNDERTALE is one of my favorite video games of all time. So anything that can seriously be considered equal to it is going to get my attention. 

OMORI developed a reputation for its dark, but incredibly well-written story. But fans of this game will tell you that the less you know going into the game, the better the experience will be. Because of this, it can be frustratingly difficult to discuss this game in detail. So just to be safe, I'll say that this review will contains spoilers for the entire game. I will be discussing the broad strokes of the story, the major boss battles and all the twists and turns that happen along the way. This will include plot twists and discussions of the game's multiple endings. 

If you want my spoiler free thoughts on the game, OMORI is a great game with good art, amazing music and an emotionally devastating storyline. Five stars out of five, if you can stomach something so grim, I can recommend it. I do not recommend it if anything in that content warning will seriously bother you. I'm serious, this game goes to some really messed up places. But most importantly, be kind to yourself and be kind to others. Mental health is important, especially in this day and age. 

With all that being said, let's begin the review properly.

You play as a 12-year-old child named Omori, who lives in a whimsical land called Headspace. Despite Headspace being an idealistic paradise where kids can do whatever they want, Omori is completely numb to it all. He has a look of pure apathy plastered on his face almost at all times. And the few times he does emote, his facial expressions look almost forced in comparison to the more natural expressions of the other children. Heck, even Omori's design sticks out like a sore thumb in Headspace. Headspace is almost sickeningly vibrant and colorful, but Omori himself is completely monochrome.

Above is the inventory menu, below is a lineup of the game's four main heroes (Omori, Aubrey, Kel and Hero). Image found on the OMORI Steam page.

But Omori's friends are just as vibrant and emotive as Headspace itself. Three of Omori's friends will join his journey and assist in battle against various monsters. First is Aubrey, a cheerful girl with a love for baseball. Second is Kel, a mischievous jokester with a short attention span but a strong sense of loyalty. And third is Hero, a charismatic but mild-mannered teenager who by virtue of being the oldest kid in the friend group, is the responsible peacekeeper of the group. These three kids, plus Omori himself, make up the main group that you'll be playing as.

There are two more kids in Headspace, the soft-spoken Basil and always supportive Mari. These two are not playable (at least under normal circumstances), but they are just as important to the story as Omori's main friend group. Mari is especially important, not only because she is Omori's older sister, but because she is how you save your progress. The only way to save your progress in this game is find Mari in any given level and join one of her picnics. I know that sounds bizarre, but it makes sense with context, I promise.

Our adventure begins in White Space, a blank and empty room in the middle of Headspace. Omori starts every day in this room. We also see a cinematic of two children, with one of them crying while the other assures the first kid that "everything will be okay." We don't know the context of this cinematic, but it will make sense later. Also, the phrase "everything will be okay" gets used like a mantra throughout the game. But Omori doesn't stay in White Space for long. 

Shortly after grabbing a knife (for "self defense" of course), Omori meets up with his friends. Basil invites all of the other kids to his house so they can look through a photo album together. This photo album is filled with all of the photos that Basil took of his friends over the years and as such, it's his most prized possession. Well, besides his garden. A fun bit of trivia is that each flower in Basil's garden represents one kid from Omori's friend group, and clicking on the flowers will have Basil explain the meaning of each flower.

On the way to Basil's house, you are taught the basics of combat by fighting off basic Headspace monsters. Battles are turn-based, with each kid being allowed to take one action each (for a total of four actions per turn). You can either attack with your weapons, use a snack to heal yourself, use a toy to weaken an enemy, or use powerful techniques called Skills. The four main kids learn new Skills as they level up and grow stronger.

Skills come in two main types, attack Skills that deal more damage than attacking normally, and utility effects like healing or changing a character's emotions (more on them below). Skills cost a resource called Juice, which can be restored by eating or drinking certain snacks. Think of Juice as the equivalent of stamina.

The game's combat revolves around changing and controlling emotions like joy, anger and sadness. As seen here, three out of four heroes are angry while Omori is sad. Image found on the OMORI Steam page. 

The main feature of OMORI is being able to manipulate emotions to enhance your abilities. Emotions work on a rock-paper-scissors style system, with Happiness beating Anger, Anger beating Sadness and Sadness beating Happiness. You can use Skills and toys to change a character's emotions at any time. And some Skills can apply additional effects, but only if the user is feeling a specific emotion. For example, Omori's signature Skill is "Stab," a melee attack that ignores all enemy defenses, but only if he is feeling sad. Aubrey gets a similar Skill called "Headbutt" which deals double damage, but only if she is feeling angry.

The game doesn't directly mention this (or if it did, I missed that information), but if you use an emotion-changing Skill on a character already feeling that emotion, it causes that character to feel an even stronger variant of that emotion. For example, using Aubrey's "Pep Talk" Skill makes the target feel happy. If the target is already happy, they become ecstatic. The other emotions have similarly extreme variants. This produces even stronger effects, but increases your weakness to whatever emotion beats your current one. 

Omori is unique in that only he can access "tier 3" emotions like Mania, Fury and Misery, which are the three strongest emotions in the game. The other kids can only use the more "moderate" emotions. Most enemies can't access tier 3 emotions either, and the only characters besides Omori who can do so are all bosses. Omori is also unique because of a special passive ability he has that lets him survive one lethal attack per battle.

In addition to the three main emotions, there's a secret fourth emotion known as fear. Unfortunately, fear is weak to all other emotions, and all Skills are disabled until the character in question is no longer afraid. The four main kids have no way of inflicting fear on enemies, but enemies can inflict fear on them if certain requirements are met. You never want someone to be afraid, so if one of the kids does gain this emotion, you have to switch them to a different emotion (if you have the ability to do so).

The last main combat mechanic is the energy counter. You start every battle with 3 energy points, and gain an additional point every time Omori or his friends take damage. You can spend three points to do a Follow Up Skill, in which a basic weapon attack gets upgraded to either hit again or change a character's emotions for free. But if you save up for 10 energy points, you can do the Ultimate Attack, which is the strongest damage-dealing ability in the game. Of course, most battles don't last nearly long enough for you to use the Ultimate Attack. In my experience, the Ultimate Attack only really gets used for boss battles.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by OMORI's combat systems. Mostly because nobody ever talks about the combat in the game. Almost all discussion of OMORI that I've seen, even after beating the game, revolves around its story and subject matter. But the emotion system is simple and easy to learn how to use effectively. And there's a good variety in Skills that let you try out all sorts of combos and strategies. Sure, the battles can grow repetitive after a while, but the combat itself is actually kind of fun.

Outside of combat, Omori and friends travel across a retro-inspired open world and can solve simple puzzles. Each kid has a unique skill that can be used outside of combat. Omori can cut through obstacles like vines or (eventually) spider webs, Aubrey can push blocks around and smash pottery with her baseball bat, Kel can throw rocks at otherwise out of reach buttons and switches and Hero can use his charming demeanor to convince certain Headspace creatures to assist him. These puzzles are not too difficult, and most of them boil down to "switch to the right character to do their thing."

Okay, back to the story. So Omori and friends reach Basil's house. The only friend that doesn't join is Mari, who politely declines Basil's offer to hang out. But as the kids look through the photo album, Basil finds a photograph he doesn't remember taking. Its contents freak him out and cause him to yell out Mari's name in panic. Before he can show the rest of the gang what this mystery photo is, Omori is whisked away back to White Space. You actually can see the mystery photo flash on screen, but it goes by so fast that unless you're recording the gameplay and slow the footage down, it's impossible to make out the photo's contents. 

This scene is the first real showcase of horror elements, as before this point, OMORI's world had been suspiciously saccharine. But now Omori is now trapped inside White Space with no clear exit. But you remember that knife he picked up earlier? …It wasn't for self defense, after all. Yeah, the only way to proceed is for Omori to stab himself with the knife. Hence the self-harm warning.

Upon doing so, we switch perspectives to a new kid, one who is almost identical to Omori. The only difference is that this new kid has a fully colored sprite as opposed to Omori's monochrome aesthetic. You can name this kid whatever you want, as long as it's eight letters or shorter. But for the sake of consistency, this kid will be referred to as Sunny, as that is the default name. However, if you feel like getting completely immersed in the story that OMORI is trying to tell, go ahead and name the kid after yourself. What could possibly go wrong?

