Raz VS Omori
(Made by Ninjamonkey3904)
(Drawn by Wurushi)
(Drawn by Stars)
“You either control your mind or it controls you”
-Napoleon Hill
Razputin “Raz” Aquato - Psychic Prodigy, savior of your world and your mind working for the Psychonauts agency.
Omori - Empath DREAMER of HEADSPACE, seeker and keeper of the Truth.
The conscious mind is the only tool we have to experience the world, and our limitless imagination is able to manifest anything we could think of. However, beneath it all is our desires and memories of our lives, not all of which we would want to remember. In the end, we are forced to confront and conquer our own mind, lest the mind conquers us. When these two psychedelic video game mind travelers go hand to hand in this mental brawl, who will come out on top in a DEATH BATTLE?
Before we begin…
With a matchup as untraditional and complicated as this, it is only fair to establish some rules and details for the discussion. Starting simple, the goal for Raz is to deal with Omori within Headspace, not going into the real world and killing Sunny to kill Omori with him, this essentially will just make the debate boring and lose the purpose of the matchup that is inside of a person's mind. Generally speaking (ignoring Death Battle ruleset for a second) it also realistically not only would be more out of character for Raz and a bit against Psychonauts' ethics, but it also just would not make the situation better than it was already, there would be no point at all for Raz to enter his mind. Not killing Sunny however is the only (and we repeat that for future reference, the only) stipulation Raz has in the Real World, this stipulation doesn’t exactly weaken Raz in any way either so it should be ultimately fine. To keep it brief and simple, Raz is here to do his main job and help Sunny fight his demons, not just cause havoc.
Speaking of that it is also worth mentioning that Headspace and Mental World will be “equalized” conceptually in this debate and treated as the same thing, generally they carry on similar idea behind itself and don’t exactly contradict each other to be as heavily different, as a matter of fact actually there's not too much to equalize as they often share very similar concepts which we will talk about later.
It is also worth mentioning that one particular contributor of this blog was already researching Raz (& Psychonauts generally) in his blog of a fight between him and Ness. Due to that there may be some similarities between the 2 (after all, some things don’t need to be fixed if they ain’t broken, right?), that being said, hopefully this blog is just as thorough, especially since this matchup operates quite differently than usual (and may even contain some details that might not have been noticed or mentioned before).
Now some obvious stuff, such as the fact that since we’re taking a look at all 3 Psychonauts games, all Omori routes, their (art/guide)books, manga and possibly other developer’s side notes (such as streams or documentaries of Double Fine and Omocat), as well as considering we'll be talking about quite literally (and by that we mean every letter of it) everything that's possible to talk about in this match here (you'll get it as soon as you'll read it) this blog will in fact…
contain spoilers for both Psychonauts and Omori, similarly like with, say, Earthbound or a lot of the games that took inspiration from it - element of surprise, pure unpredictability and all this abstract aspect containing secrets is what makes these unique games and stories more fun. And we don’t even mean “this character was actually a villain!” or “this person will die!” kind of spoilers, no, you will get spoiled in the majority of the game's content if you’ll read the blog fully before experiencing the media (approximately 80%-90% of Omori’s content and some of the contextually big spoilers for Psychonauts series to say more explicitly). So if you haven't played either games and generally care about not being spoiled and go into the media blind, go play the games first, they’re good.
There are also chances this blog came out before we’d get more of Omori related content, such as Omori manga that started this year (a bit off by one month, but hey, still close). In defense of which, unlike one of this blog’s contestants, we are not psychics so we obviously can’t really see everything future have prepared for us, but we also are mostly sure that all Omori content we’ll get anytime soon won’t heavily affect information and opinions presented in this blog (at least Manga itself which, so far, presents itself as an adaptation of game events, albeit more sped up).
And at last but not least, due to how Omori & Psychonauts (even if to a bit lower degree with the latter) work narratively, this blog will go into various triggering issues related to them as a franchise and its characters, such as various real life mental issues, depression, anxiety and suicide.
We understand that the content of OMORI is very mature in nature, causing some people to be uncomfortable with its usage in an environment as casual and irreverent as Death Battle. We are not attempting to go against these feelings, or ignore the message of the game for the purpose of pushing an idea. Our usage of sensitive topics in a versus discussion is not meant to demean, undermine, or otherwise disrespect the source material and those who resonate with it. Different people can find value in the media for different reasons, and we believe that there is an interesting discussion to be had in regards to this topic. If you are uncomfortable with this, we advise you to not bother yourself with this blog.
At the end of the day, this blog is being made out of love for both of these franchises, and while a vs battle blog is not a good platform to discuss serious mental health, we completely respect the themes present in these games. This is just being made for fun, and if you are still uncomfortable with these topics, that is fine. Personally, I would recommend at least giving this blog a chance before coming to a judgment, we have worked very hard on this and I think it has a lot of content that people would appreciate.
Other than that…
Background
Raz
The Human Mind: Six hundred miles of synaptic fiber, five and a half ounces of cranial fluid, 1,500 grams of complex nerve matter...a three-pound pile of dreams. But I'll tell you what it really is. It is the ultimate battlefield and the ultimate weapon. The wars of this modern, psychic age are all fought somewhere between these damp, curvaceous undulations. And these very Human Minds contain lots of stories and worlds within itself, deep buried memories locked far far away, various demons taking over your brain, traumas manifesting themselves in spots you don’t notice. All these Mental Issues and only one group to solve them.
Quite a long time ago, about five hundred years ago, a large meteorite fell on earth and thus, gave humanity a new mineral called Psitanium. While at first it seemed like a common mineral which was used by Indians for common items such as knives or arrows, Psitanium being a psychoactive mineral, amplified potential psychic waves and thus gave psychic powers to life on earth, whatever it will be from fish, pumas and bears to the humans themselves, which caused a major problem: as much as people and other creatures across the world unlocked their true potential of psychic powers due to its unnatural amplification, others who had mental problems, or worse yet trauma, Psitanium only over-compressed those mental issues, making unstable people more unstable and thus losing their psyche. At one point, the town Shaky Claim even had an “insanity epidemic”, where more and more people were just becoming unstable to the point that “Thorney Tower '' - a large asylum built for people with mental problems, had a higher population than the town itself. So much that Houston Thorney, who built said tower, committed suicide by throwing himself out of his very own asylum 15 years after the insanity epidemic spread. The event caused the government to pay people to leave the town, while flooding it to prevent future inhabitation.
Psitanium got its influence and attention from lots of people across the world due to its effects and rarity. One of these individuals who got his eye on these minerals was Ford Cruller, who after teaming up with expert scientist Otto Mentalis and Hydrokinetic expert Lucrecia Mux, and hiding in a wildly paranormal “forgetful forest” from the rest of humanity, as well as finding more people with paranormal abilities across the world, created an organization for people with psychic powers, an organization which turned psychics from outcasts into heroes - The Psychonauts. Over the years Psychonauts got their name known to the world and besides all the bizarre powers they had, one of their specialities was to enter a bizarre new space - the discovery of the human’s brain and its world within - The Mental World. Each person had their own Mental World, their own bizarre beauties and their own monsters under the bed, their own pride and their own shame, their personal baggage and figments of imagination. It was up to the Psychonauts to help people resolve their personal demons and explore this new frontier.
However the original team behind the Psychonauts - Psychic Seven, didn’t last long. Maligula later on destroyed the country of Grulovia and later fought the whole team, only Ford, her beloved, could actually defeat and stop her for a while, but this permanently damaged and fractured his psyche. This was a terrifying battle, with a large amount of losses on the Psychic Seven’s side. Still, there were plenty of other legendary psychic agents afterwards that continued the Psychonauts’ legacy: Sasha Nein, Milla Vodello, Coach Oleander, Hollis Forsythe and more. But there was also one person who no one out of Psychonauts or even the world could expect to be the guy to reunite original psychic seven and save the world twice within a single week.
Razputin Aquato (but everybody calls him…Raz) was just one of 5 kids in a circus among the Aquato family - a family very well known across the world for their acrobatic acts but also generally quite poor. Given his family’s legacy he was a perfectly trained circus acrobat too, but what not much would see, he was also a great psychic, and quite obsessed with it for that matter. Kind of like a big nerd about psychics, he has lots of comics, often writes submissions to his favorite journal series “true psychic tales”, and despite being 10 years old, was already practicing the powers on small objects while no one was looking. But his psychic talents were something the Aquato family wasn’t fond of, considering that they were cursed to die in water by another psychic family. Quite a tragic backstory which made Raz see himself rather as an outcast for his family. All of this practically changed in 1 day, when a mysterious person gave him a pamphlet. A pamphlet that was promoting Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp - a camp which, as the title suggests, trains children who were found to have psychic abilities, and unlock their potential to use said powers efficiently, perhaps even becoming Psychonaut agents in the future.
The pamphlet’s message of embracing your own curse as a talent inspired Raz, and despite his father ripping it apart, later that night, Raz decided to run away from his family to reach his dreams. Riding on the world’s smallest pony and eventually getting to the very place where before the people of “Shaky Claim” were facing an epidemic of mental traumas, now people send their children to develop in psychic powers and change for the good. Upon getting in, he wasn’t quickly accepted, and planned to be sent home right away, but Ford, Oleander and Sasha all saw potential within him even if in different ways, and despite them calling his father, within a single day Raz managed to show them all and prove he’s more than ready to become a Psychonaut. Especially since he managed to stop Coach Oleander from taking over the world, all he needed was to help him with his father issues (I mean, who doesn’t have them am I right?), as well as solving own problems with his father as soon as he realized his father doesn’t actually hate him because of being a psychic, he is a psychic himself as a matter of fact, it’s just he has bad memories related to other psychics, nevertheless it didn’t stop him from accepting Raz’s choice and reach his dreams.
But that wasn’t an end to his adventures. Maligula was coming back. And Psychonauts spent all their forces finding the man behind her return and plot to rule the world. But as it turns out, Maligula was actually Raz’s own grandmother!!! Sort of. Lucrecia Mux, a former member of the Psychic Seven, was an incredibly powerful psychic, and as such was used as a weapon by the Grulovian government to crush their opposition. One fateful day, she was used to “remove” a group of protestors who protested the Grulovian government, and so she flooded the city. Caught in the flood was Lucrecia's own sister, Raz's real grandmother, and she died as a result. Maligula went mad after this, and the Psychic Seven had to put a stop to her. Ford Cruller did not want Lucrecia, who he loved, to face repercussions for this event, so he used a powerful machine to repress her memories of being Maligula and disguised her as her own sister, planting false memories to do so as well as the myth of the Aquato's curse of water. He created a lie that would go on to haunt the Aquatos for years to come.
In the end however, Raz did what no Psychic could ever do, especially at his age. He recovered all of the Psychic Seven and defeated Maligula, allowing Lucrecia to come to terms with her past and recognize herself as opposed to what Maligula represents - something dark inside of everyone. From this day, he made sure that he would be accepted not just as a circus boy, but as a psychic soldier. Paranormal paratrooper! Mental marine who is about to ship out on the adventure of his life! Soaring across the astral plane, waging psychic warfare against the enemies of free thought. Ready to engage the enemy in his own mentality, chase his dreams, fight his demons, live his nightmares, who found himself on the path to becoming an international secret agent, in other words...Psychonaut! But he better be careful, because today in his personal mission, he is about to face a foe unlike all of whom he fought before…
Omori
“Waiting for something to happen?”
Welcome to WHITE SPACE. You have been living here for as long as you can remember…
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! I'M REALLY REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS, GO AND PLAY OMORI RIGHT NOW BEFORE YOU GET SPOILED!
Sunny's life for the past four years may seem rather dull. He is an only child that does his chores, eats his food, rarely if ever goes outside, and then he goes to bed. Only, that is not the life that he has chosen to live, as when he goes to sleep he enters an entirely new life made up by his imagination - an expansive world known as HEADSPACE where Sunny goes on fantastic adventures with his childhood friends and his sister. Except, he no longer lives as Sunny while undergoing these adventures. Instead, he is now OMORI.
Omori has lived in WHITE SPACE for as long as he can remember, and spends his days either laying in the white void of his personal domain or by spending time with his friends. One day, Omori and his friends had decided to go to Basil's house to see all the flowers that he was planting, and maybe reminisce over the photos in his cherished photo album. When they arrived there, a photo seemed to fall out of his photo album. When Basil picked it up, he didn't immediately recognize what it was or remember taking it, but it was nevertheless very familiar. It was a photo of ####
Omori has lived in WHITE SPACE for as long as he can remember, and spends his days either laying in the white void of his personal domain or by spending time with his friends. One day, Omori decided to spend some time with his friends, only to find that Basil had mysteriously gone missing. Now, it was up to them to travel HEADSPACE and find the missing Basil, though the road ahead was filled with plenty of quirky enemies and dangerous foes. Luckily, Omori, Kel, Aubrey and Hero would learn the skills they needed to in order to make it through HEADSPACE and find Basil, in no small part due to their impressive empathic abilities.
On the way, they'd face off against Sprout Moles, a cranky Space Ex-Boyfriend, a pompous royal, a loan shark and three witches that live in a giant whale - oh, and the whale too. But of course, you cannot forget about the Orange Oasis and the creepy Bread Twins that await Omori and the gang, or Snowglobe Mountain. This colorful world has everything! Aliens and dinosaurs, ghosts and orange juice people, and… Am I getting sidetracked? Ah well, they can find Basil eventually. It's the journey that counts, right?
Omori would find himself reliving these dreams over and over and over again, always falling just short of the end and discovering a secret truth beneath the surface. However, now, things are becoming different after Sunny received a call from his mother that they will be moving out to a new town in three days. Openings to the void have been cropping up all over HEADSPACE, as things turn even stranger than they usually are. SOMETHING is threatening to unravel Omori's entire world, and this may be his last chance to deal with it.
Before that, back in the real world, Sunny hears a knock on his door, and it seems to be coming from his old friend Kel. He hasn't seen him in a very long time, and it's quite the chore to face the light again… Ultimately, it is Sunny's decision whether he chooses to exit his house and meet his friends as they are now or not. Whatever he decides, he will have to confront his problems one way or the other, and eventually he will when Omori enters BLACK SPACE.
As Sunny/Omori progressively confront their fears and reach the end of their journey, he will meet what his mind has worked so hard to keep hidden for so long. Within BLACK SPACE, he will find his repressed memories and emotions - things he'd like to keep locked away, a terrifying space in the recesses of his mind. Hidden even deeper is the truth that has haunted Sunny for the past few years, something more horrifying than any of the previous fears he has had to conquer before, and the source behind his escapist fantasies as well as the ghostly visages that haunt him every night.
Four years ago, Sunny lived a modestly happy life with his friends and his sister Mari. They did almost everything together - they went to the beach, played games, and even built their very own treehouse. Sunny was gifted a violin, which everyone in their group helped to play a part in giving to him. With this, he could begin practicing and playing music with his sister, who played on her piano with the word OMORI etched on it.
Over time however, Sunny found this new hobby to be somewhat tedious. Mari was a little bit of a perfectionist, and Sunny struggled to keep up with her standards. As their first live recital was approaching, Sunny became more and more stressed, and all he wanted to do was spend time with his friends like he always did. With that, Sunny smashed his violin against the floor in a fit of rage, destroying a once sentimental item. Of course, Mari was upset about this, and confronted Sunny atop the stairs. An argument between them ensued, the words irrelevant now. Sunny then shoved Mari down the stairs.
When Sunny called out to her, she would not respond. Sunny was completely despondent and lost, but Basil, who was witness to the event, gave him an idea. They dragged the body to Sunny's backyard where Basil would take a rope to hang Mari's lifeless body on upon a tree, making the event look like a suicide. That seemed to be all, but when Sunny and Basil looked at what they had done, SOMETHING had looked back.
This event had completely broken apart the friend group. Aubrey and Hero became completely distraught and began to cope with their loss in unhealthy ways while Sunny and Basil lived with their traumatic guilt that would eat away at them as they kept their secret hidden from their friends. While Sunny secluded himself into HEADSPACE, Basil's guilt led him down years of misery and pain that would reach its peak once he learned that Sunny was moving away.
From there, Sunny can either confront his guilt and what he has done in the real world, or he can attempt to once again run away into his HEADSPACE. If he were to remain secluded, then he would fight a visage of Basil until he'd reset the cycle once again, beginning anew with his fake versions of his friends in a fake world where he can try to remain happy, yet not ever fully confronting his trauma and guilt which would continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. If he chooses to meet his friends again in the real world and confront the truth, then he will instead fight the manifestation of his trauma and what has been keeping him locked in HEADSPACE for four years - OMORI.
After fending off a panicked Basil in the real world, losing an eye and arriving in the hospital while asleep, Sunny will find that Omori is too powerful for him. To fight his own ideas of guilt, fear and suicide may be too much for him to handle. But he's not exactly alone - Sunny can choose to trust in his friends, Kel, Aubrey and Hero to be behind him, and maybe one other person from beyond the grave in order to give him the courage he needs to overcome his mental anguish, defeat Omori, confront the truth and confess everything to his friends. No matter how they'd respond, Sunny and Basil would be relieved of the guilt that had haunted them for so long, and be able to start moving on with their lives.
However, whichever happens is entirely up to Sunny. It is ultimately his decision how he will live his life - he will either live as Sunny or as Omori. But perhaps, today is the day everything will go different, when this new person enters his lonely company…
Equipment
Raz
Helmet & Goggles
Wherever Raz goes, he always wears his red-brown leather circus helmet with large red goggles attached to it. They don’t really serve a big purpose, Raz mostly just thinks they’re cool and that it’s something that stylish psychics wear, at least based on a True Psychic Tales magazine ad. Though these goggles unintentionally also do something that could be very useful for Raz’s current patient…protect his eyes from anything sharp!
Journal
Raz's journey was only a few days long and there was so much to do, to keep track of his actions Raz always wrote down his objectives in the journal, as well as noted his other actions he’s done throughout the adventure: all of his collectibles, memories, and even small maps are written down here.
Bag
Raz doesn’t pull out his stuff out of nowhere after all, a lot of his equipment he carries around he contains either in his pockets or in his pretty big bag, which contains almost everything Raz has in his equipment, which may seem to be quite an impressive feat given his bag can also carry 5000 Psitanium rocks…must be a really deep bag.
Psycho-Portal
This door with the size of a hand palm is a special device commonly used by psychonauts to enter mindscapes via Astral Projection. Raz commonly uses it himself when he wants to enter someone’s mind, albeit it actually isn’t necessarily for a mind entrance. He only needs to slap it somewhere on someone's head (and, apparently, their hair counts too) and he will then be able to easily and directly enter their mental world by astral projecting himself through it.
Brain Tumbler
After Raz visits someone’s mind he can revisit a person's mental world through the collective unconscious (which we’ll talk about a bit later). But how does Raz get into said collective unconscious? This device, for which a lot of your tax money is being wasted on, is the answer. The Brain Tumbler allows subjects to access the astral plane through the collective unconscious, and from there, to enter their own minds or the minds of others they've previously formed connections with.This procedure is typically monitored from the outside, and may be used by psychonauts in attempts to probe a subject's mind for information. It also apparently can sedate people…neat. Thanks to this Brain Tumbler, the person from the outside additionally can control and forcefully take a person out of the Mental World if necessary. Obviously Raz can’t toss around it normally, this device is just gigantic to fit even for his deep bag, though there are plenty of them on Psychonauts’ access: either in Sasha’s Lab under Whispering Rock Psychic Camp, or in his another lab in Psychonauts’ headquarters, or the one in Green Needle Gulch (aka the one you see in the pic rn).
Smelling Salts
Sometimes when walking around inside a human's head, things can get fishy…way too fishy, and often times a Psychonaut can be in danger of being trapped inside of a Mental World. Which is why in case if everything goes out of control, to willingly get out of the mindscape… without killing themselves in the Mental World, Psychonauts will use this small golden container which upon opening emits a smell that sends back the person to a real world. The effects can work either if you smell it inside of the Mental World or if someone makes you smell it outside of the Mental World (aka on a real body).
Cobweb Duster
Sometimes a person's mindscape is full of cobwebs formed around certain areas of the mind that aren’t used for prolonged periods of time. That’s why Raz always carries around this Cobweb Duster, which helps to clean them out of the way to open a previously unavailable path. Raz can then use these mental cobwebs in Ford’s base to exchange them for PSI cards that he can use to further upgrade his abilities.
Crow Feather
Somewhere around camp, Raz managed to get this Crow Feather in his hands. By itself it is a pretty ordinary Crow Feather which functionally can only work if you want to tickle your opponent. However it’s potentially a lot more useful when clairvoyance is used on it, as it can allow Raz to see the perspective of the most nearby bird. In the most literal sense, this effect can even work on a crow from Milkman Conspiracy despite the fact that the feather does not belong to this specific crow.
Thought Tuner
Occasionally the thoughts of people go out and unnoticeably wander around the real world. Thought Tuner, developed by Otto Mentallis allows the user to detect stray thoughts around the real world, and focus onto them so that they turn into nodes that can be used by mental connection to fly around, connecting between each stray thought.
Otto-Shot Camera
Another gadget from Otto, Raz got access to his Otto-Shot Camera. Otto Mentallis designed this camera with the purpose of taking "photographic memories" whenever the user desires. For the most part it resembles a classic Polaroid instant camera, complete with the similar color spectrum design. Though if Polaroid cameras featured a rainbow, Otto Mentallis' invention has a color spectrum that goes from red to blue, which may represent colors that are invisible to the naked eye, going from infrared to ultraviolet. Raz can use it to take photos in both real and mental worlds along with using various filters while taking a photo, one of which even allows Raz to notice Figments and other valuable items within the Mental World.
Bacon
A piece of Bacon… That’s basically what it is really, at least by itself. However thanks to the connection Ford formed with Raz, everytime Raz used said Bacon he summoned Ford Cruller into the stage right out of Raz’s head…literally. Raz can then directly talk to Ford from the side of his head for help on his mission, though this will be covered in more detail in a later section.
PSI-Pop
Seems like a pretty ordinary lollipop, however upon eating it, it restores your health. Raz can hold up to 8 of them at a time. Raz does have to use them manually to heal obviously.
Dream Fluff
While they also look like your ordinary sweets, upon usage they can fully restore your health. Even in a death situation when your health is down to zero, Dream Fluffs can restore all of it, automatically. In game, Raz can hold up to 3 of those, but as seen in a visual, it’s likely he can fit in more.
Pins
When finally getting to the Psychonauts' headquarters, while Raz wasn't accepted as a psychonaut at first, he did have access to the Otto-Matic shop made by Otto Mentallis, the mechanical genius who is perhaps responsible for every gadget the Psychonauts agency can offer. Through this shop, Raz got himself pins that work as a modification for a variety of Raz's psychic abilities. Though some pins are purely cosmetic and don't offer too much, there are also useful ones, all will be mentioned below in Raz's powers section, while here it's worth mentioning those that don't affect any psychic power (or at some point anything at all):
Brain Sneezing Powder
It is a refined powder that causes the inhaler to literally sneeze out their brain. It is yellow in color. It is near impossible to stop the effects of the powder once inhaled, however it is completely ineffective on people who are unable to smell it, for example due to having contracted the common cold. Psychonauts used it in a variety of situations occasionally even on themselves rather than an enemy. It should be noted, detachment of the human brain is not fatal in the Psychonauts universe. The body is able to survive without it (in fact Psychonauts agents, including Raz, pretty much know a necessary method to put brains back into their heads if necessary), complete with basic motor functions and limited speech. However once the brain is removed from the body, the person's entire consciousness is trapped inside, whilst the brainless body falls into a zombie-like state. The brain without a body will eventually deteriorate, unless kept inside a tank with sustaining fluid. As a Psychonauts agent, it’s possible for Raz to have access to this powder, however he's never shown to use his own before or to carry it on his person.
Astralathe
Invented by one of the Psychic Seven Members - Otto Mentalis, The Astralathe is a mechanical device that allows one to modify a mind. It was built with one target - to study the potential and limits of the human mind, to try and "open every closed door in their minds". The device is not only capable of weakening minds to make them controlled or overcompressed by other traumas, but also can somewhat directly alter parts of the human mind and mindscape. This device is also capable of altering memories of people, and even give people phobias which use psychic powers against their users (like the water curse Raz and his family had which was actually an alteration on the mind to keep them away from water). As well as it can “erase” memories...or more specifically hide them deep inside the mind for a very long period of time of at least years. In the Mental World itself the Astralathe becomes bigger in size and shoots large beams to manipulate with memories, and can also create holes to bury memories or Mental Figures in it, as well as being able to release repressed memories under certain circumstances. It does however require some help in terms of usage for Raz, as for one he needs to hold a person within the range of Astralathe and for two he only knows how to use it partially, while using it to full extent he needs a help from his mentor - Ford Cruller, who managed to use this machine single handedly.
Omori
Laptop
Omori is in possession of a laptop which he generally keeps within WHITE SPACE and BLACK SPACE. With it, he was able to see the remaining hangman keys in Headspace that he needed, as well as hints towards their location. The hangman keys are what ultimately allow Omori access to BLACK SPACE, and although he only needed a certain combination of them to unlock the opening from Basil's house, by collecting every key Omori is able to access BLACK SPACE freely at any time just by interacting with the laptop.
FOE FACTS!
Omori’s journal where he keeps track of all of the foes he encounters in HEADSPACE. After meeting or defeating a foe, Omori and his friends would write down their observations that served as the foe's descriptions. While Omori’s descriptions are somewhat long and detailed, his other friends’ are mostly smaller additions. Basically, kind of like Hunter’s Journal from Hollow Knight. It should be noted that this journal doesn’t contain information about SOMETHING or BLACK SPACE related entities, only those that are encountered within HEADSPACE (with very little exceptions).
JOKE BOOK
A special book Omori carries when he needs to record a joke he finds in various joke boards, which are across the entire HEADSPACE. Who knows what situation you’d be in, maybe some joke would really help out the mood. Mostly though, it's used by Hero to tell jokes to the Weeping Willow. Most of the jokes in this joke book are so bad that the Weeping Willow can't help but to burst into uncontrollable tears after hearing some of them. If she's told the right joke however, she will leave behind the LOL Sword for Hero to acquire.
BIG AIRHORN
A gigantic air horn that is extremely loud to the point of being able to wake up anyone nearby. An item especially useful if an unknown victim may fall under the attraction of a new secret weapon designed by Sprout Moles… the B.E.D.
SPROUT MOLE MASKS
When inside of Sweetheart’s castle, which is full of various Sprout Moles, Hero managed to quickly come up with an idea for a disguise, masks that look heavily identically to actual Sprout Moles. While they didn’t cover up anything else, the disguise worked well enough to fool most of the Sprout Moles. These masks are from dead Sprout Mole faces. They are wearing dead people's faces.
TOYS
(wait, that’s the wrong one…)
Omori possesses a variety of toys meant for the purpose of aiding him in battle. Many of these toys may also inflict status effects on the opponent, and anyone in his party is capable of using them, not just Omori.
WEAPONS
Pretty self explanatory, weapons are used as the main method of attacking by everyone in Omori's party. Each weapon is person exclusive, meaning only one person can use a particular weapon. Omori only has two, however his other party members have a larger variety of them.
CHARMS
Charms are items that every party member can equip to give themselves some added benefit, such as an increase in defense, speed, luck or even altering their emotions at the start of a battle. Unlike weapons, charms are not person exclusive, and all of them can be equipped by anyone in the party.
SNACKS
Snacks are food that members of Omori's party can eat, which usually is intended to recover their HEART or JUICE - HEART being how much health they may have, and JUICE being the energy they have to use their SKILLS (aka Mana in RPG language). Omori can carry and stack several of the same snack item with seemingly no limit, so he has a very large collection of recoverable items if he may need them.
Abilities
Raz
PSI-Powers
PSI-Powers, also known as Psychic Powers, are special abilities that can be used by psychics and exist throughout the whole Psychonauts series. Originally probably not a lot of people had PSI-Powers, but thanks to Psitanium, a mineral that came to Earth from space hundreds of years before the events of the game, the amount of people and just various creatures having psychic powers around the world increased thanks to its “psychic radiation” which amplified psychic waves and was making psychics more psychic (in exchange of making crazy people more…crazy).
Most psychic powers need to be taught or learned for the psychic to be able to use them correctly, but some can be present from birth, or self-learned. Psychic abilities can begin to manifest at any stage in a psychic's life. Most commonly (while not stated directly, very heavily implied) PSI-Powers in Psychonauts are based on emotions, in other words any of PSI-Powers Psychic uses in Psychonauts series, requires to channel one of the emotions and it’s when said emotion is channeled, PSI-Power is used correctly. Practically because of that, psychics don’t have any actual limit of usage whatsoever, they can use all of their powers as much as they would like. Throughout the series, Raz has learned nearly all known PSI-Powers. As a matter of fact he did that in practically less than a week, becoming more talented of a psychic than a lot of the other agents, many of whom require years of training to be able to face threats of the magnitude Raz fought.
Acrobatics
Due to being among the family of Aquatos (and being a protagonist of a platformer game), Raz has become a master athlete and acrobat. As a matter of fact, given he was in the family business very likely since he was born, it is safe to say he became professional at it from a very young age, and what may be a complex exercise for regular gymnasts, for Raz would be tuesday. He can double jump using a levitation bubble, wall jump, casually do flips and backflips, walk on ropes with ease, ride on rails at intense speeds, balancing on giant balls, dive into the ground from the mid-air, etc. it is harder to say what Raz can’t do. He overall is professional in terms of acrobatics, capable of interacting with any nearby obstacle to his favor, and years of training from family since birth shows that.
Enhanced/Extra Senses
While not super extraordinary, Raz also has pretty good senses overall. He was able to smell the Lungfish, presence of which no one else in the camp was able to notice or suspect. Or as shown above was able to notice himself being followed. He also can sense thoughts flying around, even though he needs a Thought Tuner to fully see and use them.
When Raz got his brain removed from the body, he still was able to see the surrounding world even though as just a brain, he lacked eyes (consistent with other average Psychonauts agents casually traveling as just brains). Downside is perhaps the fact that brains can’t fully see when covered in sustaining fluid and/or if the brain was away from the body for way too long, like with Helmut). And apparently he also carries the ability of sibling detection…not sure if that’s a fully valid thing but you know, neat.
Astral Projection
Astral Projection is a psychic power that enables a psychic to enter the mind of another person and explore their mental world. An individual's astral projection resembles their physical body, being their vessel for interacting with the mental realm, though their appearance may slightly differ depending on the mental world they visit. Psychics, including Raz, are able to use astral projection commonly through the use of a Psycho-Portal, a Brain Tumbler, from their own brain interfacing with the target brain itself, or purely through natural ability without any gadgets or “physical” interaction. Raz's father was able to force his astral projection into Raz and Oleander’s mind without the use of an external tool, though it required considerable effort. Upon entering someone’s mind the person who enters mind and person to whom mind is being entered would enter in trance, in other words both Raz and person whose mind he enters will be sleeping since their consciousness are inside of a Mental World.
PSI-Punch
PSI-Punch is the psychic ability to generate a large fist of energy to punch, poke, or slap enemies. For Razputin, it is a basic attack combo and move. When used he projects a big orange fist with his mind and uses it to punch forward. Raz is fairly creative with his “psychic hands” and can use several of them at once, either to strengthen his fists punches, or smash them into the ground causing a decently big area attack.
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PSI-Blast
PSI-Blast or Blastokinesis, is the psychic ability to shoot a deadly beam of energy from one's head. With this ability, Raz takes the rage he contains and generates it as firepower. In other words Raz basically utilizes his aggressive emotions towards an object, focuses it and converts it into straight blast all in a matter of milliseconds. Raz mastered this ability to the point of not having a limit in amount of usage/ammunition. As well as eventually Raz mastered it to the point that after shooting his blast goes into a long chain hitting other nearby enemies. In addition he can charge the blast to make it stronger.
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Mental Focus
When Raz does need to rely on more than his own aim, he can use Mental Focus to lock on the target. Thanks to this ability, his PSI-Blasts and other PSI Powers are able to reach out to the enemy with far better precision. Practically it is Psychonauts' equivalent of the auto aim.
Telekinesis
The most classic ability for psychics to ever have, Telekinesis, sometimes shortened to "TK" (Both in general and in Psychonauts world), is the psychic power to move, manipulate or otherwise interact with objects/matter without physical means.
In Psychonauts it is often portrayed as giant hand(s) grabbing and throwing objects. It is likely due to telekinesis in concept being a “bonus hands” kind of power when it can do stuff your hands can but from long distance. However TK is also shown multiple times (by Raz as well) to move said objects without creating a big hand to do so.
Over the time, Raz has learnt to use telekinesis in a variety of ways, disarming opponents, pulling out objects from inconvenient places, throwing foe’s weapons/projectiles back at them, even stun opponents upon throwing said objects or grabbing and throwing opponent as well. All your general telekinesis kind of usage.
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Mental Magnet
Another sort of telekinesis but rather passive one is Mental Magnet - the psychic power to attract mental energy inside a mental world (and Psitanium in real world). Having this badge makes it so that nearby mental objects such as, ammo, grenades, arrowheads but most importantly health become attracted and absorbed automatically instead of running away and having to be chased, like usually.
Pyrokinesis
This ability requires absolute focus, for instance on the hottest thing you can think of (like your mom), and after building up that focus, you can set on fire an object you’re focusing on. After some upgrades it can even send a large area on fire instead, as if it was an explosion. What can I say more, fire is pretty! Always can be used when it’s very, very important, or when really, really, entertaining. Must watch out if girls have hairspray if you want to impress one with it though, or else that’s gonna be one hell of a fireshow.
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Invisibility
Psychic ability to turn invisible to the naked eye, which campers refer to as “silent but deadly”. Though unlike how the visual above shows, all Raz needs to be invisible really is just a thought. Given one of the main invisibility users - Milka Phage, uses it to escape close contacts and/or conversations, it’s possible invisibility power is somewhat connected to awkwardness. It lasts about 20 seconds and has approximately the same cooldown length, though it is very much possible to contain invisibility for longer periods, Milka herself stated that she could keep herself invisible for three days straight, and show to stay at it for way longer than 20 seconds in game, while using it on a practically regular basis. Psychics still can be detected using infrared sensors though (and somehow presumably by cats???).
Levitation
Levitation is a psychic ability to, well…levitate. It allows Raz to ride on a levitation ball, called a "Thought Bubble". Given various descriptions about levitations, this power is more connected to lifting your thoughts up. This levitation ball allows them to jump higher and run faster when riding on it, as well as acting as a parachute when floating down. The levitation ball also glows and can be changed to a variety of colors. It even can be compressed for higher jumps and faster speed travel and can be used as a wrecking ball attacking foes while approaching. Just like an air balloon this thought bubble can also glide higher with the help of air or heat. Levitation balls also work as a great defense for whatever danger there is under you, like poison, fire, electricity or even water (despite showings, technically now can work since Raz defeated the curse), albeit something piercing like spikes can pop it. Despite psychics using a Thought Bubble to levitate, some also can do so normally without using them (even pretty much basic workers). Thought Bubbles can also be placed under objects to lift them.
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Shield
A psychic ability where Raz uses his thought bubble that normally is used for levitation techniques as a protective energy shield. Not only it fully blocks all physical and psychic damage, it can also reflect energy projectiles back at people. As well as with further upgrades it gains spikes and pushes enemies back while also damaging them. Despite basically granting Raz a form of “invincibility” though it has some drawbacks, one being that he hasn’t used it to the point of being able to move around while using it, and that he can keep the shield only for about from 10 to 20 seconds or so, meaning he has to be a bit resourceful when deciding at what moment he needs to use it.
Clairvoyance
Clairvoyance is the psychic ability to see through the perception of others. It can connect to a person's mind even from great distances if channeled through an item connected to the target, like Raz seeing through Crow’s perspective by using its feather, which can be done on any nearby crow with the same feather, even in Mental World with crows created within said Mental World (which is what makes Crow Feather useful to him). In the same way, Raz was capable of using it to see Lili being locked in a chair by using clairvoyance on her bracelet, or Raz was able to see through the perspective of one of the G-Mens on a helicopter by using clairvoyance on a special helmet). It can also be used to see through cameras and other inanimate objects which have “vision” of sorts.
Besides that, Raz can also see a person's visualized view on himself, obviously not in a full on literal sense but often in a way he is seen as a person based on own bias and Raz’s interactions, kind of a way of telling us that people can look on same things differently depending on their experience. Additionally Raz can use psychic abilities through beings he used clairvoyance into. Ex: He can use clairvoyance on another human, bunny, or other living being or inanimate object with a vision and shoot a PSI-Blast from a perspective of said being rather than himself. Though he does need a second or 2 to focus on a person to activate clairvoyance on them. Thanks to the Brain Block upgrade Raz doesn’t take damage for a brief period of time when using clairvoyance.
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Future Vision
A sub addition to a Clairvoyance ability is ability to perceive the future…in a way. While typically the ability to see the future isn’t common, as the only case we have of its typical existence is Elka Doom’s Li-Po backstory document which states that she managed to predict one of her parents having an affair during summer (yikes). Raz himself however has a way to see the future of objects. When using Clairvoyance on the object, it may not only lead him to the perception of the target it is connected to as shown earlier, but also may show how and for what it can be used.
Confusion
A PSI-Power that grants the ability to use Confusion Grenades to cloud people's minds, making them forget who they are, and sometimes causing them to attack one another or even themselves. It doesn’t last forever though, only for 10-20 seconds, however Raz can reuse it since he has infinite ammunition for those grenades. Thanks to this ability, Raz can also make people attack each other, pretty useful if you’re being attacked by a group.
Psychic Regeneration
Thanks to his friends in camp focusing their energy directly into him, Raz has the ability to regenerate his health in seconds. Just simple as that. It seems to be quite a passive thing considering it works through a large distance between Raz and campers, as well as there doesn’t seem to be much of a focus on campers’ side…now thinking about it, are they even aware of doing that?
Time Bubble
Raz learned this ability from Helmut Fulbear. Have you ever had a moment in your life when you wait for something and time seems to go extremely slowly as if minutes felt like hours, or polar opposite, when you’re enjoying something and hours are passing like minutes. This ability is a representation of this exact feeling. A control through our sense of time. According to the Fullbear’s explanation, with this ability, time loses some of its meaning, and your perception of it becomes your reality (which makes sense, guy has been stuck in a sustaining fluid all alone for 20 years, yet for him it felt like thousands).
In other words, instead of being just regular time slow, it’s rather manipulation of time itself (even creator of Psychonauts - Tim Schafer addresses to the power as “change movement of time”), and it’s under Raz’s control how slow or fast time is, making him able to make objects as slow/fast as he wants, usually instantly appearing as bubbles on the object Raz thinks of to slow down instead of being projectile based effect. The manipulation’s effects last about 10-15 seconds, with a small cooldown. Raz often can use it to slow down enemies or objects that are beyond faster than himself.
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Mental Projection
This special ability allows Raz to use a mental pen and draw with it a 2D archetype of one's self. This archetype isn’t just a paper version of its creator though. It is based on one of the many other selves a human has within himself, but keeps it deeply within ourselves. In other words, we as a person cannot be defined by a single sentence, our behavior, personality and actions depend on a situation we are in, and within us there are multiple inner aspects which help us to make a decision and deal with the current situation.
Raz’s first archetype shares Raz's self-confidence (which developers describe as his “warrior spirit”) and often is pretty excited upon doing a variety of tasks. It can go to some places Raz normally can’t, can shapeshift itself into the paper plane, distract foes and fight by itself either by slapping his paper hands or summoning scissors to fight. A great ally for Raz to have in combat despite his goofiness (which if you take into consideration voice actors for Raz and his Archetype somewhat makes sense for it to be like another goofy companion). It’s all right if it dies, since Raz can always summon one more, without much of a limit.
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Telepathy
Ability to read people’s minds. Pretty simple one Raz can do really casually. As he once heard Lili’s thoughts simply by an accident and often tends to talk with other psychics with telepathy. Psychonauts agents in general pretty often communicate with each other by using telepathy.
Hand of Galochio/Hydrokinesis
This evil claw of water is a phenomenon only Raz and his family can experience. Long ago, they were all cursed by a rival circus family - the Galochios - cursed to die in water by a water hand that the moment it grabs you, drags with all force as deep as possible, this curse affected everyone in Aquato family so eventually each of them are fated to die surrounded only by water and fish…or are they.
You see in actuality, Ford reveals that the hand isn't a curse, and didn't originate from the Galochio family. As a matter of fact, there is probably no such family. Instead, when Ford used the Astralathe to repress Lucrecia Mux's 'Maligula' persona, he also implanted a fear of water in her to stop her from reawakening her powerful hydrokinesis. As Nona, she passes this fear on to Augustus Aquato, and through him, to the rest of the Aquatos, including Raz. The hand Raz sees is a manifestation of this fear, hijacking his own hydrokinetic abilities, essentially meaning that everyone in Raz’s family who were taught to fear psychics is a psychic with at least hydrokinetic powers, quite ironic if you think about it. So…why is this an ability and not weakness?
You see, in the end, Raz fought Maligula because of whom his entire family had fear of water, and not only managed to go through this implanted fear but also basically sent her back where she came from. Doing so made it that hand instead of drowning Raz into water, will help him from drowning into water.
This implemented ability works on a conceptual level, since the hand appears not only through water, but basically any other liquid (such as ink), including pure resemblance of it (like the time Raz was taken by a stage set which resembles water or when he was taken by a hair that resembles water or when he was taken by quilts which, you guessed it, also resembles water).
Zoolepathy
Thanks to this ability, Raz can talk with animals. Raz showcased this ability while talking with a rat, but this ability can be used on other creatures, squirrels, birds, rabbits, bees, whales, any animals that exist on Earth basically. And despite his abuse with animals in the past, Raz pretty much can get along with animals and get some help from them if necessary. Even though he isn’t as good at it as Booles. Worth mentioning however that this power can work not only on just animals, but also on beings with entirely different physiologies that just happen to resemble animals, like Sam Boole who managed to control minds of snakes that essentially don’t have brains or any biological parts and just creatures that are entirely made of water.
Limitless
Remember what you’ve seen above, about how some of Raz’s abilities have a cooldown or a limit? So, forget about it, at the end of first Psychonauts game Raz basically lost a limit of capacity of how much he can use his powers (gaining essentially “infinite ammo”), and at the end of Psychonauts 2, Raz boosted his powers to the point that he in the most literal sense possible, lost a cooldown to all his abilities. In other words, Raz has absolutely no limit in terms of how much and how often he can use his psychic powers, allowing him to basically spam every single psychic move he has on hand. Just have some footage of the gameplay with no cooldowns to see how it feels. Raz practically turns into a walking machine gun with it.
Mind Manipulation
Perhaps the most complex ability in the world of Psychonauts, and with the premise of the series the most iconic one. Upon entering a human's mind psychics can alter their personality and thoughts. Some ways to manipulate mind was a precise hypnosis, such as when Coach Oleander created an entire Milkman personality for Boyd Cooper (which was actually a way to make him destroy tower to destroy the evidence if needed), or when the mysterious person, mole among the psychonauts, has mind controlled Loboto subconsciously to the point that even if latter was aware of being controlled (and despite his change of heart in Rhombus of the Ruin) couldn’t do anything against it really.
Most usually though the alteration process is done by Psychonauts agents for the good. Raz particularly cured various different mind illnesses, such as latent dysphoria, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, personality disorder, and a lot more. He can sort Emotional Baggage by which he resolves emotional issues and basically lifts a person's thought up a bit.
As well as later on he even managed to change the morals of Oleander and Doctor Loboto from evil to good, former by defeating the cause of a trauma which made him go that way (that being his father Butcher who murdered his best friend Bunny in front of him), latter by setting moral compass back in the ship (a bit less subtle and more direct method compared to other minds, but hey, it worked).
Though a lot of the times Raz has healed a person's illness have some sort of context, as it’s often dependent on the Mental World and person with their trauma. More often than not Raz finds a source for trauma and fights it directly by himself or with a little help from the person in question. The biggest feat for Raz however perhaps is healing Ford Cruller’s mind from multiple personality disorder caused by Astralathe, a machine designed to practically block out, repress memories very far away, because of which Psychonauts agents thought Ford was out of commission while they themselves couldn’t do anything to help him out for about 20 years if not slightly more.
All of that can be done by psychic in Psychonauts while astral projecting yourself into the Mental World where it’s possible to see memories and manipulate consciousness in the first place. If bringing in an analogy, Psychonauts’ mind control is like professional medical surgery - precise, but also dangerous where even minor mistake can cause some sort of effect on person, to the point that in best case scenario mind can have some small alterations in personality, and worst case scenario go absolutely insane, since as much as Raz can heal someone’s mind he can also break it and cause the existence of mental issues. Which is why Psychonauts in a form of their ethics often tend to hold back a bit when exploring another person’s mind, since with how much access Psychonauts have with their mind traveling powers, the whole organization is built around trust to each other.
Mental Connection
One of the sub-ability of mind manipulation per say. Mental Connection is the psychic power to connect disparate ideas and allows the user to pull themselves towards floating thoughts and enemies (as seen above). It appears as a grappling hook-like beam. It can lead to euphoric breakthroughs and an increase in mental health.
But mainly the process of altering the mind is way further increased in time upon usage of this ability, even connecting 2 thoughts (especially harmful ones) can cause unintentional (or intentional) psychological effects that can do a chain reaction and change both person and their mindscape from scratch.
For instance, Raz connecting the idea of “MONEY” and “RISK” not only altered Hollis’ thoughts on the concept of risk, making her addicted to playing games, but also as a chain reaction altered the entire Mental World from Medicine based into Casino based while also creating an entire new Mental Figure - Lady Luctopus. Making it not only somewhat quick travel across the surroundings but technically a power that can warp reality of the Mental World by directly affecting a person's mind. Potentially, if this power is used for a right purpose, it can lead a person's thoughts into the right direction, making them closer to overcoming their Mental Traumas or Issues.
However upon overuse of Mental Connection on a person, the brain can go straight up insane. Which is why it should be noted that for these purposes Mental Connection is rather the last thing Raz would do in an attempt to deal with Mental Trauma, due to the similar ethical reasons Psychonauts have as an organization, unless Raz knows what he’s really doing.
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Charisma
The way Raz helps people solve their mental problems isn’t by his psychic powers and acrobatics alone. In a lot of the examples he also had to use his “charisma” and own curiosity when interacting either with a person or everyone in the Mental World. Often being able to find out more about people, minds of which he’s inside of. The more about the person he manages to find out, the more he can contribute to them at critical moments giving own perspective on the issue, which often actually works, either with inhabitants of Mental World helping him out or with making it a bit easier for the host of Mental World to solve their issues. Raz after all carries a pretty important quality as a person - being a good listener and attentive viewer. He remembers, writes down, notes what he sees and hears which in the end, makes him able to think through on what needs to be done.
Mental World Merge
“My memories were bad enough. This is just gross!”
This one is a bit complicated but worth mentioning. If (by using Brain Sneezing Powder) Raz removes brain of one person and removes a brain of his own, and if Raz’s brain is nearby brain of a person he removed it from, he can essentially merge his own memories with memories of a person he removed brain from, which essentially results in the creation of an entirely new Mental World. Under such conditions, Raz and the person he merged memories with basically become equals in terms of control over the Mental World, meaning he can (at least in theory) carry on abilities he can use in the personal Mental World as its host (given it is partially his Mental World, what abilities Raz gets as a host will be mentioned in the Mindscapes section). This also means that he and another host must be corresponsive, because whatever happens to the Person Raz merged with, also happens to Raz and vice versa. This overall while not a strategy Raz uses so often or directly, but is one of the options he can pull off if he thinks it’s necessary.
Resistances
Mind Manipulation and Illusion Creation: In literal first 5 minutes of the game during the cutscene Raz without any formal training was already able to resist Oleander's mind manipulation abilities, who brainwashed and programmed lungfish to steal children's brains, as well as implanted separate personality inside of mind of Boyd Cooper. Raz’s resistance to mind manipulation was so notable that other Psychonauts agents called his brain to be “armored like a tank”. Sasha Nein who is one of the most knowledgeable Psychonauts members claimed Raz has mental defenses he has never seen, especially in someone that young, practically he is one in a million (again, all of that in a first cutscene, where Raz has no training at all). Raz also resisted Psilirium effects which could affect even aforementioned Sasha Nein who could resist confusion being used on himself (likely meaning that effects of Psilirium are layered given it worked even on experienced psychics with some degree of resistance). Said Psilirium twists minds and creates illusions, and normally was only possible to be negated through music for other psychics.
