Omori, DDLC and FNAF all have a similar issue on their writting and that upsets me a little
I've been a huge fan of Fnaf since the second game came out, similarly I was waiting for omori ever since it was first anounced, so belive me when I say: I LOVE THESE GAMES!
But I have to admit it saddens me how they all make the same mistake around the end, which is, they all have a unecessary plotwits that makes the characters and overall story way poorer then before.
I'll start with DDLC because I belive it's the most agreegious one, but also, the only one where something seemed to be done about it:
Doki doki literature club relies heavily on the subversion of expectation from the viewer, that is obvious and not my problem with the game at all! my problem is that there's yet another subversion near the middle of it. The concept of starting the game and viewing all these female characters like flat desirable husks of people, just to then find out latter that like every other person in the world, they have their own complexities and issues would already be a really intreresting angle to go with, in fact, it would be perfect commentary about the fact that we have this specific view of them because we are playing as an unreliable narrator, witch I feel like is all but implied by momnets like Sayori's death, where we see the MCs humanity too, breaking down for never realizing how much she was struggling and stressing over the fact that what happened was FINAL, because it IS final to him. In an atempt to keep this meta narrative that DDLC has I feel like the game kind of affirms Monika's belive that the other character are less then her and flat by the way that it is written. I'd much rather have the story focus on how the protags preconcieved notions of these people led him to ignore the things that actually makes them people, specially because the game already kind of goes into it, it's just a shame that it kind of gets overshadowed by the project lubotina stuff (that never even goes anywhere). There was ddlc+ which atleast furthered the characters a bit, but I still think it's much too late for the commentary and writting it could've had.
Now lets get Fnaf out of the way because I belive everyone agrees with me: Fnaf had a much more grounded and cohesive story up untill 3, it's so painfully obvious that Scott kept trying to writte something else and ended up with creepypasta syndrome, where each new thing is worse than the previous in an attempt to be more choking and scary, 4-6 wrapped up the history neatly, I'll give him that, but by that point, the heavyness of the crimes and of Willian's character had already been reduced to mush, he's not a megalomaniac serial murderer, he's a cartoony evil cientist, and that really, REALLY sucks.
AND FINALLY! the thing that made me write this whole think piece: I don't think Sunny should have killed Mari on accident! All the characters in Omori are really interesting and complex, but it becomes so much harder to relate to them when two of them killed someone. whenever I replay or watch a gameplay of it I find myself hoping that magically the story will have changed and now it is trully a story about survivors guilt and mental health.
I feel like a little context would help, I have been through a EXTREMELLY similar situation to Sunny and I can asure you, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE KILLED THE PERSON FOR IT TO CAUSE EXACTLY WHAT SUNNY WAS GOING THROUGH, many of my family member have never fully recovered from what happened, good portion of them isolated themselves for several years just like Sunny, and I myself feel deep into escapism at times because I blamed myself for not having protected them (although there where other aspects involved too), point is, if I think about it from this point of view, it's almost disrespectfull how OMOCAT thought that was somehow not enough for Sunny to end up like that. And all the things I'm saying are relevant because up untill this point, everything could've been explained by that fact that Sunny and Basil found Mari's body after she ends her life, but the fact it was actually their fault kind of takes away from their characters and stories, Sunny and Basil feeling like they are to blame for not seeing how depressed she was and for being the ones to find her, Basil's constant reaffirming that everything would be okay and it would all go back to normal too, the idea that he was AWARE that those where empty promises he told Sunny because he wanted him to feel better, even though he knows things would change drastically, it fits so nicely with his and Sunny's resistance to change. I also find that Basil saying sorry for Sunny and Omori all the time could tie in with how he was about to attempt against his life too, even knowing how much pain that had caused the friend group before, ESPECIALLY Sunny, it works so well with the fact that Sunny blocks off Basil's death the same way he does Mari's on that bad ending and how prone Sunny was to do the same (since multiple endings have him doing it). Lucky for me the games insistence to have a plot twist works on my favor, as I can ignore a especific portion of it and still have a cohesive story that follows exactly what I think would've been better.
all in all I had a lot more to say about the problems I had with each but I'm sick so my mind got fuzzy half way through, so if you want to talk about any points please be free to comment or repost! I'm genuinely interested in talking about it!
jbbartram-illu
izzy806
stormborns
origamiaround
titsay