Sunny is a young boy living by himself at the moment, as his mother is out of town and his father left the family a long time ago. Sunny's family was supposed to be moving to the big city, and the only reason he's still in the old house is to finish packing everything up. While Mari is (at least initially) nowhere to be seen in the real world, you can still save your progress by interacting with empty picnic baskets.

In case it wasn't obvious, Headspace is nothing more than Sunny's dreams, based loosely off of half-remembered adventures with his real life friends. But in the real world, Sunny is just as depressed and apathetic as Omori. In fact, Sunny's mental health has gotten so bad that he experiences frequent hallucinations of a monster called Something haunting him. Yes, the main monster in this horror game is literally called Something.

The fifth hero, Sunny, fights a monster called Something by himself. This is the part of the game where the horror elements kick in. Image found on the OMORI Steam Page.

The major "highlight" of Sunny's night, for lack of a better term, is hearing a knock at the door supposedly from Mari. But when Sunny answers the door, all he finds is a jump scare from a ghostly being that only vaguely resembles her. Sunny sleeps off these literal night terrors, only to find another knock on his door the next morning.

This second knock is vitally important to the story, as choosing whether or not to answer it will cause the game to split into two routes. If you answer it, you will start the Sunny Route. If you don't answer, you will start the Omori Route. The Sunny Route focuses more on the real world and on what happened to Sunny's friend group, and it will eventually reveal the source of Sunny/Omori's depression and apathy. 

The Omori Route, meanwhile, takes you back to Headspace so you can do more wacky RPG adventures. But you will never learn the truth behind Sunny/Omori's despair if you go down the Omori Route, as this route skips over a lot of important information. The only positive of the Omori Route is that it unlocks Basil as a playable character, in case you wanted to experiment with the combat system even more.

I will say that it's really clever to have a jump scare play the first time you interact with the front door in Sunny's house, but not the second time. Having the jump scare happen first makes the player feel just as reluctant to interact with the outside world as Sunny himself is (because the game "taught" you to associate that door with danger), which makes the decision to answer it again even more impactful. 

Answering the door again reveals the real life version of Kel, who happens to be Sunny's next-door neighbor. As it turns out, Kel has spent the last few months trying to get in contact with him, in an attempt to reconnect with his old friend. Now that Sunny has managed to actually leave his house, the two decide to spend the next three days hanging out together. 

Why three days, specifically? Because that's when Sunny's mother comes back to town and takes him away to their new house in the big city. Once those three days are over, it's going to be much harder for Sunny and Kel to stay together. And the game's entire story structure from here on out is built around getting as much stuff done as possible within those three days. The game doesn't have a real time limit, thankfully, as time only moves forward if certain story events are triggered (i.e. boss battles). The "three days" thing is just for storytelling purposes.

This brings us to my favorite part of OMORI's story, Faraway Town. This town encompasses the "real world" sections of the game, and it provides crucial context for understanding Headspace. Something you must understand is that everything in Headspace is meant to symbolic of something in Sunny's life. For example, all of the creatures seen in Headspace are either exaggerated versions of people that Sunny has encountered in the real world before, or they're abstract concepts that represent something about Sunny himself. 

From this point onwards, you will alternate between playing as Omori and Sunny, with the former being in the Headspace sections and the latter being in Faraway Town. Headspace is more lighthearted and goofy than Faraway Town, and it can be tempting to stay there as long as possible to avoid dealing with all the horror stuff (which mostly happens in Faraway Town). But that's the point. OMORI is a game about how ignoring your problems and escaping to a fantasy land is not a healthy way to live, and that the only way to move on with your life is to head back out into that big, scary real world.

Another quirk of Headspace is that some areas are not accessible because of Sunny's real life fears and phobias. Specifically, he has a fear of heights, a fear of spiders and a fear of drowning. As such, Omori cannot climb ladders, cut through spider webs or swim until his real life counterpart, Sunny, overcomes these fears. Sunny can accomplish this by fighting Something and defeating it each time it appears.

While hanging out at the park in Faraway Town, Sunny and Kel meet up with the real world version of Basil, who is being bullied by the real world version of Aubrey. While most of the kids are more or less the same as their Headspace counterparts, this is not true for Aubrey. Headspace Aubrey is a cheerful girly gal that likes baseball. Real world Aubrey is a bitter street punk that uses a baseball bat as a weapon. She's also the leader of a gang of high-school delinquents called the Scooter Gang, who are just as abrasive as Aubrey herself.

But Aubrey wasn't always like this. The Headspace kids are all based on how Sunny remembered his friend group last time they were all together, which was four years prior to the start of the game. Because of this, the Headspace kids are four years younger than their real-life counterparts, both physically and mentally. So something happened to Aubrey since those four years that caused her to become so bitter. 

So Aubrey steals Basil's photo album and runs off. At Basil's request, Sunny and Kel go on a quest to get it back. This results in our dynamic duo tracking down and fighting each member of the Scooter Gang just to get a clue as to where Aubrey went off to. Battles in Faraway Town are heavily simplified, because Sunny and Kel are weaker than their Headspace counterparts.

Eventually Sunny and Kel track Aubrey down to the local church, where they confront her over her theft of Basil's photo album. This results in an explosive argument between Kel and Aubrey, in which the latter reveals the reason why she's so bitter. 

Mari, Omori/Sunny's sister and the glue that held the friend group together, is dead. And she's been dead for four years. 

A lot of things suddenly make more sense with this absolute bombshell of a revelation. Mari's death was what led to the friend group going their separate ways. It led Sunny to become a depressed shut-in that stays home all day. And Aubrey's rage and bitterness is a result of her unresolved grief from losing her best friend. The reason she still goes to church despite her punkish attitude is because it's the only thing that brings her peace of mind. At least it did, until this argument ruined the experience for her.

This leads to a boss fight against Aubrey in the church. It doesn't matter if you win or lose, as Aubrey storms off and throws away the photo album regardless. In fact, it's pretty difficult to actually win this fight due to limited healing items and a lack of healing Skills. The whole time this fight is happening, Aubrey is being ostracized and mocked by the elders in the church, who are completely apathetic to her sorrow. And this only makes her even angrier.

Regardless of how the boss fight went, Sunny and Kel manage to get the photo album back, but a few of the photos are suspiciously missing. Basil decides it's best for Sunny to hold onto the photo album, both so he can cherish the memories of their friendship, and so he can (eventually) retrieve all the missing photos. But Kel accidentally reveals that Sunny is moving away, which causes Basil to start acting... Strange. Erratic, even.

Sunny follows Basil into the bathroom due to the latter's suspicious behavior, but he quickly learns that Basil can see Something. You know, that hallucinatory monster that's been haunting Sunny this whole time? Yeah, not only can Basil see it, he has Something of his own that's been tormenting him all day. And Sunny's response to this revelation is to just leave and go home, even while Basil is having a Something-induced panic attack.

Not going to lie, I don't really like that the only way to progress on this Route is to not only leave Basil behind while he's in the middle of a panic attack, but then say absolutely nothing about what Sunny just witnessed. Obviously, trying to explain Something to "normal" people is going to sound insane, but like, we could at least have been given the option to bring up Basil's panic attack with Kel. He, of all people, would definitely be supportive of a friend at their lowest point. Maybe Sunny's inaction is supposed to show that he's too broken by his own problems to help anyone dealing with a similar crisis. But eh, whatever.

Side note, Kel is just a really good and supportive friend in general. Without Kel's intervention, most of the game's story simply wouldn't happen. We could all use a friend like Kel. The world would be so much better if there more people like Kel in it.

Omori and Friends talk to a gator guy while in Headspace. Image found on the OMORI Steam Page

So we return to Headspace and take control of Omori again. All of the Headspace kids are back except for Basil. So the gang decides to go explore this whimsical realm and rescue Basil from whatever fate had befallen him. But while looking for Basil, the gang gets distracted by a space pirate crew whose leader just went through a nasty break-up. Omori and friends agree to help the space pirates comfort their captain, which leads to the first major boss fight outside of the tutorial. 

This boss, a character literally called Space Ex-Boyfriend, serves as a wakeup call. If you don't take advantage of the emotion system, you're going to get absolutely bodied. All of the bosses possess either strong emotions or the ability to change the emotions of others. Spamming basic attacks is not going to cut it anymore.