Power Nullification: Despite getting Psilirium blocking from using PSI-Powers Raz was still able to use 1 psychic ability, in RoR case being Clairvoyance, and eventually with some help on the side of his friends redirecting mental energy, all other PSI-Powers, meaning normally Raz can pretty much still use psychic powers but not 4 simultaneously as previously. And with help in terms of mental energy eventually Raz can even ignore said nullification.
Omori
STATS
STATS are practically valuable aspects of the fighting system in Omori, which is something that every being in HEADSPACE has. Each of the stats are responsible for overall effectiveness Omori or his party members will have when performing certain actions, whether it be defensive, supportive or offensive. Most of them are quite simple, HEART and JUICE as explained above are basically health and mana, without any HEART Omori’s party members will literally turn into toasts, while without any JUICE Omori and his party members won’t be able to use any of the SKILLS.
An ATTACK stat obviously refers to a person's damage output. A higher ATTACK stat increases chances of landing critical blows, more or less with a few exceptions depending on a character's stats. A DEFENSE stat determines how much damage is reduced. Most of the time, higher DEFENSE reduces the amount of damage taken, with a few exceptions to certain SKILLS that end up bypassing/ignoring one's DEFENSE stat. SPEED as a stat determines who out of which friends or foes will go first in descending order, which additionally impacts some of SKILLS combinations and overall chances to run away from a battle.
LUCK affects the user's critical hit rate which in turn gives them a higher chance of landing heavy damage to a foe. It is also noteworthy that each LUCK point adds 1% to the CRITICAL HIT rate of a character but doesn’t increase when leveling up. And at last but not least, HIT RATE determines the possibility of successfully landing a blow on an enemy. If HIT RATE is equal to or higher than 100%, Omori and his party members will most likely hit the enemy successfully. Omori and his friends throughout the story have increased their stats the higher level they get and the more they have interacted in HEADSPACE. Without any weapon, charm or possible boost, Omori at his peak has 360 HEART, 250 JUICE, 90 ATTACK, 77 DEFENSE, 100 SPEED, 5 LUCK and 0 HIT RATE (Ftr 0 HIT RATE via having no weapon to hit with to begin with, same applies to all other members of Omori’s crew) . By himself not really a lot, which is why WEAPONS, CHARMS, SNACKS and EMOTIONS all are factors that heavily affect these stats for better or worse, speaking of the latter.
EMOTIONS
(Fun fact, this emotion chart also foreshadows real world events)
In Omori, the name of the game is emotions. Depending upon the current emotional state of a fighter, their stats and physical abilities, as well as other conditions may be altered. In addition, each emotional state will have a “type advantage” against each other, like in Pokémon. There is the base state being neutral, as well as three primary emotions, being happy, sad and angry, and they each have three additional levels depending on how deep their emotional state is, which will increase the effects of said state. Normally, the party members can only go up to the second emotional state, however Omori and certain bosses can reach the third stage of an emotional state. There are dozens of skills and items capable of altering the emotions of allies or enemies, and it is essentially necessary to use emotions in a strategic manner in battles in order to keep up with and defeat the many enemies that plague Headspace.
On this topic, it is worth clearing up something regarding skills and items that can affect emotions, being their functions as either direct mind control or merely circumstantial events that cause someone to feel a certain emotion. The vast majority of emotion effects in Omori are done by natural causes as opposed to forceful mental manipulation, which means that Omori is generally capable of inflicting emotions on others by normal means rather than an esoteric mind based ability. In the real world, regular flies are able to inflict ANGRY on Sunny, and many abilities and items in Headspace showcase this (for instance, Kel can make someone mad by annoying them, and someone can become happy by being given a pep talk by Aubrey, normal responses to such actions). However, there are a few exceptions, such as how the Slime Girls seem to be able to change the party's emotions by chemical means, but these are generally few and far between.
HAPPY
If Omori wants a little more joy in his sad and depressing life, the HAPPY state is the way to go. There are three states to this emotion being HAPPY, ECSTATIC and MANIC. This emotion will be more effective against ANGRY foes, but less effective with SAD foes. In addition, it will also increase their speed as well as their luck, however it will decrease their overall hit rate. Foes that are HAPPY are more likely to use status inflicting skills, as well as have a higher item drop rate and grant more clams upon defeat. Usually, an optimal strategy involving this emotion within the party would be to afflict Kel with it, giving him increased speed and chances at landing a critical, which is especially helpful with his Run ‘N Gun skill (also known in the Omori community as Kel Nuke).
ANGRY
Omori is a well known bunny hater, and what better to drive his bunny hatred than ANGRY? There are three states to this emotion being ANGRY, ENRAGED and FURIOUS. This emotion will be more effective against SAD foes, but less effective with HAPPY foes. In addition, it will increase their attack but lower their defense. Foes that are ANGRY are more likely to attack as well as grant more EXP once defeated. Usually, an optimal strategy involving this emotion within the party would be to afflict Aubrey with it, increasing her attack and enhancing her Headbutt skill.
SAD
Sunny will not escape his sorrows even in his mental fantasy land. There are three main states to this emotion being SAD, DEPRESSED and MISERABLE. This emotion will be more effective against HAPPY foes, but less effective with ANGRY foes. SAD will increase someone's defense, but at the cost of reducing their speed. In addition, some damage to that person will instead reduce their JUICE rather than their HEART. Foes that are SAD are more likely to use a move wasting turn and not attack as well as offer less EXP and CLAMS upon defeat. An optimal strategy in using this emotion would be to inflict it upon Omori, who can then use moves that stack onto this effect like STAB or SHUN which can work around an opponent's defenses. It can also be advisable to use it on Hero, the healer of the group who tends to move last, so as to increase his defense.
AFRAID
Aside from the three main emotions, there exists a separate one that can occur under certain circumstances known as AFRAID. Someone who is AFRAID is unable to use any of their skills or abilities, or even use follow-up attacks with allies, and it will increase the amount of damage taken to them by foes who have an emotion that is not NEUTRAL. It is generally not possible to inflict AFRAID on yourself or an ally, nor would it be advisable to do so given that it has no positive benefits and locks out all of your skills. However, Omori is capable of inflicting AFRAID in his final boss fight. Something worth noting about this emotion is that it seems to refer to a specific level of fear that one can have rather than just the general feeling of being afraid - during the fight with Humphrey, Aubrey admits that she is scared, but she does not have the AFRAID status effect. Despite this, she can still be given the AFRAID emotion by Creepypasta, Hushpuppy and the SOMETHINGs that you battle in the Hikkiomori route in the piano room. Something else worth pointing out is that while as Omori, he cannot actually become AFRAID by anything, and any attempts to do so will simply fail.
STRESSED OUT
This emotion is only seen once throughout the entire game, and is technically a higher level of AFRAID, but it is somewhat distinct from the previous emotion. Sunny was pushed to this emotion during his fight with Basil and his SOMETHING in the real world, and the necessary perquisites to activate it seem to be related to how high his heart rate may become during a fight. When it reaches a certain intensity, Sunny enters into a panic which increases his attack by a lot while also significantly decreasing his defense.
SKILLS
(TN by BossRunner)
SKILLS are essentially just special abilities that people in Omori can use. Usually, they require spending JUICE, the game's version of MP or energy. Obviously, the concept of SKILLS is very broad, though the majority of them either involve another way of attacking or inducing a status effect, or both. There are several exceptions, however.
SAD POEM
By reading an apparently very sad poem, Omori can influence the opponent, himself or any of his allies into being given the SAD emotion. It costs five juice, and will specifically raise their SAD level by one.
GUARD
GUARD is a skill that actually requires no JUICE to use. If Omori uses this, then he will automatically act first in the proceeding turn, reducing his damage taken by any attack that follows. Not only Omori, but the rest of his allies are also able to use this move if they need to.
STAB
By using up 15 JUICE, Omori can STAB the opponent with his knife. Not only does it do more damage than his normal attacks by always dealing a critical hit, but if Omori uses this while SAD it will ignore the defense of the opponent. Very dangerous indeed…
BREAD SLICE
The BREAD SLICE costs Omori 10 JUICE, and it deals slightly more damage than his normal attacks. If this attack defeats the opponent, then Omori will gain bread, somehow. Very useful if he wants to supply himself with more healing items.
MOCK
MOCK deals more damage than Omori's regular attacks, and it costs 20 JUICE to use. If Omori uses MOCK on an opponent who is ANGRY, then it will also reduce their attack significantly. How rude.
HACK AWAY
HACK AWAY costs 30 JUICE, and by using it Omori will attack thrice in one turn, slashing at random enemies. In addition, if Omori is ANGRY, they will take slightly more damage from this attack.
OBSERVE
A BIG SPOOKY EYEBALL appears and Omori will then be able to know the opponent's next move and who they will attack in the succeeding turn. It doesn't cost any juice to use, but it forgoes a turn for Omori when he could have otherwise attacked.
LUCKY SLICE
LUCKY SLICE is a move that requires 15 JUICE to use and does slightly weaker damage than normal, however it also automatically allows Omori to attack first in the turn. This attack will deal more damage if Omori is HAPPY, and its damage is also partially dependent on Omori's luck.
TRICK
TRICK deals significantly more damage than regular attacks, and it will cost 20 JUICE. If the opponent is HAPPY, then TRICK will also greatly reduce their speed.
PAINFUL TRUTH
PAINFUL TRUTH is an attack that will deal the same amount of damage as a normal attack, and it will cost 10 JUICE. In exchange, PAINFUL TRUTH will cause both Omori and the opponent he attacked to increase a SAD level, making them both SAD.
SHUN
SHUN will deal more damage to the opponent than Omori's regular attacks do, and it will also greatly reduce the opponent's speed if they have a SAD emotion. SHUN will cost 20 JUICE.
STARE
STARE deals no damage to the opponent, yet it will also cost a whopping 45 JUICE. So what's the use? By using STARE, Omori will reduce all of the opponent's stats in one move, which will obviously be a major setback for his foe. Quite a menacing move.
EXPLOIT
This is an attack that will deal more damage than Omori's regular attacks and also cost 30 JUICE. If the opponent has a HAPPY, SAD or ANGRY emotion, then EXPLOIT will deal significantly more damage. Something about this move feels wrong…
FINAL STRIKE
This is Omori's… Not actually the final move, but it is still pretty good. It costs 50 JUICE, and it will damage all foes. Of course, it deals more damage than Omori's normal attack, but it will also deal even more damage based on how high of an emotional level Omori has. For example, if Omori is MISERABLE then he will deal more damage than if he were DEPRESSED, and if he were DEPRESSED then he would deal more damage than if he were SAD, same for every other emotional state he may have.
RED HANDS
The RED HANDS are peculiar, disembodied hands that Omori is able to control at will, and they serve a variety of functions. They are able to form bridges for Omori to cross if need be, but they also are able to transport Omori from one location in his mind to another if he were to become trapped or lost. All he needs to do is touch a RED HAND and his position will be reset back to where he originally was.
Of course, more than that, he can use them to attack his foes. Costing 75 JUICE, Omori can swarm his enemies with several RED HANDS, dealing a large amount of damage four times over. He's also used them to restrain Basil by his limbs, keeping him in place while he stabbed him, as well as used them to block Sunny's run UI and prevent him from escaping their battle.
VERTIGO
Exclusive To the Hikikomori route, after defeating SOMETHING IN THE DARK while in Headspace, Omori can utilize the power of this fear of heights for himself. Costing 45 JUICE, VERTIGO attacks all opponents and deals damage based on Omori's speed. In addition, it will also greatly reduce the opponent's attack.
CRIPPLE
Exclusive To the Hikikomori route, after defeating SOMETHING IN THE WALLS while in Headspace, Omori can utilize the power of this fear of spiders for himself. Costing 45 JUICE, CRIPPLE will deal a large amount of damage to every foe while also greatly reducing their speed.
SUFFOCATE
Exclusive To the Hikikomori route, after defeating SOMETHING IN THE WATER while in Headspace, Omori can utilize the power of this fear of drowning for himself. Costing 45 JUICE, SUFFOCATE will deal 400 damage to every enemy on screen while also greatly reducing their defense.
FOLLOW-UPs
(TN by BossRunner)
Follow-up moves are basically a bonus action that Omori (or his friend) can perform after doing a normal attack. Most follow-ups cost 3 energy (out of maximum 10), which is a stat that is shared between Omori and his friends. Battles start with 3 energy, and 1 energy is gained every time Omori or a friend takes damage (from a foe or by themselves). Despite the fact that a lot of Follow-ups involve teamwork between the crew, Omori himself uses his follow-ups alone (besides “Release Energy!”). The further Omori’s adventure goes, the better connection he makes with his friends, increasing the level (and therefore effectiveness) of their follow-ups.
ATTACK AGAIN
Practically what Omori does here is well…attacks again as the title says. Good move if you want to finish your foe quicker without wasting juice, but not as effective when there are several foes around as Omori attacks randomly. Here are versions of this follow-up:
TRIP
Basically Omori trips foes dealing not as much damage as average attack but also lowering foe’s speed, and even making it SAD at higher levels. Trick is same as with attack again, is that if there are multiple foes Omori will choose randomly. Here are versions of this follow-up:
RELEASE ENERGY
Practically one of the strongest Omori’s moves when it comes to raw power. Though it requires him to store energy up to ten and keep all his friends alive, after enough build up, Omori can use that move to do a big combo which involves all his party members, dealing enormous damage to the opponent. Though unlike all other Follow-ups, this one not only isn’t level dependent, but also has 2 versions that vary on which party member Omori is fighting with against his threats. That being either classic 3 - Aubrey, Kel and Hero, or Basil himself, after saving him from Black Space in Hikikomori route (though that one is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch version of Omori). Here are versions of this follow-up:
RED HAND ATTACK
Much like RED HANDS, Omori can use giant disembodied red hands to “erase” his opponent. It deals more damage than RED HANDS, and it will also decrease the opponent's defense.
HAIR ATTACK
Omori can summon a large swath of hair to injure his opponent. Doing so will do the same amount of damage as his RED HAND ATTACK, but it will also decrease all of the opponent's stats as opposed to just their defense.
MARI ATTACK
Presenting a visage of Mari's corpse, Omori attacks the opponent, dealing the same amount of damage as before but now also inducing AFRAID. As Omori gets more powerful, this AFRAID status effect is so powerful that not even Sunny using CALM DOWN will be able to subdue it, as it will fail to work while we see SOMETHING surround Sunny.
FINAL ATTACK
Omori’s final final attack (for real this time), Omori morphs into dozens of red appendages to attack his opponent. This will deal more damage than any of Omori's other attacks in addition to greatly reducing the opponent's defense, and also inflicting AFRAID. Like MARI ATTACK, it can prevent Sunny from using CALM DOWN after causing him to become AFRAID.
Plot Armor
Usually, when Omori reaches 0 HEART, he will persist from death and be able to continue fighting until he is defeated again. This is in contrast to his other party members, who turn into toast when they die and can be revived. In the final battle with Sunny however, whenever Omori reached 0 HEART, he not only continued fighting but his entire HEART and JUICE meters would completely recover as well as cause his stats to increase, and he can continue doing this seemingly indefinitely.
Continuing after death is actually a very common thing for Omori. In Orange Oasis, after he died, he then recovered for seemingly no explicable reason. In fact, Omori has even used this fact to his advantage - whenever he gets trapped in an area, Omori can stab himself to death, resulting in a new body for him to be formed in a different location. (Content warning, this previous link depicts sprited animal mutilation.) This makes sense, as Omori is just an avatar that Sunny, the dreamer uses for himself while in Headspace. As dying in his own mind does not kill Sunny, he can simply continue making new vessels for himself to use without limit, regardless of the level of physical destruction Omori endures or how many times he may die. Omori is a manifestation of Sunny's guilt and desire for escapism - as long as it exists, Omori will continue to persist.
Resistances
Mind Manipulation: Although the majority of skills that can change a person's emotion are performed through circumstantial actions and are not direct mind control, certain enemies (such as the Lab Rat, the Sea Witches and Perfect Heart) clearly change the party's emotions by chemical or otherwise forceful means. As the Paper Bag resists these effects, Omori is able to become immune to mental manipulation.
Fear Manipulation: Omori is the only person in the main party who is incapable of feeling the AFRAID emotion by either the SOMETHINGs or the Creepy Pasta. Earlier in the game, Omori did possess a fear of water, heights and spiders due to an innate fear from Sunny, but he has since overcome them.
Transmutation: In Rain Town, if Omori sits in a patch of dirt for long enough he can turn into a potato. He can turn himself back to normal by simply walking away. Yes, that's all, that's his resistance feat.
Mindscapes
Psychonauts
Mental World
Mental Worlds, also known as mindscapes, refer to both the realm in which peoples' minds are physically manifested as well as the minds themselves. Psychics are able to access a person's mental world and manipulate it in order to affect a person's psyche or actions in the real world. Mental worlds can be greatly manipulated by psychics, whether intentionally or not.
Mental worlds can be controlled by the host if they have sufficient control over their own psyche and obviously are aware of being capable of doing it (for instance, within his own Mental World Raz was able to create objects he wants to burn), although control can be easily lost and hard to regain. Take it as a form of reality warping in a way.
Mental Worlds additionally may not only differ from real one by the looks but also by some functions, for instance gravity often can work differently than commonly, whether it be slow fall, or change of object body will be gravitationally leaning to due to another object having its own gravity - Ford’s Graveyard, Strike City, Milkman Conspiracy, Hollis’ Hot Streak and more fall down as examples of that. Some mindscapes may be manipulated or intentionally created by the host mind to assist, deceive, or entertain the visiting psychic(s). Like how part of Millia's Mental World is a dance party made for entertainment of kids in the camp, or how Sasha’s entire course assisted Raz in training him with PSI-Blast, and etc.
Mental worlds can sometimes contain fabricated information created by the host mind or the visiting psychic(s). Examples of false information inside a mental world would be in Basic Braining, where the host mind was deceiving the psychic visitors with false memories, in this case being Oleander’s “war memories” where he constantly fought on various occasions and “was tall”, when in reality he wasn’t really accepted at any military place due to his short size (in other words this is a phenomenon we in modern society call as fake scans). Other examples are the beginning scene of Loboto's Mind in Psychonauts 2 where invading psychics now were deceiving the host mind (Loboto himself) with a false location, that being an office setting, which was made up by Sasha to make Loboto subconsciously give away specific important information, in this case being an information on who hired him to perform a kidnapping. Another example can also be The Milkman in The Milkman Conspiracy and Kochamara in Lungfishopolis both of which are case of new mental figures created by an invading psychic - former by Oleander manipulating Boyd’s mind, and therefore creating a “alter ego” - The Milkman with a programmed purpose of destroying asylum to erase evidence when needed, and the latter was done by brainwashing Linda to kidnap childrens’ brains, which she manages to perform throughout the entire day without being noticed or suspected by anyone (except Raz).
The characteristics of a true unaltered Mental World represent real parts of the character's personality and experiences - often taking inspiration from person’s memories, validity of which usually depends on person themself and their bias during experience. A mix of a person's character and memories makes each Mental World unique by its nature, often portraying common everyday places in their own unnatural way. The Board game where you play against your other self, a world full of worlds inside of books, a planet which has deep stories told within the bottom of the giant bottles, a theater which switches its plot and genre on fly, a medical themed casino, an entire cookshow, a city inside of a shoe full of bacterias where the incoming apocalypse ending their city loops in an endless cycle. All of that and infinitely more is possible to happen inside of a Mental World, possibilities are pretty much naturally infinite. True traits can often leak into a fabricated world by accident, ex: the military rabbits in Basic Braining which are related to Oleander’s past with rabbits.
These worlds inside of a mind are not limited to humans alone. Animals such as Linda have shown to have complicated and large mindscapes just like humans, meaning any living creature without an exception really can have a Mental World with the most important thing for it to exist and/or be possible to be visited by psychic(s) being the existence of the consciousness (in words of René Descartes - “I think, therefore I am”).
Psychics can enter mental worlds using the aforementioned Astral Projection. While in the Mental World, psychics can meet and interact with various mental figures - extensions or personifications of the host mind's personality or recreations of people from their own life. Mental Worlds typically represent one individual's single mind, however, under abnormal circumstances can represent multiple minds fused together. Known Mental World formed from more than one brain is the Meat Circus - a fusion of 2 Mental Worlds formed by Raz’s and Oleander’s psyche. Another example can be notable if a person experiences dissociative identity disorder, in which case each personality can have its own personal Mental World with its own characteristics.
Psychics can either harm or heal the mental health of the host mind depending on how they interact with the mental world. If a psychic’s goal is to make a person crazy, give them a mental illness and make them lose control, etc. they can do so by using Mental Connection in harmful ways for instance. If a psychic's goal is to provide a person a form of therapy to mentally recover them however, they usually do so by interacting with Mental Figures and fighting manifested harmful entities such as Doubts, Regrets, Fears and more. Psychics also can unlock someone's repressed memories by exploring their Mental World more deeply. Once a psychic has entered a mind, they can return anytime through the Collective Unconscious, but before going to that topic, let’s look at some other notable features of the Mental Worlds:
Mental Figments
“Relax, that's just a figment of my imagination.”
Figments are physical manifestations of a mind's imagination which appear all throughout mental worlds. Usually they appear as floating two-dimensional illustrations that exist in a person's psyche and differ in color and appearance. They typically represent something the host imagines might be present in their mental world, but doesn't currently think about strongly enough for them to be a physical feature or mental figure. Hence they serve no harm and can be just passed through. Often they are stationary and almost transparent though they can occasionally fly around depending on the situation, some figments also may talk, but they still don’t really do much functions outside of that. The more figments Raz collects across Mental Worlds, the further Raz’s psychic powers develop.
Mental Figures
“I am the Milkman, my milk is delicious”
(Art by u/DontWeDoItInTheRoad)
Mental figures, broadly speaking, are animate entities that originate from and exist solely inside mental worlds. They can come in essentially any form, limited only by the imagination of the mental world's host - human, dragon, insect, tooth, fish, puppet, any food imaginable, dogs that are artists, figurines warriors, geometrical figures, worms, microbes, plants, examples can go as far as our own human imagination can allow. Some of them appear fully sentient, with their own complex goals and desires, whereas others are driven only by simple objectives, and yet others are seemingly only around to liven up the mental landscape they can be found inside. Many Mental Figures are unique to their own host mind, and are directly based on the host's experiences in life, but there are also types of mental figures that exist as fundamental parts of all (or at least most) minds.
Inside the mental world, mental figures usually have very particular purposes and roles to occupy, as each one typically represents some (small or large, less or more abstract or complex) part of the mind they exist inside, such as an emotion, a memory, a basic defense mechanism, a person and so on. Mental figures deviating from their normal roles (for example those that are overly dominant or even entirely absent), can represent some sort of mental problem in the host. At the same time, some mental figures' very presence is a problem, and the host mind is better off when they are gone, ex: Gloria’s inner critic which is caused by critics crucifying her is basically manifestation of her mood switch, as long as Critic’s harmful criticism affects Gloria, Gloria can’t really deal with the mood switch. Another example may be Napoleon Bonnaparte, or if being more blunt his made up copy, who was a second persona of Fred Bonnaparte, Napoleon’s presence was representing Fred’s desire to succeed and as long as Fred wasn’t able to get off from his learned helplessness and desire to win himself, Napoleon wouldn’t have left Fred. The Moth represented Bob Zannoto’s escapism into alcoholism and as long as it existed, Bob couldn’t deal with his alcoholism, Lady Luctopus a Mental Figure created by Raz represented Hollis’ gambling addiction which needed to be dealt with to deal with said gambling addiction, almost every Mental World Raz has visited had at least one of these problematic Mental Figures that he has dealt with, both directly and not.
Much like mental worlds themselves, mental figures can exist in all shapes and sizes, depending on the mind that created them. They can play all sorts of different roles and interact in all sorts of ways with each other, the host mind, and psychics visiting the mental world using Astral Projection. The one constant for all mental figures seen so far is that they cannot exit the mental world.
In addition to the mind's usual state of affairs sometimes leading to the "death" of mental figures, particularly they can be defeated and destroyed by visiting psychics.
It is possible to create mental figures, as well as locations, in another person's mind through the use of psychic abilities and/or hypnotic suggestion. Everyone’s favorite Milkman was created through hypnotic suggestion and manifested as a special program inside of Boyd's mind. As well as Lady Luctopus as stated above was created by Razputin through Mental Connection based on the concept of Risk and Money connected to each other..
Among the wide variety of mental figures seen across the Psychonauts series, some particular recurring types can be distinguished. Due to the endless variety in the possible appearance and role of mental figures, a single one may fit into more than one of these categories.
Systemic Mental Figure
These types of mental figures are representations of some basic element of the mind, one that is found (or at least can occur) in most minds. As a result, they are generally not unique, usually appearing similar across most minds, with consistent and generally straightforward objectives. When they are very prominently present (in other words exist before psychic even visited the brain), this may have something to say about the host's mind or their current emotional state; but often their absence (despite visiting psychic’s presence) can be equally telling. Many of the basic enemies in the Psychonauts series are this type of mental figures (See more in Support and Obstacles/Enemies sections).
Memory Replicas
Just as some areas in mental worlds are direct replicas of a person's memories of a place, many mental figures are based on a real-world person, as the mind's host remembers them. Due to the very nature of memories, all of these mental figures are remembered with some amount of bias. Some are quite realistic, strongly resembling their real-world counterparts; such as Bob's memories of Otto and Truman, which while differ in terms of personality between real Otto and Truman, visually look and sound exactly like the original, and some are much more obviously unrealistic or romanticized, like Edgar's memories of his classmates Lana and Dean as a flamenco dancer and matador (while in reality they were just cheerleaders), respectively, or for instance Bob's interpretation of his grandkid Lili Zanotto, who visually looks exactly same as real world Lili, but due to Bob only seeing her through a photo and never actually interacting with Lili, the only thing that is accurate are her looks, having nearly no character, different voice and etc. Or Raz's portrayal of his father shows a clear difference between how Raz remembered him and how he actually looks. In summary, accuracy of memory replicas in their design, powers and character depends entirely from person to person and how accurate or biased their memories are.
Inner Selves
Most minds have at least one primary inner version of the host mind's consciousness, that often (though not always) looks identical to the host's physical body in the real world. Technically, this is also a mental figure. Additionally, while all mental figures speak for the host on some level, many minds have mental figures that are more directly linked to their own ego or the way they see themselves. Bonita Soleil, for instance, is a personification of Gloria's "inner sunshine"—everything she likes about herself (whereas Gloria's primary inner self is absent). Bob's Bulb Bobs, meanwhile, represent Bob's disgust with himself.
Psychics who have learned the aforementioned Mental Projection ability can summon inner selves—specifically Archetypes, parts of their own personality needed to play certain roles in life—into the real world as two-dimensional assistants. Like Cassie O'Pia who basically separated her personalities into 4 Mental Projections/Archetypes.
Living Figments
Some mental figures don't seem to represent too much in particular. Much like figments, figures such as the Party Dancers in Milla's mind or the Meat Men in the Meat Circus, various spies in Milkman Conspiracy, visitors of PSI-King’s concert, etc. They all seemingly exist mostly to decorate the mental landscape for a fitting setting. Overall kind of like, partial representation rather than something more direct.
Collective Unconscious
If every mind has a doorway into it, then this is the hallway, and considering the amount of existing minds/brains on Earth alone, taking into account every single human, animal and living creature in general, this hallway might as well be literally endless (which in a way is suggested by one of the concept arts in Official Artbook of Psychonauts 2).
The Collective Unconscious (also known as Astral Plane) houses not only locked doors to all other minds, but also an open entry point into every mind Raz has visited throughout his adventure. This includes every mind in both Psychonauts 1, Rhombus of Ruin and 2. They’re possible to visit by using Brain Tumbler or PSI-Popper Generator.
Omori
HEADSPACE
“So you've chosen to live that way. I wonder... Can you really call that living?”
HEADSPACE is presented as an imaginary world created by Sunny which is possible to be visited whenever Sunny is sleeping. The tragedy related to Mari’s death traumatized Sunny to the point that he stopped having contact with his friends and going to school in a span of 4 years, essentially becoming a hikikomori (in other words total withdrawal from society with extreme social isolation). While in this state of separating himself from the outside world Sunny repressed his memories of the night when Mari died, choosing to live in this colorful world of HEADSPACE instead.
Given that HEADSPACE was basically created by his mind’s pure imagination, it contains lots of phenomenons that normally don’t exist in the real world - a moon that is connected to an island through a ladder, society of sprout moles living in an underground village, a hotel which is ran by alligators and a boss shark deep under the sea, all of that and far more is possible to find in HEADSPACE . Quite a colorful place with one purpose - to escape from reality and instead relive the happier moments of his life, with younger versions of his friends still together and happy, as well as Mari still being alive. However, despite his subconscious efforts of trying to keep the truth locked away, not even a human's imagination can hide secrets for too long… as another ‘world’ called BLACK SPACE has continued to try and reveal various repressed memories within HEADSPACE.
According to Mr. Outback, some version of Headspace has existed since the beginning of time. Although he could just be referring to when time began in their own universe (being Headspace), he also states that he himself is 33,000 years old, which may indicate that time moves differently in Headspace relative to the real world. Everyone is capable of creating Headspace given the correct circumstances, but it will appear different depending on the person and the circumstances around it. As Sunny created Headspace and it exists as a parallel to a dream, Omori may have control over Headspace as any lucid dreamer would have over a dream, however he rarely shows this.
HEADSPACE LOCATIONS
As you might have expected, HEADSPACE itself is really big, you can’t define it by just a few sentences of explanation alone, as if it's just a really big place to verify the cosmic feat in some cosmology section like you'd expect normally (that would be at the very least, just really not interesting, wouldn't it). In fact, it is a whole universe filled with many different locations, each with unique properties. As much as each Mental World in Psychonauts has either some deep meaning or potential detail about its host, there is simply too much stuff Sunny imagined to put into one place and explain. Which is why we’ll be showing all notable areas of HEADSPACE that can be visited in this fight, as Omori manifests virtually everything that exists in Headspace.
For the discussion of this matchup, it is imperative that the locations inside of Headspace are discussed, covered and considered for reasons that will be apparent later in the blog - doing so and covering the world of Headspace and the rest of Sunny's mind is actually incredibly important for this fight. Starting from the place where Omori’s adventure normally begins…
NEIGHBOR'S ROOM
NEIGHBOR'S ROOM presents itself as a room where Omori’s nearby neighbors: Aubrey, Kel and Hero live, usually playing with whatever is in the room, like cards.This is also a place where BIG YELLOW CAT - the favorite of “three great creatures” of Headspace resides. The room is vibrant and colorful, as well as contains lots of objects that resemble Sunny’s toys he used to play with in the past.
From here is where the adventure of Omori and his friends starts and continuously repeats. Similarly to a good amount of Headspace locations, Neighbour’s Room in particular likely took main inspiration from Sunny’s Treehouse where he and his childhood friends used to spend a lot of time in, either playing games with each other, decorating it with more items or just having fun:
A TV that doesn’t show anything, yellow cat calendar, baseball bat & ball, cards which Sunny’s friends were playing with, all of that and a bit more was the neighbor's room’s main inspiration.
VAST FOREST
The Vast Forest is the first location that Omori will find after leaving Neighbor’s Room, and it comprises most of the main world that Omori lives in as well. It is a massive forest filled with low level enemies such as bunnies and basic Sprout Moles, and it seems to be where Omori and his friends spend most of their time when not adventuring - having picnics and playing like normal children.
FOREST PLAYGROUND
The Forest Playground is where Omori and his friends, as well as some other colorful characters, come together to play and laze around. It's not usually very dangerous (exception being Boss) and is just a simple retreat for Omori to go to. It seems to be based off of the playground in the real world in Faraway Park.
Which can be noted not only through the playground itself but also the various children who play in said playground, most blatant example being Berly, Van, Mikal, Sharleen and Neb all being inspirations from the real world group of hooligans, each of which Sunny encounters in Sunny Route.
BASIL’S HOUSE
Deep in the forest is Basil's house, a giant shoe. Omori and his friends went to his house in the beginning of the game, which led to the Headspace version of Basil remembering the Truth and being sent to Black Space as a result. After Basil disappears, the floor in his house will begin to sink as the rest of the area will slowly deteriorate over time. If Omori collects all the correct keys in the Hangman, then the floor will give way to an entrance to Black Space, which Omori can jump into, despite the resistance of his friends. Doing so will take him right to the main hub of Black Space.
Nearby Basil's house is his garden of flowers, each collection representing one of Omori’s friends and himself. By watering them, Omori has the chance of raising either his or one of his friends' stats. There aren't any major threats around here, though in the beginning of the game some Sprout Moles and Ye Old Sprout will appear in the pathway to Basil's house. After every key has been found, the pathway will also change considerably from how it was before.
TRAIN STATION
The Train Station is an area in the Vast Forest that one can go to where several friendly characters exist, such as a leaf that will give Omori things in exchange for killing bunnies, a stationary musician and someone manning a Lemonade stand. Once the area is more empty, Omori and his group are able to actually use the train, which only moves from the Vast Forest to Orange Oasis. While raiding the train however, Omori and his group will encounter SOMETHINGs that may pose a serious threat to them, making everyone but Omori AFRAID. Aside from them, Omori can't encounter any enemies from here. Well, unless a Sprout Mole decides that it has become lost while there…
PINWHEEL FOREST
By climbing a ladder to a higher location within Vast Forest, Omori discovers a secluded spot of land where there exists multiple large pinwheels, a perfect place to fly a kite, even if it is rather cold. Here, he can also choose to battle Kite Kid and his kite.
OTHERWORLD
Otherworld is an entirely different planet that exists somewhere off in space, which Omori and his friends are able to reach by climbing a ladder from the Vast Forest, which is something that can be done once Omori will no longer be afraid of heights. Otherworld has been filled and polluted with trash, so they would kindly ask you to recycle your products while there if possible. Otherworld exists as a resting stop for any space travelers to go, so it has many aliens and unique visitors roaming its land.
SPACE BOYFRIEND’S HOUSE
On Otherworld, Captain Space Boyfriend has resided here with his ship, no longer feeling his drive for adventure. His ship is able to carry him and his crew across the cosmos, and on Otherworld he keeps it stationed somewhere along his house with a hallway that contains a planetarium of miniature Planets which Captain Space Boyfriend keeps in his possession. Lately however he's just been staying in bed all day. At the end of his planetarium is a pathway to another end of Otherworld, allowing Omori and his friends to access the Junkyard.
CATTAIL FIELD
On the opposing side away from the Junkyard exists Cattail Field, a large field that is somewhat easy to get lost in. In it are a few enemies such as the U.F.O. and the Shark Plane, and it provides an access point to the Sprout Mole colony on Otherworld, the main picnic area, and the outskirts of Otherworld. Deeper in it also resides a barn that seems to always be locked. Inside it is one of the Hangman Keys, as well as a grim glimpse into reality.
FROZEN LAKE
Frozen Lake is an area located on Otherworld that connects the main planet of Otherworld with Snowglobe Mountain. It isn't a very hostile area, and is a good place for fishing, in addition to the sno-cone stand and a place to get shaved ice.
SPROUT MOLE COLONY
The Sprout Mole Colony on Otherworld is the original location of the Sprout Moles before many of them migrated to the Pyrefly Forest. I guess this means Sprout Moles are aliens??? Some Sprout Moles still inhabit this colony however, but there isn't very much to do here.
JUNKYARD
The Junkyard comprises most of the area you can explore in Otherworld, being the planet's massive garbage dump. It covers a very long path and is filled with various enemies, many of whom are retro relics of a bygone era. There are also many items to be found in the storage areas locked up here, as well as a resting spot to examine the moon from Otherworld.
ORANGE OASIS
By traveling through the Train Station in the Vast Forest, Omori and his friends can reach Orange Oasis, a vocational area occupied by food themed items and people. The enemies are all food themed, many of the inhabitants are also a form of food item, even the sand you walk on is a brown sugar, the water is orange juice and many of the structures are made from bread or other food items. The Orange Oasis is a completely optional area, however coming here will supply Omori and his allies with very useful items and experience for their journey.
DINO’S DIG
Dino Dig is a pyramid in Orange Oasis run by DINOSAURS! In this area, Omori and his friends may pay to enter Dino Dig where they can fight powerful enemies while also collecting useful items, of which there are an abundance of. Dino Dig has several floors inside of it, and if they reach the top, Omori may encounter a chicken that will leave behind a Chicken Ball if defeated, an extremely powerful weapon for Kel.
BREAVEN
Opened after performing mole sacrifice, Omori and his friends can arrive at Breaven, a strange area underneath Orange Oasis where the Unbread Twins are doomed to bake bread for eternity. After defeating them, they will decide to leave into the outside world. Aside from the Unbread Twins, there are no enemies to face here.
RAIN TOWN
Rain Town is a small patch of land that can be accessed from staring at the “water” in Orange Oasis. Doing so will transport Omori and his friends to a small town of vegetable people where it is always raining, causing the Veggie Kids much discomfort. There is a valve that controls the rain, but only the chosen one can turn it. If Omori turns the valve right then the rain will loosen, and he will become the hero of Rain Town, leading to a Veggie Kid joining him on his journey as a charm. If he turns the valve left however, then Rain Town will become flooded, and the inhabitants will never be seen again. Revisiting Rain Town after flooding it, Omori will see multiple LILI SOMETHINGs appear that are ready to fight him.
PYREFLY FOREST
From the Vast Forest, Omori can reach the Pyrefly Forest, a large pathway leading up to Sweetheart's Castle filled with many grotesque spider based enemies, of whom Hero is AFRAID of. There is also a Weeping Willow who can be told jokes in exchange for a powerful weapon, and a few other characters in the forest who may ask Omori to do quests for them along the forest is a railway track which, if unblocked, will carry the crew across the forest to the other side of it. The whole forest is basically covered in fog and spider’s webs, and can only be visited by Omori and his crew once he himself won’t be afraid of spiders. At the end of the forest is a dangerous boss enemy who preys on Sprout Moles called the King Crawler.
LOST FOREST
Through a hidden path in the Pyrefly Forest exists a secluded area called the Lost Forest. Here, there exist many paths, though only one will progress the group forward, as all the others will cause them to loop back to the start. Omori and his friends will be accompanied by a mysterious figure known as Daddy Longlegs, who seems to possess knowledge of the nature of Headspace and will inform them of it as they progress. The Lost Forest doesn't have very many enemies, but the correct path will be protected by Ghost Bunnies who will attack the party if they interact.
SPROUT MOLE VILLAGE
Having migrated from the Sprout Mole Colony on Otherworld, many Sprout Moles live in a small village at the end of Pyrefly Forest which connects to the show stage in Sweetheart's Castle. As they are not lost, the Sprout Moles here are not hostile, but there does exist a rather powerful monster hidden somewhere in this village. The Sprout Mole Village has a thriving culture based off of tofu and Sweetheart, and pretty much nothing else. While here, the party can do quests for the Sprout Moles, or obtain items from them.
SWEETHEART'S CASTLE
At the end of Pyrefly Forest is a massive pink castle that serves as Sweetheart's own personal residence. This area is crafted by the Keeper of the Castle, who built it off of Sweetheart’s desires. If Sweetheart were to leave, then he will offer to turn the castle into something else that fits Omori's desires, transforming the castle into a small replica of Sunny's living room in the real world.
While it belongs to Sweetheart however, it is massive and gaudy, with several Sprout Moles serving different occupations there such as singing and cooking, and there is even a library and a movie theater there. The castle is also heavily guarded by formidable Sprout Moles trained to be far stronger than the average Lost Sprout Mole.
THE DUNGEON
Deep within Sweetheart's Castle is the Dungeon, where she sends all those who oppose her or slightly annoy her to rot forever. Fortunately, it's not very secure, so prisoners can just open the gates from the inside. Inside the dungeon are multiple guards and items, and it will require maneuvering around the area towards different levels to fully escape the dungeon.
SWEETHEART’S GARDEN
At the front of Sweetheart’s Castle is her garden, a small area with an entrance blocked off by vines. In the center of the garden is a massive statue blocking the way to the Fanmail Graveyard, which leads back to her show room. In order to get past the statue, you need to repeat the correct password - otherwise, a large beam will damage Omori. Four guards know a part of the password, though they are in corners blocked off by other statues that shoot lasers at those who pass by. Inside the Fanmail Graveyard are hordes of unread fan mail to Sweetheart, as well as a blocked off room belonging to Rococo, a former lover of Sweetheart who has been living in the walls of her castle ever since. Also connected to the garden is a room with a gate to… a lot of Rare Bears.
HIDDEN LIBRARY
Underneath Sweetheart's showroom is a massive hole on the stage that will lead to a forgotten library, filled with ancient books that only collect dust, and essentially present themselves as Sunny’s long forgotten memories. From here, Omori can read passages that describe past events of his life as Sunny, only with his and his friend's names etched out. In the Hikkiomori route, Omori can return to this area later and several SOMETHINGs will invade the library, which will attack Omori and his party if they encounter each other. At the end of the library is a passageway to the piano room, where there is an old picnic basket and a piano with “OMORI” written on it. Here, Omori can yet again battle the three SOMETHINGs that embody his fears, this time being able to deal meaningful damage to them and defeat them by normal combat. After this is done, the piano will disappear and the passages of his past memories will be scribbled out, meaning Omori would have finally fully repressed his memories of Mari's death and his real life.
NORTH LAKE
The North Lake is an area to the north of the Vast Forest that is filled with several run down houses and a lighthouse, as well as shadowy figures of people whose identity is unclear. This area contains several hints and allusions to the truth, and is where Omori is talked to by Mari's spirit. When this area is available, a fog covers the entirety of Headspace. The end of the lake takes Omori to a well that leads down to the Underwater Highway, and upon returning, the entire area of the North Lake will be gone, instead having a much smaller body of water that leads to the well.
UNDERWATER HIGHWAY
Leading down from a well in the North Lake is the Underwater Highway, which leads to two paths. Moving to the left, Omori's path is obstructed by blockades managed by Gator Guys behind a toll booth. They will not let him pass unless he has his full party with him, and even then they will charge absurd prices to open their gates. However, Omori can take a different route if he wishes to get around without having to spend clams. This route will be filled with a large number of powerful enemies, so you can't get somewhere without hurting a little bit. This area will also have restaurants and several people that may give Omori quests or give items to him. If he reaches the end, he will make his way to the Deeper Well.
Moving to the left, Omori and his friends will have to travel through the Endless Highway, which will loop them back to the beginning of the road every time they attempt to move to the next screen. In order to progress, they need to take a Gator Cab, which will drive them to the Last Resort.
LAST RESORT
The Last Resort is a resort spot with a casino and hotels, owned and operated by Mr. Jawsum, a loan shark. Outside of the resort is a picnic, a shop, a portal to a ghost party area, several shady individuals trying to sell Omori questionable products, and a toilet that will send Omori and his party directly to the Deeper Well and back. The inside of the resort is guarded by several Gator Guys that will attack you if they catch you, but are otherwise working on other operations. Mr. Jawsum's office is at the top of the resort.
DEEPER WELL
Deeper Well is an area past the Underwater Highway, a dark, underwater cavern lit up by colorful floral and neon ground as well as waterfalls. The flora are capable of speaking, though can only be understood by Omori, and will show to have knowledge regarding the truth and the nature of Sunny’s acts, as well as the effects of his fading memories on Headspace. Eventually, Omori will encounter a large coral shaped like a tree called the Branch Coral, who will inform him of aspects of Headspace, as well as offer him a sacrifice to make himself stronger. If accepted, Omori will eat an apple that resembles Sunny's face, causing all of his stats to increase. After this, the Branch Coral will perish. At the end of the Deeper Well, Omori can access a portal to take him to the Last Resort and back, and can enter Humphrey's domain.
HUMPHREY
Humphrey is one of Sunny's first three imaginary friends and resides in the Deeper Well. The reason he is in the Headspace Locations section is because Omori and his party can enter Humphrey's body and explore his insides, which is the home of three sea witches. Inside of Humphrey, Humphrey has multiple forms of him that exist and can talk and act at once as pink appendages, and will operate mostly everything inside of his body. From here, he can talk to the party, as well as transport them to different locations inside of himself. Because his stomach acid covers much of his insides, Omori needs to use a raft to travel across.
There are three pathways to take at the center of Humphrey. The pathway to the left will take Omori and his party to Molly's sector. Molly is one of the three sea witches and focuses primarily on robotics and technology, so many of the enemies faced here are mechanical while to get out of it you need to use your wits and solve her deadly puzzles. The pathway to the north will take Omori and his party to Medusa's sector, who creates completely new biological creatures, a path to which involves traveling across aforementioned acid, normally using a boat. The pathway to the right will take Omori and his party to Marina's sector. Marina's experiments involve stitching together already living organisms, and they can be somewhat faulty…
Humphrey must be fed clams occasionally by the sea witches. If he is not fed in time, then he will instead eat the sea witches, as well as any other guests that may be staying there, triggering a battle with him. After defeating Humphrey and returning later, Omori and the party are allowed to re-enter his body and exit whenever they want.
BOSS RUSH
Inside of Humphrey is a room called Boss Rush, where Omori and his friends (including Basil) may enter to try and battle a stronger version of every boss in the game. They must defeat the bosses with the items they carry into it and with no pit stop, aside from the occasional Life Jam Guy battle where he will offer life jam to you. Boss Rush is even capable of replicating Aubrey, Hero and Kel, allowing you to battle your very own party, but only if Omori takes Basil with him instead of his main party. In a Basil Boss Rush, their final opponent will be Mari, who will not attack them - but defeating her will trigger a memory of her death, causing Omori to reset things back to before he ran the Boss Rush with Basil.
SNOWGLOBE MOUNTAIN
Snowglobe Mountain is a large mountain only accessed through Frozen Lake on Otherworld via a passageway in an igloo, and is only available in the Hikkiomori route. It is a vast expanse of snow with several cave openings, and is full of dangerous enemies - especially in regards to the Snow Angels. At the top of the mountain, Omori will discover a heartbroken Space Ex-Husband mulling his life over. How sad.
THE ABYSS
The Abyss is a secluded area hidden deep underwater only available in the Hikkiomori route. It is accessed by crossing over the Underwater Highway and being guided to the area by a mysterious hitchhiker, and as the deepest area of Headspace, it has a large crossover with Black Space. As such, there are several SOMETHINGs that wander the area ready to attack, as well as large angler fish and large arrays of skeletons of the party from past cycles. This area can only be accessed by collecting every single Hangman key. At the bottom of the Abyss is the entity known as Abbi, one of Sunny's first three imaginary friends, who was locked down in this section of Headspace and stripped of her wisdom for committing a grave infraction against the dreamer.
WHITE SPACE
“Welcome to WHITE SPACE. You have been living here for as long as you can remember.”
WHITE SPACE is a place where Omori awakens the moment Sunny sleeps. Before HEADSPACE existed, this was a place created by Sunny with the purpose of repressing the truth, creating Omori himself shortly after. Geographically speaking it only really has what you see above: A laptop, sketchbook, tissue box, a black cat named “Mewo”, a door and a light bulb. Everything is bright white, there are no walls, no holes, nothing. There is a floor but it’s always cold. Practically an emptiness, a home without warmth, a place to survive but not to live, serving as a safe-if-sad place for Sunny to escape from harsh reality and responsibility.
Omori spends much of his time resting in White Space as his personal escape from reality. If he tries to veer too far away from White Space, then Red Hands are ready to move him back if necessary. The only ways for Omori to exit White Space are either by using his laptop, exiting through the door to Headspace, or by stabbing himself. If Omori stabs himself while in White Space, then he will awaken in the real world as Sunny.
BLACK SPACE
“Welcome to BLACK SPACE.”
A parallel to WHITE SPACE which harbors Sunny’s repressed fears and memories, contrasting said WHITE SPACE in many ways. If WHITE SPACE is light, simple & empty, BLACK SPACE is dark, complicated & filled with all of the pain that Sunny stored throughout 4 years. Practically BLACK SPACE is the most questionable world within his mind, it is interconnected to ALL other worlds, and ‘anything’ can fall into and out of it willy nilly… the best comparison would be to that of a Limbo Space. While within this world anything inside will be progressively forgotten about by the inhabitants of Headspace, until nobody remembers anything about said person or object. The world has a lot of the same things as Headspace: Deep Oceans, Forests, Starry Skies… uh… Sunny’s House??? There’s a lot of weird stuff going on here, the entire place is full of grotesque imagery, hundreds of separate doors that lead to secluded sub realities, clones of Sunny & his friends, ideas that were NEVER given the chance to manifest, and SO MUCH MORE… SOMETHING is very wrong here. Anything inside Sunny’s mind, no matter where it is, will end up here if Omori thinks it’s harmful to him.
Omori is able to access different areas of Black Space by using keys to open each door, which are accessible in different rooms of Black Space. Once Omori travels through enough rooms in Black Space, another door will become available to him, being the door to Red Space. The hub area of Black Space is also where many Strangers reside (forms of Basil that were sent here in previous cycles) and have transformed into shadowy entities.
