Otherworld cont’d.
- the prominence of TVs is kind of weird; something something escapism, I might have written about this before but currently Forgor, and while I know the “TV Girl” is a reference to an old character of Omocat’s I can’t help but squint anyway. there’s TVs all over both Faraway and Headspace, most of them don’t Do Anything (kept waiting on an achievement for turning them all on, smh), and they definitely do not have the visuals on TV Girl’s various screens
- not particularly sure what the significance of knife-hacking into traffic cones is either, especially with the mild car motifs[1] (Mom’s note to look both ways, possible symbolic implication Mewo got run over (bisected cat))… in his dreams there are no boundaries? seems too easy.
- oh and of course the cones, as with the ?roots back in Vast Forest, fade with the same barlined animation as Omori (or Sunny, in this route), which is A Detail
- moonwalk room is fun, mildly ominous that talking to the Jawsum bar guy in the back silences the music
- got me some bread >:3 gotta say, being underleveled is actually making me use skills. go figure!
- I forgot Bread is a healing item also, this is the most useful shit ever
Frozen Lake
- that frozen lake-place[2] is such a weird little area and I am very curious to see how it comes into play later… btw the music uses the same motif as “It Means Everything,” have I mentioned that. found it on a youtube comment[3] and my mind has not been at peace since.
- huh, apparently the ghosts have flavor text! specifically:
Sunhat Ghost looks around aimlessly as if it is lost.
gee, sorta like a certain two-leafed recurring NPC…
I… I don’t know, Kel! I can’t really answer that one :D
y’know for someone whose schtick is ~perfection~ Mari admits straight-up to being clueless/Not That Ideal a fairly decent amount, I think? huh. sticks a pin in that, ig.- forgot about the ghost in the igloo. the fuck is that about
- oh, the bunnies around here don’t actually attack you on sight? that’s… that’s new actually,
I don’t think any other NPCs do thatactually wait the squizzards do. not sure about elsewhere, though 🤔 - as a side note the follow-ups are so painfully weaksauce at this stage, especially Hero’s… the Cook is like, unreasonably good in comparison. (not complaining.)
onwards!
- y’know I’m not really sure what the point of the telescopes is… or ok “what’s the point” sounds harsh but like, other than the achievement attached to looking through all of them, and ofc Sunny had a minor space fixation (see: entirety of Otherworld here), but. idk! it’s a weird, slow little lookaround thing and I kinda expected there’d be More to it somewhere. maybe in that one snow place…?
- even though Cattail is accessible now I’m gonna skip it since I know we’ll be back later… probably being less thorough with exploration in general this run, but I’m still gonna try and nab everything (especially once the Hikikomori route diverges proper)
- hm, potentially-symbolically-relevant footnote: the duckrabbit fam lives in a giant gift box, and there’s a little cutscene in which Duckie Jr. gives you a gift (a Dandelion, which isn’t a partiiicularly remarkable object I don’t think?). huh
Great, now we can spend quality family time together! Now, go to your mom.
ok look before anyone gets all finger-pointy “why are you calling the random NPC dad abusive” that’s not what I’m saying,[4] but it seems Notable that most of his dialogue is like.. chiding the kid. and ofc he stands Noticeably Apart from both the kid and mother (visually separated, too, by the rug[5])—- OH YEAH the significance of gifts, also, is the violin… the present, Not What You Wanted, causes Anger… hm. what a weird little house
anyway! that’s a wrap for today, we’ll junkyard-scrounge next round… btw the level discrepancy is insane and very much proof that I’ve actually been needing to like, Strategize
Kel keeps dying first, yeah. rip 😔
addendum/footnotes
[1] Wouldn’t be surprised if this is a Yume Nikki homage; parallels between games (and their OSTs, fwiw) abound to the point where I’ve seen people describe Omori as “Yume Nikki but with plot.” (side note: I do not remmber exactly which people, but it was likely via YouTube comments and also multiple different people.) That said, as previously established, stopping my analytical-prying at “oh it’s a shout-out” is too easy ;P
[2] should be noted that I’ve been adding most of these section headers retroactively, when turning the notedump into An Actual Page. subsequently you get redundant shit like this, “Frozen Lake: the frozen lake-place…”
[3] did not record the source when I found this but it was probably the (at the time of writing) top comment right on the soundtrack: @lilpasta7545, The beginning sounds like a calmer version of “It means everything.”
Considering that 1) there are angels elsewhere in the snow (even if not this particular area) and 2) the same melody is vaguely echoed in the Hikikomori-exclusive track “Remember To Be Patient”, my current thought is that this motif is somehow tied to church/what church represents. By extension there are links to both snow/winter and (via “It Means Everything”, so maybe true-route-exclusive) Aubrey, but these connections are secondary.
[4] if this sounds needlessly defensive then you have not been on the corners of the internet that i have and frankly, i envy you. Hell Webbed Site
[5] did not nab a screenshot of this but thankfully the LP has a couple! It’s the first two, specifically; even though Jr’s off-rug in the last one shown, after the cutscene the Duckie family returns to the positions they’re in when you enter the room.
+ Gotta say, while I still don’t plan on going back through my intial playthrough in detail, there’s definitely Something to be said for noticing and pointing out a lot more details when experiencing everything blind… Case in point, I checked to see if I had an old screenshot of duckrabbit fam on the Symbolic Rug Positions (I do not), but I did pass by a couple points of interest that I didn’t think twice about earlier today:
- The song in the Jock Jams tent, “Yo DJ Pump This Party,” might be a reference/homage to Lisa’s “Forever Turbo Heat Dance.” Copypasting myself from the liveblog:
I have not played this game but from what I hear
- it is another RPGmaker cult classic, and takes place in a post-apocalyptic sort o [sic] setting where women have gone extinct (I may have done a wiki binge at one point).
- This particular track plays in a room where one guy’s just… ?high/drink/generally really happy and he dances forever
- But if you return later in the game he’s hung himself“Yo DJ” is associated with Kel, who very much did not have the Dark Night of the Soul that I spent a good chunk of the game wondering if he was gonna have, so it’s prooobably a coincidence? Idk uhh -throws dart- Woman Dead and Hanging Person. It doesn’t not work but the Kel connection doesn’t track.
- Lone Mole (the sprout mole hiding among all the cones):
I went through all this trouble to isolate myself from society, and then you show up and ruin everything!
. I don’t have anything insightful to say here tbh, once you know you Know. It just kinda strikes me that I didn’t even stop to note this on a second round; yeah, yeah, the hikikomori sprout guy, we’ve all seen it…