The whole B-plot with the space pirates is supposed to "subtly" set up how all of the Headspace sections will work going forward. Omori and friends go to a place to look for Basil, get distracted by a wacky side quest, and fight a boss armed with strong emotions. Every time the gang actually makes progress towards finding Basil, they get warped back to White Space, and the only way to leave is through more self-inflicted violence.

Time passes to the next day, and we take control of Sunny again. Kel wants to hang out, just like before. If you declined to answer the door back on the first day, Sunny will automatically refuse to answer it again, thus locking you into the Omori Route. If you answer the door on the first day but refuse on the second, you get the Mixed Route, which is just a milder version of the Omori Route with none of the Route-exclusive content. The rest of the story summary describes the Sunny Route, as it definitely feels like the "intended" game path.

So Kel takes Sunny with him while running errands on his mother's behalf. Kel's older brother, the real world version of Hero, is coming home from college later that same day. So Kel's parents want to surprise him with an elaborate dinner.

The only problem encountered on the second day is that Basil has mysteriously disappeared, not just in Headspace, but in the real world as well. And his family is getting worried, enough to ask Sunny and Kel to go look for him. So now Sunny and Kel have to look all over town to find the real Basil, which was nowhere near as difficult as finding him in Headspace. It turns out that he went to a hidden lake that Sunny's friend group used to hang out at during the summer. But unfortunately, Aubrey's gang is there as well.

This leads to a boss fight against all six members of the Scooter Gang, a fight that is scripted so you don't really have a chance to win. As it turns out, a six-vs-two battle isn't exactly fair, especially when one side is armed with baseball bats and the other has no real weapons to speak of.

Anyway, Aubrey crashes out over how quickly everyone else "got over" Mari's death while she's still grieving all these years after the fact. This culminates in Aubrey accidentally pushing Basil into the lake. But Basil can't swim, so Sunny has no choice but to jump in the water and save Basil from drowning. At the same time this happens, Sunny gets attacked by Something and has to overcome the fear of drowning on the spot.

While Sunny does defeat Something, he starts losing consciousness after being underwater for so long. The only reason he and Basil don't drown is because Hero managed to show up just in time to save both of them. Despite Kel claiming that Aubrey has become too aggressive to be reasoned with, Hero still wants to reach out to her because he still remembers the cheerful girly gal Aubrey used to be and believes that the "old" Aubrey is still in there.

Unfortunately, the day is almost over by now, so the gang heads home. Sunny winds up hosting a sleepover event at his house, during which he and Hero talk about Mari. There was one room in the house that Sunny refused to enter before now, which was the piano room. And this piano was important, because the same day that Mari died was the day she and Sunny (who was an aspiring violinist prior to becoming a depressed shut-in) were supposed to perform a duet at their school together. That duet never happened, for obvious reasons.

Sunny and friends go to sleep, and we return to Headspace. Every time we enter Headspace, we get sent on increasingly nonsensical detours to distract Omori and friends from finding Basil. First it was the space pirates. Then they had to pass through an obnoxiously sweet candy kingdom ruled by a minor antagonist named Sweetheart. After that they had to deal with a hotel called the Last Resort that is owned by a literal loan shark. And finally, they have to explore the vast belly of a talking whale. All of these are the major bosses in their respective regions of Headspace. And with each adventure, the gang's memories of Basil fade away.

Truth be told, the Headspace sections are probably the weakest part of OMORI's story. The pacing here is unfortunately rather slow, and battles against regular enemies can become repetitive. They do add some levity to what is otherwise an extremely grim and dour game, but depending on who you ask, these sections outstay their welcome. But then again, the slow pace may have been deliberate.

Now what I'm about to say is going to sound strange, but hear me out. There is a sentient coral branch encountered on the way to the talking whale that will clarify the lore in case you're unclear about how Headspace works. For such a minor character, the coral branch gives a lot of important information. 

First of all, the coral branch states clearly that Headspace is a dream, just in case there was any doubt about that. The second thing it says is that White Space represents the idea of pure nothingness, as Omori (not Sunny, the coral branch makes a clear distinction between the two) finds it better to feel nothing than it is to feel sad. The third and most important thing that the coral branch says is that Basil is not in Headspace, but instead is trapped in a darker part of Sunny's mind called Black Space. 

Above is the vibrant and whimsical Headspace, below is the dark and foreboding Black Space. Image found on Wikipedia.

In order to get to Black Space, we must first solve a Hangman puzzle. Starting from your second visit to Headspace (the one with the space pirates), you can find special letters hidden all over Headspace. If you collect enough letters to spell out the solution to the Hangman puzzle, you can enter Black Space. Funnily enough, it's actually impossible to fail the Hangman puzzle on the Sunny Route, as most of the wrong letters are only found in places exclusive to the Omori Route.

Black Space is a bizarre location, even by this game's standards. You are treated to a maze of strange, violent and unsettling imagery. At the end of this maze is the Headspace version of Basil, held in place by blood-red hands. But Omori does something incredibly shocking, regardless of the player's input. He stabs Basil with a knife and resets the entirety of Headspace. What's worse is that this is not the first time this has happened. 

Omori is revealed to be a sentient coping mechanism tryin to protect Sunny from Something, and he has been deliberately creating these outlandish scenarios to keep Sunny's mind entertained and distracted. So the slow pace of Headspace might've been a deliberate choice on the developer's part, possibly representing how the Headspace sections are supposed to be nothing but silly distractions created by Omori for the express purpose of wasting Sunny's time. 

More importantly, every time Sunny (or the other Headspace kids) get close to learning the truth of what Something is, Omori destroys them and resets Headspace. Basil seeing that mystery photo at the start of the game allowed him to learn the truth, whatever it may be, which was why Omori struck him down. 

But each scenario is getting messier and messier, as if Omori is running out of ideas for new adventures. Because Omori is not a healthy coping mechanism. He is denial made manifest. And he has killed the Headspace versions of his friends hundreds of times before, just to keep the fantasy going just a little bit longer. But no matter how many times Omori resets Headspace, one of his friends will always discover the truth of what Something really is. This whole cycle of Omori killing his friends and resetting Headspace has been going on ever since the day Mari died in the real world.

Omori being in full control of Headspace is also the reason why Mari never joins a battle officially. Omori is so scared of Mari getting hurt in any capacity, even in a fictional scenario like Headspace, that he keeps her trapped at the various picnic sites seen throughout the game. The only time Mari leaves the "safety" of a picnic blanket is when showing Omori/Sunny the way to the Last Resort, which "coincidentally" prevents enemies from appearing until she returns to a picnic site.

Thanks to Sunny reaching out to Kel on the first day, he no longer needs Omori to heal from the grief of losing Mari. So Omori takes the role of the main villain from this point on. At least, if you're on the Sunny Route. None of what I just described happens in the Omori Route, as you just sink deeper and deeper into the fantasies of Headspace until the line between reality and fiction becomes indistinguishable.

So the final day comes, I'm going to put another spoiler warning. The final day is literally the grand finale. So this is your last chance to go play the game, if anything I said before has caught your interest. 

So the gang confronts Aubrey one last time in an attempt to reconnect with her. Aubrey reluctantly gives the remaining photos back to Sunny, and as it turned out. all of the missing photos were of Mari. The entire reason she stole the photo album in the first place was because she wanted something to remember Mari by, and Basil wouldn't give the photos away willingly.

The four main heroes do a group hug after some spoiler-filled trauma bonding. Image found on RPGFan.com

The gang reconciles their differences and goes to visit Basil. But just like the day before, he isn't home. This time he's visiting his grandmother in the hospital. So the gang passes the time by doing side quests in Faraway Town. After plenty of side questing, we get a scene where the gang visits Sunny's house, in which they pass by a tree stump. And it's here that we learn how Mari died, exactly. And uh... There's no nice way of putting it. According to Hero, Kel and Aubrey, Mari took her own life using a noose. Which makes her passing feel even worse. The stump is what's left of the tree that Mari "self-destructed" on.