BLACK SPACE Locations
As was stated, BLACK SPACE by itself serves as a hub area to many locations within territory of these repressed memories and feelings, and through various means it is possible to visit specific repressed areas of BLACK SPACE either through BLACK SPACE hub itself via doors or through HEADSPACE.
Though it probably is also worth making a quick disclaimer: while we will be talking in detail about what each area consists of, given Omori, as a game, likes to be subtle about its plot, some of the meanings behind the areas may be open for speculation and be interpretational. While these interpretations don’t affect this MU heavily, they do help understand Sunny more from a psychological point of view, which is actually important given the nature of this match.
So big chances are you might have another interpretation to one or few or more than a half of the meanings of what characters and areas are supposed to represent. That is alright, Omori after all is pretty mysterious in its worldbuilding, so it shouldn’t be surprising for some things to have various ways to be interpreted. Hope our (as people who worked on this blog) own shared thoughts on what all these ideas might represent won’t be too far from how it is perceived objectively. With that being said, let’s get to this large variety of locations which will be presented below:
STATIC WORLD
Starting with at some point not as creepy but rather confusing worlds of BLACK SPACE one of the doors leads to. Static world is a world filled with remnants of endless pain & decay, where the background features consist of looping, static images of certain characters that are hard to distinguish, the only ones you can probably recognise entirely are images of Omori himself and SOMETHINGs (though it’s also possible to see real world counterparts if try).
The objects and creatures you see in this area are often distorted and broken in appearance, quite gross all in all. Plants that have either weird shapes of cat or basically a blob that remind you of SOMETHING, at some other point you can find sliced body parts of a human body, on the other side you can find straight up a corpse of a whale. Some of the most notable beings in this area are perhaps Omori himself, or at least his much bigger body with a face that melts away standing on a similarly static puddle, while SOMETHING, goes from its more obscure one eye appearance to more realistic shot, where you can see Mari’s face:
Interacting with some of these creatures & objects causes them to fall apart as if they were barely able to stand already, as Stranger himself says, “These rooms…are full of broken things…but at least here, I can see who you really are”. Everything within this room, represents the decaying, broken state Sunny put himself into through the self-isolation that is led to after the Mari incident.
Upon visiting this area, like with most of the first BLACK SPACE locations, Omori will have to find the key to open next door first before being sent back by Red Hands. The key itself is lying next to a poorly drawn window with a sun and sky, which is the only largely colorful part of this world (which pretty highly resembles . To find it, Stranger will give a little help in direction as well as bloody footprints will lead to the exact location of the key (which is something that will be helping out Omori in finding the way in most of these places).
SUBCONSCIOUS SPILL
Right after the Static World, this is the next area Omori progresses through after visiting BLACK SPACE. It is a lot more upbeat world compared to the rest areas, featuring a glitchy scribbly sort of neon theme. It has a lot of the representation of home (which Omori is being reminded of by looking at), like a bathtub or picture frame, or…a bed with a spilled black liquid…given it comes from a head, you can see that it is very likely blood spilled from a head injury, reminding of the actual Mari’s death being a head injury. Weirdly enough there’s even another body with the same spill coming from the head further hinting towards the tragedy.
Aside from that, there are also lots of houses (which Omori can’t enter due to very small doors), multicolored puddles, cactuses that all have head of a cat at the top, and even Omoris in a form of Matryoshkas…? Quite weird, but that also is the point, as BLACK SPACE hides not only hurtful feelings, but also just thoughts that never were manifested. This isn’t the first time we will be facing this phenomenon, as there are a lot of…weird thoughts Sunny just wasn’t creating in HEADSPACE, but still here lurking somewhere.
There is also a large, bright blue, poorly-drawn cat head you see above who while appears to possess great knowledge gives very eccentric answers, you may think they contain some hidden message behind, but really speaking, they do not, no matter what complicated question you ask like, “Why are we here?”, “What is the meaning of life?”, “How can I be happy?”, “What would happen after you die?”, “Is cereal a soup?”, etc. answer is always the same - nothing.
Along with this there is Blue cloud with hands who however can’t do anything much other than asking us to follow him. This entire place overall alludes to mixing what we predict and know into something a bit beyond our own comprehension, when all of the meaning now is far away and the beautiful colorful life outside is seen in nothing but gray soulless colors. Among interactive entities it will also have Stranger, this time being next to the key Omori will need to take to get access to the next area.
LOOPING BLACK FIELD
Now, not all places in black space are glitchy, distorted or broken in any way, some of them are just…empty. Just like this looping black field, that is full of nothing but an endless dark void and bells. The only residents in this area you will be able to see or interact with are crudely drawn sketch figures known as Scribbles, and one dancing skeleton. Said scribbles mostly consist of stickmen and ghosts, which normally can only talk with you:
This area unlike most doesn’t have Stranger, so it's a rather quick area to explore, the Key to open the door into the next area lies at the center, guarded by 3 big Stickmen.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Now from too disruptive, too colorful and too empty, we’re reaching into something more…normal, at least in comparison to all other BLACK SPACE areas. The Neighbourhood is basically a gray world resembling a town with several rows of poorly drawn buildings. Many shadowy figures resembling some of the people Sunny remembers from his childhood roam around the place. Other notable objects can be crudely drawn deer, a fridge, and bathtub.
The key is located near the pond where Stranger will also be awaiting and giving away another cryptic sort of speech. Though aside from all that there are also 2 secret locations you can get to via specific means, both of which we’ll mention right below:
WINDOW HALLWAY
If you go specifically to the fourth house on the right with an upside down clock, on the third row from the bottom, you’ll get to the Window Hall. This hall has a fridge, bath, bed and bunch of hanged bodies of Mari all over the place. But most notably what is here is the painting of Mari in the hall with her hair completely obstructing her face.
After interacting with it she will leave the painting and harmlessly start following you around.
DEVELOPER ROOM
This is a hidden location in The Neighborhood, which can be entered by interacting with a tombstone with a different design compared to ones shown in this area ( ). Upon entering the room, there are twenty graveyards shown, each representing the developers of the OMORI. Otherwise there isn’t much to tell about this room as it’s pretty empty…what, you expect some 4th wall joke here?
FOREST OF STUMPS
Right after Neighborhood we enter a forested horizontal area resembling SUNNY's backyard. Omori in this area repeatedly gets called a liar, increasing in frequency each time the further he goes to the right, with creatures who are larger even laughing at him. The background here however gets quite interesting as it is a jumbled mess of the album photos and disturbing drawings of SOMETHING. But aside from that, it also features images revealing memories of Sunny and Mari's childhood. If one looks closely, they can also see portraits of HEADSPACE's Mari and photos revealing hints of how Mari really died:
It’s possible to jump down missing tiles through which we can see the whole background, doing so will lead a person to the Remina area in which a person must interact with a distorted figure. Doing all that will lead a person to Water Walkway, which is one of the primary Black Space 2 locations, which we’ll talk about more a bit later. Though due to the fact that Omori or anyone else isn’t supposed to be in it before resetting HEADSPACE, Water Walkway will simply have strong distortion effects making it a bit harder to navigate around.
There is no Stranger in this area, and not really many living creatures around, only Something which will hover over a tree stump. After interacting with it, a key nearby will be spawned, of which will be led to by the newly-spawned red footprints. While heading over to collect the key, the "liar" chants will then be replaced with Something professing its love for Sunny until Omori leaves the area.
CAT DISSECTION
A dark vet room with a few window openings that reveal a looping background of rib cages. There are four shelves stocked with bottles of unknown contents, and the BUTLER stands in the rightmost top corner. Mewo, Omori’s cat that often lives in WHITE SPACE (and takes inspiration from Mari’s cat), is strapped down to an operating table with dissecting tools next to her with a light shining down into her.
Upon visiting this area, Omori has only two options to get out: He either slowly painfully cuts open Mewo, which results in Mewo’s death without being able to appear in HEADSPACE no more. Or Omori chooses to Stab himself instead which essentially causes him to reappear with a new body back into BLACK SPACE hub. In this area there are no Red Hands to lead Omori back, forcing him to make a decision.
WATERMELON PATH
This world has a pretty odd atmosphere, an area of which resembles a small forest filled with dark-colored trees and can easily be navigated through. The background features a realistic forest covered in shadow. The sky appears to be green-tinted blending in with the usual blue sky Faraway Town has during daytime. The most notable details are the few dark-colored hands sticking out and multiple headshots of Basil with his Flower Crown:
Most notably however as the name implies, this world is full of Watermelons, all of which are just asking to explode. This is probably also a good moment to mention some meanings of Watermelons in Omori. That being within HEADSPACE, during our adventure, Watermelons will often lie on various hidden locations, and essentially serve as Sunny’s imaginary version of RPG Chests from which you can get some cool item. The difference is that instead of opening a chest, Omori and his crew have to practically break watermelon, rip it apart to make it wide open and pull out the item that is hidden inside of the Watermelon. In a narrative sense, Watermelons are related to one of Sunny’s key past memories when he and his childhood friends were at the beach and having fun, with Watermelon being their main meal. Some of the actual photos from Basil’s album in regards of this event were even replicated in Sunny’s memories, just redone to fit more into Headspace’s setting (just as much as almost everything in the Headspace, to which we’ll get back to later):
Now with this information in mind, let’s get back to this area. In this location after searching for some time you can find Basil standing all by himself. Once Basil is found, or well…once Omori finds Basil, they eventually will appear in another location filled with even more Watermelons than before. And naturally Omori’s (and to an extent, ours) first instinct would be exploding these watermelons wide open, one by one expecting to get something, yet still taking nothing. We keep popping and popping, opening countless amounts of watermelons, until at one moment…
Basil himself explodes into pieces, just like that. The spilled blood and left pieces of Basil look exactly like the same watermelons we were just exploding a few seconds ago. After this out of nowhere death of Basil, Omori can open one more Watermelon, this time finding a key for the next door in it, and going back to the hub through Red Hands.
PINK BEACH
Speaking of beach memories, this place resembles just that. Most of the area is spread wide-open, allowing Omori or any other visitor to explore its sandy floor while interacting with any photos lying on the ground. Touching the photos will cause them to be scribbled out, referencing the time when Sunny used black marker on Basil’s Photo Album. The ocean contains multiple fish heads that share the same design with Fishboy’s Cave which you may have seen in Underwater Highway. Aside from Stranger, in Omori Route, the area will suddenly be populated with the empty shells of the previous inhabitants of Deeper Well and Tako, a beta character that'll cause the screen to briefly glitch upon interacting with her.
If you're a true Omori fan you may have recognised this person from some other work of the past…though we’re being a little bit off track here. Going back to this place, Stranger will also await us here and question Sunny if they both can still call those who have suffered because of them friends, as no matter how hard he wants it, things are never going to be the same as before. As soon as talk with him ends, he vanishes with the only thing left to do is take the key, which is located in the waters, north from the starting point.
SPIDER FOREST
Another Black Space area Omori visits later on is a forest that by its structure can remind you of Vast or Pyrefly Forests, instead here the colors are all inverted and the amount of spiders is way more. You may see a corpse of a giant Mother Spider which may look terrifying but isn't harmful. Besides, you don’t have to worry about it, spiders may look scary, but they will only fight back if they feel threatened, right? Now going back to this forest, here Omori finds Basil trapped in a web and releases him as soon as possible. Afterwards while in search of the exit, Basil would want to talk about something…likely the truth. As soon as this happens, spiders eventually cover Basil’s body from legs to head.
The search goes on and on, as more spiders surround Basil, some even start to bite him. And in a single moment there were so many spiders, to the point that they just straight up devoured Basil entirely. Right after that, you may find a key to the next door along with Red Hands leading you back to Black Space hub.
SAFE SPOT
Now back to a more peaceful place, this time we’re looking at Safe Spot - a rainy wasteland filled with dry trees and pink ground, and a few tufts of grass sticking out. Atmosphere of this place is quiet, calm, and safe. Only things that may remind him of sad events is a jump rope and lamp. Here Omori doesn’t have much to do, other than follow dark colored footprints that lead to Stranger. This time Stranger will talk about how he misses Sunny, as he is someone he could depend on to listen to his issues, as he is someone who knew all of his problems, hopes, and dreams.
That aside there is also a quite strange large disembodied head of…Mari? She mostly encourages us to expand our mind, and the more we speak to her, the larger the brain in her head becomes, up until the entire head simply turns into one big brain. Yeah as we’ve said some stuff here just doesn’t make much sense…
MEAT ROOM
Ohhhh boy, that certainly doesn’t look creepy, not at all…ok to be fair at least here we have just room instead of a whole circus so we can navigate a lot easier. As you can see this room is mostly full of faceless Omori’s HEADSPACE friends, some of which can even cause a bit of a unique interaction, like Basils that can contain his version of SOMETHING and Mari that not only turns into Sunny’s SOMETHING, but also turns into HELLMARI later on.
The background is mainly colored with a mix of black and light-purple tints. Which in this case covers meat, if we look at it from way above we can see the inscription that says…
You can basically connect dots from here. There are also a few remnants of OMORI's friends that are just stuck on the floor. Other than that there isn’t much to do other than taking yet another key to open another door.
NIGHTTIME TREEHOUSE
Alright, enough of all these abstract weird places, let’s take a look at more or less the average looking place. This is a monochrome world featuring a large construction site surrounded by a dark ocean. There are a total of five platforms you must climb up using ladders to reach the top, where a grayscale version of the treehouse (origins of which you are probably already aware of if you were reading attentively) resides. Most platforms contain objects that are related to Sunny’s past memories. As soon as you visit a gray treehouse you can notice the entire interior as glitchy and distorted.
At the top of the platform Omori finds Basil who was overjoyed to see his best friend once again while wondering if their other friends are there too. As soon as they start to leave they notice an elevator that presumably can move them back to HEADSPACE. After entering the elevator (as well as taking the key inside of it) and going down Basil attempts to confess something regarding the truth but is cut off when suddenly the elevator doors open. And the moment both are getting out, elevator’s doors immediately close, forcibly severing Basil’s head off his shoulders…man he just can’t catch a break.
The moment elevator does work it will send you directly to Last Resort, or in other words, actually back to HEADSPACE. But in a situation like that one, only Red Hands pulled Omori out at that moment.
FISH OUT OF WATER
Now, if Deep Well as a “water world” is all colorful, has various creatures, and detailed from deep to deeper parts, this one…is pretty much empty, desolate world which has nothing but Stranger, a fish flopping in front of an empty fishbowl, and floating apparitions of a hanged MARI.
Stranger will tell Omori that he wanted to save everything they had left yet also notes that the latter still left him behind. He waited for a long time for Sunny to come back, while slowly dying because of being unable to speak out the things he wanted to say to him. After collecting a key, Lumps of Mari's hair take the place of fish (once again, giving small foreshadowing to the truth). Other than that there are still Red Hands to take Omori back to Black Space.
BASIL'S RAFT PATH
Welp, we are back to creepy looping monochrome forests, this time though the path is pretty linear, and as soon as you go north you will bump into Basil hiding in a stump. A stump which basically resembles a house where Omori lives in HEADSPACE, but most importantly, a stump of a tree on which Sunny and Basil have hanged Mari. Soon after they continued to north where they noticed the most notable aspect of this area - wooden raft! While at first it may seem nice seeing Basil peacefully interact with Omori, but as soon as Basil wants to talk about something (again, presumably the truth), they enter the tunnel after which…you probably should understand at this point what’s happening here…
From here you can basically tell that each time Basil says even slightly close details leading to the truth, Omori won’t let him speak for any second longer. That being said, afterwards Omori can go back to the south and take the key. Though if you ride on the raft 3 more times, it eventually will lead you to Weathervane Island, one of five primary Black Space 2 locations which we’ll talk about a bit later…
TWOSIDE
One of the rather hellish places in BLACK SPACE. The realm is filled with distorted background noise, mirrors and grimacing faces. Omori can wander around while smashing each mirror he comes across. Each time Omori smashes a mirror, the bloodier his reflection will look like and the darker background will become. Until we see Omori entirely covered in blood with red eyes.
Said bloody reflection alludes to Sunny viewing himself as a monster for causing Mari's death. But once Omori smashes all the windows, Hellmari will appear with distorted expressions. Basically she will be shrieking and warping away when interacted with. The key can be found in the open, no need to search for it for a long time.
TIME
“Time” basically presents itself as a small, looping world with beds and a ticking alarm clock playing in the background. With a nearby telephone that reminds Sunny that he and his mom are moving away. From here Stranger adds that Black Space’s presence continues to leak through Sunny’s mind and the only way to stop it is by finding out the truth. Other than Stranger and phone though there is nothing much to do other than take another key and visit the next world of Black Space that is left here out of few.
INCUBATION
All right now we are probably at the most gore-ish Black Space places…I mean, look at it Omori’s friends are sticking out of the walls, as well as swimming in small and probably bloody pools behind. Some of them also appear to be sprouting out from the ground, glitched out. While behind these pools and waterfalls of blood there are dozens of glitchy realistic Red Hands. The key to the next world is right here as you can see and there isn’t way too much to talk about by itself, but everything that you see in one picture already explains it.
FRIENDS PLAYGROUND
Oh, I see we are back to the Neighbour’s Room, alright, that’s nice, albeit it seems to be a bit longer than before but that’s alright, we see Basil here as well so, maybe this time it’s all back to normal, but enough sitting on swings, we must go back to the forest and see how are our friends doing. Oh and here we see Hero moving north, guess we’re getting closer to the exit now…wait a second is it me or does it start looking more glitchy…
But that’s for later, let’s go finally see our friends! Wait a minute why is Yellow Cat looking more…distorted than usual. Now looking at it, the friends in question don’t look well either, they all kind of darkened up…
They all don’t look that much friendly, but maybe that’s just us, it shouldn’t be that bad…wait, why they suddenly start attacking Basi-
Oh…man Basil can’t catch a break here can he…well I guess we are still in Black Space, let’s get our key and get to the next room already.
CHURCH OF SOMETHING
Now here comes a bit more complicated place. It’s not exactly the final Black Space area, but it’s one of the more important ones. In this place, you go through a snowy road while everything surrounding is only black & white. The road leads to the Church which resembles a church that exists nearby Sunny’s house in Faraway Town:
Later on, after entering the church, Omori will see seats being full of scribbled people while at the peak there will be Basil, who is trapped by his own something…now here what happens next is dependent on which route Sunny was going.
(How Basil and his Something look like in SUNNY Route)
In SUNNY route Omori will enter Basil's Something which absorbed Basil into itself, after which he will find himself inside of a strange dark room, where Basil stands next to a red window. Basil notices that something's out there, calling both him and Omori. Right after that, the window opens and several Red Hands emerge to grab Basil, dragging him away further into the darkness.
The door in question was leading to RED SPACE (which we’ll talk about a bit later), where Omori holds Basil still, knowing he knows about the Truth way too much, once again brutally killing him, this time by stabbing. Afterwards Omori sets himself in the throne and turns himself against Sunny as he knows he can no longer hide the truth…
(How Basil and his Something look like in OMORI Route)
In the OMORI route however, instead of descending into darkness, Omori uses his knife and actually saves Basil. Stranger however refuses to let him suppress the truth and keep repeating his endless cycle of dreaming. Basil’s Something is quite impossible to run away from, as the environment itself goes against you and the corridor becomes way longer than before. The moment when Something gets to Omori, Stranger manages to awaken Sunny and tries to force him face thе truth…until Omori descends and helps to endure his wrath, after which Stranger gives up on trying to convince Sunny to walk a path of stopping his unhealthy coping mechanism. Omori took full control over Sunny and has fully chosen to live that life though it is a wonder if you can truly call that living…
LOST FOREST 1
And now we’re reaching to the grounds of a bit more deeper Black Space areas, called simply “BLACK SPACE 2”. It’s possible to reach these areas when traveling across just Headspace/Black Space, while getting to some specific points and doing specific actions.
However Omori himself gets full access to it after collecting all keyboard keys. Which for a moment will cause Something to appear and crash the game. However once it is all done Omori can now fully visit Black Space via his Laptop, leading us to 5 new Black Space areas which also consist of more rooms within itself. Black Space 2, similarly to our mind, is a mess of various memories, thoughts, emotions, ideas, thought process rather than a linear path like it is in the first Black Space and basically Headspace’s journey itself in a way.
Starting with this one. Basically it is a maze-like black and white forest with narrow paths between the trees, and some hidden paths that require walking through walls. As mentioned, the forest itself along with 4 other locations also serves as basically hub to various rooms/areas, as well as contains some of the strange phenomenons. For instance if Omori decides to interact with a body of water he basically will swap water as land and land as water.
Now one of the first rooms within this area to talk about is rather simple, walking through the waterfall you can get to the area that features a looping track where a minecart rides with no end. The minecart also appears to run over any Little Ones standing on the track. Between the tracks are various deranged, distorted figures, which can’t be reached, at least in the game itself, there is also pond in the bottom right, which reveals hints of the events that happened shortly after Mari’s death (mostly consisting of Sunny’s grief of the events along with his father leaving):
The endless minecart in question, might metaphorically refer to The Cycle of Omori constantly closing the holes about The Truth (which we will talk about later).
Another area Omori can reach in the forest can be found through a clearing between the trees in the upper right portion. Going to the far right of the room will eventually lead to a large white door with a figure behind it that vaguely resembles a horrifically-drawn Mari with a noose tied around her neck, being essentially a fusion of Sunny’s worst nightmares, reminder that he may run from the past, but he cannot hide from it:
Another room can be found by walking through yet another clearing between the hollow trees, this time in the top left. In the north of that room there is a monochrome tree with a noose tied to it. A shadowy figure is shown attempting to chop it down. The shadowy figure in question, if interacted by Omori, will cause him to tell Omori that he's not his son and appears frustrated as to why he can't cut down the tree:
The Shadowy Figure in question is obviously Sunny’s father himself. And dialogue implies that he is one of the few characters to actually know about The Truth, about suicide being staged, perhaps, that’s the reason why Sunny’s Father divorced and left, as he knew about The Truth but didn’t want to reveal it to others as the fact that his own son, killed and staged the death of his own daughter may psychologically damage everyone, from his wife to his neighbors, at already weak emotional point and ruin their life even further and yet he couldn’t sit in the same room with Sunny knowing that…or at least Sunny thinks so and became so paranoid about The Truth being revealed, that he subconsciously started to believe everyone will hate him the moment he will reveal it.
When interacting with a large, deranged carcass located near the center of the forest, you may also get into the dark void filled with small humanoid figures, as well as various bones scattered across the area and a few creatures that don't make any noise. All you can really do is simply wander through the area to view the creatures residing here or interact with the carcass to warp back to the forest:
With that being said we can move onto another area within this forest which happens to contain several rooms as well:
BLACK PLAYGROUND
When entering the white door in this forest, we can visit a place really identical to the playground we’ve seen before, in both Headspace and Real World. Yet unlike in previous 2, this one is monochrome, lifeless, creepy. Featuring disembodied Omori heads all of which have cryptic visions in regards to the caused events.
Interacting with The Omori head in the far left, will make you enter a room which basically looks just as Sunny’s in the Real World. There you can see Sunny sleeping with Hellmari hovering over his head:
This is Sunny in his current state, as we are in this room - the dreamer with his painful truth looming over him as always has and, given the direction of the OMORI route, always will. In the console versions however it is also possible to get “Fear Polaroids”, after getting one, Sunny will turn into Mari:
Getting the first “fear polaroid” photo, aside from changing Sunny into Mari will cause other polaroids to appear in the forest, the area around increasingly distorts, along with dark hands reaching towards us becoming more and more clear the moment we collect more and more polaroid photos across the forest. Initially we see Omori in the photos but the moment we pick up more, his face becomes increasingly distorted, while color becomes more clear, until we pick up the last photo and see Sunny himself:
Unobscured, wearing his clothes of the recital day, with a face full of grief and guilt. Reality, The Truth, becomes more clear and Omori himself during that moment can’t handle the pressure and decides to stab himself.
And at last, but nor least, if we enter The Omori head on the top of the playground, we will enter to a walking hallway featuring The Headspace versions of Aubrey, Kel and Hero:
If you decide to approach them, they simply walk backwards, at exactly the same pace, staying out of our reach seemingly with no end. Leaving you with no choice but to go back into the playground. Which can be interpreted as a metaphor of the large pit Sunny dug himself into, of how far away Sunny is from his real friends, of how it’s easier to just turn back into a desolate, lonely playground, lay down and give up. This theory can be actually supported in another area we’ll mention later. But now, let’s get to the second area which contains a lot of other rooms within itself.
WATER WALKWAY
Now, one of the 2 walkways we enter is rather a series of numerous walkways placed over a large, hollow sea, reflecting Sunny’s fear of water he didn’t overcome in OMORI Route. The area notably features various objects alluding to memories of Sunny’s past. It is probably one of the more detailed and “deep” areas out of the 5 Black Space 2 areas, which fits given the water is exactly what actually almost killed Sunny before, until Mari saved him. There are plenty of platforms connected to each other, however it is also possible to swim around. There are plenty of places that can be visited all around so brace yourself here.
To start with something rather simple here, while going to the pot south of the starting point, we can visit a kitchen with monochrome color. Hero is in the kitchen trying to cook something yet lacking ingredients. This makes appear various ingredients across the Black Space which while resembling Tofu by the looks of it, are simply labeled as “☐☐☐”. Bringing that to Hero will make him actually cook something, which seems to appear as same block of tofu, just labeled with 4 squares instead of 3.
Kitchen and Hero in ir are rather a product of Sunny’s associations with relatable things, like how Hero was supposed to be a chef in the past, when Mari was still there.
MARI IS HOME
If we go northeast and swim across the water, we reach another door, which is covered by a cobweb that regrows if we try to cut it. And when it stops being cut, Omori himself normally won’t be able to enter the door, as he is too afraid to enter. At least that's what happens if you are going through your average OMORI Route. If you are going through SUNNY Route and decide to get to the Water Walkaway by using the aforementioned method in Forest of Stumps OR if you decide to do SUNNY Route on the first day, but decide to go with OMORI Route again on second day. This is essential because, as you may see above, this room contains Sunny’s childhood friends not as headspace versions, but rather as their real world counterparts. And in order to know what they look like for that specific event to happen, Sunny must be aware of how his friends look nowadays, at least on the first day.
Once we visit the door, we suddenly see a distorted version of Sunny’s house. With a static disturbing our vision, and various parts of the house being slightly altered. There's a long hallway that leads to Sunny’s Mom room though in the end it is left intact, while in Sunny’s own room there is a Stranger directly looking at us, the player.
But the most compelling event out of all in this area is located in the piano room. It’s here where Real World Aubrey, Kel and Hero wait for us, without any idea of what to do. Where the piano used to be there is only a picnic blanket along with a ladder. At the end of the hallway on the other side of the door, Mari is waiting for us, referring to the first night Sunny had a similar hallucination.
However this time, Mari is completely silent, Sunny or in this case now Omori, only “feels”, it may be Mari behind. Worth noting the fact that the sprite behind the door of the real Mari, not Headspace one. This is not past visions or headspace, it’s the present Mari that is with Sunny (more on that in the Support section). On the first day, we could either open the door or ignore her, where the former will cause Sunny to see Hellmari briefly appear. Here however it’s quite the opposite, ignoring the actual Mari will cause Hellmari to open the door and chase after us. If we’re caught by her, after going back to this place, Mari will now be in the place of where her bed used to be.
We never see her face despite being able to interact with her. The interesting thing is that the way it can be interpreted may depend on the route we are going through. But the fact is, it is in fact Mari’s spirit. In SUNNY Route we may interpret this as Mari shunning Omori, shunning a being who has been preventing her brother from getting over the repression. Which is why she may be so ominous and chase us down if we try to avoid her.
On the other hand in OMORI Route, we may interpret the meaning slightly differently. After all in SUNNY Route, Sunny actually makes efforts himself, in rediscovering truth, in facing and overcoming his fears. While Mari’s spirit eventually without going into the Black Space, was encouraging Sunny. In OMORI Route however, Sunny gave up, giving in to Omori, without attempts to overcome his fears. So in OMORI Route we could interpret it as not avoiding but rather being disappointed in Sunny.
If we open the door however, we will see one of the dimensions of Red Space, called “Red Room”
RED ROOM
This Red Room has various hints of what has been repressed. We can see Basil’s flower crown, along with a knife stuck into tree stumps. This by itself obviously reflects Omori’s attempts to repress The Truth. The trees are cut down, yet no matter how hard he tries, it doesn’t seem possible to remove all of them. And if we go all the way up we can find various versions of Something trapped in the fence, referencing repression.
GLITCH MAP
This Glitch Map also technically is one of the rather secret Black Space 2 areas, which originally was accessible in Water Walkway. Normally now, Omori can access this area via a Universal Remote, which we’ve mentioned earlier, using it on a large TV that is in the Sprout Mole Colony. Notable things here include a monochrome-colored watermelon, a dark Light bulb reminiscent of the one from WHITE SPACE. As well as there are various pinwheels that surround the area's interior and a giant TV screen located at the bottom middle of the room which is shown flashing a dark, red light. All of that while the most notable aspect of this area are the multiple glitching headspace characters that change rapidly and rotate endlessly as if they are broken here. Eventually if you go down, all glitchy characters will turn into one of the Something’s variations being “Merci”, an interaction with which will teleport you out. Afterwards multiple doors that are lined up in a row on the top section of the map will appear, and one of the doors will be initially closed. These doors are hard to find due to the darkened screen obscuring our view from entering the doors. However once we do find and enter any of the doors, we will be brought to the Water Walkway.
LOST AT SEA
In the Water Walkway we can reach the boat he can board, taking ourselves to another platform across the wide dark sea. Once you swim across a few more ponds while going up through ladders, we eventually enter the darkness itself, surrounded by black sea, which may not only invoke fear of water, but also invoke thalassophobia which is the fear of the open ocean. We have to swim south in the direction as every now and then lightning strikes without a warning. Here we can find a single lamp post, a well and a bench. If you proceed down the ladder you will reach into the dark cave, which has only 2 beds. One on the right, being Sunny’s bed and one on the left - Mari’s. Mari’s bed contains a hidden passage under itself where you can get inside of, leading you to a dark empty room which has nothing but several Hangman letters floating around in front of us. The entire message is blurred out but if you get closer and try to read letter for letter, the sentence will reveal itself as “I’m sorry”. Though we can only read one message at a time.
“I’m Sorry”
Essentially deep down, Sunny probably knows that Mari still loves him, and at some point, is sorry for pushing him so hard before the reticle day instead of actually spending time with him. However as we can see this message is buried down, really deep place only a few can imagine, due to how deep Sunny repressed this message within himself.
CORRUPTED JUNKYARD
Near the door with a cobweb there is a weird looking house, similar to ones in the neighborhood. Upon visiting it we appear in the place that looks like, normal Junkyard, at least at first. Eventually we can see distorted Black Space objects being all over the place. The place itself is rather one of the glitchy ones, where the first thing we see happen is trying to give the veggie kid back her pillow, yet she, the sprout mole that did hide the pillow and pillow itself, glitch around the area as if they are teleporting. After we bring back the pillow, the veggie kid will say how it is now “her pillow” while Sprout Mole will boast himself about how good he is at “hiding something else”. There are various places we could get to, but for one reason or another simply can’t.
Like with one of the ways being blocked by a cube of iron which only Aubrey is capable of breaking, yet we are alone. As well as there is a blue key which could open one of the doors and which lies on boxes too high for Omori to reach, where yet again, Kel isn’t here to throw his ball so the key would fall from the boxes. There are no friends that could help us. Sunny doesn’t have any friend that could help him…
HAUNTED TREES HANGING MAZE
If you follow the northeastern docks - a hidden pathway via going up from the middle of a bridge and then following blindly upwards. You will get to this gigantic Red Maze, yet another of the Red Space areas which holds the horrifying reminder of The Truth. Here you can wander through an endless maze where some floating pieces of toast move around. Interacting with toast in question would transport Omori to the section of maze that is filled with Hanged Maris. These Maris are capable of draining health and after half of a minute will turn into more creepier versions we see more often, capable of draining even more health:
The maze that was created in an attempt to hide in actuality misleads Sunny himself rather than what haunts him. Transformation from toast into Hellmari is obviously associated with death, given we previously pointed out “Toast” being essentially state when a person dies, with Breaven in the Headspace, serving as basically an underworld. And in this case the corpse rises from the dead to haunt & cripple us yet not to kill. The actual final blow in OMORI is always up to Sunny himself.
As you may notice there are several “exits” inside the maze Omori can get to, leading to other rooms. One area is called “Faces of Omori” which is a dark, looping area featuring many of Omori’s emotional states in the background. There are also two giant OMORI heads glaring down at you with a large orb of darkness that appears three times. Repression in its distinct form. Perhaps this is where Sunny himself resides in Hikikomori route, along with The Truth itself.
This was a room on the left side. The right side however leads you to a small ladder room, which is a series of endless rooms with a ladder leading downwards that can only be progressed through by descending the ladder (41 times). Throughout the way it’s possible to see Daddy Longlegs in the nineteenth room who is warning us not to go deeper.
Ignoring said warnings will lead us to the darkened room, in which eventually, Hellmari’s giant head will reveal itself without making any screeching noise, causing the area to briefly shake. As long as you’re in the room, she will keep following you.
LOOPING FOREST
This is the second forest area, known as “Looping Forest”, which basically is a maze-like forest that is smaller than the first “Lost Forest” but loops around. Due to that it can still be quite confusing to navigate around it. Doesn’t help that it is full of cobwebs that interrupt us to travel across this forest, which should reflect Sunny’s fear of spiders. Aside from that we can see Garden Edge, which connects aforementioned Sweetheart’s Castle to this forest, with only things separating them, being vines all over the place.
Additionally the place is full of various strange entities, such as Swethort, who basically resembles an exaggerated version of Sweetheart with a weird speech. Possibly this could represent the absurdity of the idea of loving yourself to Sunny. The concept being so distant that he can only represent it as caricature. There is also Headspace version of Kel running around at high speeds, which perhaps indicates a positive trait Sunny sees in Kel, which Sunny himself lacks - being able to move nonchalantly through own life without dwelling on things too much. He is running in circles yet he’s jovial about it. This is something Sunny could envy about, with how seemingly Kel was able to cope a lot more easier.
(Swethort)
One of the interesting locations in this forest is the area which resembles a classroom. With nine decks aligned in front of the blackboard, there are two events that are possible to be triggered here if you’re passing by.
If you’re sitting in at the desk in the back in the middle, after a while numerous faceless figures will be directly staring at us from all sides, which is likely meant to present the sensation of being watched by others - a feeling which was in Sunny’s mind as he was going to school after Mari’s death. With how much guilt Sunny must have felt then, for him it was like everyone was secretly watching him, which by itself is also partial paranoia yet real, given for a lot of the students he probably was known as a person whose sister killed herself. This perhaps is why exactly Sunny wasn’t going to school anymore, would’ve he continued it’d be impossible for him to focus, inevitably, with such a big burden, he feels out of place, he feels claustrophobic. And when he steps away he can experience relief which nowadays only is possible through solitude, after all avoidance is Sunny’s main coping mechanism.
The second event is triggered if we inspect the back of the blackboard, discovering a supposed love letter from Aubrey, iterating with which causes you to teleport directly into the school hallway which is full of Aubreys that want to go on a date with Omori. So much so that the Aubrey clones afterwards start to fight and kill each other in the process. This event represents the distinct character, kind of being a dream of a teenager projecting his crush on Aubrey, on whom he seems to have a crush on. However the moment Omori gets to choose between 2 Aubreys that are left in the hallway, this ”dream” interrupts. A “dream within a dream” as weird as it sounds. It may mean Aubrey’s “love” for Omori in the headspace is a result of a projection on Sunny’s end. Maybe even something he wanted to happen the moment classes were over.
If you go to one of the more well hidden doors in this forest, you will find yourself in the room walls of which are getting closer to you, inducing claustrophobia. The long hallway leads into a room which has nothing but black void and the enormous looming figure called Longsnout. It does nothing to us, it can only stare endlessly.
Given we can see same figure in Omori’s sketchbook inside of a Black Space (kind of as an aura around the butler cat, as if it’s Sunny’s caretaker, same Butler we see in the Cat Dissection area), one of the potential interpretations is that you could draw the association of it to the plague doctor, due to its similarly long snout evoking similar image. Perhaps it could mean Sunny’s negative experience to a therapy. This however is a much more speculative aspect, given more subtle notes and less evidence to lean onto.
There is also a ladder located north of the starting area. Going up the ladder leads us to the cloudy short hallway full of distorted Maris, however in the middle of it there is a white phone interacting with which can cause numerous possible speech bubbles appearing nearby, and following us throughout the rest of the area, only being able to respawn once you visit area and interact with phone again. Many of them are frankly random, potentially they could represent random phone calls, Sunny’s telephone gets.
(Can you find the one that sounds off before reading further???)
While large case letters may refer to various telemarketers that are calling either about bills, or about selling insurance, etc. The only lower case letter “I’m a loser” might represent someone with a calmer tone as opposed to other calls, which could refer to Basil, as he’s also the one who was revealing to Sunny his problems, his hopes and dreams. Obviously before Mari’s death, when Basil needed a person he could talk out his problems with. Though the one speech bubble that is even more off says “I know what you did”. If we associate these various speech bubbles as calls Sunny was receiving in the past, while there is no direct statement on from whom the call could be, given previous evidence, it’s possible to assume the call being from Sunny’s dad, after he left.
The other part of Looping Forest that is worth talking about, is about a game of Hide and Seek, just like in a day when everyone disappeared to Deep Well, it’s possible to play Hide and Seek here, alone, with no one but your own reflection.
Mirror teleports across the forest and we have to find it, in a certain place however, if Omori will find the mirror, the glass will shatter and the copy of him will get out, constructed from glass shards of said mirror.
Now Omori has to play Hide & Seek with his own, Shattered Reflection. If Omori finds this shattered version or vice versa, said reflection will shatter into a measly pile of broken glass.
This could be a metaphor to the origin and fate of Headspace, given the whole existence of Headspace is an “illusion” to distract himself, but Headspace itself along with its inhabitants is built from all memories and associations from Sunny’s childhood, like mended pieces of broken glass building into his own personal fictional world. As such, eventually it’ll break into the original pieces, showing the true nature, showing the lie of Sunny’s condition.
With that being said, there’s nothing left to talk about and go to another of the Black Space 2 areas.
WEATHERVANE ISLAND
One of the another both “water”-like and “forest”-like area (as game files refer to area itself as “LOST FOREST 2 (WATER)”), called Weathervane Island is rather weird place in terms of its landscape, with poorly drawn figures from some areas of the original Black Space. This is the smallest area out of the 5 and you can rather find only a few sub-areas in it compared to others.
It is not called “Weathervane Island” without a reason though, as near the center of the room there is a weathervane which can be interacted with to change its direction to either north, east, or west, and allow access to different parts of the map.
Going west, we will find Aubrey out of our reach on the platform. If we point with a weathervane towards Aubrey’s side, that being west, it now will be possible to walk towards her, though before we get a chance to get close, screen flickers causing us to teleport back. Same applies to Kel’s bottom side and Hero’s east side of a platform. No matter how hard you try you will be teleported back.
Similar to a walking hallway, it could refer to Sunny’s avoidance of his friends, his fear to reach out to them. Sunny’s friends being at first unreachable to walk towards to at all could refer to how there was no perfect situation he could confront them, Hero for instance became depressed after Mari’s death, locking himself out of everyone, even Kel, as well as Aubrey eventually became engrossed due to the fact that no one reached out to her, causing her to reject old friendship. Weathervane being essentially a demonstration of courses of action that are open, and yet even when situation is perfect, and moment just asks to happen, we are unable to reach any of our old friends, given the OMORI Route consists of Sunny not opening to Kel during moving days, it’s likely to assume at that point Sunny subconsciously putting himself away from his friends. Additionally if Omori will go through some of the aforementioned places in Black Space 2, Aubrey, Kel and Hero will all change into their more caricature versions.
That aside, the weathervane can also point to the North, if west leads to Aubrey, while East leads to Hero and Kel, where does North lead to? Well, going to the North we can visit an area known as “Shallow Sea” which is a long area taking on the appearance of a realistic ocean with clouds and blue sky in the background. Walking to the right will eventually lead us to the purple ladder, which we can go up. At the top of the ladder, we see a hand and broken rope attached to it.
(unfortunately we can’t get full screenshot of the area with the ladder)
The ladder could represent, or at least refer to the day he was saved by Mari from drowning on the lake, the day Sunny gained all of the phobias we will mention below. While the string seems to resemble a similar string light bulb hangs from, though it lacks the light bulb in question. This whole area could perhaps refer to Basil, for plenty of reasons. For one, given in all 3 other directions, we see Sunny’s childhood friends, yet Basil is nowhere to be found. For two, as Basil is the character we should follow to seek the truth within the Headspace, Basil becomes quite analogous with a light bulb. Finding Basil, matches finding the light bulb and vice versa. And given that the light bulb is not hanging in its place, may express that Basil, like a light bulb, is not here. We can’t reach out to Basil, given he actually was repressed, truly reaching out to Basil, as we may already found out, means reaching out to the truth, hence there is nothing to look for.
At last but not least there is a door possible to be entered if the weathervane is pointed to the east. Entering the door will lead us to the “Small Repeating Room”, which looks like a monochrome room resembling ones from Sunny’s house.
Mechanically it is similar to a small ladder room in the red maze. Except instead of going down by using ladders,we are going forward visiting the same room over and over again. Same room loops over and over and over and over, eventually though we can reach the room where instead of being empty, we see a stone statue of Sunny’s mom in the middle of the room. Eyes of the statue follow us as long as we have direct contact with it, however once we turn our back, its face distorts, which can only be interpreted as her suffering due to Mari’s death just like Sunny but trying her best to not show this part in front of Sunny, which he is rather aware of given the statue is in his mind.
Once you will continue to move on and on, the surroundings will become darker and darker until you’ll finally reach a darkened room with a chair up ahead and a hideously deformed creature inhabiting the room. The creature is basically a giant bloated version of Mari, with her hair covering up her face (like certain something). This becomes more evident as upon interaction it says “Brother... I'm so glad you're here...” in a similar tone to Mari's.
This may refer to as Sunny delves deeper into own mind, leads to the same thing he should overcome, the same person who will always be ready to help no matter where the weathervane points. With that being said, let’s move on to the last of Black Space 2 areas.
CLOUD WALKWAY
At last but not least, the 5th of Black Space 2 locations, which is filled with various sub-areas, is named “Cloud Walkway”. It resembles a cold, empty walkway with, as you might expect, clouds floating around and where the hollow breeze blows by, which all combined, may reflect Sunny’s fear of heights he failed to actually overcome in the OMORI route. As well as just like all other BS2 areas, it is monochrome colored while having pinwheels floating around and continuing to blow.
This walkway also has numerous forgotten imaginary friends we can interact with, while platforms themselves lead to either their own small sub-areas or to off looking creatures & items who may look close to the Headspace counterparts we more commonly know. Starting simple, this is one of the areas where your classic good ol fashioned secret behind the waterfall can be found. That being an entirely new, small and endlessly looping area, populated by the faceless beings which you may have seen in the endless minecart area, but this time not out of reach possible to talk to.
If you interact with them for the first time, they have various quotations which contain behind themselves various implications:
All these quotes seem to imply that the faceless beings are imaginary friends, Sunny/Omori forgot about a long time ago, quite similar to another abandoned character - Abbi the wisest of the "three great creatures" of Headspace who presumably was sent into the abyss after trying to encourage Sunny to face the truth (we’ll also talk more about later). Said faceless beings, based on quotes above, also seem to possess the knowledge of it. However if Omori himself leaves the area and returns, all of the faceless beings will forget everything, not only The Truth, but also who Omori is. As if Omori covered up the mess he couldn’t access beforehand.
To the right, it’s possible to find a door which, after walking through some corridors leads us to dark room which has only one being - a dinosaur with Hero’s head called “Herosaurus”, who will only asks Omori if he still accepts him:
This along with many other phenomena here, require a bit more of a speculation. Sunny in the Headspace, views Hero as a “perfect” person who can get along with anyone and has all imaginable positive traits - practically a role model for Sunny. While Herosaurus is rather a being who embodies imperfection. Through this dinosaur Sunny may ask himself whether he can live with being imperfect. Whether he can be accepted despite not being like a Hero who he views as “perfect” person. Leading to a question for himself if Sunny can be forgiven.
Another interesting thing that is possible to be found is a small cardboard box nearby yet another faceless. This leads to a dialogue we hear from Sunny's Mom, revealing the line "You hear Mom crying softly. There, there... Sunny... We'll protect you... Everything will be okay...". The pronoun “we” here could mean that this was said when Sunny’s father hadn't divorced yet. So it could be a repressed memory of himself being comforted, or at least an attempt of doing so.
There are also 2 other characters unrelated to 2 below mentioned rooms, that are worth talking about. First being a guy with the name “Big Pocket”. He asks to dance with us, but after he finishes his dance sequence, he responds to Omori with “You didn’t know how to do the dance.”. Meaning behind this character seems rather similar to Swethort that we saw in Looping Forest. This “Big Pocket” character reflects Sunny’s unconscious desire to be like them and enjoy life. But at the end of the day, he isn’t able to.
(Big Pocket)
The other character we may find in the east of this walkway is none other than Pluto himself, a muscular planet with a strong will, who challenged Omori and his crew several times throughout the journey. Being who taught Kel to flex himself & never showing weakness. However this particular Pluto may look quite off if you are already familiar with the original one. He’s lying on the ground, he doesn’t seem to have muscles anymore, he doesn’t look like himself. This Pluto seems to have given up and stopped fighting, and allowed himself to deteriorate into nothingness. Leaving himself in self-pity. As if everything turned upside down, with one of the most powerful Headspace being losing his spark that defied him as a person. A loss of one’s identity, of one’s signature that makes us who we are. Expressing a feeling of being insufficient about one's identity (similarly to one suggested in Herosaurus room), where Sunny being inferior turns into hatred of himself, totally losing sense of belonging within his mind.
(Pluto)
Another quite simple room is possible to get access to once we get 20 dollars from a place we will mention later below (as it’s absurd enough to have a little of its own section). Once we do get 20$ however we will see a door which tries to get away from us, though it’s not fast enough to disappear, and if we do enter the door we will find ourselves in a…surprisingly cheery, colorful but poorly drawn tropical island. It has a palm tree, a crab that can’t wait to finally have a tan and a sun wearing cool glasses while drinking soda:
Well, that is weird to say the least, but not only that, after waiting for 24 seconds, the island will catch itself on fire, obviously we nor the crab can’t handle the fire, and if we stay for too long we might as well die here, meaning the only option is to swim back to shore. Given its cartoony looks it might seem like one of the rather random childish things Sunny thought of. But given its theme, this whole beach room may refer to aforementioned times when Sunny, Mari and his other childhood friends were spending time on the beach. More specifically we’ll have to take a look at Basil’s photo album here.
“(6/22): MARI says she wants to get a summer tan! I'm scared to fall asleep in the sun, since I get sunburned really easily. Hmm... I'm not sure what KEL is doing here, but he's probably having a good time.”
Which essentially could mean that crab is a heteromorphic representation of Mari. Aside from the Photo Album (which by itself alone could be more likely a coincidence) there is a second piece of evidence that might suggest this theory. As mysterious person in the deeper well tells us this:
Essentially it’s possible that Mari, who is one of the keys to The Truth, is trying to guide Sunny towards it (as quite literal spirit which we’ll mention later). And everytime she does it, she becomes too close to “The Sun”, getting “burned” or in other words, repressed by Omori over and over again along with The Truth.
Moving onto the aforementioned last area, if we proceed to walk directly downwards we’ll find a creature called “Loomy” who claims to have the ability to fast travel through the toilet. Wanting us to tag him in so he could show us the ability. “Tagging” which Omori does with his Headspace friends and Loomy referring to Omori as the Old Friend, implies that like faceless he was one of Sunny's first imaginary friends, which he later on replaced with Headspace ones.
(Loomy)
Given how absurd is the ability to fast travel through the toilet and the place we’ll get to after going into the toilet, it’s likely what we see next could be created by Sunny at a very young age. While Loomy stands on Omori’s way, Omori can simply slice him up, reaching into the other space in question:
MONEY SPACE
"Welcome to MONEY SPACE. Only Kel is allowed in here."