I'm going to be so real with you, seeing Sunny's friends mourn Mari's death got me teary eyed. Reading their dialogue hurt on a spiritual level. I never experienced clinical depression in my life, nor have I ever experienced a relative dying in such a tragic manner. But this game does a really good job at getting you to sympathize with its characters. The gang tries to cheer themselves up by focusing on the positive memories they have of Mari, like the time they built a treehouse together.

After doing everything I just described, the gang heads back to Basil's house. But Basil won't leave his room or respond to anyone. He has blocked himself off from everyone else, just as Sunny did for over four years. But this time, Sunny and friends won't leave Basil behind. The gang spends the night at Basil's place specifically so that he wouldn't feel lonely. When Sunny falls asleep, we are brought to Headspace one more time.

Except this time, we're still playing as Sunny. Omori is now separate from Sunny, unresponsive to our commands but still observing with an apathetic stare. Sunny decides he is ready to face the truth of what Something is and enters the darkest corners of his mind to do so. After a nightmarish sequence of Black Space-esque imagery, we find a collection of photos taken from Basil's POV. Photos depicting the night of Mari's passing and revealing Sunny's darkest secret. And one of these photos happened to be the mystery photo that Headspace Basil looked at back at the beginning of the game.

You know how everyone just said earlier that day that Mari took her own life? That was actually a lie. Mari never hurt herself, nor was she ever hanged. What really happened was that she and Sunny got into an argument and the confrontation got physical. It's not stated what they were arguing about and to be honest, the argument itself doesn't matter, as the result is always the same. There is an unused transcript revealing what they were arguing about, but that can't be encountered in the game by normal means, so take it with a grain of salt.

Sunny pushed Mari away from him, but he used more force than he intended, and Mari fell backwards down a long flight of stairs. Mari died on those stairs, and Basil (who was spending the night at Sunny's house) saw everything. What's worse is that some optional dialogue in Headspace has Mari mention that she "always had bad knees." A minor detail made worse with hindsight.

Only Basil and Sunny know how Mari really died. In fact, it was Basil's idea to make it look like a suicide in the first place. For whatever reason, Basil was terrified of the truth becoming public knowledge, and he was especially afraid that Sunny would be taken to prison for manslaughter. Basil is completely and utterly dependent on Sunny, in a way that comes across as a toxic obsession. 

Were Sunny and Basil right to do what they did? No. But we're talking about a pair of (at the time) 12-year-olds who just saw someone close to them die before their very eyes. They were not thinking clearly when they did what they did. And you remember those two kids from the intro? Those two were Sunny and Basil, on the night they hanged Mari's body. And it was Basil telling Sunny that "everything will be okay." Because, you know, Sunny's sister literally just died.

And that is what Something is. Something is the regret of having been directly responsible for Mari's death, and the guilt of having desecrated her corpse. Something is the fear and paranoia that came from keeping this secret for so long. Something is the shame that prevents Sunny and Basil from coming clean about what they did. And until Sunny and Basil reveal the truth of what they did, they will tormented by Something for the rest of their lives.

And here I'm going to have to put a side note. You know how I said this was a "mostly" blind playthrough of OMORI? This was the one thing that was spoiled for me. Sort of. I knew that a major character died from a staircase-related injury, but I didn't know that it was Mari specifically or that it was caused by the main character himself. One of the few things I knew about OMORI prior to playing it was that the fandom made a ton of darkly humorous memes about all the staircase-related injuries that happen in this game.

Anyway, the guilt of what he did to Mari's body is driving Basil mad. Unlike Sunny, who coped by wrapping his memories in several layers of denial, Basil never stopped thinking about the night Mari died. All throughout the game, Basil's behavior in the real world had been increasingly erratic and anxious. Now we know why. He has spent the last four years living in fear of someone figuring out how Mari really died and tracing it back to him and Sunny.

After learning the truth, Sunny wakes up from Headspace in the middle of the night, and the player is faced with a choice. Either confront Basil now, or wait until morning to do so. The latter choice leads to the first of many bad endings, in which Basil takes his own life because he can't handle the guilt anymore. The rest of the gang mourns him, as they had mourned Mari beforehand. Sunny does not reveal the truth in this ending, because it would be a really bad time to do so.

Choosing to confront Basil as soon as Sunny wakes up will result in a boss battle against Basil himself. Or rather, the Something that's been tormenting him. At this point, Basil's Something has grown out of control. In order to save Basil from Something, you will have to fight them both. Unfortunately, both Sunny and Basil are inflicted with fear, so neither of them can use Skills. The result is a straightforward slugfest where you hope you can do more damage to Basil than he can to you. The fight ends in a draw, as Basil is knocked out, but Sunny is stabbed in the eye with garden shears.

As the two are rushed to the hospital by Aubrey, Kel and Hero, Sunny is pulled into Headspace one last time. Sunny remembers all the positive memories he has of Mari, which allows him to finally heal from the guilt. Within these memories, Sunny finds a violin, which was the same one that Mari gave him as a Christmas present. This violin becomes Sunny's weapon of choice, completely replacing the knives associated with Omori. This leads to a showdown with Omori himself. 

This is the final boss battle, a one-on-one duel against the embodiment of depression and denial. It is impossible to defeat Omori permanently. Every time his health bar hits zero, Omori gets back up again with a new health bar. Because depression and grief can't be beaten down so easily. And throughout the whole fight, Omori taunts Sunny by rubbing Mari's death in his face with lines like "She loved you, and you killed her" and "Your friends will hate you once they learn the truth." This is the only time Omori speaks, as he was a silent protagonist/antagonist prior to this point.

This battle will continue until Sunny is defeated, at which point the player gets to make another choice. Either retry the Omori boss fight, or give up. Giving up here leads to another bad ending, in which Omori takes control of Sunny's body, even in the real world. Omori then makes Sunny walk off the edge of the hospital rooftop, killing them both. How did Omori get to the rooftop with no hospital staff to stop them? I dunno, but it makes for a thematically fitting bad ending. 

But choosing to keep on fighting leads to OMORI's best possible ending, and the only ending that can be considered even remotely "good." Sunny stands back up for a rematch, and uses his violin to play a song. And Mari's angelic spirit joins the song with some hauntingly beautiful piano playing. Even in death, Mari still loved her little brother.

The song that the siblings play together is simply called Duet, and it is *the* signature song in the OMORI soundtrack.  I'm going to be honest, if you *don't* get moved to tears by the Duet scene, you have no soul. I'm being serious. The song and the animation here is that good. In fact, I argue that the Duet scene is so emotionally powerful that it is worth buying and playing this game just to see it for yourself.

Anyway, Omori is defeated and Sunny gains complete control of his mind and body. He wakes up in the hospital, with an eye patch over his damaged eye. The Headspace versions of his friends fade away, as he no longer needs the fantasy to live. He makes his way to where Basil, Aubrey, Kel and Hero are. And Sunny tells them all the truth of what happened to Mari all those years ago. The game ends abruptly here. 

We do not get to see Sunny's friends react to the news that Mari never hanged herself, or that her death was in actuality an accident caused by Sunny. How they might've reacted is a hotly debated subject among fans. Some people in the fandom say that they would forgive Sunny, others say that they (mostly Aubrey) would be furious and want nothing to do with Sunny ever again.

Frankly, it doesn't matter if they forgive him or not. This is still the same day that Sunny's family is supposed to move out of town and go to the big city. If they forgive Sunny, they'll keep in contact with him. If they don't, well, at least he won't be coming back to Faraway Town any time soon. It's as simple as that. The only thing Sunny has to worry about is explaining what happened to his eye to his mother. I actually kind of like that the ending is ambiguous. I don't know, 

There is a secret variant of the good ending, acquired by watering Basil's flower garden every single (in-game) day. Which I didn't do, because I legitimately forgot about it. But if you do this, the good ending gets an additional scene where Sunny actually smiles for the first time in the game. A real, genuine smile. Something fades away, symbolizing that the burden of that dark secret is no longer haunting Basil and Sunny. So even if Aubrey, Kel and Hero didn't forgive them, at least Basil and Sunny can forgive themselves.

The last two endings are exclusive to the Omori Route. In this alternate storyline, Sunny refuses to answer the door to Kel and spends the rest of the game inside his home. There, he regresses further into the fantasy of Headspace. This route unlocks some new areas and bosses, including a boss rush against stronger versions of all the previous bosses. There's also a new layer of Black Space with even more deranged imagery than before, known as Black Space 2.

Because Sunny never went outside in the Omori Route, a ton of things that are supposed to happen simply don't. Aubrey never moves on from her bitterness. Kel and Hero never get a chance to reunite with the other kids. And Basil dies offscreen, and nobody realizes that he's gone until it's too late. Both of the Omori Route endings are unmistakably bad endings.

The first Omori Route exclusive ending is called Abandonment, and in it, Sunny's mother comes home and takes him away. Sunny's old friends are left with unanswered questions and Something is still haunting Sunny. And it will continue to haunt him until the end of his days. The second ending is simply called Knife. It's exactly what you think it is. Sunny stabs himself with a knife, but because he's not in Headspace, he dies for real this time.

These two endings are anticlimactic at best, and lead to a narratively dissatisfying experience. But that's the point. Despite being the game's namesake, the Omori Route is antithetical to the themes and lessons this game is trying to teach. OMORI is a game about how escaping to a fantasy land and cutting yourself off from the rest of the world is not a good way to deal with your problems. To do the Omori Route, you have to ignore this lesson and sink even deeper into the fantasy.

Omori and friends look at their reflection in the mirror. Image found on RPGFan.com

And that's the story of OMORI. This game, while fantastically well made, can be emotionally challenging to play through. It's reputation as one of the most tragic horror games ever made is well-earned. And that's what makes the game so difficult to review. There was a saying I heard once, that "Art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed." OMORI is that kind of art. It is not a game I would play for the fun of it, but for the *experience* of it. I don't think I'll play through the game again, at least for a long while. But to say this game is "bad" would be a lie on my part.

In terms of presentation, OMORI is a nice looking horror game with a distinct and recognizable art style. Or rather, art styles. The game uses a mixture of retro-inspired pixel art, hand drawn anime-style cut ins and distorted photorealistic images to get its point across. It sounds like a chaotic mess of clashing styles (and in some ways it is), but the game somehow manages to make it work. The only thing I can truly criticize here is that some character faces (mostly Kel and Hero) can look a little bit too similar to each other. But even that is a nitpick at worst.

The sound design is also good. The sound effects are crisp and clear, even if they are a little on the simple side. The music is amazing and arguably just as good as UNDERTALE's soundtrack, which is very high praise. Of course, this being a horror game, a lot of music in the soundtrack tends to be spooky ambience rather than conventional music. But the conventional songs that *are* in the soundtrack are all fantastic. 

I already mentioned Duet, but there are other great songs in OMORI's soundtrack as well. World's End Valentine is a spectacular theme for the boss fight against Sweetheart (that minor Headspace villain), managing to sound oh so regal and pompous. And even though it only plays in the game's worst possible ending, bo en's My Time works perfectly as both the only licensed song in the game and the only song with lyrics. My Time is by far the most chaotic and deranged song I have ever heard (not just in video games, but in general), and I mean that as a compliment. Like an out-of-control carnival ride.

Overall, OMORI is exactly what I said it was in the title of this post: A painful masterpiece. This game will not be for everyone, but it is the kind of game that could change someone's life. I have no choice but to give it 5 stars out of 5, because the game clearly did something right to garner such a reaction out of me. Is it as good as UNDERTALE? Kind of. The two games are going for wildly different vibes despite the similar concepts. UNDERTALE is a goofy game that occasionally delves into darker themes. OMORI is a dark game that has occasional moments of levity.

OMORI is the property of OMOCAT. None of the images featured here were created by me. Please support the original creators.

Darkest Dungeon, a harrowing challenge that will leave you humbled. A very stressful review

I am no stranger to challenging games with moody, gothic atmospheres. From Dark Souls to Elden Ring, I've played my fair share of "spooky hard games." But there's one game that has completely captivated me. Red Hook's Darkest Dungeon, a cult classic strategy game with a reputation for being fiendishly difficult, and also for being heavily inspired by the writings of the classical horror author H.P. Lovecraft. While it is NOT a Souls Like, this is still a Gothic Horror game about medieval fantasy adventurers fighting nightmarish monstrosities. So it's something that's still within my wheelhouse, as I am the Guy Who Likes Spooky Hard Games. Before we continue, here's a quick content warning. Darkest Dungeon is rated T for Teen by the ESRB and is (at least ostensibly) meant for ages 13 years and older. Despite this, I still feel the need to put a content warning because this game can be... a lot. Expect to see violence, body horror, psychological horror, offscreen self-harm, offscreen debauchery and mild profanity.

Official box art of Darkest Dungeon. Image found on Wikipedia.org

So what exactly is Darkest Dungeon? It's a side-scrolling strategy roleplaying game developed and published by Red Hook Studios, released on January 16, 2016. It gained a following online due to its striking art style, impressive voice acting and fiendish difficulty. It would later get three DLC packs titled Crimson Court, Color of Madness and The Butcher's Circus. The former two being major expansions that add in new areas, classes and bosses while the latter is a Player Vs Player minigame. Not only that, but Red Hook also made a full blown sequel to this game, simply titled Darkest Dungeon II. Taking place in a Victorian Gothic setting, Darkest Dungeon tells you everything you need to know about the story with what is perhaps the most captivating intro to any video game ever. The art and voice acting in the intro is so good that I almost never skip it, and it sets the bleak, oppressive vibe that the game goes for perfectly. To put it simply, this intro makes one heck of a first impression.

In Darkest Dungeon, you play as an unnamed, 19th century noble who had received a letter from a mysterious relative only known as the Ancestor. This unnamed noble is meant to be a self-insert for the player, and as such this character remains unseen for most of the game. I am going to refer to this unseen character as the Heir for the sake of consistency. The Ancestor is already dead by the time the letter reaches the Heir, as he discovered *something* so horrible and terrifying that he took his own life in an attempt to escape whatever it was that he found. The letter he sent gave the Heir legal ownership over the Ancestor's estate, which includes a mansion, a nearby hamlet and the titular Darkest Dungeon. Unfortunately, most of the estate is overrun with monsters, cultists, bandits and many more threats to the Heir's safety. Because the Heir is a member of the aristocracy, their life is too important to set foot on the estate in its current condition. So the Heir hires adventurous mercenaries called the Heroes to clear out the estate in their stead. That's the basic premise, and the story doesn't really get more complicated than that. Most of the lore you learn outside of this intro is about the Ancestor's life before he died. Also, the Ancestor's ghost narrates over the entire game, describing both the story and the in-game battles with flowery prose befitting a Lovecraft protagonist.

The Ancestor, who narrates over the entire game, writes a letter to his family begging them to come home and retake the titular Darkest Dungeon. Image found on MobyGames.com

Darkest Dungeon officially starts with a brief tutorial in which you are ambushed by bandits. Fear not, for the Heir always starts with two Heroes on their payroll already; A Crusader named Reynauld and a Highwayman named Dismas (these Heroes are the only ones with canon names, the other Heroes are given randomized names upon recruitment). These two are your starter Heroes, and they exist mostly to teach you the basics of battle. Combat is turn-based with the turn order being decided by a number called the Speed stat, in which the character with the highest number goes first. Each Hero on your team has four different abilities they can choose to use on their turn. What these abilities are depends on the Hero's class, of which there are 18 (15 in the base game and 3 more in DLC expansions). Some Heroes focus on supporting allies with healing and buffs, others focus on killing enemies quickly with big burst attacks, and others still focus on tanking and defenses. You can have up to four Heroes in the same team, with any class combination you want (including multiple Heroes with the same class). 

Additionally, the Heroes follow a strict marching order, and their place within the marching order changes their abilities. These positions are your backline (far left), your frontline (far right) and two middle positions. Some Heroes want to be certain places more than others. For example, the Arbalest and the Plague Doctor both want to be in the backline, as they are long range fighters who use projectiles and support abilities to keep their teammates alive. The Leper and the Hellion meanwhile want to be in the frontline as they are both melee powerhouses who focus on tearing through enemies with close range attacks. Some classes, like the Grave Robber and the Jester, can even change their position mid battle when using certain abilities. And other classes like the Occultist and the Man-at-Arms don't really care where in the marching order they are, as they have abilities that can be used in any position. 