Somewhere inside of Sunny’s mind resides a place called MONEY SPACE - which endlessly produces money, in fact, the entire place is made out of money where Omori can pick as much 20 dollars as he likes, a dream of probably every young child. Given how silly and immature the entire idea of Infinite Money is, this place was very likely something Sunny thought up when he was young, as said slightly previously. Unlike any other areas it doesn’t tell about repression itself, it is rather a result of stream of consciousness. Cause aside from repression, Black Space 2 is a place where Sunny’s imagination went wild to say the least. With him drawing various free associations, silly or not. And apparently only Kel is actually allowed inside the pool, which could refer to the times Sunny lended him money over and over again without paying back (similarly to how Kel owes us 20$ in the SUNNY route so he could buy Hero a present), to the point that he associates Kel to be rich at this point with the amount of money Kel owes to Sunny. As well as the toilet which leads Omori in this place in the first place, could refer to Sunny seeing the entire process as if he flushes away money to Kel.
We did mention that after visiting Money Space, you will get to see door leading to the beach, however said twenty dollars can also be given to another character in Cloud Walkaway, that being a “fusion” of Omori and Sprout Mole called “Omoli”, who is poor, alone in the cardboard box, asking for money.
(Omoli)
The moment we give Omoli the twenty dollars he disappears but once we happen to come back here, to the Money Space, and get more money, Omoli will come back again asking for money. Going a bit early, Sprout Moles in Headspace as Omori himself describes, are not smart beings who smell like dirty laundry. This “fusion” possibly could correspond to Sunny’s fusion with the traits he himself dislikes. Which in a way also could express Sunny’s self-loathing.
RED SPACE
“There's something out there. It's calling me... and it's calling you too.”
RED SPACE is the least delved into throughout the game, though given the NOT so subtle imagery… it seems to be the farthest state of regression for Sunny’s mind. Full of the Red Hands which secluded them for so long (being seemingly where they originated from), they’ve fully manifested into more realistic depictions of hands that surround the realm. These hands beckon for Omori as a sort of throne, the epicenter of a hidden truth that Omori humbly endures in place of Sunny… as it’s the only right action in his mind.
Within Red Space hides the truth behind Mari's death in the form of several stray photographs, depicting the events of her death and subsequent cover up from Basil's point of view. Only by collecting every photograph and putting them back in a photo album can Sunny realize and remember what happened in reality, paving a path for redemption and acceptance of his guilt.
While doing this, Sunny will find himself slowly bruised and bloodied, and his fingers apparently also become cut off the more he rediscovers the photographs depicting Mari's death. There are several subsections that Sunny will warp to after collecting each photograph, as Red Space itself warps and changes depending on Sunny's perception of himself and his distortions of his memories. Because of this, it seems that only Sunny is able to travel through Red Space the way he does in the game as it relies on his cognition to function.
Omori is also capable of trapping people inside of Red Space, much like with Black Space, and has even used the Red Hands to restrain and incapacitate Basil within Red Space before killing him himself.
LAMP ROOM
One of the hidden places in Headspace to which Sunny and Omori get to at rather specific moments of the story. It pretty much very small room which resembles Sunny’s actual living room, and only has lamp, large chair to sit on, and lots of portraits that are seen in the wall, most notable 2 are perhaps the biggest picture in the room which shows Sunny’s family before the Mari incident and picture of Sunny on the left. It may seem like it doesn’t have any notable features, as it is rather peaceful, innocent, serene, it’s similarly peaceful like WHITE SPACE, and normally is possible to be formed in Omori’s head after he makes a deal with Keeper of the Castle, who is capable of granting deepest desires for a person, and originally created Sweetheart’s castle to fulfill her deepest desire, if for Sweetheart it was the castle, for Sunny it was this room, yet despite getting her castle Sweetheart wasn’t truly satisfied, and despite Sunny getting this room, he is not truly satisfied either, cause inherently what Keeper creates may be something person wants deep inside himself, it may not be at all what person needs deep inside himself. Though don’t be charmed by its peaceful looks for too long…cause if you or especially Sunny are starting to figure out The Truth, all of a sudden…
The Lamp Room will become rather distorted and unsettling, complete with the portraits all covered with red and black colors. The ominous red light which you might have seen earlier shines by itself which leads you to get the last segments of The Truth. From here Sunny can gaze into the mirror, which reveals a close-up of his bloodied, mutilated form, at this rate he sees himself as nothing more than a monster that killed Mari…
MEMORY LANE
One of the last, and perhaps one of the most important places Sunny has to go through after discovering The Truth and finding The Violin which reflected everything that was broken on that day. This lane in question is a literal take on the metaphor, appearing to be a very long street, complete with streetlights that do not work save for a select few that teleport Sunny to distant memories. Each time Sunny relives a cherished memory (which were seen in the photo album), the location's atmosphere will change depending on which memory he enters first, with each memory he mends parts of his violin. Said memories essentially reinforce Sunny's sense of nostalgia along with the humanity of the memories.
There are not many memories that appear here, but each is important key of reminding Sunny of everything, his happy beach days with his friends, his fun activities in the treehouse, his picnic days in a secret spot that only few (himself included) knew about, but perhaps the biggest of all, is Christmas day - the day Sunny was gifted the violin which, Mari and every of Sunny’s friends worked months for, which is something that despite being a reminder of Mari’s death is also something that binds Sunny together with Mari and his friends.
After getting to see all of these memories, The Violin regains its shape back. After which the only thing he has left to do is to reconcile with himself.
The Cycle
“Sniff… Sniff… OMORI…”
Throughout our explanation behind various Omori’s locations within the Black Space, you may notice that we’ve mentioned a good amount of evidence referring to “The Cycle”, but what is that “Cycle” in the first place? The answer is rather simple. In truth, the events of the game are not the first time that Omori and his friends have gone on this adventure. Throughout Headspace are a pair of four skeletons, one with a bow, that are stranded together. These represent the past lives of the main cast in a past journey and how they died previously, leaving only their bones behind, however their consciousness still seems to be somewhat intact, yet trapped in their decaying form. In the past, Omori and his friends would adventure to find Basil, yet they'd never find the truth and so their adventure would end prematurely - then, the events of Headspace would reset, and Omori would begin his journey anew with new manifestations of his friends, while the souls of his old friends would be left behind in their ethereal prison, still conscious but without hope of relief or peace. Evidence of which is present here and in a lot of other Headspace & Black Space locations, from bones in Humphrey’s body possibly meaning Omori’s adventure at most ended here, to several Basils inside of Black Space implying the process of him getting to The Truth and therefore being sent here was done over and over again.
Forms
Raz
Astral Form
While being inside of the Mental World, Raz gets some physiological changes. The most notable being is that…he can’t die in the Mental World. Since while he is inside of Mental World the body is moreso physical essence of his astral form, and upon death astral projection reforms into another physical essence, there are overall 11 Astral Layers in first Psychonauts game, so Raz needs to be killed 11 times to be sent back into Real World (however in Psychonauts 2 he got no Astral Layers, possibly implying he can’t be sent back into real world through death anymore).
While being inside of someone’s mind Raz’s presence can cause a variety of beings to come after him as a defense mechanism, due to the fact that he is foreign entity not connected to a person's mind (more in Enemies section). Raz’s appearance can also change a little in colors to fit into the setting of the Mental World, like it did in Black Velvetopia, Cassie’s books and PSI-King’s Sensorium. Additionally Raz in his Astral Form technically lacks any biological needs (as long as his brain or body in the real world are safely contained at least, hypothetically speaking), such as food, or water, or air, or even need for sleep (which makes sense, he is already sleeping in the real world).
Colossal Psychic State
Upon meeting his dad, who actually turned out to be psychic as well, Raz was granted a power to form a giant red energy form of himself. It’s big and deals far more damage than Raz can do on average, it has, of course, a little time limit of about 10 seconds, but Raz can quickly recover it also in about 10-20 seconds. Despite being granted this ability from his father, Raz shows during battle against Two-Headed Dad Monster that he can reactivate it by himself with no outside involvement or it’s the same situation as with his camp friends and his Father just passively gives him energy to do so.
Colossal Psychic State 2
Upon fighting Maligula, as a last resort she increased her size to be larger than buildings. To countermeasure it, Nona helped Raz and giving her own power, let Raz enter into colossal transformation. Way better than his previous Colossal Psychic Form. It’s bigger, faster and stronger too, additionally it doesn’t seem to have a time limit really and while being in this form, Raz gains the ability to breathe fire, like a dragon! It's more debatable if it’s standard for Raz, but considering a similar thing happened previously like with first Colossal Psychic Form and Regeneration it is possible to give it to Raz, overall you’ve gotta admit though it looks pretty neat!
Omori
Sunny
Sunny is the real main protagonist of OMORI, and the one who created Headspace following the death of Mari. In a way, he is essentially the real version of Omori who exists in the real world. However, in the final battle of the Sunny route of Omori, we see Sunny and Omori fight each other. Not only that, but we've also seen in various other instances that Sunny and Omori can exist in two places within Headspace at once. So what's going on here?
To make it perfectly clear, Sunny and Omori are the same person, or at the very least, are part of each other. Daddy Long Legs states that the dreamer, the one who created Headspace, had decided to leave his name behind and create a new identity to live among everyone else in Headspace in an attempt to forget himself. This is an obvious reference to Sunny and the Omori character that we play as, and there is also evidence that Sunny lives through the experiences of Omori. In his first fight with Aubrey in the real world, Sunny uses his knife to attack her, surprising everyone nearby. On a meta level, this is intended to represent how we the players have grown accustomed to using a knife as a weapon casually in a game without considering that we are now in the real world - and the same also goes for Sunny, as Omori uses his knife against every enemy he encounters. In addition, every time that Sunny overcomes a fear of his in the real world, Omori is also no longer afraid of it in Headspace. Also, Mari's spirit blatantly calls Omori Sunny while in Headspace, and the Omori manga also says that they are the same person. it is kind of silly that this has somehow turned into a debate.
If this is the case, then how are Sunny and Omori able to be in two places at once? The simple answer is that Omori represents Sunny's subconscious, negative feelings about himself, and his desire for escapism from his problems. In the final battle against Omori, he gives multiple very negative comments to Sunny about his worth, his chance of redemption, and his life, which is a metaphor for Sunny's own doubts and self deprecation. The entire fight is Sunny literally fighting against himself, so even though Omori may seem to be able to act independently of Sunny, they are still effectively the same person - just different parts of his mind that tend to diverge.
Sunny is able to make a form of his own within Headspace without needing to assume the role of Omori. As the dreamer of Headspace, harming Omori, or even a mental emanation of Sunny, does not affect Sunny in the real world, which makes any damage done to him in Headspace ultimately meaningless. Sunny is not a “form” that Omori can access, but can still enter Headspace by himself under specific conditions.
If all of this sounds pretty confusing, then you should have heeded our warnings and played Omori before reading this blog. Sucks to be you…
VIOLIN
Sunny’s weapon from within Headspace is his violin, the one that he smashed to pieces the day Mari died. It is hidden in the toy box that is kept away in a closet that Sunny blocked from his mind, along with sheet music that is splattered with blood. By retrieving the broken violin and then re-experiencing his past memories with his friends and his sister, Sunny is able to slowly repair the violin until it finally reaches its full capacity - a weapon with +14 ATK and 1000 HIT! With this, Sunny was able to defeat Omori. Not by defeating him physically, but by playing the Final Duet, accepting his guilt and finding the courage to move on with his life.
SKILLS
CALM DOWN
The first skill that Sunny learns himself, CALM DOWN requires no JUICE, and it will remove any emotion that he currently is afflicted with as well as recover some of his HEART. He used this skill to defeat SOMETHING IN THE DARK and overcome his fear of heights.
FOCUS
FOCUS requires no JUICE to use, and by using it, Sunny's attack in the next turn will deal more damage. He used this skill to defeat SOMETHING IN THE WALLS and overcome his fear of spiders.
PERSIST
PERSIST requires no JUICE to use, and by using it, Sunny's HEART cannot reach 0 for one turn, as well as recovering 20 HEART. He used this skill to defeat SOMETHING IN THE WATER and overcome his fear of drowning.
OVERCOME
While facing a visage of Mari's hung corpse, Sunny was able to learn OVERCOME. Costing zero JUICE, Sunny was able to use this skill to ultimately… overcome, his greatest fear - that being the reality of Mari's death.
ALLEGRO
Costing 19 JUICE, Sunny attacks three times in one turn, dealing a very hefty amount of damage to his foe.
ENCORE
Costing no JUICE, ENCORE will ensure that Sunny's JUICE does not fall for three turns, regardless of what move he uses. This would be very OP if you were able to use this in more than one fight.
CHERISH
Costing no JUICE, Sunny can remember the words of his friends and his sister, cherishing his memories and in turn recovering all of his HEART, some of his JUICE, raising all of his stats and removing any negative debuffs afflicted onto him.
Support
Raz
Memory Vaults
“Most people – they got something to hide. They store away their shame, their dirty little secrets, in these tiny vaults in their minds. But the enemy is not allowed any secrets in wartime, are they soldier?”
Memory Vaults, also known as mental vaults, are mental figures found in mental worlds. They are sentient safes that resemble dogs, with their "mouths" located directly behind their faces. Said faces contain the memories of the person whose mind they reside in. These memories can be truthful expressions of what the person remembers, purposefully fabricated, or a combination of both. In a way, they are literally and figuratively things that the mind wants to keep under lock.
For example, the vault with a memory called “A Land Without Caviar” shows protestors signs adorned with slogans such as "Blah blah blah" or "Problems", highlighting the self-centered and egotistic worldview of the mind the memory belongs to (cause it's pretty obvious people weren't actually writing these slogans, especially since in more accurate version of the event we can notice what is actually written on those slogans), or Loboto’s perception of Raz and other agents during operation was far different from how they actually look (since in actuality Raz and others don't look like punks, and weren't even causing destruction of the base Loboto was residing in, that was his idea), or Coach Oleander portraying himself as tall in one of his Memory Vaults (well…duh, he's actually short, you can even see that in second memory vault that showed true events).
Quite close to how memories work in real life, we can’t remember anything as precise, so there’s always room for some kind of bias in our brains when we try to remember stuff that happened in the past. Aside from that, said Memory Vaults can also release a Mental Figure that directly comes from a person's memory into the Mental World and practically have a pocket world within, which would tell some sort of memory. Sometimes Memory Vaults can even release memories fully from itself, like in Loboto's mind and small house.
PSI-Popper Generator
The PSI-Popper Generator, commonly referred to as Oatmeal, is a creature found throughout mental worlds. He allows the astral projections of psychics visiting the mental worlds to teleport between different areas of the mind (most commonly, the ones Psychics have already visited), as well as back to the Collective Unconscious where psychics can visit other previously visited minds. In other words it’s basically a fast-travel system across the Mental World(s).
Emotional Baggage
Emotional Baggage are basically various bags Raz can find across the Mental World he travels around. They are pretty much literally the person's emotional baggage, depicted as various kinds of bags, all of which cry continuously until sorted out. For each bag, Raz can find a matching tag which resolves an emotional issue. By doing so Raz essentially makes it easier for a person to overcome any negative emotion he has. Should be noted that the more traumatic and hurtful an experience is, the more it is likely to find Emotional Baggage around it. Theoretically speaking this not only helps a person and makes it easier for them to go through trauma (as well as pretty much buffs Raz to a new rank in-game), but also potentially can clue Raz in to what trauma may be related to solve the issue quicker (especially if place is just surrounded by baggage all over the place like in one of the examples).
Ford Cruller
“Listen Razputin, there are vaults that should never be opened. Not all minds are safe to read. Some brains are better off... broken.”
The leader and founder of the Psychic Seven and a current Psychonaut agent. He used to be one of the most powerful psychics of his time, but because of his advanced age and shattered mind he was limited to the role of a dispatcher. He is a tough old man who won't hesitate to bend the rules when he considers it the correct thing to do, nor he is shy when being annoyed, biting back with threats even if you are a child. Due to him shattering his own mind with the Astralathe, only Psitanium could keep him sane. It took Raz to visit his various personalities to unlock the truth behind his path and repair the damage Astralathe had done to him.
Thanks to Raz having a piece of Bacon, he can always literally come out of Razputin’s head, due to having a psychic connection between each other. Ford can help and give a tip for Raz in case Raz himself doesn’t know what to do, such as point out opponents’ weaknesses Raz can potentially exploit, or give a hint on where to go to get more clues on what to do next. Usually due to said connection Ford can basically see everything that's around Raz (probably using Clairvoyance ability), often even coming out of Raz’s head by himself, so in a way he is kind of an outside watcher capable of hinting a way for a victory. Should be noted however, Ford is not with Raz 24/7, as if Raz pulls him out without warning he won’t be really aware of what’s going on and where he is (like in this example of him appearing in Headquarters). Once Raz does pull him out though, Ford pretty much can do everything that's said above, if necessary, at some point willing to take action from distance himself. But if needed he can also put up a really good fight himself.
Abilities
List of aforementioned abilities Ford has:
PSI-Blast - in a fight against Coach Oleander
Levitation - same as with PSI-Blast
Invisibility - taught Raz this ability
Pyrokinesis - taught Raz this ability
Telekinesis - taught Raz this ability
Telepathy - could telepathically talk with other psychonauts agents
Clairvoyance - while not officially claimed to have it, as stated above he has shown in numerous occasion to be aware of Raz’s actions and his surroundings despite not coming out of his head first, implying he basically sees what Raz sees, which in Psychonauts universe can be done only through Clairvoyance.
Astral Projection - has gone to Raz’s head without using Psycho-Portal.
Possibly Time Bubble - Vision Quest, a mental representation of Ford Cruller (or in other words Memory Replica of Ford), has shown to use a time bubble.
Illusion Creation
Another ability Ford has used in Psychonauts' story. What Ford does is put an illusion that distorts senses, specifically vision. The Forgetful Forest is full of these illusions created by Ford, that are used as safety precautions to keep wanderers out of the Green Needle Gulch. Possibly this illusion creation can even manipulate perception of a person's face at least as far as implications of one of the Psychonauts agents goes.
Construct Creation
To convince Lucy and make her think she was Nona Aquato - mother of Augustus and grandmother of Raz. Ford created a Mental Construct inside her head, with a circus setting, to make sure that Maligula wouldn’t just get out of the baggage Ford put her in. The mental construct also includes all stuff Mental Worlds have, like Mental Figures, Figments, baggage, Memory Vaults, etc. Essentially, just like how Mental Worlds and its affection are, this is a bit of a mix of mind manipulation and reality warping. And just like with mind manipulation, Psychonauts usually use it precisely to achieve specific goals. Similarly, another Psychonauts agent - Sasha Nein used this power to create an “office setting” in the mind of Doctor Loboto. This setting in question, obviously wasn’t Loboto’s actual memory or part of personality, but rather was used to subconsciously get out of him the information on who had hired him. And when Loboto was actually getting more and more closer to realizing that, said office construct was falling apart.
Teleportation
One of the abilities that seems to be exclusive to Ford is the ability to teleport himself and others around. In camp itself that helps him to be practically anywhere and if Raz needs help, come out of Raz's head. The range of teleportation is practically in kilometers, maybe even hundreds to thousands of kilometers, depending on how far Whispering Rock and Headquarters are from each other, and the process is basically instant. Ford can also teleport Raz to himself if his plan is to retreat.
Omori
Aubrey
“Come on, OMORI! Let's go exploring together… Just the two of us!”
“I hope you can find some peace...or you know...some happiness.”
As has been established before, Omori was relieving all of HEADSPACE events with all of his childhood friends that were created based on Sunny’s childhood memories. As such in HEADSPACE territory, wherever Omori goes, there are always his childhood friends (or in this case, “Neighbours”) coming with him and helping out, in battle and generally when spending time and having fun together. Starting with Sunny’s childhood crush - Aubrey. In the real world, after finding out about Mari's death, she began coping through strong feelings of hatred against her old friend group, due to the sense of loneliness as everyone was moving on too quickly, it is only after Sunny along with Hero and Kel come to visit her she becomes more understanding . In Sunny’s imagination however she still kept her qualities from childhood - the sweet and strong-willed girl who stands up for her friends in battle and is their constant source of morale. Although she is also a very emotional member of the group along with Kel, with whom she often fights with.
WEAPONS
Aubrey’s main weapon of choice are basically bludgeon objects with which she swings them as hard as possible. Throughout Omori’s HEADSPACE adventures Aubrey got dozens of those constantly improving the power of her swings. Swings so powerful she can destroy objects much heavier and bigger than herself in one swing. Notably, similarly like Aubrey in the real world who uses a nailed bat as her weapon of choice.
SKILLS
PEP TALK
Costing only 5 JUICE, Aubrey can give a pep talk to someone, making them HAPPY. She can do this for either her friends or enemies, though I really have to question the tactic of giving your opponent encouragement mid battle.
HEADBUTT
As proven by her certified BUTT CERTIFICATE, Aubrey can use a deadly HEADBUTT against her foes. This attack deals significant damage, and can deal even more damage if Aubrey is currently ANGRY. However, using this move also results in some damage for Aubrey. It costs her only 5 JUICE.
COUNTER
This move will cause all the foes to target Aubrey instead. If attacked, she will strike back at them as a counter. It costs 5 JUICE.
TWIRL
Costing 10 JUICE, Aubrey will attack her opponent in a twirl and then become HAPPY. In addition, this attack will deal more damage based on Aubrey's current luck stat.
TEAM SPIRIT
At the expense of 10 JUICE, Aubrey apparently raises pom poms, making herself and one other friend HAPPY.
POWER HIT
Costing 20 JUICE, Aubrey swings at her opponent hard enough to not only completely ignore their defense, but also reduce their defense as an added bonus, making them weaker to any further attacks.
MOOD WRECKER
Costing 10 JUICE, Aubrey swings with an attack that doesn't miss. As the name implies, it will also deal extra damage to enemies that are HAPPY, killing their optimism in life.
WIND-UP THROW
Costing 20 JUICE, Aubrey can use an attack that will hit every enemy on screen. However, if there are less enemies, the attack will deal even more damage.
MASH
Costing 15 JUICE, this attack not only deals a good amount of damage, but if this attack were to defeat the opponent then Aubrey would recover all of her JUICE.
BEATDOWN
Costing 30 JUICE, Aubrey will attack her opponent not once, not twice, but three whole times. I'm starting to sense that a lot of these attacks are just Aubrey working out her aggression…
LAST RESORT
Ultimate Aubrey attack go! This move will cost 50 whole JUICE, but in return, it deals massive damage that depends on Aubrey's current level of HEART. After the move is completed, Aubrey will immediately become TOAST, meaning she falls in battle.
FOLLOW-UPS
LOOK AT OMORI
Aubrey’s Follow-ups consist of looking at her allies, expecting a reaction from them after attacking the foe. All of the allies naturally have entirely different reactions, and from said reactions Aubrey performs different actions. In this case, she expects a reaction from Omori, which she really gets only at higher levels.
LOOK AT KEL
While Omori doesn’t respond to Aubrey’s stare, Kel responds in a more aggressive manner, making each other angrier with each response.
LOOK AT HERO
On opposite, Hero is a lot more positive with Aubrey in terms of interaction, compared to Kel.
Kel
“OH, YEAH!! FRESH AIR AT LAST!! Gotta love that nature. Well, let's go!”
“Friends...Friends are supposed to be there for each other.”
Kel is the younger brother to Hero and energetic shorty clown of the group, who often gets himself into trouble with his antics and fights with Aubrey pretty commonly. In the Headspace, he is pretty clueless at times, but is nevertheless loyal to his friends, wanting to keep everyone in good spirits. In the real world, he… didn't change all that much. At least he's taller now though (albeit still not taller than Hero). Still, that is just Kel dealing with grief in his own way, remaining as optimistic as he can while meeting new friends and continuing to be his outgoing self. He was the one who knocked on Sunny's door when he was close to moving away, hoping that he would spend time with him in the real world before going away and bringing him outside. In a way, he is the catalyst to the events of the true route and helping Sunny live a healthier life.
WEAPONS
If Aubrey’s weapons are usually objects which she swings really hard with, Kel’s ultimate weapon of choice are various balls he throws at enemies with intense speeds. So intense that the ball notably catches itself on fire. As well as usually Kel is quite versatile to the point of being able to use balls as a means of long range attacks, either if the target is really far or if there’s an obstacle that holds them from moving. As well as most of his SKILLS revolve around using a ball and in his FOLLOW-UPs Kel also passes balls to his other teammates if needed. Quite similarly to Kel’s real world counterpart who is a Basketball player (a game requiring skill in teamwork with passing a ball) and if necessary uses his Basketball Ball in a fight.
SKILLS
ANNOY
Costing only 5 JUICE, Kel apparently acts so obnoxiously towards a friend or foe that he afflicts them with the ANGRY status effect. He can also somehow just annoy himself instead.
REBOUND
At the expense of 15 JUICE, Kel can throw his projectile at all of his opponents at once, damaging every enemy in one turn.
RUN N' GUN
Costing 15 JUICE, Kel acts first, dealing an attack that does damage based not on his ATK stat but rather his speed. Chicken Ball Chicken Ball Chicken Ball (KEL NUKE, GO!!!)
CURVEBALL
Costing 20 JUICE, Kel releases an attack that will afflict his opponent with a completely random emotion. In addition, it will deal extra damage to foes that already have an emotion.
RICOCHET
Costing 30 JUICE, Kel can release an attack that will damage an opponent three separate times, the damage it deals varying with each consecutive hit.
MEGAPHONE
At the cost of 45 JUICE, Kel takes his obnoxious personality past its limits and goes further beyond by making all of his friends ANGRY at once, likely via screaming through a megaphone. Somehow this not only doesn’t make enemies ANGRY but also angers Kel himself just like ANNOY skill, guess Kel doesn’t like his voice(?)
CAN'T CATCH ME
(Unfortunately there are no in-game visuals of what Kel does, not even ones that were initially here but got cut, so here is Omocat’s art reference for one of the greatest Sonic games insead. Imagine Kel does some Sonic reference while using this skill)
At the steep price of 50 JUICE, Kel can cause all of the foes to target him while also reducing their hit rate by 55% for the next two turns. Basically causing Kel here to be not only a distraction, but also just a target that is way too quick to be hit by anyone else.
RALLY
Costing 50 whole JUICE, Kel can immediately become HAPPY while also recovering his allies JUICE and increasing the team's energy. Weirdly enough Kel only wears one party hat…if you’ve played Omori you’d probably expect him to wear way more…
COMEBACK
Costing 25 JUICE, COMEBACK will immediately afflict Kel with HAPPY. If Kel was previously SAD, then this action may also allow him to use FLEX in addition.
TICKLE
TICKLE costs 55 JUICE, and by presumably tickling his opponent, every attack on the next turn will be critical, hitting right in the HEART to whoever was tickled by Kel.
FLEX
Learned from the bygone planet Pluto, Kel can flex and only expend 10 JUICE while doing so, which will increase the damage of his attack for the next turn as well as increasing his hit rate by 1000%, though only until he performs an attack.
JUICE ME
Costing 10 JUICE, Kel can recover a substantial amount of JUICE of a friend. However, as a drawback, it will also reduce 25% of their current HEART, damaging them.
SNOWBALL
Costing 20 JUICE, by using SNOWBALL, Kel can damage an opponent while also causing them to become SAD. If the opponent is already SAD, then this attack will deal additional damage.
FOLLOW-UPS
PASS TO OMORI
As a Basketball player, it’s important to remember not only to throw and play with the ball by yourself, but also to pass it to your teammates. And in this case, Kel passing his ball after doing an attack causes various offensive combinations. With Omori, while at first he is unable to catch it, later on reacts and lets Kel finish combo attack.
PASS TO AUBREY
If Kel passes the ball to Aubrey, she will hit it really hard making it bounce everywhere, dealing stronger damage to a singular target.
PASS TO HERO
When passing to Hero however, ball flies so rapidly it hits all nearby foes as if their brotherly combination caused an explosion.
Hero
“You never know when you'll need someone's help.”
“Last time...We made the mistake of leaving each other when we needed each other the most. This time... we'll stay together.”
Hero is the older brother to Kel and is the more mature straight man of the group who helps to keep everyone else in line if they ever get into trouble (mostly just Aubrey and Kel). He's also very charismatic, and with that he's able to charm many of the inhabitants of Headspace into doing what he wants through his rizz. Hero was also Mari's boyfriend before she died, and in the real world, her supposed suicide sent him into a deep depression. Not only his grief over her death, but total confusion over why she would do what he believed she did led him to becoming secluded and depressed, which caused him to lash out at others. Fortunately, he did eventually work through his emotions, at least to a manageable degree. Initially wanting to be a chef, he decided to become a doctor and went off to college before returning for a period of time to see Sunny before he would move away. In fact, his medical knowledge probably helped when he saved Sunny and Basil from almost drowning in a lake.
WEAPONS
But if Aubrey’s and Kel’s weaponry are super offensive, Hero’s weapons are more associated with kitchenware, since he is a supporter of the team who often cooks team food to recover during the fight. This is the only one that is a bit more different from the current Real World Hero, as while in the past he was highly motivated to be a “Best Chef” (due to Mari’s influence on the topic), he is more of a doctor nowadays.
SKILLS
COOK
Costing 10 JUICE, Hero can cook a cookie to recover 75% of a friend's HEART. This move can be used either in or out of battle, so Hero can always heal his allies as long as he has enough JUICE.
MASSAGE
Costing only 5 JUICE, Hero can use MASSAGE to remove any emotion that either a friend or foe is afflicted with at the time.
CHARM
Costing 10 JUICE, this move will act first in a turn, causing one foe to target Hero for one turn. It seems a little odd that by charming his opponents, he causes them to want to punch him in the face.
SMILE
Costing 25 JUICE, this move will act first in a turn, reducing the ATTACK of his opponent.
FAST FOOD
(It may look same as COOK, but if you compare you’ll notice this one is faster)
Costing 15 JUICE, this move will act first in a turn, healing 40% of a friend's HEART before they can be dealt any more damage in the succeeding turn.
HOMEMADE JAM
Costing 40 JUICE, Hero makes a bootleg life jam to revive a friend who is currently TOAST, bringing them to 70% of their maximum HEART.
CAPTIVATE
Costing 20 JUICE, this move will act first in a turn, causing every foe to target Hero for one turn. I'm still not seeing the logic in this…
ENCHANT
Costing 15 JUICE, this move will act first in a turn, causing one foe to target Hero for one turn as well as afflicting them with the HAPPY emotion. ???????
SHARE FOOD
Costing 15 JUICE, Hero can create a cookie to share between him and one of his friends, healing 50% of both of their HEART.
MESMERIZE
Costing 30 JUICE, this move will act first in a turn, causing every foe to target Hero for one turn while dealing 50% less damage to him than usual. I guess this sort of makes sense…
DAZZLE
Costing 35 JUICE, this move will act first in a turn, reducing every opponent's ATTACK while also inflicting them with the HAPPY emotion.
SNACK TIME
Costing 25 JUICE, Hero heals all of his friends in one turn for 40% of their HEART. Like COOK, this skill can be used outside of battle as well as in battle.
TEA TIME
Costing 25 JUICE, Hero will recover 30% of a friend's HEART and 20% of their JUICE.
SPICY FOOD
Attained from a random guy who was running around while on fire, at the cost of 15 JUICE Hero can use this spicy dish to damage an opponent while also making them ANGRY.
REFRESH
Costing 40 JUICE, Hero is able to immediately recover half of another friend's JUICE, just at the hefty expense of his own.
TENDERIZE
Costing 30 JUICE, Hero finally has a useful offensive skill! He can deal a large amount of damage to an opponent while also reducing their defense in the process.
GATOR AID
Costing only 15 JUICE, Hero is able to summon Oleggator to use as a meat shield, increasing the defense of everyone in the group. This is what happens, he suffers pain. No, it's not a “Gator Guy”.
FOLLOW-UPS
CALL OMORI
Hero’s Follow-ups are relatively the same across all three, where he is being supportive towards his allies, recovering them and making them perform the next action.
CALL AUBREY
CALL KEL
BOSSMAN HERO
Dun dun dun!
After loan shark Jawsum retired his position and left on vacation, Hero was given the power to be corrupted by the cogs of capitalism! After snapping his fingers a few times, he will turn into BOSSMAN HERO! As a boss, he is unable to feel emotions, so affecting his mental state will not work. In addition, he can summon Gator guys to his side by just snapping his fingers, and he can attack you by throwing his money at you. Rich people things.
The biggest thing this offers him however, is the ability to make deals with his foe, offering them something in exchange for something else mid battle. The combination of deals he makes are randomized, meaning any positive or negative effect can combine in any combination.
Basil
“These are white tulips. Tulips aren't very flashy plants. They're not too big or small, not too elaborate or flamboyant. If I could put it in another way... I guess I would say that... they're comfortable. Simple, modest, and perfect. Just like SUNNY.”
“Maybe one day... things can go back to the way they were before.”
Basil is a soft spoken, yet generally kind hearted boy who carries a camera and photo album with him to record the memories of Sunny- I mean Omori's friend group. His disappearance is what resulted in Omori and the gang starting their adventure across Headspace to find and rescue him, wherever he may be.
In the real world, Basil had witnessed Sunny kill Mari, and he was the one to suggest to him the idea of hanging Mari on a tree to frame her death as a suicide in order to protect Sunny. After this happened, Basil became paranoid and wracked with guilt, so he secluded himself from his friends as he was unable to face them. Aubrey attempted to interact and talk with him more, but upon doing so, she discovered that his photo album had all of its pictures scribbled over with a marker (which is something that was actually done by Sunny himself). Enraged, Aubrey stole the photo album from him and began bullying him, which led to other people beginning to be harsh towards Basil as well. Of course, it wasn't actually Basil who did this but Sunny, but Basil had decided not to say this.
All of this had more than enough of an effect on him, but when he learned that Sunny was starting to move away and leave him behind, Basil's mental situation became much worse as he would soon attempt to kill himself in his room. If Sunny tries to save him, Basil will fight and try to kill Sunny, mistakenly believing that in doing so he will save Sunny from his SOMETHING.
In Headspace, Basil had also become a stranger while locked in Blackspace, and he will attempt to lead Omori to rediscover the truth of Mari's death so that he could finally face reality. If Omori refuses to do so, then this Basil will fight Sunny himself, intending to punish him for neglecting those he had forgotten in order to push away reality and live in his dream world (we’ll talk about this particular Basil later on in the Enemies section, but for now let’s get back to our kind boy with hobby for photos and plants).
WEAPONS
Basil's only weapon is his Garden Shears, a pair of shears that he totally doesn't stab himself with. It has +13 ATK, +6 DEF, +SPD, +6 LCK and 100 HIT.
SKILLS
CHEER
Costing 80 JUICE (Goddamn) Basil will heal every friend's JUICE by 20%. In addition, if Basil currently has an emotion, he will increase a STAT by three whole tiers, though this will also occur if Omori also has an emotion. These stat increases are dependent on the emotions they have; if they are HAPPY, then their speed will increase by 200%. If they are SAD, their defense will increase by 200%. If they are ANGRY, their attack will increase by 200%.
HERBAL REMEDY
Costing 35 JUICE, Basil's will recover 75% of a friend's HEART while also increasing the energy by 1. All by using a single leaf…impressive
PHOTOGRAPH
Costing 50 JUICE, this move will act first in a turn, reducing the hit rate of all opponents by 25% for a turn while also causing them to target Basil. Presumably as implied by the name of the skill it is done by the photo, so it’s not unreasonable to assume Basil will be targeted first when the opponent's eyes just saw a flash of light out of nowhere.
BODY SLAM
Apparently learned from BOSS, Basil can Body Slam his foes for 40 JUICE. This attack will deal more damage depending on how much energy they have, as well as Basil's current level.
TULIP
Costing 40 JUICE, TULIP deals significant damage that is dependent on Omori's stats (namely, his attack, speed, defense and luck). Because he is so bulbous.
GLADIOLUS
Known as the “sword flower”, it represents strength of character. Someone who is honest, with strong moral values... Someone who stands by their convictions...the Gladiolus reminds Basil of Aubrey, due to how she is true to herself. Costing 40 JUICE, Gladiolus deals a large amount of damage that also ignores defense AND always deals a critical hit. What more can it need?
CACTUS
Very sturdy and resilient plants by nature. They don't need much care and can survive even in seemingly impossible conditions. Even Kel could take care of these. Costing 40 JUICE, CACTUS deals significant damage based on Basil's defense and HEART rather than his attack stat.
ROSE
Roses - they come in many different colors and have their own unique meanings. Pink roses symbolize admiration... Orange roses symbolize passion... Yellow roses symbolize friendship... and the list goes on. To Basil, Hero is like all roses, because he's versatile and universally loved. Costing 50 JUICE, this move will act first in a turn, reducing every opponent's attack stat while also recovering 40% of every friend's HEART.
FLOWER CROWN
Costing 75 JUICE, Basil will deal a large amount of damage to his opponent four times in a single turn by surrounding them with vines. Notable thing is normally, against all foes these vines look like average ones, however if they are used against Mari specifically then they look like what you see above, transforming into ropes rather than vines for a few moments.
FOLLOW-UPS
VENT
Basil and Omori vent over their anger, and then attack twice, becoming ANGRY in the process.
MULL
Basil and Omori mull over their sad thoughts, recovering everyone's JUICE by 25% while also becoming SAD.
COMFORT
Basil and Omori comfort each other, healing each other's HEART by 25% while also becoming HAPPY.
Mari
“I'll be around whenever you need me. If you're ever stuck or don't know what to do, just talk to me, and I'll try my best to help!”
“You'll forgive yourself... Won't you... SUNNY?”
Mari is Omori's sister as well as Hero's girlfriend, and is akin to the caretaker of the group. Throughout Headspace she appears with her picnics, where the group may go to heal, save their progress, or ask Mari for advice on their current mission, where she will aid the group and give them ideas on what they should do as they travel Headspace.
In the real world, Mari died four years ago on the day of her and Sunny's recital when Sunny pushed her down the stairs, only to then be hanged by Basil to cover up the truth. This event is what caused the group to fall apart, as well as lead Sunny to creating Headspace in the first place. Even after her death however, it may feel, to Sunny at least, that she never left - and I don't mean that metaphorically. Her spirit has been shown to enter Headspace and at times guide Sunny towards finding and accepting the events of that day, but ultimately to forgive himself for what happened to her. While Sunny is facing SOMETHINGS that represent his fears, Mari may speak to him to help calm him down and tell him what he needs to do.
In Headspace, Mari almost never joins a battle with Omori and his group. This is due to the fact that Omori is too scared of the idea of her being harmed again that he has subconsciously blocked her off to her picnics where she cannot be hurt. However, it is not impossible for her to be in direct combat. When she is, she is incapable of attacking the enemy, and will instead offer food from her picnic basket to Omori, which will completely rejuvenate his HEART and JUICE as well as remove any emotion he currently has back to neutral.
If Mari were to fall in battle, Omori would instead see her hanged body as Sunny. The hanged body cannot have any damage dealt to it, and the only way Sunny can ultimately “defeat” it is by learning to overcome her death, which he is only able to do in the Sunny route after he has reached out to his friends already in the real world. Otherwise, he will be unable to confront the visage of Mari, so he will instead reset to before it could have happened.
LIFE JAM GUY
“Haha, that's okay, you'll need it later.”
Life Jam Guy is ready at any time to appear and offer the Omori party his life jam (it really works!). Life Jam Guy is a lover, and not a fighter, but in order to explain the benefits of his product which can revive someone upon death he needs them to die first, which is why his Death Jam attack will instantly defeat every member of your party at once (except for Omori, thanks to his Plot Armor). In addition, his absurdly high defense and health makes him virtually impossible to defeat in battle. We are only so lucky that this monster is on our side and not that of evil. Omori can get life jam from him when he meets him so that he can use it to revive his fallen allies in future battles.
MAILBOX
“Yes, yes! Hello, valued customer...Welcome to my shop! Please buy something! Kekeke...”
Throughout Headspace there exists multiple mailboxes where a curious person lives inside of it, offering the player items in exchange for clams. These items usually consist of snacks or toys, but it can also offer the pool noodle, a totally useless weapon at an egregious price. If Hero is leading the party while talking to Mailbox, then Mailbox will actually give the player a discount on everything in the shop. Although we never see who the person is inside of the mailbox within the main game, in the 2018 demo it's name is revealed to apparently be Cheers, and it is also shown as being a weird fox thing. Check it out!
Enemies
(We’re so back with this one.)
To quickly recap, due to how this Matchup works we practically already have a basic idea of where they could fight & go, who they could fight & interact with, and what is possible to happen in a long run, as such for full comprehension of said idea we must dive more deeply into Sunny’s consciousness and explore Headspace/Mental World as an battle environment for Raz & Omori.
Raz
Mental World Enemies
As was explained in Psychonauts’ Mindscape section, there are Mental Figures and Systematic Mental Figures. Former can be specific from person to person, and may appear only in one mind, examples of these are The Milkman, The Critic, Luchadors, Cannon Snail, etc. These Mental Figures will not be mentioned since they are not in everyone’s Mental World. Latter however are pretty generic and exist in every person’s mind. This includes basically all figures you have seen in Raz’s Support section before Ford Cruller, as well as will include basically all listed enemies below that actually count as one.
All of them appear in Mental Worlds in some form, represent a person's emotional state and cause harm, usually to manias, hallucinations and whatlike (though they may target the host as well at a worse mental state). They also, however, pretty much target psychics that visit a person's Mental World, since technically speaking, they are a foreign entity who does not belong in a person's mind. This essentially means that Raz brings all of these Systematic Mental Figures to himself simply by existing no matter whose mind he visits. Yikes.
Censors
Censors are the most common type of enemy encountered in mental worlds. They resemble tiny, long-armed men wearing business suits and glasses. The natural defense systems of any mind, doing their best to stamp out dangerous or harmful thoughts such as manias, depression, etc. Unfortunately, they also see foreign psychics as dangerous invaders. They typically do not see their host as an invader, however if something bad happens to the mind, they would consider attacking the host as well. Usually they’re the simplest ones, using their stamps as a main weapon, and often coming out in groups from 5 to 10 and at some point more. They also come in various sizes from average kid sized (at least if taking into account Raz’s canonical height), to either so small that their height won’t reach your knee or so big that they become straight up muscular (we’ll mention em later).
Should be noted that all other Mental World defense system entities we’ll mention below as well as Censors come to fight and eliminate the threat via similar principles, but not only that, theirs and other defense system entities’ presence is a lot more often in places that either are repressed or represent very hurtful memories for a person.
Shouting Censors
The shouting Censors are larger Censors who carry clipboards covered in X's. They shout a deadly "No" blast at Raz, and take more hits to defeat. Raz usually defeats them from distance by PSI-Blast or invisibility.
Heavy Censors
Large, muscular Censors that have "NO" tattooed on their knuckles. They hit hard and can take it hard, attacking through punch barrages and slamming the ground, but they're quite slow and they don't have a whole lot of range. Though they also can shoot a blast of “No” at you.
Personal Demons
Even though they look small, you have to deal with Personal Demons before they blow up in your face. Don't let them get too close before they go, they take out everyone around them. Mostly you. In other words basically suicidal bombers like creepers.
Doubts
Doubts are the meta-physical manifestation of their host's doubts, and often spawn in groups the more their hosts doubts themself. They are slow, support enemies that lack damage but have rather high health. They mostly attack by attempting to bite an opponent with their expansive mouths. Their most notable move is spitting out globs of residue that can drastically slow the opponent down. Doubts also leave a splatter of residue when they spawn in.
Regrets
Regrets are mental figures that can potentially be found in any mental world. They are simple manifestations of a person's regrets. They tend to appear more frequently the more actual regrets their host possesses. Most Regrets are quite fragile, and often appear alongside censors to harass opponents from the air by attempting to drop the metal weight they're always seen carrying on top of him.
Deep Regrets
A bit more powerful form of Regret, Deep Regrets drop shock bombs that have a bigger blast radius, can shock Raz, and damage more. Just as Regrets though, they are fragile and can be taken down by ranged attacks.
Bad Idea
“Bad Ideas” exist in everyone’s head, and they’re a real problem. Being a meta-physical manifestation of the bad idea. They have the ability to toss explosive light bulbs at targets. Though it’s not hard to counter them with ranged attacks or throw a light bulb at them through telekinesis.
Enabler
Enablers are Mental World beings that have the specialty of protecting other enemies, such as censors, from taking damage. They will keep their distance from the opponent while providing their comrades with protective shields, making them immune to all damage. They're very quick, and can easily dodge PSI-Blasts or any other ranged attack, faster and quicker than your average Censors, so it’s worth slowing it down first before closing the distance.
Mega Censor
The Mega Censor is an enormous Censor wielding a massive stamp, accidentally fused from the many Censors which can happen if you block off all Censor outlets (in other words if you suppress all of your feelings). It’s big, strong and can bring in smaller censors into the fight. As well as regenerates its own health by absorbing all smaller censors nearby. Should be noted that while this kind of Censor was only in Sasha Nein’s mind, never seen before in any other Mental World, the reason for its existence, which is mentioned above, is something that at least hypothetically can be replicated in other Mental Worlds.
Nightmare
A Nightmare is a creature that exists somewhere in all minds. Nightmares are frightening and powerful monsters that embody trauma and powerful feelings of guilt. If one is unlucky enough to come across one of these monsters, or just randomly being pulled in by them it’s best to attack it from a long range. Once the beast is nearly defeated, it splits itself in half, releasing small Personal Demons and sucking in energy. Leaving the Nightmare alone during this will let it recover, bringing it back up to full health. To prevent this, one must throw a Personal Demon into the Nightmare’s open body with Telekinesis. This causes an explosion inside of the Nightmare, turning it to stone. This is the only safe time to Psi-Punch the demon and destroy it for good.
Panic Attack
Panic Attacks are, as their name implies, meta-physical manifestations of panic attacks. They are both highly aggressive and highly mobile creatures that can appear and disappear at will to attack unexpectedly, can fire off skulls for ranged attacks, and also have the ability to create illusory clones of themselves. The creature is insanely fast so it is worth using some method of slowing it down.
Judge
Judge is a meta-physical manifestation of judgmental behavior within their host minds, be it self-judgment or judged by a third party, though they're not necessary for the host to have Judges. They serve as heavy units in terms of durability and damage potential among other enemies that can be encountered. Wielding a large gavel, Judges will swing at its opponents when he goes to attack, or result in book-throwing without it.
Bad Mood
Bad Moods are a meta-physical manifestation of a literal bad mood. It has the ability to blind opponents by casting a cloud of darkness around them, but is also capable of throwing various projectiles. Initially, Bad Moods are completely invincible, and require Raz to find its source to defeat it. Using Clairvoyance in its weakened state will allow Raz to locate and reveal the Bad Mood's source. Destroying the source will free the heart within and reunite it with the Bad Mood, defeating it.
Omori
HEADSPACE ENEMIES
Throughout Headspace, Omori encounters various enemies that may be hostile (or occasionally amicable) towards him and his party. The thing is, every entity that exists in Headspace is a direct manifestation from Omori. As the dreamer of Headspace, Sunny/Omori creates every single person that exists within his own mind as well as every event that occurs within the Headspace section of the story - essentially, everything is manufactured by Omori himself to keep Sunny (himself) distracted from the truth, and so he should be capable of manifesting them into existence in a fight that may endanger the secrecy of the truth, like how defeated bosses (some of whom we know to have died) will just reappear to fight Omori in Boss Rush.
Think of it like how Arceus and YVHV are theoretically capable of summoning every monster in their series to fight if they needed to, as the creator gods of their verse. Omori basically fills that exact same role, except even more directly. At the bare minimum, Omori possesses the ability to manipulate events in such a way that his opponent could fight any of the entities in Headspace.
Sprout Moles
“Excuse you! I am no ugly plant creature!”
Sprout Moles are basically a race of “highly intelligent” plant creatures that appear across multiple locations of HEADSPACE (Sort of like Omori version of Earthbound’s Mr. Saturns and Undertale’s dogs). Though most of the time these creatures appear quite scatterbrained when trying to handle certain tasks, contradicting their claims of high intelligence. Aside from that all of them are highly obsessed with tofu, as obsessed as Minecraft Villagers about emeralds if not more. They talk about it all the time and even ask the party to deliver some to them in certain sidequests. With that being said not all Sprout Moles are friendly, a lot of them are willing to fight to the death. There are many Sprout Moles Omori and his crew had to encounter so here are all dangerous sprout moles worth talking about:
Bunnies
“You know what I hate more than anything else? Bunnies. That's right. Bunnies.”