The last main combat mechanic is Torchlight, which is meant to be a high risk, high reward system. Basically, the lighting during an expedition will gradually get darker as you progress, but you can use torches to restore it. Monsters grow more powerful in darkness, but the odds of finding more valuable items and treasure are increased when the Torch Light gets low enough. If you're feeling very brave (or you're desperate for more money) it could be worth letting Torchlight run out on purpose for the extra rewards. But keeping Torchlight high is safer for your Heroes.

Speaking of safety, I should warn you now that Darkest Dungeon is deliberately designed to be a challenging experience, to the point where it provides a warning saying as much every time you boot it up. Why is this game so difficult, you ask? Because of four main mechanics. First and most obvious is permadeath. When a Hero dies for any reason, that specific Hero is dead for the rest of the game, and anything they were carrying at the time of death is lost forever as well. Secondly, Heroes have two health bars, one for their physical wellbeing and one for their mental health. If their physical health reaches zero, that Hero is put on Death's Door. Despite the name, this event doesn't kill the Hero, but if they get hit while on Death's Door there is a 1-in-3 chance that they will die for real. However, literally any healing spell will remove the "Death's Door" condition. As long as your Heroes are NOT on Death's Door, they will never die from physical injuries.

The Plague Doctor, one of the game's many playable Heroes, suffers a mental breakdown and becomes Fearful. Image found on TrueAchievements.com

But this leads to the third major mechanic of the game, Stress. Stress represents your Heroes' declining mental health, and it will rise the longer a battle progresses. If the Stress meter fills all the way up, the Hero will reach their breaking point and they will gain a random, but usually negative, ailment called an Affliction. These can take the form of extreme fearfulness, paranoia and hopelessness, among others. While Afflicted, the Hero in question will occasionally do things that are detrimental to the team, such as skipping turns or even attacking teammates. If the Stress meter fills all the way up a second time, the Afflicted Hero will have a heart attack that puts them on Death's Door immediately. If they were already on Death's Door at the time this happens, then the heart attack straight up kills the Hero. There is a small chance that a Hero will gain a positive status effect called a Virtue, which instantly heals Stress and provides a power boost for the whole team, but Virtues are rare and should not be relied on. If they happen, great! But don't count on them for victory. Also, Stress is persistent across multiple expeditions and can only be treated by giving that Hero a break. These three mechanics work together in tandem to ensure that battles against even basic enemies can quickly devolve into a life or death struggle if you aren't careful. 

So how do you deal with the horrors of the estate? The answer is by upgrading the hamlet. The hamlet is your base of operations, and from here you can replace casualties recruit new Heroes and outfit them with new armor and weapons. You can also give a Hero the week off and let them visit either the Tavern or the Church. Both of these facilities will heal Stress, but most Heroes will develop a preference for one or the other. You can also send the Heroes to the Sanitorium to cure them of any diseases they may have contracted (diseases, while nonlethal, will still weaken a Hero in addition to other status conditions). You can use a collectible currency called Heirlooms to upgrade the hamlet (thus making each facility more effective), and you can get more Heirlooms by exploring the estate. Upgrading the Heroes themselves does not cost Heirlooms, but instead costs Gold, which is also found within the estate. Keep in mind that a Hero will be unavailable for deployment until the next expedition is complete if they are spending the week at the Sanitorium, Tavern or Church, as these facilities' effects are not instant. In fact, my biggest criticism of Darkest Dungeon is that your Heroes are often forced into long periods of downtime even when they are successful. Like, let's say that a Hero becomes Afflicted and gets infected with a disease. You can only heal one ailment at a time, meaning that if you want that Hero to be back at full strength, you need to wait at least 2 in-game weeks for that to happen. The wait gets even longer if the Hero contracts multiple diseases at once.

An overview of the hamlet, which serves as your base of operations. Image found on MobyGames.com

And speaking of taking the week off, the game measures time in weeks, with one expedition to the estate taking up one in-game week. This translates to about 30 minutes to an hour of real life playtime. On the game's hardest difficulty setting, officially called Stygian mode, you will have a time limit forcing you beat the entire game within 86 weeks or sooner.  Stygian mode also puts a 30% multiplier on the health and damage output of all enemies. So maybe don't try this mode if it's your first time playing, as it is especially sadistic. The last major mechanic concerning the hamlet is that there are random events that can occur. These events are always positive, and include things like discounts at the various facilities, all Heroes belonging to a specific class getting a free level up, or even bringing one dead Hero back to life. This random event is the ONLY way to revive dead Heroes, by the way.

The estate is divided into five main areas, each themed around a different archetypal monster; the Ruins (undead), the Warrens (beast men), the Weald (witches/fungi), the Cove (sea monsters) and finally, the Darkest Dungeon (Lovecraftian horrors). The Crimson Court and Color of Madness expansions add two new areas, also themed around archetypal monsters. The former adds the Courtyard (vampires) and the latter adds the Farmstead (aliens/crystals). All areas have human enemies, which take the form of either bandits or cultists. Once you pick an area to explore, the layout in those areas are randomized. The layout might be a linear hallway during one trip, or a sprawling maze during the next trip. Additionally, each expedition has a quest objective. These quests can range from defeating all enemies, to collecting three specific items, to killing a boss. Normally, your Heroes cannot leave until their current quest is complete. However, you can choose to abandon the quest, which will allow all currently living Heroes to return safely, but you will get reduced rewards for doing so. Keep in mind that if all four Heroes sent on an expedition are killed, you lose access to EVERYTHING that they found. As cowardly as it sounds, it is always better to abandon a quest before you lose too many Heroes, as it is better to come back with some rewards than it is come back with nothing at all.

While exploring any given area, your team may stumble across objects called Curios. These can range from treasure chests, to bookshelves, to confession booths, among many others. Interacting with Curios will produce a random effect, which can be either positive or negative in nature. However, you can use certain supply items on specific kinds of Curios to force a positive effect to occur. For example, you can use a skeleton key on treasure chests to get even more treasure from them than normal. You can use holy water on confession booths to heal Stress. You can clear out a blocked passage using shovels. And there are many more possibilities. The only restriction you have to worry about is limited inventory space. Your Heroes can only carry an absolute maximum of 16 different items, with items of the same type sharing an inventory slot. For example, a single slot can hold either 12 rations, 6 bandages or 4 shovels, but not all of those at once. All supply items are one time use, and if you have any unused supplies once the expedition is complete you will get a refund for your troubles. To quote the Ancestor regarding treasure and supplies; "The cost of preparedness, measured now in gold, but later in blood."

On the subject of Heroes, let's talk about them in more detail. As previously mentioned, the Heroes are divided into classes, with each class having a unique role on any given team. While you can make most team compositions work, some classes work better with others. For example, The Highwayman and Grave Robber are mid-range damage-dealers whose weapons can deal extra damage against enemies with the Marked condition. Neither the Highwayman nor the Grave Robber have any way of Marking a target by themselves. So if you want to get the most out of these classes, pair them up with Heroes who can Mark targets like the Hound Master, the Bounty Hunter or the Occultist. In fact, you can build an entire team of Heroes around Marking enemies so that their teammates can obliterate them. The same practice can be applied with other status conditions, like Bleeding and Blight. Or you can forsake all these fancy status conditions altogether and run a party of three melee powerhouses who overwhelm their foes with sheer strength, and give them a single healer to keep them alive. And if you are in desperate need of Gold, the otherwise unimpressive Antiquarian can multiply the amount of treasure found on an expedition, as long as the other three Heroes do everything they can to protect her. The possibilities are endless. 

You can also customize your Heroes with collectible items called Trinkets that provide a passive boost to certain abilities. Like a scroll that increases the amount of health healing spells restore by 30%, or a bandana that raises the damage of all long-range attacks by 25%. All bosses (excluding the final boss) drop extra strong Trinkets with powerful effects, and most bosses are worth killing just for their Trinkets. The last thing about Heroes you need to worry about is camping. On longer expeditions, the party will be given a log of firewood. Use this item in an empty room and your Heroes will camp for the night. Outside of certain Curio events, camping is the only reliable way of healing Stress mid-expedition. All classes also have special camp abilities, which allows them to either heal Stress even further or give the party some kind of buff. But of course, this game won't let you camp without danger, as every time you set up camp there is a 1-in-3 chance that you'll get ambushed. And said ambushes always start in complete darkness, meaning the enemies will always be at max strength should this happen. Some Heroes, such as the Crusader, Occultist and Vestal, have camping abilities that outright prevent ambushes from occurring. For the sake of your own sanity, make sure at least one of your Heroes has an anti-ambush camping ability. 