Bunnies. In the world of Headspace there are plenty of them wandering around. Starting from average cute round bunnies to other weird mutations you see above and will see below. Each of them despite their innocent looks will try to beat you down, so here are every Bunny Omori and his crew had to face against:
BIG STRONG TREE
But aside from Sprout Moles and Bunnies, the forest has prepared yet another challenging opponent - a big and strong tree. This tree has the highest ATTACK and DEFENSE stats, making it practically impenetrable almost as an immovable object. But aside from being so durable that it is almost impossible to beat directly, this tree being a tree, is stationary and does nothing…wait really? Nothing? Nothing at all? Well that’s anticlimactic, guess you can just use it as a punching bag then, or defeat it via either really hard attack or methods that ignore defenses like Omori’s STAB skill. That being said, this tree and its upward angle it is appearing from, is quite similar to how Sunny himself viewed the very tree where Mari was hanged (which is probably why in FOE FACTS! there are no notes from Omori himself at all when it comes to this tree), making him think that perhaps, even if this is all real, if he keeps looking at the leaves...everything will be okay.
U.F.O.
Also known as UNIDENTIFIED FLYING ORANGE, get it? Like a UFO but “Orange” instead of “Object”…aaaaaanyway, you can notice it resembles a floating orange with three dots on its face, similar to a bowling ball. It has a bit of green on it, making it overall look like an orange fruit not without a reason. According to Omori himself it is a “highly advanced orange,commonly seen aimlessly floating through the vastness of space”, additionally Kel adds that these flying objects also taste like an orange (if other statements weren’t enough). An antenna sticks out from its head, which probably is the source of its various actions in a fight. Such as shooting the Orange Beam which attacks the target with the lowest amount of JUICE and restores 10% of their said JUICE. Or it can shoot a Strange Beam which causes its opponent to feel random emotion. They rarely battle by themselves. They almost always appear with one other enemy or even multiple U.F.O.s at the same time. Which is reasonable given by themselves Omori and his party can dispatch them even by a single attack. Realistically the best strategy to do is to use any attack which covers all enemies, this efficiently would end the battle, there are multiple examples, such as Kel's REBOUND or passing to Hero. Additionally, their incredibly low HEART and ATTACK makes them an easy target for acquiring BREAD using Omori’s BREAD SLICE skill.
VENUS FLYTRAP
You know, plants that suddenly turn into predators at this point probably is one of the common tropes, even though in real life the most notable example is only them eating bugs or birds. Piranha Plant, Chomper, Triffid, Audrey II, etc. This one is no exception, the watermelon that at first may look like containing an item of sorts, actually turns out to be a Venus Flytrap, who can strike and chomp you. They are scattered all across the Otherworld, but rather simple foes to be dealt with. Still keep your eyes in check if you want to actually get an item or kill some more plants.
WORMHOLE
A worm that gets out of the portal which looks like a wormhole, and well…quite literally represents it. Offensively it only can slap you in the face, presumably with its head. But it also possesses a bizarre ability of opening wormholes from which he can bring in various other creatures into fight, such as more Wormholes, Space Bunnies and U.F.O.s perhaps if it’ll try hard enough it potentially may could even bring more various creatures of the HEADSPACE. Though it must be also noted that it is one of the foes with less health so if you use all of your forces on him, you may kill him earlier than he will bring more enemies to kill you.
MIXTAPE
As you can probably guess it is a living cassette, a relic of the past…which seems to be awfully cheerful despite its impending fall into obscurity. This one isn’t really durable but it can still use its tape hands to either slap you or make you accidentally caught in the same tape, given how it is easy to mix up long tapes with each other it is a bit terrifying to imagine what happens if you mix yourself up in a human sized one…
DIAL-UP
Remember the times of older computers when getting access to the internet was pretty slow while you were using telephone lines to connect to it? Me neither, but in Sunny’s life that kind of computer wasn't too far off of an invention so Junkyard also found space full of these kinds of relics, ear piercing noises included. As well as it inherited the slow internet from the older computers. In fact, the internet is so slow that it can hurt you out of frustration, literally. And if it decides to slow down further than before, to the point of the same speed as you downloading a new game through Torrent in 00s, yours and allie’s speed will slow down as well. So frustrating and yet so easily breakable so you shouldn’t have a problem throwing it back to the pile of trash.
DOOMBOX
Though Junkyard’s old technologies don’t end here. Next living object forgotten by common people is the revived spirit of a boom box, which was a portable method of transporting loud noises before wireless speakers were invented. This spirit of a boom box is getting more and more mad at us the longer the fight goes, causing itself to be ANGRY for higher damage output. Eventually, aside from slamming itself into foes, it can do what it was designed for and drop beats so sick that they damage everyone nearby.
SHARK PLANE
In Undertale we fight a plane whose entire character is a literal tsundere. In OMORI we fight a plane whose entire character is a literal shark. What conclusion may it lead us to? I dunno, but it seems like a fun coincidence don’t ya think? In any case, this aerial predator is capable of swooping up unsuspecting passengers and ramming onto us at mach-speed. As well as overclocking its engines to build up more speed and anger on us at which point, getting rammed or chomped by him may leave you highly damaged. It also is a pretty tough one so you must spend some time before getting a chance at killing him.
RARE BEAR
As the name implies it is a pretty rare bear to encounter in Headspace who exists only in the foggy pyrefly forest and Sweetheart’s dungeon (why does she keep them in a dungeon? well…I guess they are fancy given how rare they are). They may seem friendly and cute at first, the moment you get closer it reveals to be a far more aggressive foe. As in, it starts the fight ANGRY already, so whatever you do, do not provoke it, nor do not show weakness. This bear is a really tough one so it’ll take a lot from your team to tame it, especially with its strong slashes he can make with his claws to the point of potentially being able to one shot you or your friends. Doesn’t help that if you make him experience any other emotion, he can roar to make himself ANGRY again. So if you encounter him it definitely is recommended to play with emotions and take advantage of him as quickly as possible.
POTTED PLANT
Though what also covers Pyrefly Forest are these plants with a single eye and scary spider legs. It is not super strong but it is very versatile for a plant. Aside from slamming with its entire body on foes it can slow down opponents by making them trip on its roots…spider roots??? As well as it can cutely scuttle to turn itself HAPPY from ANGRY. Though if it feels most uncomfortable during the fight it will explode causing damage to everyone in the party. Why do they explode? Who planted them? That will be forever a mystery we won’t find answers for…
S.S. SNAKE
Also known as Strawberry Short Snake. As you can tell, it is a very short snake with a very long name, which speaks for itself. It can slither to make itself HAPPY, but mostly it acts like an average snake, in other words it can hiss at you and sink its non-poisonous fangs later on. Though it may seem like a simple foe, it is a pretty durable one compared to most of the previous ones, so you better be sure you are strong enough to fight several of those.
PORCUPIE
What you see right there is a rejected dessert sentenced to wander the wasteland for an eternity - an sentient-looking pie with a porcupine's features on its body, notably sharp quills on its spine and pointy snout. It sniffs around but if you are not careful it’ll also impale you. And when it comes to these animals, they are very painful at doing that.
CILANTRO
Scientific Name - Coriandrum sativum
Stats, per 100 grams:
Energy- 22.71 Calories
Vitamin K - 310 mcg
Potassium - 521 mg
Iron - 1.77 mg
Overall, great vegetables, but this one isn’t so easy to harvest as it is not only sentient, but it is also willing to fight back. Not like it is particularly versatile as it can only smack you, but for a cilantro it is surprisingly quite a durable foe.
GINGER
Scientific Name - Zingiber officinale
A flowering plant whose rhizome is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial which grows annual pseudostems about a meter tall, bearing narrow leaf blades. It is an innerly peaceful plant, which even when set to certain emotion, can calm down to come back to its senses. But even creatures as peaceful as this one can snap and attack.
CELERY
Scientific Name - Apium graveolens
Its leaves are pinnate to bipinnate with rhombic leaflets 3–6 centimeters long and 2–4 cm broad. The flowers are creamy-white, 2–3 mm in diameter, and are produced in dense compound umbels. The seeds are broad ovoid to globose, 1.5-2 mm long and wide. All in all it turns out to be a pretty long vegetable, eating which costs you more calories than you get from it, due to how much you need to chew it…you already know that? Well, this one particular Celery also is sentient akin to 2 aforementioned veggies as you can see, but it pretty much can only ram into foes or fall over, not that versatile of a plant but pretty durable still.
RABBIT?
This…is just a rabbit…or should I rather say, photorealistic rabbit. Similarly like with bunnies and sprout moles it is nothing more than an abomination for Omori. Though it may be just a rabbit it is pretty versatile as not only it can nibble at you, its cute eyes just can’t help but weaken you, simply via either winking at you with eyes so cute that you lower your attack, as well as giving a look so depressing that you become sad yourself. So you better activate your survival instinct and kill them quickly without remorse.
CHICKEN?
Ok well…aside from the photorealistic rabbit there is also a photorealistic chicken walking around…What can I say more…You know usually chickens in fiction are actually pretty strong or at least clever. This one is uh, chicken at its most chicken way, even having its cowardly traits. Though it is really fast so while it may not fight, it can get away from you rather quickly to the point that it is useless to chase it. And frankly it’s rather tedious to do, I can tell from experience. But in Omori’s case it somehow has one of the biggest amounts of experience to upgrade Omori’s and his crew’s abilities, especially on the top floor of Dino Dig. Making it functionally similar to, say, Golden Hands from Persona games, perhaps less annoying and more farmable though. To outspeed chicken Omori either can use lucky slice while being ANGRY or HAPPY from the start of the fight, or use Kel so he would use poetry book and make Chicken SAD, and SAD chicken loses its will to run away.
MUSSEL
It is a mussel, but very, very muscular. You may ask what is his secret? Simple, in order to maintain its rock solid physique it keeps an incredibly strenuous workout regimen, combine that with the fact that he is very deep in the ocean the amount of pressure he gets everyday must multiply all of his efforts to build this strong body of muscles under the shell. Given it is a mussel its shell is also very durable enough for him to hide in it and take minimal damage from his foes, to eventually rise and punch you in the face. He can also, just like Kel, Flex to feel his best, though if Kel will do that earlier, he will actually feel inferior and would become drastically weaker and slower.
REVERSE MERMAID
Well you know, one of your classic reverse tropes, where mermaid’s human half are actually legs while fish half is the head. It can bump into you, run around so fast he manages to simultaneously hit 2 enemies but most of all it can do a backflip! Ain’t he a cool fella.
SHARK FIN
This small shark is…well it is rather not a shark, but rather exclusively its fin part. But don’t underestimate it, as it is still a decently strong opponent, aside from charging and biting you (latter which can ignore your defense if you are ANGRY), but it also can work itself up to make itself ANGRY and further increase its swimming speed.
SQUIZZARD
By the looks of it you might think it’s just another kind of sprout moles but in the water, so you may be questioning why it is not classified as one. Well that’s because your eyes are lying to you, it isn’t, it is actually a squid with a wizard hat, wizard beard and wizard magic. With magic it can either attack you, create a squid ward to protect itself or its ally, and perhaps most chaotic one being squid magic which makes its foes feel weird, inflicting random emotion afterwards. Though not being a sprout mole, Omori’s opinion of it is probably even worse than with them, as he views squizzards as “the most despicable creature on the planet”, who have no friends, are never invited to parties, and are terrible at jokes. I guess that’s the price you have to pay to have cool magic spells.
WATERMIMIC
Back to our classic section of plant predators, this time we have a similar kind of trap but a lot more clever, because it does actually look entirely like a watermelon (seriously, look at it and tell me if it’s mimic or not: ).
Though as the name implies this watermelon “chest” is actually a mimic! Omoir himself sees it as “an obviously fake trap that would only be able to fool the most feeble-minded of individuals”. That being said, this watermelon is actually full of surprises. As while normal watermelons contain items within itself, as has been pointed out earlier, this watermelon throws all possible items it has in hands against us. It can shoot Rubber Band to damage and reduce defense, throw jacks to deal damage to everyone and reduce their speed, blowing up a dynamite explosion which deals damage to everyone in the radius, including itself, throw confetti to make everyone HAPPY, summon rain cloud to make everyone SAD, and use a giant air horn to make everyone ANGRY, all of that inflicts emotions on itself as well. Though this creature is not really intelligent as it can also throw Grape Juice and Tomato, which in turn recover the target's health or juice.
SNOT BUBBLE
This bubble is rather a fragile being with a short lifespan. It leads a life of impermanence and smells like a wet dog, according to Omor himself. But practically this bubble made of Humphrey’s stomach acid should be popped as quickly as possible before it inflates itself to the point of making a big snot explosion, dealing pretty high damage to everyone on the party.
WORM-BOT
What you see here now is a pretty big mechanical worm, with sharp razor teeth it likes to eat carrots with. Though you might be surprised, as it doesn’t use said teeth in combat. Usually it either rams into its opponents or straight up shoots a laser with really high damage. More often than not it does the former but you better be careful.
LAB RAT
Hey, usually we are doing experiments with rats, not the other way around! This one doesn’t seem to be really qualified either, as while it proclaims himself as a scientific genius which specializes in theoretical chemistry, but its true passion really lies on the silver screen. Despite that, it has a few inventions to throw at us, such as the tiny mouse laser which deals more damage if foe is HAPPY. But how to make the foe HAPPY? Release a special Happy Gas which makes everyone in the room (itself included) HAPPY, so it can both hit more precisely and deal a solid amount of damage.
SLICE, SESAME, & SOURDOUGH
Quickly back to Orange Oasis in a bit, we also have to face in it the souls of bread children brought back to life by a mysterious power. They only come as a group because they are all good friends. Each of the three performs various moves. While Sesame and Sourdough perform various offensive moves like throwing seeds, rolling over everyone, stepping on opponent’s toe (yes you heard it right), or even saying bad words, Sesame (the middle one) can not only charge at opponent he chooses, but say speech so controversial that he makes everyone in his group, including himself, ANGRY, further increasing their offensive capabilities. But obviously by themselves they all aren’t as impressive so as soon as one gets eliminated, the team's dynamic worsens completely.
CREEPYPASTA
Alright, before talking about this menacing creature, Let me start off by telling you a story where everything you're about to hear is 100% undoubtedly true. There was a garage sale last summer. I spotted a dusty cartridge of a game I never heard of before. I bought it, but when I got home, it didn't work. When I went back to the garage sale, the house was burnt down. :O This…probably why the creature you see above looks like it burns from the inside. But despite its amusing looks at first don’t be fooled. It can deal damage by making you feel uncomfortable, and menacingly do nothing, but as soon as it is close to being defeated, it will show everyone around it their worst nightmares, inflicting AFRAID onto them. Quite a creepy pasta if you ask me…ok that was pretty cheap calembour.
COPYPASTA
A Copypasta is a pasta that copies itself.
- The Monster King
A Copypasta is a pasta that copies itself.
- Oleggator
A Copypasta is a pasta that copies itself.
- Stars
A Copypasta is a pasta that copies itself.
- Wacky Man
LIVING BREAD
A demon bread, baked to perfection rises from the ground with only purpose - consuming Life Jam. It is a rather simple foe though, as it can only swipe at you, and bite if it gets close enough of course. However in the Breaven three of them at once were summoned via Life Jam, so you better keep up well.
GINGERDEAD MAN
This Gingerbread Man may look sad with its frontal lobe being bitten off twice, but it is definitely not dead. Though while it is all sad, it still can throw hands quite well, as not only it can put back fallen pieces back together, he can bite and stab his opponents. Though should you slice it piece by piece it probably won’t be able to be restored…
TOAST GHOST
Aside from weird bread creatures that want to kill there are also just so happen to be ghosts toasts…even though toasts themselves are already meant to be corpses…though it may look spooky it is not that dangerous really, as it can mostly just phase through you making you feel tired and not only lose health but juice to perform skills as well.
HUSH PUPPY
You may be confused and start questioning what is this thing…and well it is confusing at first but if you look at the left and right shapes as ears and big black oval as a nose or mouth you can quickly come to the conclusion that this is a puppy…or well, read its name, that works too…That being said, it is an erratic entity that was born from the cries of lost souls, which slowly screams itself to death. Offensively it can only really ram into foes as well as barking while hoping for something to happen, but as soon as it screams, the person he screams to immediately becomes AFRAID, so you better keep your distance from it.
SNOW PILE
Snowglobe Mountain is pretty full of snow creatures, but one of its most common ones are perhaps these unintentionally cursed patches of snow that can’t help but wonder why they are alive. Despite having the crisis they still pretty strong piles, as not only they can throw snow or even engulf you in it to make you slower and less durable, it eventually can absorb even more snow, which not only recovers health but also makes them stronger and more durable…in a place that is made out of snow…so you better be quick with it.
SNOW ANGEL
These angels made out of snow are guardians of Snowglobe Mountain...eyes of whom are filled with stories. Snow Angels are known to appear to lost travelers and disappear with them into the snowfall. Their hands are so cold that just by touching us with its hand it deals us solid damage, its hymns are so beautiful that they make everyone around HAPPY, but don’t fall into beauty yet as their swords are so sharp they can pierce you right into the heart, making you come back to your senses, at least if you’ll survive the hit…they also happen to be one of the most durable non-boss foes so you better be prepared before facing them.
GATOR GUY
“Take it easy. We ain't gonna fight ya...At least not while we're off the clock.”
Gator Guy's are the loyal henchmen of Mr. Jawsum (literal grunts), they work at the Last Resort & are spread around the Underwater Highway. They can 'karate chomp' to deal damage, crack knuckles (to do nothing), & rough up to deal two hits in one turn.
BOSS
“If I can't play with everyone, then no one can! This is a BOSS-ONLY zone now... AND YOU'RE NOT INVITED!!”
Boss is well- the first Boss you encounter on your journey (really clever there, Sunny…). It's pretty hard to actually lose against him, because of Omori's ability to persist, but he can target one foe or all foes at once using his big body to slam into people (move so devastating he almost killed Mari with it in the manga); he has no real weaknesses the best strategy being to just keep attacking (HOW DARE HE KIDNAP THAT GREEN PLANT CREATURE).
KITE KID & KID’S KITE
“We are one with the wind! As long as it blows, we are unbeatable!”
There just so happens to be a Kid with a sentient Kite hidden deep within the Pinwheel Forest, he seemed to just be minding his business, but upon talking to him he's ready for a fight. The Kid's Kite is basically invincible given the Kid can keep repairing it, a good strategy is to take out the Kid first so it can't keep coming back. Outside of that he tends to throw Jacks & brag to change his emotion to Happy.
THE EARTH
“The EARTH looks peaceful. Would you like to disturb it?”
Just like our Earth, it is the third planet from the Sun, the surface of which is mostly covered in water and people. But instead of being just a stationary planet that spins around, she is a living being that traveled across the cosmos with Pluto. And even is wandering around other Headspace places if not approached. She is first encountered by Omori and his friends on a way from Captain Spaceboy’s home to Junkyard in Otherworld. Normally she won’t fight unless is being approached, if she has to, however, she can put up a pretty good fight. Though mostly her strategy is basically ramming into her opponents and at peak she unleashes her ultimate attack…
Which is essentially a large energy attack affecting all nearby foes. However one of the most important things to note is that Earth is a cruel mistress. Her cruelty has the ability to make various members of the party SAD. This however can work to her disadvantage if she is HAPPY. It becomes a lot harder if she is fighting in pairs with Pluto however, with whom she can safely make you sad enough to the point of being DEPRESSED or MISERABLE and bombard you with ultimate attack if she’s not targeted first. Speaking of Pluto…
PLUTO
“WHEN I FLEX, I FEEL MY BEST!!”
Pluto is an escaped Planetoid from our Solar System who roams around offering transportation across the vast cosmos of Headspace's Universe; though for some reason he was hiding behind a tree in Otherworld. He deals some major damage, unlike most enemies he's 3 in 1, meaning he can attack up to 3 times in one turn, and has 3 entire health bars. While his arms have less HP, destroying them won't stop Pluto, the head is his core, depleting it to zero will stop him in his tracks. His main method of attacking is... striking a pose and doing nothing, slamming opponents with a headbutt, bragging to feel happy, expanding to raise his attack & defense at the cost of speed, poking people to make them angry, flexing to increase his damage & hit rate, & grabbing an opponent to lower their speed (it can't critical however).
POKE EM’ TO MAKE EM’ ANGRY!
FLEX AND FEEL YOUR BEST, RAISING YOUR ATTACK & DEFENSE, AT THE COST OF SPEED!
EXPANDED FORM
As it turns out Pluto's power has been heavily restricted for much of your journey, upon being ordered to kill you by a MAFIA Shark, Pluto engages you in battle and shows you his full unrestricted Expanded Form worthy of a Planet. His main attacks consist of... THROWING THE LITERAL MOON AT YOU, putting you in submission holds to lower your speed, headbutting you, flexing his muscles for no apparent reason, expanding FURTHER to increase attack & defense at the cost of speed, slamming Earth into you, or summoning Meteors.
WHERE DID THE EARTH EVEN COME FROM!??! DIDN’T ASK, SLAM!
DOWNLOAD WINDOW
Throughout Omori’s adventure in your classic indie horror fashion there are also some events that make your game crash. This…is not one of those surprisingly. Well it does stop for a moment making you feel like the game stops but other than that, it is a rather pretty straightforward opponent. It resembles a clear representation of a typical window on an old computer, or in other words good ol favorite Windows XP. I mean, just look at the background and tell me how it is not WXP.
Aside from that however this boss is basically a charging cannon, in a sense that it is at 99% at first, and still loads for so long despite being so close, but once it is about to reach 100% it suddenly crashes and makes everyone lose 80% of their health, almost killing everyone in the crew no matter how much HP you have.
This means that fight against this foe is a race of who will deal lethal damage faster, with one of the common tactics perhaps is making Window SAD while keeping Aubrey ANGRY, after which constantly using her headbutt to deal massive damage before it could do anything to you.
SPACE EX-BOYFRIEND
“My rage cannot be contained...You cannot placate me!”
Space EX-Boyfriend was originally the Boyfriend of local Sweetheart, uh... Sweetheart! After he broke up with her he went into a depressive state, though upon hearing one of her songs, he awoke ready to UNLEASH HIS RAGE; this Space EX-Boyfriend engaged in battle. He attacks by kicking, looking into the distance doing nothing, singing sadly to make people sad, wailing to harm everyone in his vicinity, fire lasers, or fire lasers wildly to hit four random targets and ignore defense. And his anger is main form of weapon and potential weakness, as eventually he can become so angry that it is impossible to make him experience any other emotions. Which means with the Rock-paper-scissors logic in hand, if you are HAPPY, you will have a solid advantage as you get less damage and deal a lot more damage as well.
Space Ex-Boyfriend can fire lasers at a target to deal damage from afar!
Space Ex-Boyfriend can also fire wildly at up to four opponents (four times), it can hit opponents multiple times, but his gun can only ever fire up to 4 lasers.
SPACE EX-HUSBAND
“CAPT. SPACEBOY? Who's that? I am nothing. I am pure. I am cold, like ice.”
Space EX-Husband is the result of a complete betrayal, after promising to marry Sweetheart, he had his heart broken once more after they married and broke up once more... leaving him cold and empty. He can kick, fire lasers, calm down to remove emotional statuses, wail to make opponents angry, sing and deplete enemies of juice & make them sad, make the party happy, do spin kicks, and fire lasers at four random targets the same as before. The tradeoff in this fight is that he has 999 defense, he is completely invincible to ordinary attacks & skills (even ones that negate defense), to deal damage he needs to be feeling an emotion.
KING CRAWLER
King Crawler is a massive Monster that became an amalgamation of dead Sprout Moles, connecting their bodies to its own and becoming a massive centipede. It attacks by slamming into opponents, becoming angry, chomping on them, charging them, and eating Sprout Moles that it can summon to gain HP and become happy... meaning if you don't take out the Moles it can heal indefinitely.
King Crawler can eat Sprout Moles to become Happy & heal HP, making it essentially unkillable if you don’t stop it.
King Crawler can deal damage to the entire enemy team by charging into all of them with it’s massive body.
KING CARNIVORE
King Carnivore is a massive plant creature who drools a red substance, it guards a massive haul of Watermelon treasure! It can absorb nearby nutrients for HP, wrap opponents with vines, & release gas to make the enemy party happy. So what you must rather do is take advantage of that, and make this bloody mouth plant angry so you could have the emotional advantage over it and its roots despite it making you happy.
King Carnivore can absorb nutrients from the environment in order to recover HP for all of it’s segments.
King Carnivore releases sweet gas that causes everyone to feel Happy once they smell it.
SWEETHEART
The local sweetheart known as- Sweetheart, is a princess of her own Castle located deep within the Pyrefly Woods near the Mole Sprout Colonies (& the love interest of Space Boyfriend). While she fully commands Sprout Moles and uses them as a personal army, keeping the castle in guard from top to the bottom, she herself has proven to be quite a menacing foe. Her main method of attacking is slapping opponents, insulting them to make them angry, swinging her mace, or boasting to become happy. Her “happiness” as a matter of fact is pretty much her main form of taking advantage, given she eventually boasts herself so hard, she straight up becomes Manic to the point that it is impossible to make her feel any other emotion. And insulting everyone of the foes around only gives her an upper hand advantage with the emotion system in mind. Which is why the best way to approach her is not in anger, but rather in sadness as it is the emotions that counters happiness.
As seen here, her insults give her such a big advantage in combat that she can easily almost kill you even with just something like a slap.
While swinging her mace is even more threatening as she is skilled enough to aim at the entire party while being at it.
As mentioned above Sweetheart can prevent herself from feeling emotions and become completely happy, she may be a bit too egotistical to be changed in such a manner.
NEFARIOUS CHIP
Nefarious Chip is an optional mini-boss that appears after sacrificing oatmeal cookies on the summoning stove in BREAVEN! Their main method of attacking is charging into foes, stroking his mustache (and doing nothing), laughing evil-like to become happy, throwing Oatmeal cookies at 3 random opponents, & throwing Oatmeal Cookies that are slightly different while it's happy. Yes that is a lot of Oatmeal cookies here, what else would you expect from a living oven?
UNBREAD TWINS
“We're doomed to bake bread for all eternity... aren't we, BISCUIT?”
The Unbread Twins are in an underground dungeon in BREAVEN! They've been creating Bread since the very creation of the universe making the freshest bread around! They can attack together to hit someone twice, forget bread in the oven (which is essentially doing nothing), pull out the bread to summon two ally loafs, make a cookie to heal the user, and remove the sadness emotion. Eventually during the fight they develop a similar emotional spectrum as Ex-Boyfriend and Sweetheart, though if the former was in pure rage while the latter was extremely manic, the twins are simply miserable, to the point that the thought of staying baking bread for all eternity just makes them feel no emotion other than sadness. Which leaves a potential advantage to let all of your rage out on them, angry you is their ultimate weakness, just like happy you weakens Boyfriend, and sad you beats Sweetheart.
MR. JAWSUM
“Now that's the dedication I like to see...Go get ‘em, you crazy kids.”
Mr. Jawsum is a Mob Shark who runs the Last Resort Hotel & Casino, he is a decent boss, but he is essentially holding everyone hostage by forcing everyone to get a job in his establishment or reap the consequences (his favorite employee seems to be Hero). He attacks by ordering all allies to attack (making them angry) & calling Gator Guy's on his phone. Gators are essentially Jawsum’s strength, while there are gators around it is pretty much impossible to target Jawsum himself, since you will deal 0 damage to him. Only after there are no Gators left to attack and essentially protect Jawsum, you may actually deal damage to him. So be patient and pick the right moment when you use your best moves.
ROBOHEART
Roboheart is an optional enemy created by Molly as a suitor for Sweetheart. She can attack by firing her hand like a rocket, buffering (to do nothing), shoot lasers from its mouth, snack to heal HP, & cry to explode and hurt all opponents. She was brought into this world to want love, only to feel misery.
MUTANTHEART
Mutantheart is an optional enemy created…also as a suitor for Sweetheart, she's a bit dimwitted but really peppy (it's the LOVABLE scrimblo bimblo, how can you not love her); she attacks by winking to make someone happy, crying to make people sad, accidentally saying something mean to make them angry, or slapping them to ignore emotions and damage reduction skills (it's an instant kill).
PERFECTHEART
“Remember, children... You brought this upon yourselves!”
Perfectheart is an optional enemy created by Medusa made to be a possible suitor for Sweetheart, and perhaps one of the hardest and most challenging enemies in the game. She can steal her opponents 'heart' to deal damage & recover HP as a vitality drain move, steal their breath away to deplete all their Juice (MP), unleash her wrath to inflict heavy damage and random emotions, sing a soulful song to deal fixed damage (while ignoring your defense) which makes the party happy & Perfectheart sad (giving her an immediate statistical advantage), she can exploit emotions to hurt people experiencing emotions, or spare opponents to deal heavy damage at the cost of leaving them barely standing [sets opponents HP to 1].
SLIME GIRLS
“Well... That's just too bad.”
“Tough luck, kids... You walked into the wrong whale.”
(Omoriboy approves)
The Slime Girls are a group of sea witches conducting experiments in Humphrey (the whale), they try to make you pay an absurd price before deciding to try & capture you to feed Humphrey. They attack by comboing all at once, fill the room with gas that inflict random emotions, throwing explosive bottles, fire stingers that decrease speed majorly, cutting you with a chainsaw, becoming angry, swapping the opponents HP & Juice randomly, or dealing damage to everyone (depleting their juice & lowering their attack, defense, & speed in the process, while also dealing a random emotion).
HUMPHREY
“I fucking love air-conditioning.”
Humphrey is a massive whale that resides in the Deeper Well, being one of the oldest three giant creatures in Headspace as well as being one of the final locations of Headspace; his insides being incredibly massive (in comparison to his outside). Much to your dismay, he's a bit of a glutton, and to satiate his hunger has no problems killing you... which is where his 'internal' forms come into play.
HUMPHREY (SWARM)
“Time to feast! Time to feast! Time for you to be deceased!”
Inside the whale, Humphrey's body is capable of making swarms of himself to attack you! They can multiply and appear seemingly indefinitely capable of harming you from all angles (multiple times in a row).
HUMPHREY GRANDE
“Just a warning... it's about to get smelly! It's time for you all to get in my belly!”
Humphrey Grande is a mesh of all the Swarms, which can slam into you to deal damage, they won't stop multiplying! Once you’ve dealt enough damage to him is where the real problem begins & he swallows the party whole.
HUMPHREY’S FACE
“Feel free to struggle, 'cuz no matter what... You'll never be able to escape my gut!”
Humphrey's Face is a sentient mass that he can cause to appear anywhere inside his body, after he swallows you all you can see is his face. He chomps onto opponents to deal damage working up his appetite more, before ignoring defense and swallowing the party whole... sending them deeper and deeper inside him indefinitely... making Humphrey practically unbeatable at this point.
HUMPHREY’S UVULA
“Please wait to be digested! There is a queue, so you'll have to wait.”
The final thing that you encounter is Humphrey's Uvula, apparently being his weak point, while it is incredibly fast... it has only one health point & juice, making it a complete pushover, defeating this stops Humphrey's incredibly annoying and unbeatable BFR Tactic... all the Uvula can do is smirk at you (apparently Humphrey didn’t know about this weakness).
SNALEY
“I'd bet I'm almost as strong as you now! You'd better take this seriously!”
Snaley is a marshmallow creature that shows up all across Headspace, he gets hurt & dies a lot... though apparently it doesn't matter to him because he keeps coming back. Snaley can attack enemies, follow up (similar to Omori's party), fall over (to do nothing), attack furiously to attack 3 times, use an Air Horn to make the enemy team angry, or release energy to deal 50% of the party's HP & ignore emotions. He has been blown up into nothing, disintegrated, and melted away into stomach acid yet still somehow reappears.
ABBI
“The truth... I am used to know it...But... I am... cannot remember...”
Abbi is one of the wisest of the three great creatures in Headspace & was banished to the Abyss for some unknown reason, it's a boss exclusive to the Omori Route for collecting all the keys. Their main method of attacking is summoning tentacles, stretching tentacles to become angry and increase attack, weaken opponents to make them vulnerable for one turn (makes them vulnerable to critical hits), wrapping around opponents to make them afraid, & drench opponents in liquid (to lower attack, defense, & speed). After defeating her, Omori can decide to either kill Abbi and obtain Abbi’s Eye, or spare her which would result in her aiding Omori and his party by granting them gifts and equipment from throughout Headspace.
SOMETHING
Now from here we’re taking a look at the entity that…doesn’t really follow Omori’s orders, haunts him & Sunny, and represents rather harmful thoughts Omori so tried to repress for 4 years. But let’s go step by step to explain “what is this Something?”. To understand that we probably will have to take a deep look at Sunny’s traumatic event once more.
After Sunny accidentally pushed Mari down the stairs, Basil came up with the idea of framing the death as suicide. Sunny at that time was dissociative and not exactly aware of Basil actually being around, as a matter of fact he couldn’t believe whether everything that just happened was a dream or reality, inclined to think it was former trying to constantly wake himself up. But as soon as he saw Basil along with his tears falling down while looking ahead, he realized none of that was a dream, it was very much real. As soon as Sunny and Basil go back to the house and look back at the trees they see it:
The light engulfs it as it sways in the wind, for a moment it was peaceful, or so Sunny thought for a moment, until he looked up to Basil’s eyes, which while at first were very tired, suddenly became awake, staring at Something. Sunny decided to take a look at it as well, and see…
Something, looked back at him. This sight, with its menacing look, traumatized Sunny and Basil, essentially resulting in both creating “Something” that was haunting them for the course of these 4 years.
As we know, Sunny did attempt to repress these negative memories with the creation of White Space and Headspace, and through Omori, Sunny has been interacting with his childhood friends ever since. But this doesn’t stop Something from bothering him, after all, Sunny still knows Basil was involved in this event. This essentially led to Something constantly following Basil and making him disappear, which then causes Omori into a search quest while Something keeps haunting Sunny, which practically continues in an endless loop, cycle of Something causing Basil’s disappearance and quest for searching him.
Something, mostly drags you into the shadows during the encounter, but naturally it is a being identical to Omori, resulted due to traumatic experience, and represents Sunny’s guilt, Sunny’s secret that he kept away from anyone. And normally it is pretty much not possible to just kill Something directly. As long as Sunny keeps away The Truth from himself and others, Something will continue to persist and torment Sunny & Omori. Leaving only one way to deal with it…
For it to be gone entirely, Sunny must learn to face his fears and face The Truth, along with telling it to close friends he was hiding it from.
(When Sunny did do just that, Somethings, which were representing guilt that weighed Sunny and Basil down, were gone completely)
In Sunny’s case, Something didn’t come in one form alone however. It also is splitted into several other entities that can be seen within Headspace, some of them being rather parts of deep unconscious psyche of Sunny, and others representing Sunny’s fears he got far before the incident involving Mari.
SOMETHING IN THE DARK
“Remember, SUNNY... All you need to do is CALM DOWN...”
This particular Something, also known as “Fear of Heights”, resembles a large grinning face made out of a rock or clay-like material, with seven dark blue realistic hands stretching from far. As the name implies, it represents Sunny’s fear of heights, first of the 3 fears Sunny developed in the lake incident, an incident that happened way before accidentally killing Mari - looking down at the water in the lake, he can hear his heartbeat and sense his ears to ring.
None of the conventional attacks work on it, while its attempts to push you down inflict AFRAID. The only way to beat this Something is to Calm Down, if Sunny does just that he essentially will overcome his fear of heights, resulting in it disappearing…at least temporarily.
In SUNNY ROUTE, it will come back once more as one of the 5 phases of Something, testing Sunny on what he has learnt and whether he is ready to face The Truth. In OMORI ROUTE, It acts mostly identical, but this time being able to be fought directly, and when defeated Omori will gain the skill Vertigo while this Something becomes repressed.
SOMETHING IN THE WALLS
“You need to block out the little things... and figure out what's important!”
This something which is also named “Fear of Spiders”, appears as a large, black spider made out of a rock or clay-like material, similar to the aforementioned Something in the Dark, along with the same grin, thread that is holding it and Something appearing to be its cephalothorax. As far as implications go, it represents Sunny’s fear of spiders, second of the 3 fears Sunny developed during the same lake incident - He feels something crawling on his shoulder and his eyes fly open to meet with those of a black spider which in an instant made Sunny lose all sense and fall down into the lake.
Just like with Something in the Dark, it is impossible to deal with it directly, and it may inflict AFRAID while biting and entangling in its web, but calming yourself down alone won’t stop it either, what is needed is to block out all small stuff, Focus and see what it is important. Only then, Something in the Walls will disappear, though not forever.
Just like Something in the Dark it will appear again in SUNNY ROUTE to test Sunny. And just like Something in the Dark, it becomes possible to damage it in OMORI ROUTE, after defeating which, Omori represses this Something and gains the CRIPPLE skill.
SOMETHING IN THE WATER
“You have to keep going. Don't give up. No matter how impossible it seems...”
This something which is also named “Fear of Drowning”, practically looks like a large, blue mass of tangled appendages, resembling either kelp, tentacles, or roots. At the end of some of these “roots” you can even see shapes that look really close to hanging people, which very likely refers to Mari, though not when her corpse was hanged as if she committed suicide, but rather when she dove into lake and saved Sunny back in the Lake Incident. At this point you probably can already understand that it represents Sunny’s fear of drowning himself, last of the 3 fears Sunny developed during the lake incident - Water fills his nose. He exerts his limbs, but the water is stronger. He's too weak, too helpless...or that is what he believes.
Sunny experiences it either when taking a bath in OMORI ROUTE or being forced to save Basil from drowning in the very same lake in SUNNY ROUTE. Given the fight happens in the water, its attacks are related to keeping you inside of it, either by pulling you into different directions or dragging you down. You should understand the gimmick by now, attacks don’t do anything to deal with it, only calming yourself down, focusing but most importantly, learning how to Persist. Persisting through fear of water, results in Sunny defeating it and at least for a time being just like with the other 2, overcoming his fears of Water.
Similarly to aforementioned Somethings, it will be in SUNNY ROUTE to test Sunny, and becomes possible to damage in OMORI ROUTE, after defeating which, Omori represses it and gains the SUFFOCATE skill.
DOROTHI
DOROTHI is another manifestation of SOMETHING, though it's unclear what they represent their game files call them Self Happy (like self-happiness), so they could be the Manifestation and Neglect of Sunny's own self-love; all it tells you is that it's sorry, making it a strange occurrence to see on a train. Their appearance caused all of the train's inhabitants to simply vanish & managed to loop a certain area entirely to make it go on forever, their main method of attacking is kicking & trying to make itself happy.
CINDI
CINDI is another manifestation of SOMETHING, likely supposed to be the manifestation of Mari’s body hanging from a tree. Similar to DOROTHI they can only manage to say how sorry they are as it attacks Omori; primarily through punching and slamming.
LILI
LILI is another manifestation of SOMETHING, I̶̭͚͍̭̺̤̭͊͊̈́'̴̯͍͎̤̬̪̦͕̈̔̒̆̓m̶̢̳͙̥͎̖̫̩͈̼̍̎̊̊̌ ̷̩̙͕̀̋͗̂̀́͛͐̅̌̕͝S̷̨͉̹͚̲̻͍̪̩̖̼̣̮̮̞̀͛́̀̌̚͠o̶̻̠͉̤̰̲̘͕̖̤̫͈̬̿͑̏̽͐̓̔̅̓̚̚͘r̵͙̼̺̰̖̬̝̫͇̮̖͔̔̀̆̋͊͌̒̑͆̒̇͂ͅr̵̠͎̯̲͙͓̳͙̬̦̹̖̰̈́̇̒͗̊̒̂͌̿͝ŷ̷̨̛͖̯͎͓̻̅̍͐͆̕͜͜, also manifesting near a tree it’s likely the shadow of the Tree’s foliage (well- when it had any)! Its main method of attacking is staring into your soul to deal damage (likely to your soul itself), & decreasing the attack of enemies.
MERCI
MERCI is another manifestation of SOMETHING, just like the others a repressed manifestation of something involving the Tree & Mari; likely again being something to do with her hanging corpse swaying back and forth. It’s implied that MERCI can transform the inhabitants of Headspace into more MERCIS. Their main method of attack is targeting organs, singing a song to inflict HAPPY, and shrieking to make you AFRAID.
NANCI
N̸͕̣̦̣͕̬̯̺͚̞̥̓̔͛͂̆͆̈͑͘͜͝Ȁ̸͓̦͕̹̝̊̈̅͌͐̈́͆̌̉͠͝N̶̛͍͍͙̼̗̺ͅC̸̩͓̱̘̾͑̋͐͋I̸͇̻̳̼̻̼̱̙̩̭̰͓͉͋ ̴̪̣̯̋̏͌̿͋͂̇̏̉ is another manifestation of SOMETHING, being a representation of the tree itself & Self Anger, albeit with Spider-like appendages.Their main method of attacking is stabbing & trying to become angry with itself.
SALLI
SALLI is another manifestation of SOMETHING, the more that you look at these 'smaller' somethings, it's clear they're all the same event from different angles, as this is a side-profile of Mari hanging. It attacks by running into foes & speeding up theirself.
STRANGER
“You are here again, DREAMER. To what do we owe the occasion? Are you running out of time?”
At last but not least, Stranger along with SOMETHING is one of the most crucial parts in Sunny’s mind, and perhaps Omori’s biggest enemy due to his relation to the truth. As in, he, or rather they, are probably one of the only ones in Sunny’s mind who are left with a knowledge of what The Truth is. They often may appear as various people Sunny is familiar with from childhood, but their most common appearance is as Basil as we’ve mentioned before, given they all are Basils from previous Cycles who were banished into BLACK SPACE. If one of the Basil Strangers does decide to fight us, he will be accompanied by a manifestation of Basil’s Something that has the same teeth and tendrils.
Practically however, despite Stranger knowing The Truth, they are quite perceptive and cryptic, so they don’t force it as information for Sunny, but do point out consequences of his actions within these rather abstract messages.
Within Headspace itself, given throughout the story, Basil is being constantly disappeared by Something, Stranger’s Basil appearance leads Omori (sometimes alongside his crew) closer to uncover The Truth.
In OMORI ROUTE where Sunny makes practically no effort in real life and stays home, Stranger will berate him for trying to evade the truth yet again, causing a distortion while chasing Omori down along with other shadowy beings, until by the time he reaches Omori…
…he violently forces Sunny himself to face himself if he refuses to face the cold reality. Because of that the battle here is also essentially one sided in Stranger’s favor. Even though the only thing he could do is strangle Sunny, that strangle in question both makes Sunny lose all of his MP for Skills and almost all of his Health. Nothing that Sunny has tried to do with Somethings in an OMORI ROUTE really worked either, and he has a worse time trying to use physical force either. However here, what Stranger does is rather counter productive, as Sunny just succumbs into despair and the sheer stress getting himself into RED SPACE, being too afraid to face the reality as it is and essentially, letting Omori win, while getting himself, Strangers and all that is related to The Truth, repressed into depths of BLACK SPACE.
In SUNNY ROUTE, Stranger stays passive, and will eventually fade away knowing that Sunny is ready to face The Truth and that his role of making Sunny break away from his unhealthy escapism habits and uncovering The Truth, has come to an end. The only time Sunny will ever see him again is after he fully overcomes his fears and guilt, winning over Omori, which is when Stranger will lead Sunny to his right destination one last time.
Feats
Raz
Overall
Mastered over 10 PSI-Powers in a single day.
Defeated Coach Oleander, Doctor Loboto and Gristol Malik.
As well as defeated traumas or other mental issues of people like 2 Headed Dad, The Critic, Lady Luctopus, Librarian, Napoleon Bonaparte, Moth, Maligula and other evil traumas of the mind.
Healed various people from their subconscious mental problems, such as alcoholism, gambling addiction, schizophrenia, latent dysphoria, etc.
Restored Ford Cruller from his Dissociative Identity Disorder caused by Astralathe.
Reunited the Psychic S(even)ix
Traveled throughout a big variety of Mental Worlds.
Saved the world (twice!)
Healed himself and his family from the water fear/curse
Became the Psychonaut (juniour, but hey, he takes it)
Despite his game being a commercial failure at first, it got recognised by the internet which was inspired by it (just like another quirky game about a boy with psychic powers, am I right fellas).
Power
Manages to fight a literal Grizzly Bear
Can move large heavy balls with his legs (467.7 Metric Tons)
TK Comparable to Gisu’s who was capable of lifting big rock made structure (71,391.575 - 85,669.89 Metric Tons).
Pyrokinesis comparable to Norma’s who was capable of pulverizing Metal (to just melt metal the temperature must be 1,127-1,204°C)
As strong as Lizzie who can quickly create large ice constructs (2 - 3.01 Tons of TNT)
Defeated Maligula who can casually create an entire storm across the city of Grulovia, so intense that it caused the dam to break and flood the city.
The same Maligula was also capable of creating a large Water Tornado (120 Tons of TNT)
Comparable to the PSI-King who recreated his Mental World, which initially was hollow.
Speed
With levitation was able to move across Millia’s race area at high speeds
Can dodge soundwaves
As quick as Millia who was able to simultaneously dodge bullets from a machine gun and shoot PSI-Blasts (Mach 3.2- Mach 15)
Comparable to Milla Vodello who was telepathically spreading her thoughts across the world to sense delusionist activity (0.13с - 1.31c)
Comparable to PSI-King who was capable of spinning star system at high speeds (166 Million c)
Durability
Tanked Bad Idea’s explosions (0.0037 Tons of TNT)
Also tanked Personal Demon’s explosions
As durable as Lili who tanked a pile of explosives torpedoes
Tanked Deep Regret’s explosive…”deep regrets” (0.011 Tons of TNT)
Tanked hits from Mega Censor that was able to break large steel floor
As durable as other Psychonauts agents who tanked point blank explosion (11.74 Tons of TNT).
Omori
Overall
Saved Basil from BLACK SPACE in OMORI ROUTE
Resolved SWEETHEART’s and CAPTAIN SPACEBOY’s relationship…kind of
Freed his friends from MR. JAWSUM’s contracts
Went through own imaginary afterlife
Defeated all 3 copies of the SWEETHEART
Defeated HUMPHREY and ABBI - two of the three great creatures of HEADSPACE.
Kept the Truth away from Sunny for 4 years
Was able to learn a technique that takes decades to learn in less than a single night
Defeats Sunny and forces him to commit suicide (SUNNY ROUTE’s Bad ending) or takes control over Sunny (OMORI ROUTE)
Repressed his fears and The Truth (OMORI ROUTE)
Defeated Goku and Saitama while teaming up with Chara from Undertale
Power
Can slice traffic cones and small roots with his knife
As strong as Kel, who can throw balls hard enough for them to catch themselves on fire
Is as strong as Aubrey who can destroy big metallic cubes with her bat
Defeated Pluto who managed to throw a miniature Earth (78 Tons of TNT)
Can stab/slice metallic enemies, like Roboheart
Was capable of creating a massive fog that covered the entire forest of Headspace (115.8 Tons of TNT)
Speed
Can dodge U.F.O.’s “Orange Lasers”
Can dodge Space Ex-boyfriend’s lasers
Can keep up with Shark Planes and Marshas who were stated to attack at Mach-speed
Is on par with Kel who can throw his balls so fast they catch on fire
Managed to climb the very long ladder to Otherworld along with his friends in a rather quick timeframe (0.6c)
Has defeated Pluto in a fight who traveled across galaxies along with Earth (913 million c)
The same Pluto can quickly transport Omori and his crew across all Headspace places Omori visited (27 million c)
Durability
Has tanked various explosions
Tanked Sweetheart’s flail swings and slaps
Survived after Humphrey spewed him and his friends out from his deep stomach
Survived when Sunny broke the lightbulb causing the destruction of Headspace
Survived SOMETHING crashing the entire game, and resumed it shortly after with Headspace intact
Weaknesses
Raz
Raz is for most part a child, so it’s natural that he can be naive sometimes, because of which, he can be tricked by very experienced manipulators. In fact, occasionally when being inside of someone’s mind he can go so far thinking he’s doing the right thing and yet in actuality do something more dangerous and risky. Said risks while not dangerous to him in direct combat, can serve a way to make a person Raz is trying to help go more insane if Raz won’t solve the issue. And while in his camp story, Raz’s more risky and careless actions were successful at the end of the day, later on it rather caused harm, in this case making Hollis gambling addicted. In a mission of healing the human mind, Raz, just like other Psychonauts, must remember the ethics, due to the huge access they have and trust that comes along with it. Psychonauts are here not to fix people, but to help them fight the demons they already have.
Another weakness would be not being able to use Psycho-Portal on people of age younger than 18 (but still being able to use Astral Projection to enter someone’s mind - more in Before the Verdict). And most notably is the fact that Raz may seem as heavily reliant on psychic powers, he still got his acrobatic skills and some of not really bad equipment. Within Psychonauts games that weakness was exploited really only once in the Rhombus of Ruin, and even though Raz did manage to play around that stipulation a bit (and eventually overcoming it), he overall still isn’t as dangerous if he won’t be using them.
Omori
“IT SUCKS TO LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE NICE GUYS FINISH LAST!!!”
Omori is not exactly a person, but rather a mindset that Sunny has developed after the death of Mari. This means that he is effectively unkillable from within Headspace, but it also means that if Sunny were to completely remove his desire for escapism from his actions and his self doubt, Omori would cease to exist as a vessel or mental manifestation. In addition, while he is rather intelligent, he is still a child and hasn't really undergone any training nor does he possess particularly useful fighting skills beyond his array of abilities. Also, for whatever reason, Omori cannot take his friends into areas such as Black Space with him, implying there may be a limit to how much he can consciously control his own mental worlds.
Summary
Raz
Advantages:
Evens out in the stat trinity
Greater versatility among special abilities
Doesn’t have to replenish PSI-Powers unlike Omori with juice.
Omori can’t kill Raz directly…
Raz having better lifting strength means he can at least telekinetically disarm Omori and other foes.
Invisibility is a great escape method Omori can not counter
Time Bubble makes it easier for Raz to land hits and avoid any potential damage.
PSI-Popper Generator potentially allows Raz to quickly navigate across Sunny’s mind
Memory Vaults can give Raz more information about Sunny, potentially giving more clues leading to The Truth alongside other hints within HEADSPACE and BLACK SPACE…
Can safely traverse in the Real World leaving himself enough time to prepare some more complicated strategies (such as Astralathe).
Actually got a real girlfriend
Disadvantages:
Less versatile when it comes to items
Mental World Enemies will be hunting down on Raz, especially in more repressed areas
Less count of allies compared to Omori, as well as more tricky to use in comparison (which, combined with enemies, may leave Raz at numbers disadvantage)
…but Raz can’t directly kill Omori either
…Still The Truth is well hidden, making it pretty complicated for Raz to connect pieces and find it
AFRAID infliction may make Raz unable to use his Psychic Powers
Got snuffed during The Game Awards.
For some reason is in all platforms except for Nintendo (literally how, even S.T.A.L.K.E.R. managed to get there…)
Omori
“Don't be afraid. It's not as scary as you think.”
Advantages:
Evens out in the stat trinity
Greater versatility among items
Bigger number of own allies which are easier to use.
Mental World enemies are something Omori could potentially use to his own advantage (which combined with his allies, leaves Omori at numbers advantage)
Raz can’t kill Omori directly…
Pluto and Laptop potentially allow Omori to quickly navigate in his own mind
By inflicting AFRAID Omori can make Raz unable to use his Psychic Powers
Stat buffs, particularly when he revives from defeat, can eventually overwhelm Raz
The Truth is well hidden, potentially giving Omori time to take action…
Pitbull
Disadvantages:
Less versatile when it comes to special abilities
Juice for skills eventually can end and would need to be replenished, unlike PSI-Powers
Even if he could traverse in The Real World, realistically Omori can’t do harm to Raz in it and use that for some sort of advantage or even at least prevent Raz from preparation.
Omori can’t counter Time Bubble or Invisibility, making it harder for him to land or avoid hits.
Omori and most of his allies/foes having no lifting strength feats means Raz can at least telekinetically disarm him.
…but Omori can’t directly kill Raz either
…however there are still clues all around that could help Raz connect the pieces together, with which Memory Vaults may even help.
Looks like a potato (failmaxx)
Never got a girlfriend
For some reason is in all platforms except for XBOX (No, not via reasons you think)
Before the Verdicts…
(Oh look, they’re plushies now!)
As expected, a lot of the stuff in Psychonauts and Omori are either not fully explained and we have to finish the picture by ourselves, or are not direct and fairly up to interpretation, both in a sense of various psychological issues they present and in your good ol vs sense, so it’s natural for a good amount of topics here to have their own explanation, whether it be details about an ability, mechanisms of mindscapes, feats of either games and etc.
Can Raz enter Sunny’s mind?
To recap, one of the claims in the past about Raz in vs was the fact that he is unable to enter the minds of anyone below 18 years old due to “built-in safeguards”, which are mentioned in first Psychonauts if you try using Psycho-Portal on children in game. Quite a convenient argument against his mind entrance in lots of his match ups, given most of the time people pick him against minors. While it may seem that Raz is unable to enter the minds of underaged people at first, he should still be able to do so regardless, just not with Psycho-Portal. In Psychonauts there are other several ways for psychics to enter a person's mind: Through Brain Tumbler, Brain interaction, and in this case most importantly, by yourself, aka separating astral form to enter someone's head.
Latter is something that Ford Cruller has done on several occasions while training Raz new psychic powers. He even makes it quite explicit on the linked scene and in the sequel that it was Raz’s mind Ford visited back in Psychonauts, without using Brain Tumbler Experiment as some may assume. This is also something Hollis has done despite having no training/experience (or at least in the same levels as Raz being straight up obsessed about it), as well as other psychic Truman.
While not as reliable as other evidence, in the sequel's teaser it was implied that Raz and other Psychonauts were supposed to enter a young girl’s mind. As well as in this cutscene Raz wanted to "see Lili's nightmares'' implying him wanting to enter her mind (since “dreams” and “nightmares” in Psychonauts’ context also essentially mean as a Mental World or at least its variation, one of the another time when Raz was “dreaming” was actually moment when Ford entered Raz’s mind).
Additionally in this cutscene after leaving Loboto's mind we see no Psycho-Portal lying around implying Raz and other Psychonauts agents visited (and, to an extent, manipulated a bit) his Mental World without Psycho-Portal. You may even count this aforementioned brain interaction as a feat accomplished by Raz, cause if you look closely the interaction seems to be mainly of his doing. Considering this good amount of implications behind the idea that Psychics can enter and manipulate the mind without using Psycho Portal and Raz being one of the most talented psychics in Psychonauts’ history, it’s fair to say Raz can in fact enter Sunny’s (or any other underaged person’s) mind without using Psycho Portal.
Heck, Psychonauts 2 even showed that Raz is clearly better trained and more talented Psychic than his father - Augustus Aquato, who also was able to enter mind without Psycho Portal. If Augustus, the guy who wasn’t really using psychic powers much during his life and rather was teaching his kids to fear psychics, can do that, and if Hollis only after a few readings also managed to do that, then Raz, who is again, one of the most talented Psychonauts agents in history with a huge obsession to the profession, especially can.
Access to outside help for both (+ some general tertiaries of the blog)
(aka what 30% of this blog was about…)
This section is mostly an elaboration on a part of the blog that makes it, to say the least, way longer than your average 1v1 blog, given both have pretty much straight up access to various kinds of outside help in this fight. Now for the record, obviously this isn’t some sort of army fight like most Plants vs Zombies MUs or Bowser vs Eggman and many other similar matches. Still it is worth clarifying reasons for why and how it could contribute to this fight. On Raz’s end everything should be pretty simple. Given his main job revolved around entering various people’s minds, it is not hard to generalize what exists in all Mental Worlds and isn’t specific to just one mind, and therefore it is only fair for similar stuff to exist in this small equalization of their mindscapes (on which we elaborate a little bit lower), this includes both what Raz gets as support and who Raz encounters as enemies. On the contrary, Sunny’s mind - Headspace, is the only mindscape we have ever seen despite heavy implications that it is not exclusive to him alone. But naturally it is also the only place where Omori can fight, given you can’t really just manifest him in the real world or force him out of Headspace in any ordinary way.
This means that unlike in your average matchup, here we actually know the environment of where the fight is happening exactly (Headspace), and with that knowledge, it’s necessary to go in detail not just about what Omori can do or what his friends that he always carries around can do, but also just about all of the Headspace along with its numerous residents who either Omori or Raz can use to their advantage in this fight. Headspace and Omori/Sunny are overall tied to each other pretty closely to remove it as an actual factor of this fight, and therefore we consider it just as important a section to go around as not just a cosmology tool for a sake of high level feat, but as something like Arsenal or Abilities, relevant to this fight in the debate and dynamic.
One of the biggest things we gave to Raz was aid from Ford Cruller, his mentor in the first game. In the first game, Ford implanted part of himself into Raz's mind, and Raz is always able to summon him for help with a piece of bacon. He is a relevant mechanic for the entirety of the first game, so based on that alone he should be fine to use as additional help. This gets a little trickier however with the second entry Psychonauts 2, where Ford leaves Raz’s mind at the beginning of the game and doesn't usually offer direct help except for specific occurrences. Normally, he shouldn't be available, however this analysis is intended to cover the majority of the character's history and what they are generally capable of using in a fight, and it may be theoretically possible for Ford to implant himself into Raz's mind again. As we are giving Omori everything from the Omori and Sunny route, as well as items exclusive to choosing to slay or spare Abbi, it's only fair to grant Raz Ford as support, as he was integral to the first game.
That being said, we did not give Raz support from other psychic agents. They are not normally readily available for Raz to summon, unlike with Ford, and Ford generally only offers support to Raz rather than directly fighting, unlike with the other psychics. It would go beyond analyzing Raz himself and it's rather difficult to justify. Aside from that, Raz is also given Oatmeal, the PSI-Popper Generator as it is usually always found in mental worlds for Raz to use and access. Emotional Baggage and the Memory Vaults are also included in theory, but their specific applications in relation to Headspace will be explained in the verdicts.
Omori’s main party should be readily available for him in this fight. Omori created them, as well as everything else in Headspace, and they do not have any reason to not directly aid him as they do for the entirety of the game. They are integral to the way that he engages in combat, and he is theoretically capable of manifesting them anywhere in Headspace. Beyond just them, we also included the rest of the relevant entities in Headspace as well. They do not directly aid Omori in the same way as his main party does, but the entire story within Headspace is constructed by Omori to distract Sunny (himself) from the truth of Mari's death. Therefore, in a fight like this which could endanger the truth and Headspace, it's entirely possible that Omori could manipulate events in such a way that the inhabitants of Headspace could become involved in the fight. Even beyond the possibility of Omori's own interference, it is highly likely that Raz could attempt to explore Headspace in order to investigate, the same he does with every other Mental World, in which case he would inevitably encounter the many enemies found in the world. Therefore, documenting their own abilities and possibility of involvement is important and relevant for this battle.
Planets in Omori
Some people have taken the fight that the Omori crew has against Earth, as well as against Pluto, to say that they are operating on literal planet level battles, or use them running past the observatory in Space Boyfriend's base to say they can run interstellar distances. This is a somewhat silly misinterpretation of what's actually happening here.
Yes, sometimes large objects such as planets have to be sized down in media to fit stylistic or useful contexts - we've acknowledged so before, but this is not the same thing. The “Earth” here is her own separate character, representing a sized down version of Earth. It can still contain water and people and be the third planet from its own Sun, but that doesn't mean it isn't as small as it is shown as. It wouldn't make any sense for Space Boyfriend's observatory to be the size of an entire solar system when it is located within Otherworld, which is itself just a planet. It also doesn't make any logical sense for Omori and his friends to, you know, fight an actual life sized planet when they lack the size or abilities to do so. If that for some reason isn't enough, there is extremely direct evidence that Earth is not planet sized.
If you do not defeat the Earth miniboss before Two Days Left, Earth will actually appear in Otherworld's Club Sandwich location, which is a small lounge. You can even attempt to interact with her there. I don't know about you, but I really doubt that a fully sized planet would be able to fit on stage in a small lounge like this.
Granted, we do see a moon from Otherworld and it seems to be normal sized, and the Wise Rock says the distance between Earth and the moon is 238,900 miles, which is the irl distance between them. However, it's more likely that the “Earth” he is referring to is the planet that the Vast Forest resides on, and the moon is the moon shaped object with the spider icon in the sky. They are different objects from the Earth enemy that we fight and the moon that Pluto throws at you during his fight, which notably does not have the spider icon that the main Omori moon possesses. Similarly, the moon that we see from Otherworld is probably just a different moon than the one from Pluto's fight.
All For Psychonaught.
If you have read the previous Raz vs Ness blog, you may notice a few calcs and feats may either be missing or have changed in value. We are going to go over some of the edits we made to Psychonauts scaling in this section.
One of the first relativistic speed feats that we decided not to use was from the Critic dodging a spotlight, seen here. The issue with this feat is that the Critic doesn't really move in tandem with the light being shone until it already reached him, which caused him to fall back. If he were fast enough to evade the light, then he probably would have just done that, as the point behind the fight is that you need to shine a spotlight onto him to immobilize him.
The next feat is from the Lungfishopolis stage where Raz must erect a barrier to deflect several automatic lasers, seen here. While they are called lasers, they also curve drastically and don't move in a straight line, more akin to how you'd expect electricity to move. In addition, the lasers will hit Raz once he puts up his shield - he does not react to the lasers then puts it up. There's not any in tandem movement to calculate here as it occurs in one frame.
Maligula did indeed create a storm that caused a large level of devastation, however the reason that we did not give it a number is because in the way it is presented, it is virtually impossible to calculate a size for the storm. There is no statement or evidence given for it covering the entire city or country, and the still images aren't detailed enough to ascertain how far the storm extended. In addition, most of the damage was caused purely by the dam breaking, which according to the reel was very close to the protest where Maligula summoned the storm in the first place.
Maligula was able to create a massive water tornado, which is an impressive feat, however the previous calc estimated its size by comparing it to a nearby cliff which inflated the result. There is a clear shot with Raz having a similar level of perspective with the water tornado, which we used to get a more accurate size for the tornado.
Finally, Lizzie created multiple large ice constructs, which previously got Multi City Block. However, the issue with this feat largely has to do with ice generation calculations in general. The method that is most widely used for these feats is done by measuring the specific heat capacity of water, but this only finds the amount of energy that was depressed as a result of freezing. An attack or spell does not have to match the total amount of energy of something in order to freeze it solid, they only need to neutralize the amount of energy by lowering its temperature, thus slowing down the movement of their molecules, which by itself is not energy dependent. Using kinetic energy, we can get results closer to building level, which resembles the visual scale of the feat itself much more closely.
MFTL+ Psychonauts and Omori
(As for Omori, we knew exactly who we had to scale him to.
Let's talk. About Pluto.)
If we grant both series the idea that the mental worlds in Psychonauts and Omori are fully realized universes with their own planets and stars, then we can also extrapolate speed feats from this that would get far beyond lightspeed. For Omori, Pluto's space travel should be an obvious route to take, but before that we should address another argument for mftl+ Omori that we disagree with.
After you complete Sweetheart’s Castle, she will be taken away by Space Boyfriend into his ship. Rosa, a minor character who is a fan of Sweetheart, will then comment that she has flown galaxies away if you decide to talk to her after this. There are a few issues with this argument scaling back to Space Boyfriend, but to start with, why would Rosa know about this? She is a regular Sprout Mole, how can she possibly know that Space Boyfriend and Sweetheart have exited the galaxy in that timeframe? It is far more likely that she was just being melodramatic rather than literal. Even if this did occur, there is no reason to assume that Space Boyfriend scales to the speed of his spaceship, as we have never seen him pilot it in such a way to suggest scaling to his reaction speed.
Have that said, Pluto has very solid space traveling speed feats. Pluto owns a transportation service where he can take the main party to any location in Headspace relatively quickly, and this includes Otherworld, which is an entirely different planet. While he is doing this, he is shown to fly past stars, and he has also claimed that his travels have taken him around the universe and that he has soared across galaxies before. In addition, we know that these cosmic distances between planets and stars and such should be no different from real life, as the Wise Rock claims that Earth and the moon have the same distance between them as they do in real life. It's pretty undeniable that Pluto can fly across interstellar distances, so he should likely be some level of speed that is faster than light, and Omori and his party are capable of defeating him in battle. We can use the cutscenes for when he flies with the main party during the fast travel, but given that we know he has moved between galaxies in the past, it's likely that he is even faster than that. Still, the problem with that is we have no frame of reference for how long it took him to travel, so what can we use?
Well, even if we don't have a solid timeframe, that doesn't mean we can't derive a reasonable estimate from context and basic deduction. We know that Pluto can grow tired and does not have unlimited stamina to spare, and we also know that his transportation service is intended to take people anywhere around the universe without issue. At minimum, he should be able to “soar across galaxies” before his stamina depletes and he needs to rest, it wouldn't make any sense otherwise. Therefore, it should be reasonable to at least use a full day for the time frame. This length of time by itself is comically long and arguably somewhat ridiculous, but for the purposes of this blog it should work well enough. The general point is that Pluto can travel across interstellar distances extremely quickly, which should reasonably require massively ftl speeds no matter what.
As for Raz, his scaling is a little less direct, but still relevant. In Psychonauts 2, Raz can enter the mind of Helmut Fullbear before he has fully regained his senses and is working to put them back together. Within this mental world, Fullbear can move several star systems around each other in a very quick motion. Doing this would require significant speed, and Raz can defeat Maligula who is superior to Fullbear and has required the combined effort of the Psychic Six to combat. While there isn't a statement referencing real life astrological distance like in Omori, Helmut Fullbear does refer to his own Mental World as being a universe.
Are there problems with Immeasurable speed Omori?
There are a few arguments that exist to substantiate Omori having infinite or immeasurable speed, and we thought that we'd cover them since they have some amount of traction. We'll also use this section to talk about some of the higher end arguments for the size of Headspace and related areas as well.
To begin with, the most common argument used for Omori having infinite or immeasurable speeds is by scaling to the Gator Guys, who can drive a taxi across the Endless Highway, which has no end and is thus infinite in distance. The issue with this is that the Endless Highway is not actually a road that stretches on for a physical infinity, but rather it is endless because it loops back around whenever Omori runs past it. This is not just conjecture, as there are clams you can collect on this highway and the number of clams there will remain the same, proving that you are just looping back to the same location. The taxi is just able to move past this spatial looping area, it has nothing to do with speed.
There is another area in Black Space that is used to argue that Omori's mental worlds contain infinite size and thus make Omori infinite/immeasurable, being an area in Black Space where Omori can see his friends on a road, who walk backwards indefinitely the more Omori tries to approach them. This is never referred to as infinite or endless, but there is seemingly no end to this road. However, like the Endless Highway, it's likely just another spatial looping area, and when Omori turns back he then immediately arrives at the entrance. Even if this area were infinite, Omori never crosses this distance - the whole point is that he literally can't.
The reasoning some people use to argue that this would grant Omori such speed is that since he created Headspace and Black Space, his attack speed would therefore need to possess infinite speed. The issue with this is that there isn't any evidence that Omori created Headspace and Black Space in a manner that requires directional velocity or movement, like a big bang or anything similar. The way that Daddy Longlegs describes the creation of Headspace and the other worlds that Sunny created is that in his mind he formed several doors, and inside of these doors were the areas that he had created - it is a lot likelier that these spaces simply materialized as opposed to being formed from a big bang like event.
Lastly, there are some arguments pertaining to characters existing “before time” and thus being immeasurable. Most powerscaling communities currently do not accept standards like these for immeasurable speed, but even disregarding that, the argument is really silly in the context of Omori.
The sources often given never actually say that the three great creatures existed before time. Mr. Outback does state that Headspace has existed since the beginning of time, and the three great creatures did exist before Headspace existed, but that is only referring to time within Headspace. The three great creatures were created before Headspace by Sunny the dreamer - they were essentially his imaginary friends before Headspace was constructed upon Mari's death. There wasn't a “timeless void” before Headspace was created, there was just the real world and Sunny's mind, which obviously do follow time.
Doesn’t Omori have existence erasure, conceptual and fate manipulation? Where are all these busted powers?
(Nice try, but I'm invincible when I'm like this! You may have mastered the mind, but I've mastered platonic concepts, and I wish you gone! FOREVERRRRR!!!!!!!)
There are several abilities that are argued for Omori and included in a few past blogs about him that are absent from this blog. Don't worry, we did our homework, but we don't really agree with the full length of capabilities given to Omori and this section will be largely discussing why.
Let's start with a relatively tamer topic, Omori's memory manipulation. The overarching story of Omori's journey through Headspace is that their friend Basil has gone missing and they need to find him, though after a couple days Omori's party begins to gradually lose their memories of Basil, forgetting basic attributes about him, what he looks like, and eventually they forget about him entirely. In truth, Basil was sent to Black Space by Omori at the start of the game due to him threatening to reveal the fact that Mari is dead in the real world. It seems pretty clear that sending someone to Black Space will gradually erase one's memory of that person, so what's the issue?
Well, remember the context behind Black Space and what it represents. While it may be true that the Headspace versions of Kel, Hero and Aubrey did lose their memories of Basil, they themselves are facilities of Sunny’s own mind and they can only recollect what Sunny or Omori himself can. By pushing something into Black Space, Sunny is choosing to repress the memory of that person, thing or concept, which will affect what is and isn't present in his Headspace. Omori's friends only didn't recall Basil because Omori himself was choosing to repress his own memories of him. In the context of this fight, Raz is an invasive entity, and his own memories are not tethered to Sunny like the rest of the characters in Headspace, so it is unlikely that this would work on him. Basically, Omori is really only capable of erasing his own memories, which can barely be considered a power.
Next, another ability that has been argued for Omori is the ability to affect and manipulate concepts and conceptual entities due to being able to defeat the Somethings which represent Sunny’s fears. This is a bizarre interpretation of Omori's mental manifestations that lacks any evidence these entities exist on a conceptual level and can only be hurt by conceptual interactivity.
The three major boss Somethings (in the dark, in the walls and in the water) are manifestations of Sunny's innate fear of heights, spiders and drowning that exist on a mental level - not conceptual. They aren't the concepts of heights, spiders or water, they are tethered to Sunny's mind and his perception of these fears. Additionally, Sunny only defeats them by facing and overcoming his fears. As they only exist based on his personal fears of these things, they will cease existing if Sunny stops being afraid of them. This does not require conceptual manipulation. In the Omori route, Omori can physically defeat them, but it is suggested that he is only repressing these entities that are representative of his fears rather than truly defeating them. There is simply no evidence or reason to believe that it requires conceptual manipulation to interact with and defeat them beyond just representing emotions that Sunny has, which are fundamentally mental constructs, not conceptual.
Similarly, there are equivalent statements for many of the enemies that Raz fights and can defeat in mental worlds, being manifestations and personifications of feelings and emotions. These do not mean that Raz has ”conceptual manipulation”, but rather that these entities come from and represent mental functions. If given equal benefit, both of them would have this level of interactivity and it wouldn't be an advantage for either one.
Omori has also been argued to possess a degree of fate manipulation, due to his manipulating of the events of Headspace and there being some allusions to him being able to alter fate, here and here. The events that occur in Headspace exist so that Sunny can distract himself from the reality of the current world and his guilt, so he may control the story within Headspace to a degree (at least subconsciously), however there is no evidence that this works on such a fundamental scale that he is affecting an order of fate. It's like if someone orchestrates a play - everything will occur according to what they wanted to happen, but that only works because of the script that they wrote, not because they are changing fate itself. In fact, we know that his control over the events of Headspace is not absolute due to the fact that Basil was able to attempt to tell Omori about the truth of Mari’s death, sending him to Black Space. The statements regarding Sunny/Omori being able to change their own fate and destiny is not in reference to the events of Headspace but rather it's a grandiose way of saying that Sunny's choices can affect his own future, whether he chooses to live in the real world or stay in Headspace forever, that is all dependent on himself. It's not talking about a literal force of fate, but rather how Sunny’s decisions can determine his future.
Finally, we have to discuss the argument regarding whether Omori has existence erasure or not. In the final battle against Omori, he is able to use attacks that say they “erase” Sunny, and if given the bad ending, Sunny will indeed appear to erase in front of Omori. Additionally, when Basil was sent to Black Space everyone slowly began to forget about him. At least, these are the arguments for it, but it's more nuanced than that.
As we covered earlier, sending Basil to Black Space was a way of slowly removing him from his memories, which affected everyone else in Headspace as a result. When Basil is sent to Black Space, he turns into a Stranger, and we can actually see previous Stranger Basils in Black Space from previous cycles. At times like these it's important to remember the role that Black Space actually serves in the narrative - it is an area that Sunny uses to repress the memories or feelings of anything he doesn't want. This makes it work with everything that it's been used for within the game, we do not need to add these extraneous attributes to it. In addition, there is no statement that Basil was erased from existence as a result of Black Space or anything remotely similar either, it just doesn't exist in the game at all.
As for the final Omori battle, this is explainable via the context of the fight. Sunny is engaging with himself in a mental battle during the Omori fight, Omori “erasing” Sunny means that he is slowly whittling down his willpower. In the fight itself, he is not actually erased until he gives into his perspective as Omori. This is also why Omori is erased when Sunny plays the final duet - it represents Sunny accepting his past guilt and actions and moving on with his life. If he doesn't do this, then he can't move on with his life, so only Omori would remain. A lot of this would be much more easily understandable if you took everything as it actually is in the narrative - what purpose would it serve for Omori to use this existence erasure ability and for Sunny to have an existence erasure immunity ability in the story? Does this really make more sense? Sunny or Omori being erased is caused by Sunny removing one of these mindsets and personas, not by any of them having Hakai for no reason.
Would destroying HEADSPACE really kill Omori?
One of the common misconceptions about Omori in vs is also the fact that to kill him you can just destroy Headspace entirely. To be clear, Raz does not possess the capability to destroy an entire Mental World himself, however it is important to clear this up as it relates to how Headspace works in relation to Sunny's mind and how it functions as a mental space.
Headspace is not Sunny's mind itself - it is an area that was created by Sunny’s subconscious mind in order to conceal Black Space, which contains many of his repressed memories and thoughts. Omori is just a representation of Sunny's subconscious thoughts and desires to conceal his trauma and delve into escapism, but his existence is not tied to the existence of Headspace or Black Space - rather, they are the byproducts of something like Omori existing. Remember, throughout most of the game, Sunny is Omori simply experiencing this mental world that he created in his dreams. If the entirety of Headspace or Black Space were somehow destroyed, Omori could simply rebuild it. Omori is only derived from Sunny's mind, so long as he continues to at least subconsciously want to conceal the truth, Omori will still exist and be able to revive from death.
This argument largely comes from this statement where a Stranger tells Omori that with the form he has taken, he cannot die here (referring to Black Space). However, this only refers to how Sunny, as Omori, cannot die in his own mental dream world, which has already been shown before. It ignores the wider context of how Headspace works and why it and Omori exist. In fact, this scenario has already happened before - Sunny destroyed the lightbulb, destroying his mental world, and then Omori and White Space simply returned later.
In short, destroying Headspace wouldn't do anything to destroy Omori considering that Omori is technically the one that created Headspace in the first place. The only way you can really kill Omori is by altering Sunny’s subconscious desires.
What color is the sky in your world?
(Feats in Mental Worlds/Headspace, “what is their cosmology???”, and answer to how this fight would even work.)
Both Omori and Psychonauts are about traveling through mind spaces, and as such many of their best feats and scaling come from mental worlds constructed by a mind. However, therein lies the problem: If everything that occurs in these games is effectively imaginary, then how can they be used to determine physical strength? This isn't really unique to these two, a lot of series utilize similar tropes of going into mind spaces, and a lot of them have feats relating to them. We aren't going to pretend we can create a universal standard for what can or can't be used, but we can give our own personal standards and things to consider when discussing this.
The biggest indicator we can use to determine if these feats can be used or not is if these mental worlds can be proven to have a form of physical materialism, as in, can something that is real touch these things if they were to interact, and do they have similar physicality. For both Psychonauts and Omori, this is true.
In Psychonauts, there are several physical items that can be taken from mental worlds and brought into the real world as if they are real objects, such as Psitanium and Smelling Salts. This would be impossible if they did not possess physical materialism, and items that Raz brings into Mental Worlds also share the same property. Because of this, we can reasonably justify that the Psychonauts Mental Worlds have enough physicality to count for feats done within it.
But that makes sense, since Psychonauts is about people from the real world going into mind worlds. Omori, on the other hand, is a completely different story about someone who escapes to his own mind world when he is sleeping, and there isn't really very much crossover between the real world and Headspace. Sunny doesn't even carry over items from the real world to Headspace or vice versa like Raz does. With that in mind, how can Omori possibly prove physical materialism?
Well, on Sunny's final day in Faraway Town, if following the true route Sunny can meet with Basil in the real world and have a fight with him. How does this prove physical materialism for Headspace? Go ahead and watch it for yourself.
Did you miss it? Both Sunny and Basil's Something appear around them during this scene. Somethings are entities that are mental figures, and can exist in both Headspace and the real world. We've seen people in Headspace be able to interact with other Somethings before, therefore they should exist on a similar plane of materialism. Right before the fight with Basil begins, his Something actually somehow manages to grab Sunny and pull him closer to himself, thereby proving it to be physical. Even during the fight itself, it seems that their Somethings are involved in their battle. With all this, it should be fine to say that Headspace in Omori has similar physical attributes as the real world.
In general though, both games primarily take place inside of mental constructs. It would be unfair to remove such a large portion of their franchises from consideration when they rely so heavily on it.
But as you might know, just because they are physical doesn't mean that everything in their mental worlds is real. It's still possible that, for instance, the stars we see in the background of these mental spaces aren't actually life sized stars that are thousands of light-years away, and are instead just what they perceive as stars on a background in a much smaller space. However, to be fair, both Mental Worlds and Headspace are referred to as being actual universes. Mental Worlds and Headspace are also not really regular dreams either - Mental Worlds are areas that form in your mind and always exist which include effectively every aspect of your personality and memories, and Headspace is far more structured, elaborate and stable than any actual dream would be. Regardless of how you want to view these sorts of feats, Raz and Omori conveniently reach similar stats both taking into account wider assumptions and what we actually know for certain of the scale of their feats, so they would cancel out in this regard.
At which point it is also worth to point out general similarities Psychonauts’ Mental Worlds and OMORI’s Headspace share, this doesn’t affect how much either of feats is valid but helps to clear some possible confusions in terms of how this match is treated. A topic worth pointing out in a section which already is basically about Mindscapes of both franchises. Though it shouldn't take too long as similarities are pretty clear as day:
Both Mental World and Headspace are worlds inside of a human mind/psyche, which practically everyone with a sentience or at least those who are humans can have (self-explanatory on Psychonauts’ end as it is possible to enter everyone's mind, on Omori's end while we were seen only Sunny's Headspace it's been stated in-game that other people can have it too, at least under certain circumstances)
Both Mental World and Headspace are visualization of memories and thoughts, where each detail represents certain aspects about person (whether it be people within these Mindscapes very clearly created based on the past memories, and exclusively as far as person remembers about person, object or places which by themselves also can visualize either certain memories or certain thoughts)
Both Mental World and Headspace correspond with The Real World, in a sense that, anything that happens within Mental World or Headspace affects the thoughts of a person to whom these mindscapes belong, and vice versa everything what happens in The Real World affects Mindscapes’ Host’s cognition (this is practically how normally Mental Issues in Psychonauts’ Mental Worlds are formed and defeated within the plot. While in the context of Omori, Sunny's cognition is also at least subconsciously affected by his actions in The Real World. Perhaps the notable example is “Mari is home” from Black Space 2 - a place which contains Aubrey, Kel & Hero at their current state and can only be reached by Omori if Sunny actually saw how they look nowadays. If you're Persona fan you might as well be familiar with identical process, such as, say, Palaces and Treasures in Persona 5)
Both Mental World and Headspace to an extent can be controlled and manipulated by a host, and can even be used to fabricate information from the person (In Mental World’s case Oleander’s mind was known to contain fabricated information, with which he was hiding his plans to take over the world, though some details of true personality, like bunnies, were leaking while Headspace’s entire purpose is to basically cover up Black Space that has Sunny's real feelings and memories)
Both Mental World and Headspace have manifestations of certain emotions and feelings (which are basically all mental enemies on Psychonauts' end and Somethings with Omori in OMORI’s end)
Practically speaking, Mental Worlds and Headspace are heavily identical concepts of a mindscape, so relatively speaking verse equalization of their mindscapes should work without breaking any particularly major details about them, while keeping the fight fair and square on both ends.
Fight Script (& also Comic in development!)
Hey so, if you're the kind of person who not only got to read this blog but also somehow managed to see us in other places you might have seen mentioning that there will be a comic for this MU.
Now I (Oleggator) would speak here more personally and say that we were mainly focused on the blog itself rather than finding ways to tell about the MU to other people via arts and whatnot, so the topic of doing a comic while very openly considered, wasn’t deeply touched…However I do want to assure that if my negotiations actually go as planned, the comic will indeed be drawn, whether they’ll go as planned or not is a matter of time, as well as it is purely dependent on myself technically, so I'm willing to take the responsibility on my end here.
What isn’t though is the script that was written for this fight. The comic will be at least loosely based on this very script so take it as a text preview, sneak peek, ”leaked script” and however else you’d like to call it, it had pretty hard work done for it so hopefully you’ll have fun with it (want to warn you however, by virtue of being a script of the fight, it will have a spoiler for the victor of this blog, whether you want to find out about winner through script or by reading all verdicts in depth first, we’ll leave it up to you)
Verdicts
(By your favorite Russian Alligator)
(By Tyranii)
(By Lofty)
The Monster King
It's finally here, Raz vs Omori. The psychic and empath mind travelers in a mental brawl, and it only took half a year to complete. Why did it take half a year to research two characters with only a game or two of material? Well, this isn't really a normal matchup. It took us a while to document everything and figure out the winner, as this fight turned out to be very complex and required looking into certain aspects of their games and mental landscapes that you wouldn't normally consider, but more on that later.
I really like this matchup, and I'm saying this as someone who normally wouldn't really like Omori in most vs battle discussions. In my personal opinion, I don't really think that the problem is that the subject matter of Omori is too offensive. In trying to be too defensive against the idea of Omori in power scaling discussions, I feel like some people have begun to simplify and misunderstand the story. Omori isn't just about depression, it's about Sunny finding the courage and strength through his relationships and memories to move past his guilt and leave his past behind, which he has trapped himself in for years. Is it a heavy theme? Yes, but that's hardly new. Omori is a self contained story, it's about the characters in it and the development they go through, it is not simply a meta-narrative about depression as a whole.
The real problem is that Omori as a narrative makes it hard to implement him into the kind of gladiator style battle we usually see in Death Battle. Omori only exists in Headspace, and that is because Omori is Sunny experiencing his escapist fantasies in his dreams. The whole game is about that difference in dynamic, where in Headspace you go on these crazy adventures, while in the real world Sunny has to confront reality. You cannot take Omori outside of his setting or narrative while abiding by the lore and themes of the character, which also has an effect on his abilities and how he performs in combat. Even if a character can interact with Omori in Headspace, there are still weird narrative challenges to face. For example, Freddy Krueger can fight Omori, but such a scenario would be absurd. Imagine if in Omori, a dream demon suddenly appeared and killed Sunny. Everything that occurs in Headspace directly contributes to Omori's narrative as a mental representation of Sunny, so I think that it should make some sense within the story as to why Omori is fighting a random dude he never met, because Omori is not simply a character but a representation of Sunny’s desires.
On the other end, let's take a look at Raz and how Psychonauts deal with their conflicts. Raz is a Psychonaut, which means that it is his job to enter the minds of people and battle against a mental manifestation of their trauma, similar to Omori. Raz sparingly defeats someone in the real world outright, the way that he resolves every conflict in his games is by entering a mental world and battling against a mental apparition there. Although not to the same extent as Omori, I would personally argue that the way Raz fights would be somewhat awkward in most Death Battle scenarios, especially if you were to include him entering a mental world, which is… You know, the main gimmick behind his character. Yet despite that, it works perfectly for Omori, because he is literally what Raz has to confront in each of his adventures, without hyperbole.
I think that the obvious and established narrative by this fight would fit a lot cleaner into a realistic battle scenario with Omori than most others that I have seen. As for how it would be resolved… Well, you'll need to read on. One other thing I'll mention for this fight is that I have heard some people say that there is a tonal clash here, which is not really true at all. While it is true that Psychonauts isn't really explicit, it has plenty of disturbing imagery and storylines that make it fit well enough with Omori, which isn't even really that bloody if we are being completely honest. Raz has seen the corpses of his dead grandparents and a lot of the Mental Worlds that he visits are derived from some pretty serious trauma involving things like alcohol, suicide, and mass child death by burning alive. I don't think it would be very out of place to put Raz into Black Space for a couple minutes in a fight animation. On the flipside, Omori has plenty of soft hearted and comedic content, I wouldn't really want a matchup for him to be completely serious all the time. In terms of content, think of Omori as sort of like Undertale. It has plenty of goofy stuff as well as serious scenes.
I think the best way to describe this matchup isn't necessarily therapist vs patient, but rather repression vs acceptance. In Psychonauts 2, the main villain follows a very similar storyline to Omori. Lucrecia Mux accidentally killed her sister as Maligula, and Ford kept her involvement a secret by repressing her memories, which in turn damaged his own psyche and ultimately led to more harm than good. Does that sound familiar? Well it should, because that's basically the storyline for Omori. After Sunny accidentally killed his sister, Basil convinced him that they needed to tie her up on his tree and make her death look like a suicide. Ultimately, this likely resulted in the creation of Headspace itself, where Sunny locked himself away in a fantasy world set in the past, while Basil was fully aware of their secret and his mental state was declining very rapidly, requiring Sunny to face his past if he were to save Basil. Omori is Sunny within Headspace, and a representation of Sunny's desire to escape his guilt and the present, even fighting Sunny to protect their world at the end of the game. Raz's role in Psychonauts 2 is to help Lucrecia by defeating Maligula, ultimately concluding that we have to accept there is a part like that in all of us. I mention Maligula because Lucrecia's story is eerily similar to that of Omori, but really, this is a very common theme throughout the Psychonauts games, where Raz has to help people learn how to confront their past, much like Sunny's own personal journey. He serves a different role in the story, but it's one that compliments Omori, sort of like Bendy vs Springtrap. One person who wishes to repress mental trauma, and another who wishes to help people confront their trauma.
Really though, you don't have to get that deep into story themes and how well they align for the matchup to be really cool as is. It's two video game mentalists who travel mind worlds and fight with similar disembodied hands and mental abilities, and Raz's abilities also compliment the complex nature of Omori's Headspace, which should be intrinsic to any fight with him. I just think that Raz ticks every box I could really ask for in an Omori Death Battle, and I also think the same goes on Raz's side as well. Among Raz's spread, Omori is in a unique position where Raz doesn't really have to kill someone whose mental world he is invading. I know that we just saw Joker blowing Giorno's head off, but Palace rulers are generally at least antagonistic to Joker. It seems weird, in my mind, for Raz to want to invade the mental world of someone he is trying to kill. He only ever uses this ability to help people recover from their mental trauma, if he wants to just beat someone up it seems more likely that he'd just do so in the real world, but that also means neglecting his whole gimmick. Omori feels like a perfect Raz opponent because he is literally what you would come to expect Raz to fight, and you don't have to go through hoops to make the fight work for either, it just flows naturally.
Maybe I'm biased though, because I've had the most fun working on this blog than pretty much any other one that I've done before. It was really fun playing through Omori and Psychonauts and talking about it, as well as a lot of their deeper themes and aspects in a way that actually influences the outcome of this fight. This blog wouldn't be possible without Oleggator, who put a ton of work into this thing, making this our largest blog yet (and frankly, I doubt this will be beaten). I just found so much fun in analyzing their mental fortitudes and abilities as well as comparing them against one another - this matchup only really became a thing when we were discussing how cool it would be to have a fight that focused completely on mental aspects, two characters who deal with mental powers a lot and exist within mental worlds, and I am very glad that this did not disappoint.
If you couldn't tell by now, this is going to be a fairly long verdict for me and there is a lot to cover. I will do my best to make the most important parts of this debate clear, but to really understand this matchup we have to cover a whole lot of bases first. Even just establishing how this fight will actually work is somewhat complicated if you aren't familiar with either series, so let's get that out of the way first.
This fight will take place in Headspace, which is a mental world created by Sunny when he sleeps. As he does this, Sunny will take the vessel of Omori while he ventures out into Headspace. How exactly cognizant or differential Omori is to the person Sunny is something that has been misunderstood for a while, but for understandable reasons. Omori is not a different entity from Sunny, but rather he is a part of his personality, one that desires to exist in Headspace. If Sunny chooses to defy this desire and try to live in the real world again, he and Omori are still technically the same person because that desire still exists on a subconscious level, it's just that Sunny now also has a desire and part of his person that doesn't want to stay in Headspace. This is why they can fight each other as two seemingly distinct people, because in Headspace, Sunny can manifest parts of his person into different bodies. Basically, you can take Sunny out of Omori, but you can't take Omori out of Sunny. Despite that, Raz's target in this fight is specifically Omori and not Sunny. What this essentially means is that Raz is fighting against Sunny's desire to stay in Headspace. If you're still confused, here is a helpful image to demonstrate their relationship to one another:
Omori, who represents his subconscious (and at times conscious) desire to stay in Headspace, is Sunny, and Headspace Sunny, who represents his conscious desire to leave Headspace, is also Sunny, but Omori and Headspace Sunny are not the same, so Raz is not fighting the total person of Sunny but just one facet of his personality. Because of this, we have barred the possibility of Raz killing Sunny in the real world as a method of victory. While it would technically remove the personality subset of Omori from existence, not only is it completely out of character for Raz to do on a flatly nonsensical degree, it also completely ignores the whole point of the fight to be between Raz and Omori, another mind traveling mentalist like himself inside of a mental world. Morals against the act of killing itself are removed from Death Battle, but all other morals are still considered, and if someone has to do something too morally questionable in order to win that is not just killing the opponent, then it should be fair to take that into consideration on whether they would actually be able to do it. For example, if Captain America were to fight someone who, for whatever reason, can only be defeated by killing an unrelated group of innocent school children, it would be fair to ask if he would be mentally capable of performing such an action in order to win. This is a similar case here, and it wouldn't make any sense in context for Raz to kill Sunny in order to kill Omori either. Why would he start fighting a representation of someone's mental trauma, and then decide that the best course of action would be to kill the person who has it? It makes no sense, in that situation where he has no other choice, it is just far likelier that Raz would simply give up. That's how we have all decided, and if you don't like it, too bad. My blog, my rules.
Now that we got that put of the way, the other big problem that needs to be addressed is Raz's own methods of entering Headspace. We already covered this in a previous section, but I think it is worth going over so I can say my own personal opinion on how this would likely work.
Raz's main method of accessing Mental Worlds is by using Psycho-Portals, a device that you can stick onto someone's head which allows you to enter their mind. These Psycho-Portals have a built in system that denies the usage of them on anyone under the age of 18, and Sunny is only 16 years old, so a Psycho-Portal should not be able to work on him. Have that said, Psychonauts are still able to enter minds without the use of a Psycho-Portal, the device is just a more efficient way of doing so. Razputin's father, Augustus Aquato was able to enter Raz and Oleander’s conjoined Mental World by forcing his astral form into it without using a Psycho-Portal. This took some amount of time in order to accomplish, however Augustus is also an extremely inexperienced psychic, especially at that time and compared to Raz. In addition, Raz only really needs to enter into Sunny's Headspace once from this method, as Raz can use the Brain Tumbler to access the Collective Unconscious, which lets him access the Mental World of anyone who he has entered before. If Raz is given assistance by Ford, then Ford can also simply teleport Raz into Sunny's mind, just as he did when entering Raz's own mind, who is a minor.
Now we have established the basic parameters of this fight. Raz is able to enter Headspace as many times as he wants without a terribly long period of time in between, and his goal will be to remove the subset personality called “Omori” from Sunny's cognition, and he must do this without killing Sunny himself. Omori's goal will be to prevent this from happening by defeating Raz in battle. Now, the obvious conflict here is that both Raz and Omori seem to be basically unbeatable inside of a mental world, because they can always continue coming back after death. Raz can simply rematerialize his astral form or re-enter a Mental World if he is destroyed from within one, and Omori will always exist so long as Sunny’s subconscious desire to stay in Headspace and conceal the truth of Mari's death also exists. Spoilers, but neither of them really have a super clean and easy way of bypassing the other's immortality, so I hope you're ready for a long one here.
It's difficult to think of where to really begin as there is so much to consider here, so let us begin with a classic, stats. At their lowest interpretations, both of them can consistently scale about around the range of a hundred tons of TNT. Omori can scale to Pluto throwing the Earth at him, as well as his own feat of creating a fog over the entire forest of Headspace - given the massive size of the forest, it would have had to be quite large, which is why our number got so high. Raz defeated Maligula, who created a massive water tornado, which gets nearly identical numbers to everything else from Omori, so they were pretty evenly matched as far as calculable power feats go. The kinds of feats that people actually want to hear about, the cosmic stuff, is a little weirder.
Let's begin with Raz. He can safely scale to Helmut Fullbear, one of the Psychic Six, due to defeating Maligula, who was superior to him. Even within Fullbear's own Mental World, he needed Raz's help in order to defeat the mental apparition of Maligula, which helps to substantiate scaling to his variation from within the Mental World as the PSI King. From within his own Mental World, when it was hollow, Fullbear recreated it in its entirety, and even referred to it as a universe. Because of this, you can infer that Helmut Fullbear, at least his form within his Mental World, is capable of generating a whole universe and that Raz would scale by proxy.
That isn't all, however. Raz in his colossal form defeated the two headed dad monster, and upon defeating him, the fused Mental Worlds of his and Oleander’s nearly immediately collapsed. Because of the circumstances that led to this, it wouldn't be an invalid interpretation to credit its accelerated destruction to Raz or the final boss, which would provide universal scaling to his giant form, possibly even twice so due to the fact that this particular Mental World was a conjunction of Raz's own as well as Oleander’s fused together.
Of course, it is entirely viable to raise concerns over these particular feats. To begin with, Helmut Fullbear only created the universe when his brain was implanted in someone else, thus allowing him to regain his senses, sending him into sensory overload. As his brain was deprived of all senses for a long period of time due to not inhabiting a body, his Mental World lacked anything inside of it aside from his consciousness, and reintroducing them is ultimately what caused the recreation of his Mental World. While the recreation could be attributed to Helmut's mental form as a source of energy for a material universe being created as it has to come from somewhere, it does still result from external stimuli, so the feat isn't exactly clear cut. As for the other feat, it is worth pointing out that the Psychonauts were already working on separating Raz and Oleander’s minds during their battle. The defeat of the two headed dad monster may have happened right before the Mental World ultimately collapsed, but it is somewhat nebulous how much of this feat can really be accredited to Raz. Either way, they still serve as good benchmarks to examine Raz's upper potential.
As for Omori, he's got a couple of feats we could use to scale him to the scope of his own Headspace. First, and most obviously, being that he created the whole thing. According to the events described by Daddy Longlegs, Headspace was not simply created by his mind as a result of his trauma - Omori was already in White Space when Headspace was created, and he consciously chose to create Headspace due to his boredom with White Space, so we know that this wasn't just the result of external stimuli but was decisively an action taken by Omori from within his mind.
Another scene to consider is when Sunny broke the lightbulb from within White Space, the action seemingly destroying his whole mental world - remember that Headspace was partially created as a means to conceal Black Space, and after Sunny broke the lightbulb, he was forced to confront everything that he has been hiding from himself from within Black Space and Red Space. Of course, Omori, as well as Sunny within White Space survived this, so it may be notable as a durability feat.
As we know, Headspace has been described as being a universe multiple times, and even has precedent for showing real astronomical distances from within it. As such, any feat directly affecting the entirety of Headspace can also be attributed as a feat of universal scale. However, it is also true that these showings are somewhat vague and abstract, and it is difficult to determine how much of this applies to his direct fighting ability. Nevertheless, I believe that this is a viable enough thoughtline to estimate how powerful Omori can be.
As such, even though mind world scaling can be kinda weird, both Raz and Omori have similarly low floors and high ceilings depending on how you choose to interpret scaling like this. Their feats counter each other fairly nicely, so I don't think that one is especially more powerful than the other. With that said, power isn't everything, and given how difficult attaining a victory may be in a fight like this, speed seems like it should be fairly notable in the overall equation. So how do they stack up in this area?
Well, let's begin with Raz again. At his lowest, he's been able to dodge sound waves, missiles, bullets and cannonballs, landing him squarely in the low machs in terms of speed. If we want to go higher, then he should be able to scale to fellow Psychonaut, Milla Vodelo, who used her telepathy to search the entire planet, a feat that would require around relativistic levels of… thinking. She thinks fast, so Raz likely does too. Going even further, do you remember that Helmut Fullbear guy I mentioned? Well, in his Mental World, he was actually able to move stars and constellations around telekinetically at an alarmingly fast speed in order to make projections with them, millions of times the speed of light, in fact. This feat does require accepting that Helmut is actually moving life sized stars and not just smaller projections of them, but it's still an interesting feat to note.