A promotional comic depicting the Leper leaving his kingdom for the greater good. Image found on darkestdungeon.fandom.com and darkestdungeon.com

One fun bit of trivia I want to mention about the Heroes is their backstory comics. These comics are not accessible within the game itself, but were made as promotional material. These comics show more of the Heroes' lives prior to the start of the game, and all of them are meant to paint the Heroes in a tragic, or at least sympathetic light. Just to give a few examples, the Crusader was once a farmer with a wife and son who was drafted into a holy war, but he's been fighting for so long he gave up hope on returning home. The Arbalest was forced to run away from home as a child due to an angry mob burning her village down, with the only relic of her childhood being her father's crossbow. The Hound Master was once a police officer with a strong sense of justice, who left the police force in disgust when he found out his commanding officers were part of a cult. My favorite comic goes to the Leper, who was once a fair and just king that was beloved by his subjects. But one day, the Leper contracted leprosy (obviously), and he left his kingdom willingly to spare his people from a potential plague. And keep in mind, the comics manage to communicate these ideas and themes without a single word of dialogue, instead choosing to let the art tell the story by itself. Even if you have no desire to play Darkest Dungeon yourself, I can highly recommend looking at the comics. They are only one page long each and have some hauntingly beautiful artwork.

One last thing about the Heroes before we continue. Each Hero is given a random set of minor strengths and weaknesses called traits. Traits provide either an improvement or a penalty, like 10% extra damage against undead but having -1 Speed. Some traits make it so a Hero can only heal Stress with specific methods, like the Tippler trait, which makes the Hero become an alcoholic who can only heal Stress by drinking at the Tavern. A Hero can have a maximum of five "positive" traits and five "negative" traits, and once that limit is reached, the old traits will swap out for new traits at random intervals. If there's a positive trait you really like and want it to stay on a Hero, you can send them to the Sanitarium to lock that trait in, making it permanent. Likewise, if there's a negative trait that you feel is more trouble than it's worth, you can use the Sanitarium to instantly remove it. While most of the traits are minor enough to not make that big a difference, there is one negative trait that's hugely detrimental and should be removed immediately; Kleptomania. It's exactly what it sounds like, a random chance for that Hero to steal treasure and supplies from the rest of the team. The problem is that there is (to my knowledge) no way to get those items back, as they are pretty much gone forever. For obvious reasons, you don't want a Hero who will steal from their own comrades. Funnily enough, Reynauld, the Crusader given to you during the tutorial, always starts with Kleptomania as his first negative trait. Every playthrough of Darkest Dungeon will involve you sending Reynauld straight to the Sanitorium to cure his Kleptomania as soon as you are able to. This is not negotiable. It's a canon event.

A group of Heroes start a battle against the Swine King, one of the game's bosses. Image found on MobyGames.com

But now it's time to talk about the bosses, which are a major highlight for me. Not only because their designs are creatively monstrous, but they have some neat mechanics that make them more interesting that the regular enemies. Each of the four main parts of the estate have two bosses that need to be defeated three times each (with each rematch being more difficult than the previous battle).The Ruins get the Necromancer and the Prophet, the Warrens get the Swine King and the Formless Flesh, the Weald gets the Hag and the Brigand Pounder, and the Cove gets the Siren and Drowned Crewmen. There are other bosses in the game, but these are the main ones you need to worry about. Anyway, every time you start an expedition to fight a boss, you will get a confession from the Ancestor's ghost where he explains his relationship with the boss in question. Fight these bosses enough times and the Ancestor will reveal more information, both about the boss and about himself. And the more you learn about the Ancestor, the more you learn that he was kind of an awful person in life. Every boss encountered is either one of his failed experiments, a co-conspirator he betrayed or an unfortunate victim who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

I have more to say about the Ancestor himself, but let's get back to the bosses. All of them have a gimmick that allows the boss to mess with the Heroes' positioning or even the turn order itself. Just to list a few examples of my favorite bosses, the Prophet can "predict" an attack that will hit a random Hero three turns in advance, and if that Hero doesn't switch to a safer spot in the marching order they'll get crushed by a boulder. The Formless Flesh is actually four different creatures fused together, and thus it gets four separate turns for each of its parts. But because these parts share a health bar, damage over time effects like Bleeding and Blight are four times as effective, as these effects activate once per each part's turn (thus dealing damage four times total). The Hag can grab a random Hero and put them in her stew, preventing them from doing anything until the other three Heroes free them by smashing the Hag's cooking pot. My favorite boss is the Brigand Pounder, as it's literally just a really big cannon being escorted by regular human bandits. The cannon can't do anything by itself, but if a Brigand Matchstick Man gets a chance to light the cannon's fuse, all four Heroes get hit with enough damage to instantly put the ENTIRE TEAM on Death's Door. The idea being that you have to kill the Matchstick Man before that can happen, and once he is dead you can focus on whittling down the cannon itself. 

Now let's talk about the Ancestor himself, because he is part of the reason I like this game as much as I do. I know I just called the Ancestor an awful person. But make no mistake, the Ancestor is my favorite character in this whole game, besides the Heroes themselves. Having such a villainous character narrate both the story and the gameplay is such an interesting artistic decision to me. His ghost speaks with a mixture of flowery prose and thinly veiled bitterness. He can go from mourning the decline of the estate and regretting how he handled his original expedition, to proudly boasting about the many ways in which he ruined the lives of the bosses, and somehow both of these views feel in character for him. You could make the argument that he is trying to atone for his sins by helping the Heir retake the estate. But honestly? I don't get the vibe that he even wants redemption. He sounds more annoyed that he died before his plans came to fruition than anything else.

And of course, I have to mention the incredible voice acting of the late Wayne June, who voiced the Ancestor. June brought his absolute A-Game when it came to delivering such verbose narration, and the game is all the better for it. And the Ancestor's callouts during the expeditions are iconic, with memorable lines like "These nightmarish creatures can be felled, they can be beaten!" and "A moment of clarity in the eye of the storm!" My favorite line the Ancestor says is "Monstrous size has no intrinsic merit, lest inordinate exsanguination be considered a virtue!" Because that is the fanciest and most pretentious way of saying "the bigger they are, the harder they fall." And how could I forget THE most famous quote from this game? "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer." This quote is is unironically the best piece of advice anyone could give while playing this game. Never assume your Heroes are invincible, as all it takes for an expedition to fail is for you to push your luck too far. Always be prepared for any scenario, including the possibility of your favorite Heroes dying. Heck, you could make the argument that the Ancestor was guilty of overconfidence himself, as the entire reason he did everything he did was because he believed he was above facing consequences for his actions.

The Bounty Hunter smashes his axe into an enemy, destroying it. Image found on TrueAchievements.com

Okay, now that we have discussed most of the game, let's talk about the Darkest Dungeon itself, as it is the location that the game is named after and works under some different rules from other areas. Firstly, it is the only location with non-randomized layouts. This means you could look up a map online and use that information to beeline for the quest objective. Secondly, there are no Curios whatsoever in the Darkest Dungeon. It's meant to be a marathon of extra tough battles with few chances to rest. Thirdly, any Hero who goes to the Darkest Dungeon and survives will never return for a second trip, with the idea being that the Darkest Dungeon was so horrific and traumatizing that it gave that specific Hero permanent PTSD. The only exception to this rule is if you are playing on Radiant mode, the game's version of easy mode. Radiant mode removes this PTSD restriction, though "traumatized" Heroes will start the expedition with the Stress meter at 80% full the moment they return, so you're still discouraged from using the same Heroes again. These traumatized Heroes can still go on expeditions to everywhere else in the estate, and they even give weaker Heroes an experience boost, causing them to level up faster. So they can still contribute to the campaign, even if they won't get a chance to fight the final boss. I would say that the final boss being in the Darkest Dungeon is a spoiler, but come on. Where else would the final boss of a game called Darkest Dungeon be if not in the place literally called the Darkest Dungeon?