On Omori's side, he counters Raz fairly well here. Several enemies are directly stated to be able to move at mach speeds, which pretty safely puts Omori at minimum above the speed of sound, and Kel is able to throw his balls fast enough for them to catch on fire, a feat that would require moving at least five or eight times the speed of sound. That's not all, however, because as it turns out, there is a very funny ladder that stretches all the way from the home planet of the Vast Forest into Otherworld, which is an entire exoplanet that space travelers go to and that Omori and his friends managed to reach within a short time frame by climbing.
Remember that, according to the Wise Rock, the Earth and the Moon in Headspace have the same distance between them as they do in real life. No matter how you slice it, this feat is definitely notable despite how silly it seems, and the Omori manga even backs it up, as it offers us a view of the ladder upwards from the ground and we see that it extends continuously and that Otherworld is so far away that it cannot be seen, even from this perspective. This would suggest astronomical distances consistent with what we already know about Otherworld. The timeframe isn't exactly clear, but both in the manga and in the game there isn't a suggested longer time frame and it progresses fairly quickly. Remember that Omori cannot spend more time in Headspace than he is sleeping for, and he's able to travel to and from Otherworld by this method multiple times. Hero does become tired by the end of the climb, but it is a running joke in the game that Hero gets tired very easily. After all, he was only able to stay on a treadmill in the Sprout Mole village for a few dozen seconds before he needed to get off and take a breath. Even if we seriously lowballed the distance to only that of Venus, the closest planet to Earth, and assumed that it took them about ten minutes to complete, then it would still require relativistic speeds to make the climb to Otherworld.
If you wanted something more concretely mftl, then there is the option to scale Omori and his crew to Pluto, who manages a space traveling service which he performs by physically flying. He is able to fly between the Vast Forest and Otherworld in a relatively quick timeframe, and as he is flying, he is seen to fly past several stars, which would suggest he can move several thousands of times the speed of light. But how far can he actually fly? Well, he has mentioned that he has traveled across the universe before, and his space traveling service is meant to carry people across cosmic distances with relatively little trouble. More importantly, he's mentioned that along with Earth, he has soared across galaxies, meaning that he has the flight capacity to realistically move across galactic distances at least, which would imply speeds of millions of times the speed of light, given the realistic timeframes it would take him to move across these areas without getting tired, as we have seen him do before. We elaborated more on this justification in the QnA section, though do keep in mind that this is still predicated on an estimation, it still proves that the Omori cast can potentially achieve interstellar speeds due to defeating someone who can fly across such distances with presumably little trouble.
Now that that's out of the way, we can see that even in speed, both Raz and Omori have similar ends that can be taken, between their low, mid and high end interpretations, they always end up as around roughly equal if given equivalent leniency. Stats weren't really going to be a very big factor anyways, due to how unique their abilities and immortalities work, so dream world deniers can take it easy. However, while a big number isn't going to decide this battle per se, that doesn't mean that physical dominance won't be an important factor. After all, whoever is superior in the active fight is obviously going to have more chances to pull off whatever strategies or win conditions they may devise, as well as exhaust the opponent more than they do themselves, which will end up being important in determining who will win in the end, so let's cover this next.
Raz and Omori both have a lot of abilities and items, but frankly, much of it is filler in comparison to the special abilities they have which can really turn the tides to one or the other, so let us look at that. Raz has more conventional abilities, as in he has a lot of essentially super powers that Omori doesn't really use in an equitable way. He's got lasers, shields, fire, confusion grenades, invisibility, time slowing, hell, he can even create a smaller version of himself to aid him in battle. Aside from standard RPG status effects, Omori kinda just uses a knife and his Red Hands in combat and that's basically it. Raz also has more proper training for most of his abilities and is kind of a super nerd about this whole psychic powers stuff. With this in mind, it is entirely reasonable that Raz would be able to keep Omori on the back burner… if it weren't for Omori's own advantages.
Omori's status effects are no joke, and they can seriously put Raz at a significant disadvantage. Raz has very limited options for affecting his own stats, and they don't come without other drawbacks, unlike Omori who can freely alter his stats as well as Raz's own to keep himself ahead. He can even use this to counter Raz's time bubbles by increasing his own speed. The time bubbles work by increasing or decreasing the perception of the speed of something, but it is still a mathematical alteration. You can even see this in game where if you use the time bubbles to increase the speed of say, a funicular, it will not move as fast as if you increase the speed of other people or objects that are already faster. This means that Omori would be able to alter both his and Raz's speed in order to level the playing field. This isn't even mentioning the power and defense effects that Omori can also inflict to give himself an advantage. And also, remember that while both of them can revive from death, only Omori grows stronger after each death, meaning that eventually he is going to become too powerful for Raz to handle and totally overwhelm him, the same way he did with Sunny in their own battle.
While Raz is definitely smarter, don't count Omori out here entirely. He was able to master a technique that takes decades to learn in under a single night, and often has to strategize in many of his battles like Raz does. More importantly, while Omori could understand and fight around many of Raz's base abilities, Raz doesn't really have a way to outsmart Omori's go-to plan of attack of manipulating emotions and thereby giving himself a type advantage. Yes, yes, I know that Raz has a really strong mental fortitude that can block out mental attacks, but with only a few exceptions, the majority of the emotional ailment effects in Omori aren't really mental attacks that control your mind. They're more like suggestive causations that can cause you to change your own mood mid battle. Say, for example, Omori reads a sad poem to you. You don't become sad because Omori is controlling your mind to make you so, you are becoming sad because you just heard a depressing story. This makes up the bulk of Omori's emotional effects, and given how reactive Raz is and how these moves rarely fail against any opponent, there's no reason to think that Raz wouldn't be affected in the same way, leaving him vulnerable to a Pokémon type disadvantage and no experience in fighting against an unfamiliar and unorthodox battle system such as this, while Omori will always be able to influence Raz's mental state.
This is especially important because it gives Omori the option to utilize one of his AFRAID inducing abilities, which would completely disable Raz's psychic powers. Raz is brave, sure, but he's not above being frightened, and has been so in the past. In fact, if he feels sufficient enough fear, it has been shown that this will cause his psychic abilities to shut down entirely. Milla even suggests that the failure of the levitation ball could be due to a potential fear of water while having no knowledge of the Hand of Galochios, suggesting that intense enough fear is a common weakness among psychics and their abilities. Hmmm, isn't that interesting? I wonder what that sounds like. Raz has practically no fighting ability without his psychic powers, so with them stripped away, so does his primary advantage and any defense he could make against Omori.
And that's not even the end of it. Thanks to Omori's plethora of items and equipment, he can always stay ahead and adapt to whatever the situation may be. Raz having unlimited psychic energy is indeed helpful, but Omori rejuvenates his JUICE every time that he dies, and he has shown to, ahem, “reset” himself for strategic purposes before. Not only that, but his plethora of JUICE recovering items make this effectively a non issue for him, especially since he can have another one of his teammates use one on him as he continues fighting so he doesn't have to be distracted. Yeah, his team is in this game too, and they are another big advantage for Omori, literally the power of friendship. A kind of depressing, replica power of friendship, but the power of friendship nevertheless.
Omori is an excellent team player and organizer, and he fights his battles with a level of coordination not really seen with Raz's usual fights. Aside from the emotions, Omori's battle system is sort of totally based on coordination between teammates, where one person will make up for the weaknesses of another, pass their turns amongst themselves, and constantly help each other during the fight. Not only does Raz have fewer allies, but he doesn't really fight with them in the same way. His Archetype is far frailer than himself and has less abilities, and they don't really coordinate with one another, rather the Archetype tends to just do its own thing. Ford is an excellent planner and is good at giving Raz advice, (and if you have played both Omori and Psychonauts, you'd know that Ford's advice is just way way better than Mari's) but he doesn't really fight alongside him and is sparsely on the battlefield unless it is necessary. With their level of teamwork, Omori and his friends can cover each other's bases and attack Raz with a level of organization he doesn't usually face with the usual mental enemies and censors that he does battle with.
Omori also has items such as the Paper Bag to mitigate things such as the confusion grenades and possibly the Mental Connection (we will get to that later). While the majority of emotional ailments are not direct mental manipulation, a few of them are, such as the ones from the Lab Rats, Sea Witches and Perfectheart, which would mean that the Paper Bag can give Omori some level of mental defense by being able to resist these effects from such enemies. He also has Abbi's Eye, which basically allows him to see the future. Raz's own telepathy and precognition are very sparsely performed and never really in any combat situation, they are generally random occurrences that he hasn't shown a great level of control over, unlike with Omori who can predict all of Raz's attacks and proceed to plan accordingly. While Raz can attempt to disarm Omori or his friends with his telekinetic orange hand, Omori's Red Hands could just as easily retrieve them as well as fight off Raz themselves, ensuring that Omori's combat options would never be neutralized himself.
At first glance, Raz's numerous combat abilities do seem to triumph over Omori's more seemingly limited powers. However, the sheer potency of Omori's arsenal as well as his teamwork with his friends among every other advantage he has will allow him to be the dominant force in this fight, as he has a lot more options to fall back on and ways to entirely control the flow of the battle in such a way that Raz is going to have too much difficulty in trying to counteract. However, notice that I said Omori is the dominant force in this fight, not necessarily that he is the winner. If this were like most other matchups, my verdict would just end here, but Omori still doesn't really have a way to kill Raz as he will continue to reappear after every death. Still, Raz doesn't have a way of killing Omori either, so is it just a draw? Not quite. Things might get a little complicated from here on out, we're about to talk about some really circumstantial and somewhat abstract stuff to nail down who has the likelier win conditions.
Recall that Omori will exist so long as Sunny's subconscious desires relating to Mari's death do as well, he's essentially a cognitive being dependent on Sunny's cognition. Because of this, Raz cannot defeat Omori by physical means, but that is where his trump cards come in: the Astralathe and Mental Connection. The Astralathe is capable of causing a host to repress the memory of something or inversely cause them to remember a locked away memory, and Mental Connection allows him to basically change the cognition and mind of a host. With these tools, it seems that Raz should have an easy time changing Sunny's cognition and defeating Omori that way, but it isn't so simple. Mental Connection isn't exactly precise mind control, but rather if two thought concepts are available and near to each other, Raz can connect between them to cause the host to associate the two concepts - for example, if you are scared of bugs, Raz could associate the concepts of “bugs” and “good” together so that you are no longer scared of them, provided that the thought bubbles for them are available. The thing is, they aren't always available, and Raz will at times need to cause them to be actively thought forward in order for them to appear. Because Omori's existence is tied to thoughts that are specifically locked within Black Space and Red Space, Raz will have to cause Sunny to remember these events first if he is to use this method.
Raz collecting mental baggage seems like it could be very helpful as they are said to alleviate mental problems, but in practice, their potency isn't really all that. Collecting them does not have any visible effects on a Mental World or the mental manifestations that are very similar to Omori, and they still need to be defeated as everyone else and the host's main problems still need to be addressed directly. Finally, the Astralathe has two functions, being able to either repress the memory of something (like it did with Maligula) or force the host to recall a repressed memory. To start with, trying to repress Omori won't really work that well. The way that this function of the Astralathe works is that it locks something from within a Mental World into a physical locked area. When it was performed on Maligula who is just like Omori in that she was a cognitive being dependent on the user's cognition, Lucrecia did not forget her existence entirely, and she was not destroyed by this, so it's unlikely that it would serve a purpose in directly destroying Omori. Still, he needs to be able to escape from this, but Omori is perfectly capable of doing so. The locks that the Astralathe creates are actually pretty identical to the Black Space doors in that they serve the exact same purpose - they are both physical locks that entrap concepts within a Mental World that make the host lose their memory of it. Omori in particular is actually able to escape Black Space rooms by either using the Red Hands to teleport himself out or by stabbing himself and reviving outside of it, meaning this aspect of the Astralathe is really no trouble for him. The real important thing here is its function to force open locked and repressed memories back into the open, and as I just explained how similar the lock from the Astralathe and the Black Space doors are, you should already know where this is going. It is entirely possible for Raz to use the Astralathe on the Black Space or Red Space doors, and from there on he could use the freed memories to use Mental Connection on them and thus forcefully change Sunny's cognition, giving him a theoretically perfect win conditions against Omori. How likely is this to happen? Well, we'll get back to this point, because we have to cover some other things first, since this does require a lot of assumptions and steps that Raz would need to take to perform such a win condition.
We need to remember exactly how Raz approaches most of the Mental Worlds that he visits. He doesn't just beat up the mental manifestation outright and call it a day, but he usually attempts to understand the situation and the roots of the Mental World that he is visiting in an attempt to understand the host and their world better. I do not know exactly how likely this is, but if Raz wanted to, he could attempt to escape Omori in order to better explore Headspace, and he may very well succeed thanks to his acrobatics as well as his other abilities such as invisibility and his time bubbles. If the fight drags on for such a long period of time, it's not infeasible that he may try this, though it won't exactly be easy on him. Omori still has his multiple friends at his side to aid him, he can just disable Raz's powers, and the Red Hands literally block the UI option allowing you to run away. I don't know how much you should lean into Domain Expansion: Game Mechanics, but if Omori can indeed just conceptually make it incapable for Raz to run away, then that would obviously stop him in his tracks. However, for the sake of argument, let's say that he does accomplish this. After all, he needs to in order to get into Black Space and Red Space and have any chance of altering Sunny's cognition. So, what happens then?
Well, to begin with, Headspace is big. Like, really big. In fact, if you have gotten this far into the blog, you probably know very well how big it is. Headspace is an entire universe, filled with several different locations and enemies and localities, and it's even bigger than any Mental World that Raz has been in before. Not only is it really big, but a lot of it is filled with distractions and misdirections that won't make it any easier for Raz to decipher Sunny's past. You see, every Mental World in Psychonauts is designed based on the cognition and past of the host, in a way they are representative of the host's trauma itself. But Headspace was specifically created to be a distraction to Mari's death and the real world, as well as obscuring the entirety of Black Space from Sunny. Sure there are bits and pieces here and there that leaked through and allude to the truth, but they are often quickly concealed again by Headspace, which means that Raz is going to have his work cut out for him, especially when considering that he is trying to fight Omori this whole time.
While each enemy in Headspace isn't something that I think Raz couldn't deal with, they are still going to serve as major distractions. Not to mention, that while Raz explores Mental Worlds all the time, he still knows far less about Headspace than Omori does. Omori's cognition manipulates the events that happen in Headspace to distract him from the real world, so it's pretty likely that Raz could get distracted by the events in Headspace as well, being led on a false trail or caught up in some other battle or quest. With all the areas that he could potentially visit, he really has no idea what it is exactly that he is looking for. He doesn't know what Black Space is or how to enter it, which is by jumping down a hole in a random house that is in the middle of the forest. Meanwhile, there is also a whole kingdom, several forests, an alien planet, an Oasis, an underwater civilization and etcetera. Simply put, one of Raz's biggest obstacles in this fight is game design. Omori explored all of Headspace over the course of a few days, and Raz does not have that same time on his hands. By fighting Omori, you are literally fighting against the entire game of Omori itself. And, hell, if Omori really wanted to, he could just localize the entirety of his mental world to White Space, either erasing or resetting Headspace and removing the door to it, like he has done before. At that point, Raz doesn't really have anywhere to go except a large expanse of white.
But, let us continue the discussion further, if nothing else to illustrate a point. Let's say, again for the sake of argument, that Raz does indeed find Black Space, somehow, which gets him in position to use the Astralathe. Even then, it's not exactly the end for Omori, because there are so many different rooms in Black Space that Raz has to go through, and the door to Red Space only appears after Omori himself has collected enough keys from the Black Space rooms, which raises the question of if Raz would be able to manifest the Red Space door at all, which is necessary to defeat Omori. After Omori cleared Black Space, the area was replaced by Black Space 2, which notably does not include Red Space, which makes the manifestation of it even more questionable on Raz's side. If Raz can't locate Red Space, the source of Sunny's trauma, then it is unlikely that he could use Mental Connection to alter his cognition. And, really, it is worth noting that using Mental Connection in this way is extremely out of character for Raz to do. It violates the code of Psychonauts ethics, and he has not done it since the first Mental World in Psychonauts 2 after he learned his lesson on specifically why he shouldn't be doing this. Even ignoring all of this, Omori could simply use a Paper Bag which grants him some resistance from mental alterations, or he could even revert the Astralathe opening the Red Space door, like how he reverted Basil Rush when he was forced to see Mari's corpse. Remember that Omori was the one who concealed these memories into these rooms in the first place - the only reason they were revealed is because Sunny consciously chose to seek them out after reconnecting with his friends and the real world. Under the circumstances of this fight, there's no reason why he wouldn't just, re-repress them.
Omori has multiple safe spots to fall back on in order to maintain his existence, and Raz's path to victory is fairly convoluted. He must essentially aim and succeed to escape Omori, explore all of Headspace, find Black Space, decide to randomly use the Astralathe on them, manifest Red Space, then use a move that is highly out of character and succeed, all the while Omori has several options that could permanently adhere this pathway. It's a pretty difficult sell, if I'm going to be honest. Sure, Raz is really good at his job, but this is looking a bit much. Still, if you have heard of the infinite monkey theorem, you'd know that no matter how unlikely a scenario is, given enough time, it will eventually come to fruition. Raz can't die at all while he is in a Mental World because he uses his astral form to access these places, which can simply re-manifest upon being destroyed. This means that Raz has essentially an infinite amount of chances to get this thing right, right? In that case, how does Omori possibly win against someone who literally can't be killed?
If you were paying attention, you'd notice that I have neglected to mention one very important ability for Omori, which is his ability to send and trap people within Black Space, his own personal trump card. Omori created Black Space as a way of locking away everything that threatened to reveal the truth, and as seen with Basil, when something comes close to revealing this fact, he can immediately transport them into a locked room in Black Space. There is no doubt Omori would end up using this against a completely invasive entity who was trying to reveal the truth and erase him from Sunny's mind. In fact, one of the rooms implies that every enemy Omori kills gets sent to Black Space after death, which is somewhat horrifying to think about but also notable since it is possible that Omori could already send Raz to Black Space by just killing him, though this is somewhat hypothetical. Even if Omori cannot kill Raz, if he can lock him in Black Space for a sufficient enough time, then this can be considered a victory for him. However… This also isn't really that simple. Raz has some safeguards against something like this, and this topic has quite a lot to talk about, so let's get into it.
The most obvious method of escape that he has is the Smelling Salt. If Raz uses this, then he can escape from the Mental World he is currently in, allowing him a way of escaping Black Space. If this were to fail, then he still has a few other options to escape. The PSI-Popper Generator is able to take Raz to any location in a Mental World that he has previously been to, and Ford Cruller is able to teleport Raz inside and out of Mental Worlds. Because of this, Raz has enough sufficient ways to escape from Black Space and Omori's primary win condition. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that Omori can't win. If he is able to nullify these options, then he still has a decent chance at victory.
First of all, the Smelling Salt would not be very difficult for Omori to get around. While Smelling Salts may serve as an efficient escape route for Psychonauts, if any Psychonaut were to become incapacitated, they wouldn't be able to use this to return. We have even seen such a scenario before, where the junior Psychonauts were in danger of being trapped within a Mental World with no way of escaping due to Lady Luctopus incapacitating them. Omori, as it turns out, can do the same. When Basil is sent into Black Space, we've seen him become visibly restrained by either the Red Hands or whatever black matter restrained him in the church. It is, therefore, entirely likely that Raz would become restrained in a similar way. Raz still has his psychic powers, but remember how Omori is able to use AFRAID on Raz and thereby successfully nullify his abilities. Of course, this is also without mentioning that Omori or the Red Hands could simply seize the Smelling Salt, leaving Raz completely out of options of escaping by himself. With this, we know that Omori does have the means to defeat Raz, and would likely end up doing so fairly soon, if not for his other options coming from outside aid, so let's discuss them.
The first one we have to talk about is the PSI-Popper Generator, otherwise known as Oatmeal. Oatmeal is a creature that appears at random locations in a Mental World which, if Raz interacts with it, can bring him back to a previous location, or “checkpoint” that Oatmeal has been to. Raz has to interact with and activate Oatmeal in order to travel with this method, and Oatmeal has never really “saved” Raz in this kind of circumstance before, and it is unknown if he'd be able to determine where Raz is in the first place, since it has never appeared in a place like Black Space which specifically excludes other areas of Headspace. Even if it did, Omori can just kill Oatmeal, or otherwise neutralize it for the purposes of this fight, making it a somewhat unreliable option for Raz to really fall back on.
The next option, his final fallback, is from Ford Cruller. Granted, if we wanted to be technical, it is sort of questionable giving Raz Ford at all, since he became disconnected from Raz's mind at the beginning of Psychonauts 2 and has only really been situational aid since that point. However, let's give it to him anyway, saying that he reconnects with Raz's mind like he did in Psychonauts 1. If Raz becomes incapacitated, then Ford is able to just teleport him out of the Mental World. Easy as that, with basically no caveat. From this point, the only way Omori can reliably stop Ford is by incapacitating Ford himself, but he's usually not in the battlefield along with Raz, he's more of a man in the chair kind of guy, like Otacon. So, how does he do this? Well, there are still a few cases for which Ford appears. One of them being whenever Raz wants to receive advice from him, in which case Ford will physically appear out from Raz's head to speak to him. He is vulnerable when this happens, and Raz has done this during boss battles and fights before, so it's not unreasonable to think that he'd do so, if not multiple times, against an opponent who is significantly difficult to defeat for good. The other option is for when Raz decides to use the Astralathe, in which case Ford must accompany him within Headspace in order to do so. This is what happened when they tried to use it in Lucrecia's Mental World, Ford's physical presence with Raz was necessary in order to utilize it. In both cases, Omori would have the opportunity he needed to fight Ford directly and incapacitate him.
Simply put, all of Raz's fallback options are feasible for Omori to deal with, given enough time. It may be difficult to accomplish, but it is far more plausible than the several leaps and bounds needed to reach a Raz victory condition. In addition to this, Omori could also win by just beating up Raz enough times so that he or Ford eventually give up, or at least give up a direct confrontation like this battle would suggest. Ford is smart, if he knows that Omori's Mental World is far too complex and dangerous to deal with directly, and sees that Raz continues trying and failing for hours on end to win while also coming close to the very dangerous possibility of both of them being trapped in there for a long while, he is going to eventually abort the mission and decide against dealing with Omori in this way, which in a Death Battle would effectively mean that Raz concedes the fight. I know this is a lot to go through, but considering the conditions of each of their win conditions, Omori is simply superior. I have created an image to illustrate this in a more simplified way.
This depicts the necessary steps and conditions required for either of them to win this fight. The red numbers from Raz's side correlate to Omori, which represent a potential direct way for Omori to counter one of Raz's steps. The watch icon represents a step that may take a significant amount of time to complete, the purple question mark indicates something that we do not know if it is even possible, and the green advantages at the bottom describe significant advantages that either have for the direct purpose of accomplishing their goal. As is visible, Omori simply has more advantages, more options, more counters, and less steps and time needed to achieve his win condition as opposed to Raz. Raz would first need to escape Omori, which may not be possible due to the Red Hands canceling the UI option to escape, then he has to search all of Headspace in order to find Black Space, and remember that Headspace is an entire universe that is specifically designed to distract, unlike the Mental Worlds in Psychonauts which are designed to lead Raz directly to the source of a host's trauma, and Omori could always just localize Headspace to White Space and completely neutralize this avenue in its entirety. Assuming that Raz does make it to Black Space, somehow, he's still going to have to find a way into Red Space, assuming that option is even possible for him given what happened to the location later in the story and how Omori manifested it, and keep in mind that Raz has quite literally no idea what he's seeing or what it is he is supposed to do here. If he manages to make it past that, provided leeway, he must then use an extremely out of character technique to functionally directly alter Sunny's mind in order to win. On this front, Omori is able to counter this by using the Paper Bag, blocking off mental alterations, or by just reverting the opening of Red Space and closing it off. Now, at this point, you might be wondering why it is that Raz couldn't do what he always does and just help Sunny through his problems by defeating Omori, and why it is exactly that Raz can't keep Red Space open, but Sunny did. This, I think, goes into a factor of this matchup that is very important and also thematic.
When Raz helps someone by entering their Mental World, there is usually additional context and events in them that help contribute to the host coming to a realization regarding their actions and destructive modes of thought due to actions taken by Raz in said Mental World. Sunny has something like that too, but it's not something that Raz can recreate for him. Sunny's journey is all about Sunny developing the strength and skills to interact with the real world again, reconnect with his friends, and muster up the courage within himself to face his own actions and move past them, accepting the consequences that may come as a result. This took three days for Sunny to do, in conjunction with other story important events and contexts, a lot of which took place in the Real World and not in Headspace. It's the whole reason why there are multiple endings and routes; Omori's existence, and the existence of Headspace, is tied to very deep and complex events involving Sunny's own person and confidence. Only Sunny can decide how to progress with his life, and only Sunny has the power to defeat Omori, someone else can't just do it for him. It is up to Sunny which ending he inevitably has. Raz is good at his job, but there is only so much he can do when the correct tools and necessary events cannot all be found or acted upon by Raz in a fight scenario like this, and this is what ended up making me not only think that Omori wins, but also make me kind of want him to win.
I know that, from a surface glance, this is basically a therapist vs a manifestation of trauma, and from that standpoint you'd obviously want the therapist who helps people to win. However, I think it's deeper than that. Omori winning sort of represents a truth in situations like this, in that you can't just have someone else fix your problems for you. Only the individual is able to really gather the strength to deal with these things themselves, and even this debate is kind of representative of that. Omori is incredibly difficult to defeat and he has several counters and methods to push back against anything that may try to change Headspace to the point that it is simply overwhelming for Raz to deal with given the tools that he has available. Omori is Sunny, and Raz can't force open Red Space because Omori, as Sunny, doesn't want to face his challenges, so he'd always just close it again and revert his memories. Raz cannot recreate every event in Omori for Sunny, that's only accomplishable by Sunny just doing his thing normally. Only Omori can choose to open Red Space, and only Omori can defeat Omori. He's MEANT to be relatable. He's MEANT to lose… to Sunny. Not a totally invasive entity.
Now on the other hand, Raz's own options and resources for prolonging his defeat are far more limited and not as complex in comparison, meaning that over time Omori will eventually either incapacitate him or force him to concede this approach. Either of them are fairly likely options, especially considering how reluctant Raz would be to try something like outright mind control given the events of Psychonauts 2, and how likely it is for that approach to fail. Raz is more evasive, but Omori has ways to deal with that, and his combat dominance is going to be difficult to overcome. He can continue nerfing Raz's stats while increasing his own, and whenever he dies he revives more powerful than before, among his other combat advantages Raz will always be on the back foot against him. Omori can also nullify Raz's abilities, leaving him totally й to really do anything while Omori always has full access to everything at his disposal. And let's not also forget that Omori is far more knowledgeable of his own Headspace than Raz is, and Raz is going to have to deal with a multitude of worlds and enemies and what have you before likely coming close to getting into Black Space. All of this paints a very clear picture, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, then all of them here read OMOR.
Still, despite that, I do think this is a close fight. Raz has a lot of abilities that can catch Omori by surprise, he is incredibly intelligent and also super super difficult to actually put down. But in the end, Omori just has too much going for him, the expanse of Headspace and Black Space as well as Omori's abilities and immortality proved to be too much for Raz to deal with. The winner is Omori.
Thank you if you read this blog up to this point! I know this was a lot, and I doubt I'm going to make another blog like this in the future. If you've been keeping up with me and this blog, thank you for being patient, this took a very long time to make but we were really passionate about it and wanted to get this done. I have grown to really love this matchup, and I hope you have too. See you next time!
Oleggator
Hello fellas, I see you made it here after hundreds of pages and ten thousands of words, it must be a long way. Now, before I start ranting about the fight and all various details that can happen in it, as well as due to me being me - starting to go into things really really deep I would like to talk about this match, after all it is relatively new matchup that wasn’t brought up that much even just months ago (or well, at least before the work on the blog did start), so it’d be good to elaborate on what good we see in it to like it so much in the first place…but first I probably should make a really small disclaimer - due to basically a big info dump I’ll be going through, complexity of this match and my general kind of writing so to speak, the verdict naturally will be way longer than your average one, way waaaay longer, I have put a lot of work onto this (and hopefully not for nothing!!).
To make it a bit more comfortable for you guys I separated my verdict into several parts, since some parts where I am digging a deep hole I deem as necessary, probably could be not as interesting for the general audience. Plus it’s easier to navigate around that way, ain’t I right? Due to that, I also wanna say beforehand to, take your time with reading this verdict, no seriously, given it’s a pretty long one it is pretty important here to take notes and figure out each detail and what not. Personally this is important since I want to make my several takes as clear as possible, and for whoever reading this to agree with takes rather than go “mucho texto”, so once again, take your time, no rush. With that being said, let’s get to this…
Part 1: My ramble about this MU (boring part not related to debate)
People who know me in this community are probably aware of how much I love Psychonauts as a franchise. I talked about it a lot, brought it up whenever I could, and myself researched probably almost everything that was possible for me to research in it. I mean, if you’ve seen my previous Nezzputin blog you guys should know. And a lot of the stuff from Nezzputin blog I think demonstrated how big crossover potential is when you put Psychonauts in vs (contrasting to the amount of people who played the games in this community, smh…). Despite Raz and other Psychonauts agents being relatively grounded characters, visually speaking, they manage to have a really big amount of potential and possibilities of what you can do in the MU due to the people’s memories and personalities and what worlds they create via that.
But as ambitious as it is, it’s honestly hard to sell an idea, or make it a full entertaining episode everyone would understand. Like, if I tell you Raz won’t actually visit Magicant when entering Ness’ mind, you probably would be at minimum confused, at least if you haven’t read the aforementioned blog. People in just this community are probably not aware of that entirely, and now imagine explaining that to wider audiences. Chances are people may also won’t care and make the fight happen like, just look at Gioker, no one did mind the setup here much, but still, it may seem like it’s safer to go with someone where you can understand the setup on the fly.
And well, there are plenty of characters who are dreamers living inside their dreams, allowing that mental battle to happen, but they are merely dreamers, either they are basically normal people who don’t need Raz’s help, or if they need, Raz would logically & realistically fight something or someone dreamer in question needs help against…this leads us to what we have now, basically both a dreamer and a “problem” of a dreamer, mind and its own personal explorer - OMORI.
During the research I obviously had to play Omori (or how else I was supposed to make various claims around this debate), and enjoyed it really much. Good ol quirky Earthbound inspired RPG, which later turns darker and darker the deeper we are going inside the hole…just like Psychonauts!!! Along with themes about escapism, and problems behind holding burden for way too long, all that with pretty lovable characters. And stuff I did like in it, I think at least slightly actually similar to Psychonauts in a matter of experience.
From a dynamic and thematic perspective this MU does basically everything I like Nezzputin for...Okokok lemme get down to theme first…so from starters obviously there is a “quirky” part, both games are basically as if you are having a drug trip across your mind and in which the deeper you dig, the darker secrets you manage to find. In this case these dark secrets are memories we’re repressing & traumas we’re experiencing. Issues Psychonauts and Omori are talking about in a bittersweet way while may seem a bit different are in reality exactly the same. That being how messages of both games revolve around the fact that there is no really inherently evil people, but rather just people who are trying to cope with their traumas as hard as possible, as well as how Mental Health issues and generally problems we as a human beings experience are solved when we have the courage to face them instead of locking away and repressing them.
This is something Raz had to make people with mental issues do to solve their traumatic experiences, and this is something Sunny had to do to let go of his guilt. You can basically see from here that Raz & Omori are essentially 2 sides of the same coin. Whether Omori is a manifestation of Sunny’s guilt and represents issue of hiding from the truth, escaping from the reality to live on inside of a lighthearted fantasy full of ignorance, Raz is a person whose dream job is to ultimately, seek the truth that lies in person’s head and help people to reach back to the reality so they could live on from the hurtful past and accept them for who they are (which partially Raz does in story with himself as well). In a way it’s kind of like Springtrap vs Bendy or Gojo vs Makima or even non-fight like Miles Edgeworth vs Saul Goodman. When there are similarities but its contrast lets the fight shines brightly in both themes that are presented and the differences that are so big they essentially serve as a catalyst for a conflict in the first place, which is good thing in my opinion when it comes for contrast, I like to see thematics and contrast not to be only a cheap talk but also reflected in the fight itself and not just something like “this one’s mother is kind and dead but this one’s mother is awful and alive”, if you get what I mean.
Though well, if you wanna get a bit with meta/fluffy connections both Omori & Psychonauts basically had a hard period when developing a game often doing it in a long time to the point of being close to failure…and yet finishing it in the end and gladly succeeding. As well as both Sunny/Omori and Raz had phobia of water, have a short tempered female companion, stuff like that, yada yada. As TMK will probably also mention in his verdict, Psychonauts 2 and Omori also have relatively similar story beats and both games’ power system revolves around emotions, which this time during this blog I tried to give a bit deeper focus on if you haven’t noticed.
But speaking of thematics and contrasts being reflected in the dynamic. In terms of dynamic, if you know me, you’ve seen all kinds of stuff I’ve said Raz can do to make the fight somewhat chaotic while looking pretty grounded. And well, this applies here as well. We didn’t have these really big sections about their support and enemies for nothing you know, Omori likes to go with his headspace folks in a fight, and when all 4 are together they can do lots of incredible stuff. So while facing off against Omori, Raz is most likely to fight the crew as well, which can overall give off a bunch of potential interactions, despite Raz being at a numbers disadvantage. Redirecting Kel’s ball projectile with telekinesis, causing fire explosions, creating his doodle clone to distract some of Omori’s friends, on contrary Aubrey can perform sick bat combos, Hero can recover crew and take Raz’s attention, Kel could pass balls to make combos and Release Energy is pretty obvious one of the ways of performing massive hits, I can go on and on here.
Same way goes around their enemies, imagine Colossal Psychic Raz wrestling against Expanded Pluto, Raz & Omori fighting against hordes of various Sprout Moles under Sweetheart’s command, Omori trying to figure out the way of dealing with Bad Mood, all of that is practically just first half of the fight and far more is still possible in a realm of Sunny’s huge imagination. Seriously the more you’ll go around this verdict the more I’ll be pointing out cool things you could do representing both sides dynamically.
The second half of dynamic here is how big narrative potential there is, where Raz doesn’t just tries to go deep inside of a person or maybe fights a mentally ill person, but rather saves Sunny in this instance, fully on doing his job in the most Psychonauts, or should I say his own classic style way. While Omori uses all in his power not to keep himself alive, but rather to keep things the way they are, in this endless cycle. At that point people who do know me probably see me like this:
To which I say…I got nothing to say really, maybe it is true…Ok being serious I do want to say I still have a very big soft spot for Ness vs Raz, the years I’ve spent selling this Match Up, the years of finding more new ways of how this fight can go, flowing all potential ideas that can happen with pure imagination, were fun, and given how I managed to make it grow a little within the community (from “This MU is Stomp, Ness is God and Raz is just some kid, therefore it SUCKS!” mentality, to actually likeable matchup), not wasted for nothing, practically it was evolving and evolving and as of now, probably evolved to its peak in my mind to the point that I can know beforehand of any possible interactions. And now at the absolute minimum, I am happy that there is one more match for Raz I can enjoy as much as Ness, as happy as this time in the process of making this blog, that became quite of a personal (and as you may notice…pretty big yeah) project to me, talking about the series I adore so much with more people than just myself more detailed than ever, and even kind of moving on further, either discovering something new or pushing myself to do stuff I probably would keep myself from doing in quite awhile, to which I thank The Monster King & this MU with that, thank you, it’s been really nice.
But enough of this prelude, let’s get down to the answer of who would win, it’s in a debate like that one I think I’m gonna go further beyond in sharing my passion. Keep in mind, there are tons and tons of factors to consider, which is why I will yet again, do a small disclaimer about how big this verdict is, it’s alright if you would like to skip to summary and/or read slowly, but considering how complicated, how much narratively and psychologically driven this match is, I’d be glad to take some of your time. Chances also are I can miss some info generally speaking or in the summary, to which I apologize beforehand. I also wanna give special thanks to Detective Mar’s Omori analysis videos and Gaming University’s Psychonauts analysis videos which are available to watch on YouTube. They honestly did a really good job in covering games from a psychological & narrative point of view and essentially helped to take a look at this match deeper than before, elements of which I partially decided to incorporate in the blog for more depth (I admittedly can be sometimes bad with wording myself, really). At which point I can’t help but recommend watching these analyses by yourself if you happen to have free time and you wish to get more into details about the worldbuilding of Psychonauts and Omori, “show, don’t tell” is perhaps what describes storytelling of these games the most. That being said, I hope you, the reader of this yet another quirky trippy blog won’t get bored. First things first that I think needs to be elaborated on…
Part 2: Rules, are Raz or Omori stipulated here, is everything possible to work???
Alright, lemme get this straight, things are complicated so I wanna spend some time elaborating more deeply and just give my own cents on this ruleset, at least in case if everything said above wasn’t convincing enough, I want to be careful with my words here and do a quick disclaimer that this is an elaboration on how I personally (at least in context of this verdict & Match up) view Omori in vs, this is not to offend people who have different views on how to implement him or characters against him in a vs scenario and mostly an elaboration on how I think interaction here works out.
Since Omori’s plot is basically all inside of a person’s head it’s a bit complicated to make Omori fight someone and keep both sides true to their nature, so the fight in the first place would be believable.
Omori obviously can’t appear in a physical world, or at least he can’t really fight the same way he does in HEADSPACE as in physical world, because in a physical world Sunny (or Omori controlling Sunny depending on the route) is basically average person, without any super powers or even feats to scale to (well there is one…). This is important given that a physical character normally would just kill Sunny and call it a day, or if opponent is being created by Sunny in his own imagination (via, say, seeing a game, anime, comic with said character(s)), it won’t be an opponent really, and at that point there’s no reason to assume said created being would be stronger than Omori/Sunny, no matter how powerful they are portrayed in their fictional work (since it is, you know, fictional). At absolute best this kind of hypothetical scenario could work only with creatures of HEADSPACE that are not Omori/Sunny who is creator of everything in it (given they are not in control of what is created like Omori and Sunny and therefore you can actually imagine stuff like that happening. Meaning King Knight vs Sweetheart works btw 👍).
So whatever way you look at it, debating Omori/Sunny against some guy in a physical world or debating Omori against a copy of said guy in HEADSPACE, will be either boring or require you to do massive stipulations against Omori for a fight to be fair. Not even being a dream creature (or person having dreams, etc.) is really enough as said dream character should also possess meanings to travel to Sunny’s mind specifically (that being HEADSPACE obviously). People can’t just share dreams like it’s nothing and Sunny’s dreams are pretty much part of him and the debate itself. Because while “Merging” dreamworlds is one of the suggested ways to make it work, it doesn’t really, at its best, it implies doing some sort of lobotomy being done with Sunny and another dreamer (ironically this kind of way does actually apply in Psychonauts, unlike in other series, Meat Circus as an obvious example, WHICH WE WILL TALK ABOUT LATER BY THE WAY KEEP THAT IN MIND) so you are essentially just creating another stipulation against Omori. In other cases it’s either going back to the point where “Non-Headspace” dreamworld is still the creation of Sunny and debate goes back to the point where Omori just wins, or it requires some amount of headcanon being done like giving his opponents powers they never had. Whichever path you choose, debate becomes boring and/or unrealistic while trying to favour the opponent for the sake of just being able to fight, without any inner motives.
If going off the checklist you can point out a solid amount of characters that can in fact travel to Sunny’s mind by themselves, now aside from MU having theme, dynamic and all this stuff, there personally is raised the question if character would even benefit from going into Sunny's head or well, answer to “why would they do that”. At which point it all depends on the character. Some will see point in getting inside, and setting the kid straight, some would just go “nah imma just kill this kid right here”. And well, Raz himself in character most definitely will go into Sunny’s head (and even will do it with consent if we’ll go entirely in character route). You can probably guess it’s Raz’s job and all, but generally it’s important to note that killing Sunny in a grand scheme of things does not solve issues, and rather just makes things as they most usually end up in-game, since in 5 out of 6 Omori endings Sunny either continues hikikomori life style and basically dies on the inside, or just kills himself physically dying on the outside as well.
Given that Omori is a manifestation of Sunny’s guilt, either living in pure ignorance or forcing to kill himself is partially his purpose, you can get the idea that if you are killing Sunny you basically doing what Omori himself will eventually do to Sunny anyway simply by virtue of Sunny’s life style, so doing so you kinda just didn’t changed situation at all. Now obviously from a Death Battle standpoint “killing” easily counts as victory, no need for philosophical debates to say if victory was truly a “victory” or not, “I’ve won but at what cost?” and other kinds of questions. However as numerously pointed out before, it's a boring way to look at the debate, and just unrealistic from Raz’s perspective at least. And for the sake of good character portrayal it’s personally would be nice to me seeing at least once, Raz entirely in character whenever he makes decisions and fights. So let’s play it by these rules.
Despite how potentially Raz is an insanely hard opponent to fight against, seeing his Psychonauts 2 developed “therapist” side being represented, instead of just going for irresponsible choices like in the first Psychonauts undeveloped side, would simply pay off better. In terms of actually making the fight both interesting for debate and believable in action, it is practically a great opportunity to take. Having one out of many Raz’s Matches to actually do that, honestly feels nice. And I’m definitely fine with making a stipulation as minor and not damaging to each other’s storytelling as this for the sake of personal fun. If you, person who reads this, still think that it’s better to stick to traditional “kill or be killed” or just not convinced on my and in some way, overall our team’s view on the debate, that’s alright, we can’t win em all, but that is the way we find necessary to go with, and hopefully that way is at least understandable.
Important to note, as said before, Raz doesn’t gets stipulated in a grand scheme of things, in a way, him being in the real world is still somewhat technical advantage he has over Omori, given that a good amount of stuff which normally Raz can’t just pull out out of nowhere or require some time to prepare (along with some maybe a bit unorthodox methods for a fight), now Raz can just use it without fear of being beaten up mid fight. Which ones and how you probably can guess, but I’ll mention all of that later on in this verdict.
Now fully onto the topic let’s get to perhaps one of the easiest parts of this debate…
Part 3: Oh would you look at that, this MU is basically already an equal stats???
Yeah that part is actually very easy. Both Raz and Omori have pretty grounded at first feats which very quickly build up into cosmic and MFTL+ kind of stats. It’s quite shocking seeing Psychonauts having a ballpark of these cosmic levels similarly to Omori’s HEADSPACE, but relatively speaking given how much identical Mental Worlds are to Headspace, as much as high Omori’s Headspace related feats get is as much as big Raz’s Mental Worlds related feats should get as well. Due to quite a similar nature of how their worlds operate and identical sources of validation of how far cosmic these worlds are, that shouldn’t be far of a stretch to assume. Even if you don’t want to give them their cosmic kind of scaling, they still have direct MCB feats so they are even in terms of strength either way.
Similarly speed wise both are surprisingly actually close, Omori is faster by 5.5 times but that’s far from blitzing, the gap is practically small enough to the point that they can react to each other’s actions. I myself am very surprised here won’t lie, these Psychonauts buffs in particular are insane. Though yeah as mentioned in Before the Verdicts we also don’t use like, lots of higher Omori stuff that was argued in the past. Not without a reason, a lot of them personally feel like a really stretchy way of making Omori infinite/immeasurable speed, which contextually doesn’t really work. “Endless highway” for the most part is just a loop, like I can bring up RPG forests where identical stuff happens all the time. Relatively speaking you could even say something like highway that is circle shaped is endless via the fact that there is no actual end in a circle (after all one of circle’s aspects is the fact that it can represent infinity since it lacks beginning or end, yet it doesn’t mean circle itself is impossible to measure we even have a formula of how to do it), but as mentioned at absolute best it is a spatial loop. Three big creatures existing before time is kind of a contradiction not only to how Headspace was created (at least in context of like, Sunny’s real world) but even by itself if actually take it at face value, only really counts as age, there is no way to scale it speed wise (or else I’m buffing Clash Royale to infinite speed, watch me).
Spaceboy’s spaceship feat we have no idea how exactly he controls said spaceship so we can’t really build off scaling from that, given piloting feats in general are usually not something that is given to characters, with the same premise we’re much as well scale Star Wars characters to Hyperdrive Space Travel, simply because their ships travel across the galaxy.
And just being in a Black Space also doesn’t really make it anywhere near Immeasurable, as it is not really a “place with no time” as people claim. Pluto feat however is totally viable, we know for sure Pluto does it physically by hopping from place to place and he uses his own reflexes to travel, making it overall more reliable than Spaceboy’s spaceship feat, or basically any higher Omori speed feat. With that in mind…Raz vs Omori is pretty much an Equal Stats debate, so if you look at their feats, you may realise stats don’t matter as much either so you can basically throw them off the window here, we don’t need them.
The only way to find a winner now would be to look at their arsenal, powers, their character & lots of other essential tertiary factors that may decide this verdict.
Part 4: Interactions between Raz’s & Omori’s powers
Ok let’s get this one straight, Raz & Omori have quite a lot of powers and some neat arsenal all in all, I will be mentioning all of them in below sections but for the sake of the argument let’s just do some quick pros and cons comparison between them in 1v1 scenario. Starting simple, arsenal wise Omori has quite clear advantage, given his arsenal is more often on his hands and he can actually use them in combat directly, which can’t be said same about Raz in that department, given a lot of his stuff is either not suitable for direct combat, however I do want to point out that a lot of stuff in Raz’s arsenal can actually help out in the long run, which I’ll explain later.
It is also worth to point out that given Raz technically has better lifting strength related feats (which to be fair, vs brainrot aside is pretty obvious when you compare who was actually exercising for years and the other who was basically sitting home for years…), this essentially means that nothing should stop Raz from casually disarming Omori and rest of foes I’ll mention below, and taking that arsenal for himself. Though aside the fact that all of the offensive items Raz can defend from pretty easily via other powers, and via the fact that nothing that Omori has in his arsenal can help to deal with another elephant in the room I’ll mention at the end of this section, but at that point you guys probably should know what it is about. That being said Raz can additionally figure out the emotions mechanic later on and perhaps even take an arsenal to himself to use for possible advantage later on, but let’s get to actual abilities now.
Omori is a pretty versatile foe when it comes to that department, no he doesn’t have any of your “Conceptual Manipulation” or “Fate Manipulation” or “Existence Erasure” as we pointed out earlier a lot of stuff like that is rather fluffy. That being said Omori has a lot of stuff on his hand (similar to his entire group) is basically either heavy damage or stat reducing moves, which essentially are all of his Knife techniques, Trick, Painful Truth, Shun, Exploit, etc. To a lot of them there are solid counters Raz can pull out, for instance Telekinesis can at least for some time disable Omori from using knife techniques, while other notable ones can be blocked by the PSI-shield.
What is compelling however is Omori’s ability to observe thanks to which he can at least potentially predict next Raz’s movement, even if it leaves him more open for a blow if he is paired with his friends (which in HEADSPACE, he is), lets him to take less hurt from whatever Raz may pull off (and smth like Abbi’s Eye lets him abuse it to a certain degree). Vertigo, Cripple and Suffocate also are potential ways of holding Raz down and make it easier for Omori to land a killing blow. But what are really some of the stand out abilities are perhaps, Red Hands and Mari/Final Attacks. Red Hands can potentially along with other aforementioned moves either hold Raz down or help Omori to navigate around more quickly, or in a way both. Shall Omori use some of his final moves successfully like Mari and Final Attacks, he can make Raz afraid, which essentially will make him unable to use his psychic powers, which would leave Raz fairly open for Omori to do anything else he deems necessary. But I do wanna mention that Mari and Final Attacks are essentially Omori’s “last moves” which he resorts to rather only at the climax, not to say he couldn’t pull out them earlier but in character we’ve only seen him use it to pressure on Sunny after latter found out The Truth, while with, say Basils, he went for more quicker ways of dealing with to secure the truth. There are other potential ways of inflicting Afraid obviously but not by Omori, whom I’ll talk about separately. Plus EMOTIONS play can generally make it easier for him to land harder blows to take out Raz in a quick manner. For which he has his arsenal and friends for, latter who can also build up various “nukes” for offence.
But as much as Omori’s has some great offensive potential, and as much as he can leave Raz open for an attack, Razputin on the other hand, while has slightly less offensive moves,has a lot of options to avoid Omori’s moves or straight up leave Omori open for an attack more consistently than Omori opens Raz for an attack. Raz’s archetype for instance is an obvious distraction method with which Raz can technically experiment and see what could happen to him by seeing what Omori could do the Archetype, which potentially can make Raz think of countermeasures. What makes him even more useful is the fact that Raz can always summon his Archetype again after he dies, and his character is quite annoying for people around to get attention.