Speaking of the final boss, the final battle is really cool narratively, even if it is not as difficult as the other bosses. Full spoiler warning ahead. The final boss is none other than the ghost of the Ancestor himself. Here at the final floor of the Darkest Dungeon, the Ancestor reveals what exactly was the great and terrible *thing* he found that drove him to take his own life; The Heart of Darkness. This ancient being possesses all knowledge of the cosmos, including truths that mankind was never meant to learn. It also feeds on human suffering, and if it eats enough suffering, it can grow strong enough to cause the end of the world. So the Ancestor made a deal with it. The deal was that the Ancestor would be revived as an immortal spirit with access to as much knowledge as he wants, and in exchange, the Ancestor would cause human suffering on an unprecedented scale, thus speeding up the Heart's gestation. The Ancestor knew his relatives would spare no expense in reclaiming the estate. He also knew that plenty of Heroes would "suffer" in the process. But the Heroes were never meant to push as far into the Darkest Dungeon as they did, and as such, the Heart of Darkness is forced to wake up early, which is why the Ancestor is fighting you now. 

The battle against the Ancestor/Heart of Darkness is not a hard fight, but it is a long one. It has four phases and plenty of attacks that can inflict all the major status conditions, but it doesn't have anything you haven't seen before by this point. That is, until you reach the final phase. Once the Heart is down to its fourth and final health bar, it can use its signature move: Come Unto Thy Maker. This "fun" little ability is a guaranteed one-hit kill move. This attack ignores Death's Door and is always 100% accurate. Nothing will save you from Come Unto Thy Maker. The good news is that the Heart can only use this technique twice per battle. The bad news is that the Heart forces the player to choose who gets hit with it. This attack is devastating for obvious reasons, and for a long time everyone (including Red Hook themselves) believed it was impossible to defeat the final boss without suffering casualties. The fact that the game forces you, the player, to choose the target of this attack is adding insult to injury. Yet it works from a narrative standpoint. When you start out, you feel compelled to be a good boss to your Heroes, paying for their healthcare and outfitting them with the finest equipment available. But as they start dying and you get used to replacing the deceased, you start to see less value in your Heroes' lives. Soon enough you realize that unless the Hero in question is fully upgraded (or close to it), it's often cheaper to just fire a half-dead, traumatized Hero and hire a replacement than it is to heal them properly. This battle is basically calling you out for (potentially) becoming just as ruthless as the Ancestor was. After all, at this point you are not only desensitized to the death of the Heroes, you are sacrificing them yourself just for a chance to finish the final battle.

But what if I told you it doesn't have to end that way? As it turns out, some people on the Internet figured out not one, but two different ways to circumvent Come Unto Thy Maker, completely skipping over the sacrifice and outsmarting the developers themselves. The first method is the simplest, but arguably the most dangerous. All you have to do is bring ONLY two Heroes to the final boss fight. You see, the Heart of Darkness can only use Come Unto Thy Maker if at least three out of four Heroes survived long enough to reach the final phase. If there's less than three Heroes on the team by the time you reach this phase, the Heart has no reason to use its signature move. The second method is more complicated, but more satisfying; Figure out a way to kill the Heart in a single turn. The Heart can't use Come Unto Thy Maker if it's dead. I don't know the exact details, nor do I have the time to explain, but there are plenty of YouTube videos out there showing that it can be done.

Regardless of how you choose to defeat the Heart of Darkness, its gestation is halted and forced back into dormancy. But as is tradition with Lovecraftian storytelling, the Ancestor claims that the Heart cannot be permanently destroyed by mortal hands, and that the Heart will return one day to destroy the world. The game ends with the Heir writing a letter to their next of kin, just as the Ancestor did. And the Heir takes their own life to escape the Darkest Dungeon, just as the Ancestor did. And the letter calls in another relative who leads another doomed crusade to retake the estate, just as the Heir did. And then when they defeat the Heart again, that relative will write a letter to their next of kin. And that relative will come to reclaim the estate, defeat the Heart, and write a letter to THEIR next of kin. And so on and so forth. This familial bloodline is now locked in a never ending loop of wasting money and lives on trying to retake this cursed estate, while inadvertently saving the world repeatedly. It's a bittersweet ending, one that's more bitter than sweet. It does create the somewhat humorous mental image that the only thing stopping the end of the world from occurring is a single, stupidly stubborn family of aristocrats with more money than sense who refuse to let this estate go.

A group of Heroes make camp for the night. Image found on SteamDB.com

In terms of presentation, Darkest Dungeon is stylishly macabre, with a comic book inspired art style with heavy shading and sharp angles on literally everything. The game is so over-the-top in its Gothic Horror aesthetic that it borders on absurdity. I mean, what other video game has a literal leper as a playable character? One detail I love is how all of the Heroes cover their eyes, either with masks, helmets or shadows. Despite having wildly different outfits from a wide range of cultures and time periods, the eye covering is something that is consistent across everyone. The only creatures with visible eyes are the monsters you battle against. I'm sure there's some symbolism there, if you want to read into it. I also like how the vampire enemies added in the Crimson Court are based off of mosquitos instead of bats, thus giving them a more insectoid appearance. It's a rather clever spin on a tried and true monster concept.

The actual animations are a little limited, unfortunately, but there's a certain charm to the Heroes various poses. You see, the only part of the game that is fully animated is walking from room to room. When in battle, the Heroes simply *snap* from an idle pose to a handful of contextual poses based on what is happening at the moment, with no smear frames to make the transition between poses smoother. You'd think this would weaken the visual experience, but in practice it makes the game look and feel even more like a comic book, and I mean this as a compliment. Basically, there is no other video game that looks quite like Darkest Dungeon. The only negative thing I can say about the visuals is that I noticed some mild typos in the captions. Nothing serious, but things like not capitalizing the letter "I" when using it as a first person pronoun, or accidentally putting the plural version of the word when the Ancestor is clearly referring to something singular. It's not a deal breaker by any means, but once you notice the typos, it becomes hard to ignore them.

I've already mentioned the incredible voice talents of Wayne June as the Ancestor, and thus I will not repeat myself. Keep in mind that the Ancestor is the only character in the game who is fully voiced. Everyone else gets comic book speech bubbles containing written dialogue. Anyway, the sound effects are crisp and instantly recognizable. I like how every attack (for both Heroes and monsters) has two different sound effects depending on whether or not the attacker actually hits their target. Like you can hear the weapon whizzing past the target and hitting only empty air, but the if attack strikes true, you can hear the weapon crush through bone and slice through flesh. It's brutal sound design, but it fits the gruesomeness of the game's aesthetics. 

The music meanwhile could best be described as stressful (pun intended again). The battle music (composed by Stuart Chatwood) sounds less like a heroic conflict between good and evil and more like a siren warning of impending doom. The music makes it clear that the Heroes are not welcome in the estate, and its monstrous denizens will show no mercy. And as the Torchlight lowers, the music gets louder, with more instruments and even demonic cackles and growls joining the beat. The only "calm" songs in the soundtrack are the hamlet's theme, simply titled The Hamlet, and the camping music, titled A Brief Respite. Both of these songs are meant to be relaxing and comforting, in their own way. But The Hamlet has a distinctly mournful vibe to it, sounding like something you would hear at a funeral. I don't know what instruments were used to make the soundtrack, as music is something that is not my expertise, but I do know that I would call the soundtrack "good" for what it's trying to do. Would I willingly listen to the combat music while doing chores or something? Not really. But this soundtrack does a good job keeping you immersed in this setting.

Overall, Darkest Dungeon is a brutal game that is most definitely not for everyone. Not to sound like a stereotypical game journalist, but I can see the difficulty being a major turn off for some people. This is not the kind of game you play casually to blow off steam. At the same time, so much care and passion was put into it that I can say with confidence that I greatly enjoyed the 90+ hours I spent with the game. No other game looks, sounds or plays quite like it, and I can respect the artistic vision. The game isn't difficult for the sake of it, there's a point to it. Have you ever heard the phrase, "suffering builds character?" That is the core thesis of Darkest Dungeon, both on a narrative and mechanical level. So I will give Darkest Dungeon 4 stars out of 5. It is really good for what it's trying to do. You just need to be onboard for that kind of experience.

Darkest Dungeon is the property of Red Hook Studios. None of the images used in this review were created by me. Please support the original creators.