That being potentially speaking at least, but even Archetype aside there are a lot of defensive moves that just make it easier for Raz to avoid hits, shall Raz hide in his shield for instance he’ll be practically invincible against any of Omori’s attacks even though unable to manoeuvre around. Regeneration makes it pretty easy for Raz to recover from Omori’s more basic hits, and Invisibility along with Time Bubble are just perfect ways for Raz to avoid basically anything what Omori could throw at Raz, if Raz wants to do either unexpected hit or just avoid conflict these 2 are just perfect abilities. Especially considering Raz’s limitless ability that allows him to bs spam every move. Omori while can see stuff his friends in headspace can’t see, doesn’t mean he can see invisible stuff, Boid for instance can see stuff Raz does not sees yet Raz when becoming invisible still becomes well…invisible to Boid, what I’m trying to say is, seeing things does not necessarily mean seeing everything that is invisible.
Now back on topic, Time Bubble’s time manipulation abilities essentially at bare least heavily slow down Omori if not basically make Omori as slow as Raz himself wants given the function of Time Bubble in concept (that being making objects as slow as you want for the record). Omori technically can countermeasure it with speed buffs but Raz also technically can either take items that do that or use Time Bubble again, nullifying the process. This can be helpful in the long run but that’s also for a bit later. What makes Time Bubble and other moves like say, PSI-Blast, Pyrokinesis, Confusion, etc. have a guarantee hit is also Raz’s auto aim ability that being Mental Focus, along with the fact that Pyrokinesis and Time Bubble aren’t really projectiles so it’s basically impossible for Omori to dodge those. Plus Raz’s colossal forms are just really strong methods of attacks, at least first one while for a short period of time basically shields Raz from any potential Omori hits like PSI-Shield but this time while being able to move and attack. His second colossal form is even bigger and can even breathe fire now, but now it’s Raz’s actual body so it potentially can be more open for Omori’s attack, as well as Omori does have an experience fighting with gigantic foes, to say the least.
Though we can talk a lot about their offensive and defensive capabilities, there is still an elephant in the room that essentially makes most of the comparison not necessary, or at least most of the stuff that is direct fighting methods because as much as Raz & Omori can do damage, neither can directly bypass their “immortality”. As much Omori can stab, slash or crush Raz with his various moves, Raz will always respawn because what Omori is dealing with is practically an avatar that comes from the real world, and as much as Raz can burn, shoot down, punch Omori, Omori will always “refuse to succumb” afterwards given his plot armour and him also being an avatar but of Sunny, and given his death in Headspace does not affect Sunny particularly Omori can also just have as much vessels as necessary and can only truly die if Sunny will no longer have guilt for Mari’s death and desire to escape into dreams.
This essentially means that eventually Raz & Omori have to come up with rather complicated methods of dealing with each other, Omori must come up with a perfect method of making Raz stop from coming back for good, perhaps making his avatar unable to come back to real world self, repress him to the point of leaving no ways to return. Raz on the other hand must find a way to deal with Sunny’s mental problems and figure out potential reasons for Omori to exist and for Sunny to overcome him, or in other words find out, release and convince Sunny to overcome The Truth…Ohohoho, this leads to a rather interesting line of events, as neither abilities nor stats alone are a definitive factor for a verdict to truly have a conclusion. We have to look at all other particular factors that normally would be fairly minor, in this Match turn into some of the most important (even if still not big, but one by one) factors to make a decision. So let’s look at these factors and find out what alongside their own powers will lead each to their complicated victory…
Part 5: Good Friends, Bad Friends (aka their support respectively)
Starting with probably what makes this match a bit more different respectively, given usually we have either clear 1v1, 1v1 but some minor support like summons and Straight up Army fight matches. When it comes to particularly Psychonauts matches, including this one, it becomes a bit of a mix of all 3 in one. Raz & Omori have some pretty accessible support in this match, which gives them some space to work around with, yet upon reaching their “enemies” it sort of becomes an army fight but rather on paper, given that Raz & Omori technically can use them to gain an upper hand the way they use it is more so like a tool which either side can take advantage of, whether it is Omori setting up Mental World & Headspace entities for his advantage to surround Raz, or Raz using his abilities, notably confusion, to make said opponents either side each other or target Omori himself, that is aside from the fact that said enemies usually fight them so without specific ability usage it is a double edged blade from which both can take an advantage. But that’s looking a bit ahead so let’s go in some sort of order here.
First off their actual support that undoubtedly would help each side they come from. Given that Omori’s friends are well…friends he himself imagined into life nevertheless. And it’d be understatement to say that they are not useful. While Mental World entities like Memory Vaults & PSI-Popper are entities which Raz uses to help himself out in every mind he visits, with which they in one way or another do help in terms of understanding one’s mind better, as well as Ford Cruller himself who is also really versatile and can heavily help Raz in navigation along with his teleport being an easy way out if situation is hard to escape from and that’s not mentioning the fact he himself can serve as a bonus combatant versatile enough to gain attention.
Though as has been pointed out earlier some of the other Psychonauts agents are a bit harder for Raz to get access to and overall less realistic compared to Ford who Raz can just bring in via average piece of Bacon. Potentially they are possible to be brought in overtime if Raz wants to, given Sunny in the real world is harmless and therefore they could be brought in (along with other material I will mention later). However it obviously isn’t something Raz will do right in the middle of the fight, and it notably will take at least some time for him to reach out to anyone other than Ford. For Raz to go for more unorthodox tactics for himself like this one, he must first understand how dangerous the situation is. That will take a good amount of time to say the least, so for the sake of this conversation we’ll put other potential Psychonauts agents off the equation.
In comparison Omori has a notable advantage here by the factor that his friends are already here, living with him in his imaginary world, ready to give their lives for him. So let’s try and think about all of the potential interactions that may await us here, from likeliest to less likely ones. Obviously while ignoring aforementioned “immortalities” both Raz & Omori have for a brief moment, which while make them basically impossible to be killed by normal means (that are the support both get technically speaking), but still serve as at least a distraction and at best as a potential set up of doing something against said “immortality”.
Starting from the basics - Neighbours. Aka Kel, Aubrey and Hero alongside Omori himself. This is pretty self-explanatory given again, these 3 are with Omori during almost the entire journey and only are not nearby when things get a lot more deep, in a bit literal sense. So, they all are pretty versatile all around really, first of all they can potentially set up ways of building up emotions so that they could have easier time dealing damage to Raz, to the point of potentially being able to kill Raz in a literal single shot, at least given what Omocat herself is actually aware of, since if you are fighting against them in Basil Boss Rush they can actually straight up try the infamous Kel Nuke on you. Meaning that something as bs like Kel Nuke and other potential plays with emotions are simply strong to say the least. And that’s not mentioning that same versatility of items advantage Omori has over Raz pretty much spreads across the entire team, but this time they have more opportunities to be resourceful, especially with a solid support and tank in their team being Hero, as he can attract Raz to take hits and has lots of ways of reducing damage to himself, along with his cooking skills that can pretty quickly recover all his friends. Additionally follow-ups can always make out for a great combination, whether it be Kel passing the ball to Aubrey so the latter could smash it even harder and deal big damage, Hero encouraging his party members to make them recover, or most devastating - “Release Energy” which essentially would do tons of damage at once while they gang up on the opponent.
But there is also an advantage Raz has over all of the party members, or well should I rather say advantages - that being obvious when it comes to Raz’s psychic powers. Offensively speaking they do have good meanings of recovery and defence, especially Hero with his skills of attracting opponents and Kel’s really fast movements making it harder to hit him. So if Raz uses stuff like PSI-Punch, or PSI-Blast or Pyrokinesis there is a good chance for a rather quick recovery (though 2 of the 3 here damage several targets simultaneously). But when Raz goes for more support/defensive powers, none of Omori’s friends can offer a countermeasure really. No one would be able to see invisible Raz, Time Bubble slows everyone down, PSI-shield basically can reflect a lot of the hits back to them, confusion can straight up make them fight each other, including Omori instead of targeting Raz (as long as he is not wearing paper bag at least). But perhaps the biggest countermeasure is the most basic one - Telekinesis. Now if Omori is disarmed from his Knife, he still has plenty of abilities to pull out on his own, however a lot of Aubrey’s, Kel’s and Hero’s abilities, at least offensively, rely on their weapons being used. Meaning that at least in long terms even if they have more weapons or items to pull out they eventually can become weaponless and therefore not be able to offer anything much in a fight. That being said, given they can in fact carry multiple weapons, this disadvantage may not be exploited immediately, but it definitely would weaken their team dynamic. Making overall a lot harder for the crew to build up any of the potential methods of dealing with Raz quickly.
Headspace Basil ironically is more useful here even though we’ve only seen him fight alongside just Omori rather than the entire crew. He has a lot of healing capabilities, and if disarmed he still can use various flower abilities. And “Release Energy!” Follow up with Basil also recovers juice and health meaning that with Basil Omori can potentially do damage and recover at the same time. But his control of plants probably can be easier countered by Raz’s pyrokinesis, aside from Raz having general experience with guys who can control and even literally talk with plants, it should be pretty much a basic common knowledge kind of strategy to pull out. And while Basil does pretty well in Boss Rush out of all members he probably is least combat capable, bare minimum because everyone else was fighting for longer.
There is also Mari who technically is everywhere around the Headspace to support Omori and his crew, well not literally everywhere she can’t just pop into existence mid fight. But practically in most Headspace locations there is always a picnic basket with Mari sitting next to it, thanks to which Omori can quickly recover. Which is useful in case either will decide to retreat, given that will give Omori and his crew a quick recovery advantage. Potentially Raz could target her and possibly trigger the Something event which will cause everyone to be scared and later result in another of the “resets”. This…probably would put Raz at the disadvantage than vice versa but also is definitely something Raz will not do. While Raz may seem as a person who will genocide everything based on his behavior with animals in the past, he normally won’t really think about trying to hurt person who is basically harmless, unless the person is some big asshole maybe which Mari isn’t. But that is Headspace Mari and Headspace Basil I’ve been talking about, what about Shadow Basil/Stranger and Real Mari? They are obviously separate versions and they play rather bigger roles in this game, so I will talk about them later.
At last but not least among Omori’s clear support there is Life Jam Guy who, well, gives life jams which can be used to revive allies, which is pretty self-explanatory, and Mailbox who offers all items that Omori and his friends can utilise. Obviously catch is similar as with Mari they are not everywhere so they’ll have to travel around to buy stuff from him. Potentially in the long run Raz may even play along with Headspace economy and possibly equip himself with Mailbox items as well, after all Psychonauts partially is a Collect-a-Thon platformer and in the first game Raz was collecting items from Mental World to use them later to his advantage. Raz pretty consistently managed to follow some laws that are given in Mental Worlds and used them fairly quickly, such as Milkman’s Conspiracy which required Raz to switch between common items for G-Agents to perceive him differently, or Gloria’s theatric world where Raz had to use several scripts to move theatre from dead point, or Edgar’s artistic world where Raz had to literally buy arts with his own Psitanium to get to use this world’s mechanics to his advantage. So Raz buying items from Mailbox via either collecting Clams or perhaps even using Psitanium to trade for items should be in the list of possibilities. It can help Raz in a longer run, which I’ll mention how later as well. But that aside, with enough clams, Omori can assure to have as many items as he needs for the rest of the fight.
Now onto Raz’s support side we have some pretty much basic systematic Mental Figures, given how simple they are functionally speaking I think it is worth to just mention them all in a single paragraph. Emotional Baggage is rather a tool, it doesn’t affect fight much but by sorting this baggage Raz can make it slightly easier for Sunny to not be so down shortly speaking, Omori won’t see harm in them but these baggages are more likely to exist in Black Space where all repressed thoughts lie. Due to that, they are still pretty much harder to find and sort out, even though they also can serve as strong indicators of at what point and about what exactly Sunny experiences guilt.
Now who really stand out here are Memory Vaults and PSI-Poppers. Latter is a very good form of fast travel which allows to get across really long distances in a short timeframe, potentially not only giving Raz an edge in terms of traversing Headspace, but also possibly being one of the tickets out of Black Space. However to traverse Sunny’s mind Raz still has to discover territory by himself, obviously PSI-Poppers can’t deliver you if you don’t know where you want to be delivered, meaning at first Omori with Red Hands and Pluto, can be able to travel across needed territories faster, but later on, both are just about equal in terms of travel mobility. Memory Vaults now offer Raz a collection of Sunny’s memories and probably the most reliable source in terms of letting him to know and understand Sunny closer, and therefore letting him to know and understand Omori himself closer. They function differently however, since if you are experienced enough in hiding your true feelings even vaults could possibly mislead, with Oleander’s fabrication in mind at least. Meaning that for more deeper info Raz probably would also need to find and go to Black Space. Though still even in Headspace Raz can gain various kinds of knowledge which lets him know about Omori more than Omori knows about Raz. For this context we must remember that people can be delusional and biassed when interpreting memories, but in context with Oleander he did have some skill to fabricate his Mental World, but even with Oleander who purposefully was fabricating information within the Mental World wasn’t able to sustain the truth under his control, there were still elements of his childhood memories leaking within his warfare world and even that warfare world still was holding some true memories of his, it’s just at first they were out of Raz’s reach given they were behind the Mental Cobweb. The point is, given Omori’s control of Headspace is obviously not perfect and we see constantly stuff from Black Space leaking into Headspace, it is not hard to assume that there can be memory vaults that contain actual real memories, some of which can lead to the truth.
And most notably there is Ford Cruller, an old but fairly intelligent and experienced psychonaut agent. Beforehand it is probably worth mentioning that moveset wise he is pretty close to Raz with some minor differences. However usually Ford watches Raz from far, gives advice and in case of emergency pulls Raz back to come up with a new strategy. Should Raz summon him once and he probably will be with him during the whole fight, at least spectating via clairvoyance. Important to note that he would do that only after Raz summons Ford and they decide to cooperate, if Ford is doing some average business while Raz suddenly summons him, Ford won’t really be aware beforehand of where Raz is and where Ford himself was summoned. As was demonstrated in this cutscene. That all makes him a pretty useful and important tool for Raz in the long run, and I will be mentioning Ford not once. But that all is Ford from a dispatcher perspective, what about direct combat and what he could do in it?
Well it depends on situation in my opinion, if he will be in direct combat immediately at the start of the fight, chances are Raz might lose some of the potential advantages he may benefit from in long run, but shall Ford visit later on he does have potential to make some stuff easier for Raz to do, at what moment and what exactly doing I’ll be mentioning a lot later because I must give so much context first, but keep that in mind for future reference. Though let’s just say generally speaking if Ford were to encounter Omori, just like I said previous his ability interactions will be pretty similar to how ability interactions would be between Raz, with some exceptions in Ford’s advantage, while it’s debatable if Ford actually knows Time Bubble or not, he should be aware of invisibility and his levitation is adapted to the point that he can literally just fly with it, along with the fact that he can, you know teleport, he will have a lot of mobility advantage over Omori who would at least require help from Red Hands to keep up. There is also ability of Ford to create illusions to mislead people like how he did with forgetful forest, given slightly warping reality in mental worlds is something that experienced psychics like Sasha can do, and Ford shown to do just that with the usage of Astralathe, it is possible for Ford to do some sort of misleading as well. Omori after all didn’t really had solid experience with smth straight up illusionary, and chances are he would be distracted by them, either due to curiosity and exploration or simply distraction of himself (and therefore Sunny) from The Truth, after all this is at least partially why Headspace was created, attraction which distracts you from everything you don’t like. That being said, overall Ford against Omori in a direct battle should have the same advantages and disadvantages as Raz, as Omori still can make Ford unable to use his powers by inflicting Afraid, still has more offensive arsenal, still can take numbers advantage via HEADSPACE entities, etc. speaking of that…
Part 6: ALL of HEADSPACE (& WHITE SPACE)
Ok now here is where I probably wanna mention the “enemies” that both have to encounter when traversing Sunny’s Mindscape as well as traversion of Sunny’s Mindscape itself simultaneously. After all, they don’t bring every single enemy to every single location, as if it is some army fight, no, they are part of the natural environment and can be used in favour of both, take it as a “hazard” like uhhhhh, in Smash Bros stages when 2 can fight against each other but other obstacles or people can interfere. Obviously Omori has a solid “control” of Headspace so theoretically he could bring in creatures that don’t belong in the environment they are in, after all it is a dream.
But it is worth mentioning that Omori isn’t that kind of reality warper you usually think about, like a Bill Cipher or Mxyzptlk or Q etc. who snap their finger and bam scenery changed, legion of 1000 bears summoned to help and you have turned into a potato, no. Omori’s “reality warping” is more subtle, he can suddenly force characters to appear in the scenery like dead ones, but he makes it look really natural to the point that it does not looks like he is the one doing it, which makes sense a bit cause in attempts of coming up with various plots and what not Omori attempts to distract himself and Sunny from discovering The Truth. Same goes for a change of place, as Omori technically only has shown to do that against Sunny who already discovered The Truth. Essentially at least at first or even just in general don’t expect Omori to do crazy reality warping shenanigans, but eventually it is possible that some characters will get out of their natural habitat. Though even then given I’ll cover practically every of the enemies per location I won’t skip anything in particular so you don’t have to worry. What, you thought these long enemies and mindscapes sections were just here to be here? Well guess again, cause now it is time to test your memory and what you have managed to figure out based on all previous descriptions! So I’ll be going in the blog's chronological order now (with the exception of Neighbour’s Room which is partially one of the more important places in Sunny’s psyche, that one I’ll be mentioning last), from easiest to most hard core locations each of which either has something to tell about Sunny or a variety of enemies Raz & Omori can use to their advantage. This is a part where I start to yap in my most classic fashion, so buckle up.
Starting with Vast Forest, forest is technically what most of the mainline Headspace is really, at least on land, and by itself is presented rather as a somewhat close version of a faraway town just with more “forest”, in a way, makes sense, Sunny’s house is literally near woods and tree house that he built in childhood with his friends was in a middle of the forest. Generally forest has a good connection with a solid amount of Sunny’s childhood memories in one way or another. Given it is Vast Forest that contains “Forest Playground” Sunny’s imaginary version of the actual playground that is in Faraway Town, along with Basil’s house which is located downwards from Omori’s home, pretty much just like Basil’s actual home in Faraway Town is located downwards from Sunny’s home. Though Basil’s house being located similarly can be discounted as just a coincidence, what isn’t a coincidence though is a lot of kids in the playground being actually also Sunny’s made up versions of actual children in Faraway Town.
Similarly, how Mental Worlds often tend to have Memory Replica versions of certain people, with enough knowledge around the town at least, Raz can probably point out who are based on the actual person and who is moreso a fantasy, high chances are Raz saw at least one of the kids in Faraway Town before entering Sunny’s mind (keep that in mind for later btw). That aside, the forest itself does not really contain heavy clues about The Truth, but depending on the moment Basil’s House could be one of the doorways to Black Space which can lead to other clues about The Truth. Among other things it is a home place to lots of Lost Sprout Moles and Average Bunnies. These 2 as been pointed out earlier are rather goombas of the game and can be taken down rather quickly in a few shots especially if Raz will use chain effect of PSI-Blast spreading damage to basically all small ones simultaneously.
There is also a chance that Ye Old Sprout will come back from the dead in the fight. And well, yeah no he will die again, given all he does is rolls over which Raz can even counter fairly well via acrobatics alone (no seriously imagine Raz hops into him and just rolls while standing on him, funniest interaction you can think of…). There is also a Train Station which can eventually lead to Orange Oasis, it doesn’t have any potential enemies normally, rather only a small hint that could cause association is guitar guy. At last but not least in terms of what is inside the forest is also a “secret” pinwheel forest, which mostly only has said pinwheels along with another combatant - Kite Kid (hell yeah!) and Kid’s Kite. These 2 are basically together in a fight, which makes sense as Kite can’t just fly by itself and Kite Kid won’t be a Kite Kid without a Kite. Now normally it’d be trouble to deal with them one by one as you need to eliminate Kid first or else he would just repair Kite, Raz however realistically just needs to shoot PSI-Blasts several times, chain reaction from it would hit both causing them to pass out simultaneously.
Now our next topic is Otherworld a distant planet accessible via a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long ladder, now Raz does not have an issue with heights, he went through very long ladders before and even had to jump from high heights, he is a professional acrobat after all so it should not be an issue for him to climb such long ladder. Now when he gets to the Otherworld, this is one of the places that does not really contain much clues, but should not be a big issue for Raz’s traversal either. At some points he will have way easier time accessing areas Omori normally can’t without help from friends, via his acrobatic skills combined with levitation. With its enemies it’s not super complicated either, UFOs Raz can kill in a single PSI-Blast, including Space Bunnies or Wormholes, Raz can also just shield and their laser projectiles will be simply reflected back. Venus Flytrap is no different than other plant based enemies Raz faced off before, just burn them and call it a day. Mixtape can trip Raz in its own…well, tape, but realistically Raz can just burn it all as well, and/or use other psychic abilities, he does not need in body movement to use them after all. Dial-up…ok that one is weird as mentioned earlier the way it hurts you is just, mental pain of how slow internet affects us, but practically like, given Raz won’t be waiting for anything from the old PC he sees for the first time…
Back to trash it goes. Doombox is also pretty tricky, as the moment it gets angry its damage increases and aside from slamming itself into Raz, it can attack by using sound. Now the only time Raz technically was fighting against sound powers was probably when he had to dodge a soundwave from a Gloria Theatre’s bat, the difference is that soundwave was a wave projectile that can be dodged. Here we have basically an actual non-physical sound that can do damage, however it is one of the less durable foes and therefore Raz can still simply use various distant powers and deal with it in no time. Now at last among common enemies there is a Shark Plane, who by itself presents as like you would expect, Shark that flies. It rams or chomps its foes, so it is mainly a close quarters combatant, Raz with ranged attacks and shield should have good time against it, plus chances are Raz could communicate with it via his Zoolepathy abilities and use to his advantage, but other than that, it’s still a simple enemy. Now among bosses we have plenty here, let’s start with Space Ex-Boyfriend. Eventually he becomes insanely angry and mainly he uses his blaster to attack, now while he is more durable among other foes from the Otherworld, all his offence lies on one gun, that Raz can eventually just disarm, remember that this is not the only time I’ll ramble about how op of an ability Telekinesis is. Without a gun, he is far less harmful, though even then, the PSI-shield really helps to reflect attacks back.
Still there are 3 while a bit earlier but more complicated foes, Download Window, Earth and Pluto. Earth is well, Earth, it attacks by itself and therefore does not rely on any items, same goes for Pluto, chances are the latter can also become just too big for Raz to telekinetically move him. Shall Earth team up with Pluto, they’ll be way harder for Raz to beat. However ultimately, nothing among their techniques should be new for Raz, as most of stuff is cqc based, which Raz can protect from via aforementioned PSI-Shield, plus Raz is way more mobile, and potentially would be harder for Pluto to hit, with how much experiences our little acrobat has against gigantic foes, keeping distance and using mobility as an advantage should leave him 0 effort. And if he decides to grow in size he can fairly match Pluto’s physical might. Download Window meanwhile is a lot easier, it loads until it crashes and explodes, either Raz simply guns it down with PSI-Blast or waits for a perfect timing and protects with PSI-Shield (it really is quite helpful invincibility tool in cases like this).
But enough of Otherworld, now let’s get to yet another distraction place for Omori - Orange Oasis. Ok now this might be a bit of a surprise, but practically Raz never was in a situation where he visited a desert yet. Beach/ocean yeah there was a time, but something like a desert is actually a bit of a new experience for Raz. A bit ironic, usually collectathon platformers do have at least one heavily beach/desert themed place, but oh well. By itself it barely has references to the truth, only some implications, however it is also still a rather simple place for traversing so Raz won’t spend way too much time in it. Dino Dig and Breaven are also relatively short places for Raz to explore, and navigationally should not have problems. Enemies on the other hand become quite a lot more versatile. A lot of food themed enemies, who frankly are…ok they actually probably some of the easiest to deal with, porcupie could probably pop a levitation ball, other than that, Ginger, Celery, Cilantro and Strawberry Short Snake all should be relatively simple foes for Raz as long as he keeps his distance. Same goes for a photorealistic rabbit and chicken, the latter which will run away instead, which unlike your RPG fellas, Raz does not need to kill people to gain experience, so nothing of value is lost.
Now there is still plenty of bread to share, let’s start with that actually, Living Bread that is summoned via Life Jam…this does mean that Raz is probably the least likely to encounter them, but they are still pretty easy to deal with in terms of range play. Same with Gingerdead Man and Toast Ghost. There is also a trio in a face of Slice, Sesame & Sourdough, they offer not bad teamwork, but as soon as Raz uses PSI-Blast, well, you know the drill its chain effect will just hit all 3 of them simultaneously, so their dynamic isn’t hard to deal with. Now there are also 2 complicated pastas in this fight, Copypasta and Creepypasta, former as mentioned copies itself and can grow in numbers via that, the more there are of them the harder it is to deal with them, good thing Raz has a move that allows him to hit multiple foes…can you guess it in one try? That’s right, Pyrokinesis (ok well PSI-Blast’s chain effect too, but I wanted to be a bit original here)! Creepypasta however is potentially a lot more terrifying foe…literally, if it's not dealt with quickly, Raz will be forced to “see his nightmares” making him AFRAID and therefore unable to use Psychic abilities. Same applies to Hush Puppy, if not dealt with quickly it can make you AFRAID. Gladly Raz more likely will be a solid distance away and he still can eventually wear it off, emotions in Omori aren’t a permanent infliction and either when fight stops or you use a certain action item you can change the emotion. Now the EMOTIONS, especially AFRAID do play a big role in this MU, but I don’t want to get my attention from topic of this section being taken away just yet so I’ll cover that later, but for now, at worst, I’ll leave it as simply as Raz can just retreat from them as they lack method of keeping Raz from running away.
This leaves us with 2 bosses of this place, first one being Nefarious Chip, second one being Unbread Twins. First one is rather simple as it mostly just likes to throw cookies it has cooked, Raz can theoretically counter that by just redirecting projectiles back with telekinesis, and other than that, he should be able to out-versatile him. Unbread Twins now are a bit more complicated. They can hit you twice, summon more infantry via whatever they are cooking and eventually can become extremely sad, which makes them far more durable for ordinary damage. However for one…Pyrokinesis wahoo!!! Or telekinesis, either of the 2 heavily screws up their main arsenal that being bread and the rolling pin. Now that we’ve covered Orange Oasis we still have a bunch of plot relevant places left to discover.
Our next topic is Pyrefly Forest which mostly is similar to Vast Forest except it is way more spooky, has a very thick fog, and a lot of spider-like enemies, all of which are pretty scary for big insect beings. Or at least if you are so afraid of spiders, on top of that it is just full of web from top to bottom. Now it isn’t really hard for Raz to navigate in it, unlike Omori he probably doesn’t need to fix the rails, levitation ball is enough, all webs that may be on the way can be pretty easily burned with Pyrokinesis, and fog while makes harder to look around, shouldn’t confuse Raz completely. Raz can also get to the Lost Forest where he could meet with Daddy Longlegs, who may elaborate on part of Headspace’s history, now this doesn’t give Raz all the answers, but nevertheless it is part of the clues.
That being said, could perhaps enemies of this area present any challenge? Let’s do a really quick check, Bug Bunny is pretty simple, Raz technically can just grab it and throw it away, given it is small and isn't a complex enemy if it tries approaching him. There is also Potted Plant…it’s basically like Personal Demons really, they may kamikaze and deal plenty of damage, but other than that Raz’s distant playstyle screws them up well. There are also Ghost Bunnies who…probably should be able to be affected by Raz given the same mental existence and whatnot, that being said it is also one of the easier to avoid enemies so I don’t think Raz should struggle with it, nor can Ghost Bunny capitalise on its phasing. There are also average Sprout Moles with whom Raz shouldn’t have too much trouble as I believe I’ve mentioned earlier, and Rare Bear who…Raz already had technical experience in fighting much larger and more versatile bears in the very first Psychonauts, bears with telekinesis are no joke…At last but not least is King Crawler, it’s the most creepiest one in this forest, but ultimately PSI-Blast solves issues fairly well, especially sprout moles eating one, thanks to his various AoE abilities Raz can basically kill 2 bunnies in one shot…literally.
With that covered, let’s get to the last place for Raz to visit within Headspace’s forest, the Sweetheart’s Castle…oh and Sprout Mole Village too I guess. Ok well Village itself is the easiest part, it won’t take awhile for Raz to go around it, and the only challenge that is present here is King Carnivore, who Raz can basically just burn really, that’s it that’s the whole trouble…
Aaaanyway, Sweetheart’s Castle now, it is fairly big, it’s kind of like Kamoshida’s Palace in Persona 5 if you think about it, except for being a pervert who abuses students, we got a girl looking for a husband while abusing sprout moles…well blow me down. It should be pretty easy place for Raz to navigate around, some of the places he can get around to with just his wits and acrobatics instead of being focused on puzzles like Omori, as for anything that can give clues? Well let’s see, Sweetheart’s Castle actually can open doors to 2 places for Raz to visit, first one being the hole that was pretty poorly closed in the theatre, which can bring you to the Hidden Library. This Hidden Library is probably one of the places that also can get elaborative clues on some of the past events, again, not the whole picture yet, but it helps. There is also Sweetheart’s Garden which also has pretty much a very direct link to the Looping Forest, like, it’d be just right in front of Raz, really, nothing stops him from going there, cause unlike Omori, Raz can jump! How would Raz interact with this forest? We’ll talk about it later on a topic below, keep that in mind though (make a shot every time I say this).
Now, let’s talk about the enemies here, this is where the line of Sprout Mole defence rises to its peak, with each Sprout Mole being trained soldier protecting the castle from top to bottom, a lot of them are still kinda silly tho…Harolds can be basically dealt with by all regular ways, Marshalls are basically done for the moment Raz just grabs the axe with his telekinesis to either remove it or well, throw Marsha around (same applies to Horse Head and Horse Butt), Therese somehow can shoot with its body shaped like that, but it’s basically can be dealt with same way Raz just deals with enemies who throw projectiles (I will give you 1 try to guess what it may be). Lucius can set stuff on fire which is a lot more unique compared to other Sprout Moles, however Raz already was facing off against a literal Panther who can use Pyrokinesis, so this Sprout Mole doesn’t cause much trouble. There is also a DND mechanic within the castle that can choose whoever gets stats boosts but it is a fairly minor thing in a confrontation like that. Who else there may be…ah! Sir Maximus, 1 2 and 3, all of them basically have the same problems as Marshas so Raz takes it easy here. Now the biggest challenge of this “palace” is none other than Sweetheart herself. She can give herself the stat edge via boasting herself while giving insults, though it isn’t exactly for sure how insults would be…insulting to Raz, it does depend a bit on how Raz takes it, given sometimes he can just live with that well, but it shouldn’t matter overall, Raz can easily disarm Sweetheart and has solid range edge so, boom problem solved.
Alright we’re getting close to closing up this section, so let’s see…North Lake Raz probably won’t get access to normally, given it disappears afterwards, it has allusions to The Truth after all, now the bigger question here is how Raz gonna visit Underwater Highway? Doesn’t Raz have an inherent fear of water? Well, let’s look at it the other way around. Headspace for Omori is built in such a way that not everything is supposed to make as much sense as in the real world, same applies to Mental Worlds. Sometimes stuff just happens in it and they roll with it. Water doesn’t get inside your body I guess or it’s not deadly to breathe in water or space in mental spaces like this one. This may actually mean that Raz’s Galochio Hand may assist him here a lot more often, he doesn’t have exact control over it but hey, some minor support is still good. Now this one overall should be easiest to traverse around, taxis are always here to carry you out from the infamous “endless highway”, and Raz’s acrobatic skills should make it relatively easy for him to just speedrun Last Resort and jump over Gator Guys who won’t normally let him pass through certain areas. Deeper Well should be pretty easy to traverse as well, thanks to Raz’s really good mobility, this eventually will lead him to Humphrey, but we’ll talk about his domain later.
Now there are plenty of enemies here, and perhaps they have a little advantage assuming the land of Underwater Highway is still well…water it probably isn’t super likely for them to get hurt by Pyrokinesis, tho they tend to have pretty high temperatures, but let’s assume this stipulation anyway. Ok let me get this straight, a lot of these fish beings are pretty similar, so all of them have a similar range strategy for Raz to work with and shouldn’t be much of a trouble (Such as Mussel, Reverse Mermaid, Shark Fin, Squizzard and Fish Bunny). The ones who may be quite much more troublesome are perhaps Jawsum along with lots of Gator Guys at his disposal. That being said, Gator Guys are mostly just grunts blocking the way and as soon Raz disposes of them, Jawsum will be left with basically no defence. Potentially PSI-Blast’s chain power may also be very useful here either by damaging several Gator Guys at once or eventually leading to Jawsum from whom Gator Guys are blocking the way in the first place.
Alright we covered almost everything, so at last but not least among things we have here is one of the three mighty creatures…Humphrey. This is technically both an enemy and location, but we’ll treat each separately. As a location Humphrey doesn’t exactly offer something, it is basically where Omori peaks at his “distraction” methods, but overall all puzzles and hazards are pretty simple for Raz to go through especially with his platformer shenanigans. Now with “enemies” it becomes a bit more complicated, aside from your average enemies here and there, it is a place that almost magnetises the hardest bosses in the Omori series.
But let’s go 1 by 1 here. Wormbot’s projectiles can be countered by shields, Snot Bubbles can be shot from distance before exploding or again, shield, The Weirder Sprout Mole mutant also gets countered by shield very well, Slime Bunnies also probably will be outranged and dealt with in a few shots, Water Mimics are more dependable and can sneak attack Raz, it just throws randoms stuff here and there which at this point Raz probably should already know to countermeasure. Lab Rat’s lasers also can be counter by shield, while its Gas Raz doesn’t exactly have protection to, it shouldn’t give Lab Rat a big advantage either.
With that being dealt with let’s go to the topic of Bosses. Alright so first of all yeah there is Boss Rush which basically can collect all bosses at once, Raz probably would just ignore it tho, it is pretty mandatory area. That being said, it still has plenty of boss fights here and there. Let’s start with simple, Robo Heart, ok now if you’ve bothered to translate what she actually says in her quotes, then you may know that she isn’t exactly aggressive so Raz may just go through her, if they were to fight however…her rockets are countered by telekinesis, lasers are countered with shields, same goes to self-explosion, only big deal here is healing via snack items which Raz can steal. Alright, next, Mutantheart, mainly she can slap Raz hard enough to insta-kill him but Raz has range edge so it’s more likely he’ll go through this one in no trouble, even tho the main advantage here is playing with emotions, Raz’s playstyle and Mutantheart being dimwitted gives him just enough advantages. Now here is when we reach the hardest boss fight no other Omori boss can compare to - Perfectheart. She’s perfect, well at least perfect boss for what it’s worth, given that despite being so perfect, Sweetheart didn’t like her anyway. That being said, she is a very hard foe to deal with, she can heal herself by stealing health, stealing juice, unleashing her wrath doing massive damage and giving emotions as well as bypassing defence by singing which also makes you happy, and her sad, giving her immediate Pokemon like stat advantage. She can even deal so much damage to the point of leaving foes at 1 HP. Now can Raz catch up with everything here? He might have to try hard here, but overall? Yeah, I haven’t brought it up much throughout before because it wasn’t necessary, but Time Bubble and Invisibility here give similarly very strong advantages, leaving Perfectheart a lot more open than not, and it’s possible at this point Raz already knows the game behind Emotions and understand to go all out on her (as well as against Raz she eventually will just run out of juice, given Raz doesn’t have any, she still has tons of Juice but still). She overall is very hard to keep team dynamic against but Raz has more than enough to deal even with that monster. Speaking of monsters, let’s also talk about their creators, Slime Girls. Given we already managed to speak about the hardest boss here, others shouldn’t present as much of a challenge if I say so myself. Same applies to girls here, they are versatile but at bare least Raz’s telekinesis screws up the majority of their moveset, and from here Raz should have other edges he takes as defensive range counter player. But what about Humphrey himself, what if he decides to eat Raz more and digest him, well then it repeats the original boss fight where Raz is just kicking Humphrey again and again until he just reaches and hits uvula, causing him to go back.
This eventually leads Raz to visiting Black Space, or well, go to unexplored places to eventually reach Black Space, which he technically can also do in-between of the entirety of Headspace that is being explored here, Black Space after all is basically leaking into Headspace so it’s a bit eventual for Raz to enter the Black Space, not necessary the hub for which he must go into specifically Basil’s house, but other rooms as well, Sweetheart’s castle along with garden is one of the examples where Black Space was just leaking into Headspace. So it’s possible for Raz to enter some specific Black Space room, or it is possible for Raz to visit specifically the hub. From here we enter more deep rooted thoughts inside of Sunny’s mind.
Part 7: BLACK SPACE (& RED SPACE)
Alright, now we are reaching closer and closer to basically the core of the debate, in one way or another at least. If you’ve been reading carefully you should know that Black Space is a place where Omori represses everything that basically opposes his desires, at the same time this place serves as containment for all more clear allusions to the truth. Obviously not every room gives clear evidence, it is overall a puzzle that is necessarily to build piece by piece. But normally who in their right mind would think about exploring that part, it usually should be a game over from here shouldn’t it?
And here is where lies the issue, Black Space and essentially Red Space is Omori’s double edged sword, it is both his strength and his weakness due to how much connected it is to what potentially can lead to his true defeat. Normally this kind of “defence” is perfect given that, again, no one in their right mind would even think that discovering this secret dark world can give you potential tools for a victory, perfect against everyone…but Raz. You see Raz, given his both experience and general personality, would decide to explore more and more within Sunny’s mind to find out more about him. Jumping a bit forward, the next part of this verdict is dedicated to why it’ll actually be in character for Raz to try and deal with Omori in the exact way that can actually make him lose, now back to the Black Space. Alright so, this requires a lot of the explanations here and there, let’s start with the question, what rooms Raz is the most likely to visit?
Let’s think through this one, we know that Black Space is integral part of the Sunny’s mindscape, and generally if taking it from a psychological perspective, integral part of anyone’s self, we don’t keep all of our feelings, memories and thoughts floating around in the head, some of the stuff we subconsciously dump due to being either non-important or perhaps something that is better not to think about. This way of “refreshing” our mind is partially what can keep us sane, and partially what makes us move onto something else. In Sunny’s case however it pretty much results in a drawback given how much of a negative his memories of that day are. That essentially leads us with these memories being attempted to be repressed so many times that they just appear in pieces from room to room. So not everything that Raz may find within Black Space would give him clues immediately.
Now there are several routes we can go here. First one is assuming Omori didn’t go to Black Space yet and Raz goes into Black Space Hub earlier or at about the same time. This would mean that Raz in theory has access to all of the Black Space 1 rooms, they all are locked but Raz has 2 options to go with here, either make Doodle Raz to go through these doors, while using clairvoyance to see anything within these rooms…or just blast out and make all doors open by creating yet another hole directly to Red Space via Astralathe, machine that is designed for basically just that - unlocking everything hidden in our subconscious minds. This would give Raz a direct link to Sunny’s actual memories of the truth. And from here gameplay is for Raz to see more clear memories of the truth, but at the price of also immediately reminding Omori and Sunny about the truth, this essentially can lead to Omori rebooting his system and making the entire process of reminding him everything almost a bit useless.
However, assuming that does happen, Raz gets access to use The Mental Connection, to lead Sunny’s thoughts in a more right direction. But Raz attempting to do that constantly while Omori tries to reboot won’t really be much of a saving grace. This still means that Raz would be able to get awareness of the truth here, there are few problems overall here and there which are worth mentioning however. For one Mental Connection specifically won’t be really in character for Raz to use for beating a mental entity. At least not in this scenario. For two, it may require more insight, as in, Mental Connection if you want to use it correctly and not just mash thoughts together to make a person go crazy (like Raz can do in basically his average MUs), will require to make Raz think through to connect correct thoughts together.
This essentially makes Red Space win con while not impossible, but by itself not strong. Still, let’s dig here and there and try to understand what clues exactly will be helpful to Raz. But let’s start with some entities that are a lot more common to be within the territory of Black Space, I haven’t covered all “enemies” after all. There is still Something crawling on Sunny’s back, lurking somewhere within the Black Space vaguely reminding Sunny of his past mistakes. These Somethings are essentially hazards for both Raz & Omori, as it basically makes you afraid almost immediately in the fight. It is not something either can exactly use to their side directly. Though Omori probably has the edge of having easier time to cope with it (and by that I mean doing a reset like in a Mari fight). This applies to all Somethings, no exception, though to give Raz some actual credit, this is one of the ways Raz can force to talk with Sunny within Headspace instead of going into the Real World.
That being aside, we also have beings like Stranger and actual Mari, like, straight up Mari coming back from the dead to also communicate with Sunny here and there within his mind. Strangers (specifically “Shadow Basils”) also exist across various Black Space rooms, who make lots of notable hints towards The Truth. Now Raz could use those to discover about The Truth, given they possess the knowledge about the event. Now there are few cons, Mari is only possibly available to Raz within “Mari is Home” room, which is exclusive to Water Walkaway in Black Space 2. In any other case she is kinda an outside scenario who can’t just be summoned directly in any way. Stranger though? They exist in lots of Black Space 1 rooms yet are barely existent in Black Space 2, so with that knowledge we can’t exactly say if Raz is able to reach to Strangers if he visits Black Space at its second period, but even if Raz did, Strangers are quite cryptic about the contents of the truth, they don’t give you information directly, that’d be stupid on their end, cause it’s both forces Omori to actually kill them, as well as screaming “YOU KILLED YOUR SISTER”, “GO OUT AND TOUCH GRASS” to Omori doesn’t actually solves Sunny’s issues at all.
Raz on the plus side, is a good listener, and very charismatic when it comes to politely asking questions to others, chances are he could get some more answers from Strangers or even Mari herself if he gets the chance to meet with her, as confusing as it may appear to him. Even moreso there is another half of rooms that, instead of having Shadow Basils, has normal Basils who unlike Shadow Basils can’t keep their mouth shut and can definitely slip in by asking/talking about The Truth, this is why Omori killed those Basils basically in instant knowing very well that they’ll slip up. For Omori these are no more than leaks, for Raz these are one more way of getting The Truth knowledge.
There is another catch however, aside from rooms being originally closed, therefore to ensure Raz will enter those rooms, Raz needs to use Astralathe, it is entirely dependent on at what point Raz enters Black Space, before or after Omori “saved Basil” and basically murdered all average Headspace Basils that know The Truth while leaving Strangers to vanish in the church. And given at what point in the story we are using Omori it is probably a bit likelier for a scenario where Raz enters Black Space 2 instead. Therefore he can’t get exact access to Basils as almost all of them are dead.
This also means Raz probably won’t be able to go for Astralathe immediately within Black Space hub, because at this point doors are open and Raz doesn’t need to open locks yet, so he can’t get knowledge of The Truth immediately, nor can he immediately remind Sunny about it via Astralathe. On the other hand, could it be possible that Black Space 2 itself contains clues for Raz to discover The Truth? The answer is…yes actually, I think.
Just wait for a second let me scatter around the clues. Lost Forest 1 has a pond that has Sunny’s thoughts, shortly after Mari’s death, this doesn’t tell Raz directly about the fact that he killed Mari but it does identify for Raz that there is in fact an event after which everything went downhill. There is also a horrifically drawn Mari in another room, who wouldn’t give Raz exact clues here, because it is drawn poorly. Another place within forest can lead Raz to a place where Sunny’s dead is chopping the tree with a noose in it, which can tell Raz that someone was hanged in it, if Raz visits Sunny’s house first he may even recognise what tree exactly is being chopped down, this can give Raz 1 more puzzle to build a picture. At last but not least within first Looping Forest there is a Black Playground, which Raz can at least recognise with the more darker version of a playground he may cross by in Headspace, not only that though, if, again Raz happened to cross around Faraway Town before entering Sunny’s mind, he may also associate both playgrounds to, well, the actual playground in Faraway Town given how easy it is to build parallels. But that’s not what we are here for right now, let’s see if it has any more clues to get. For one there is a room that leads to Sunny’s own room where Sunny is sleeping but being haunted with Hellmari, now it’s possible Raz can already make some connections here, because aside from Aubrey, Mari is the closest to look actually close enough, and Raz is definitely smart enough to figure out that it is referring to guilt weighing down Sunny, especially if there are other mental beings existing within these rooms, for instance Regrets and Emotional Baggage, Black Space is actually the place where majority of Psychonauts’ Mental Beings probably would resign in. These are also actually can be the supporting evidence for the sake of understanding mental struggles Sunny goes through, with which Raz can have an easier time building a picture. Essentially this leaves us with: 3 clear implications in this area
Now let’s get to Water Walkaway, which on one hand contains Raz’s biggest fear he had to overcome - water, but that is the least of his problems in this area, as it is actually pretty thin, leaving Raz smaller options for quick travel, but nevertheless makes it also a bit easier to navigate. The first elephant in the room to cover here is probably as mentioned above, Mari is Home, it has a very clever connection to Red Space via Red Room, which on the other hand has various reflections about Omori’s acts of repression. But that’s not what we are entirely here for, given that Red Room won’t give Raz much clear clues regarding The Truth, there is also a chance to meet Mari who can potentially give Raz the answer directly. It is however only a chance, if Raz visits Red Room he may not be able to meet Mari directly, this part is more RNG based than not. Still it does mean there is an actual chance of the contact, not only Raz will get to know The Truth if that happens, he may be able to do that without making Sunny/Omori immediately aware, making it possible to do a safe set-up and groundwork on what to do later on. There is a Glitch Map, but it is what name applies, it doesn’t have any connections to The Truth of the event whatsoever. Lost at Sea contains around 2 allusions to The Truth, combine that with potentially doubts/regrets being in this area, Raz may gather slightly more knowledge of the situation. In Corrupted Junkyard Raz can actually get to places that are far beyond Omori’s reach, given that Omori doesn’t actually has friends to help him here unlike in the regular Junkyard, this would mean that Raz can get to some places that are beyond Omori’s reach, because Levitation and Acrobatics turns out to be really busted in situations like that. The problem here however is that we don’t exactly know what lies beyond Omori’s access that Raz can get clues from, for what we are aware of though, it is possible for Raz to meet up with more realistic Basil and the very same tree on which Mari was hanged, this time no Sunny’s dad, that being said 2 more implications. And at last but not least there is haunted trees hanging maze and I will be as real as possible here, if previous locations were allusion on something here and there, this Maze should say Raz just straight up that Mari is not only dead, but was was hanged on a tree, I mean like, just look at this:
I feel fairly confident Raz is smart enough to see that neck is being twisted here. The maze in question is a bit complicated on how is it build, it is fair to assume that these are walls and therefore it isn’t hard for Raz to get lost in it, Raz does not possess experience in going through mazes, but it also normally lacks any hostile enemies, so eventually he should find a few exists while simultaneously getting the knowledge, or well, leave with smelling salts and revisit Black Space through PSI-Popper. That leaves us Water Walkaway giving Raz: 1 Potentially straight up the answer to the truth, 4 implications and 1 direct evidence that tells part of the story. Already covered 2 out of 5, let’s see what we have next.
Looping Forest, as mentioned earlier, this is actually one of the places Raz can get to regardless of the situation, it is quite literally in front of Sweetheart’s Garden to miss it out and not deem as suspicious Raz must be insanely blind. But basically speaking Raz has 2 ways of entering it, regardless once Raz is in there are some places for him to visit here and there worth looking at. Problem is while a lot of stuff in this place is pretty Symbolic, it doesn't give exact clues. At best it gives Raz evidence on how Sunny felt afterwards though one of the telephone speech bubbles may direct Raz that it is Sunny who did something. Therefore leaving us with: 1 potential implication for Raz to work around.
Alright 2 left, let’s see, Weathervane Island, similarly like Looping Forest, it is fairly symbolic in context of Sunny’s life but for Raz it isn’t direct enough. Except for one room that is really far to reach into, may give Raz one more implication about Mari’s relation to the past tragic events, meaning we are left with: 1 implication to work around.
At last but not least, there is Cloud Walkaway, ok now we actually have a few things to work around with in that one, it is rather most confusing one given it has so many…weird things going on, Herosaurus, a beach which was painted on Windows’ Paint, MONEY SPACE my beloved. But beyond these goofy confusing at first creations there are some more notable allusions, specifically if Raz will enter a secret passage behind the waterfall. It contains faceless beings, who as dialogue texts already basically tell you, are Omori’s past imaginary friends. Remember, after all Headspace wasn’t always here, at first Sunny was just making imaginary friends to spend time with in his fantasy, it’s just it obviously wasn’t able to hide the truth for long, and only later Sunny had to replace his persona with Omori and hide Black Space and his actual thoughts through the illusion that is Headspace. These faceless, are perhaps Raz’s final direct keys to the truth on Omori’s end that can tell Raz about the events, assuming Omori doesn’t gets them first, but we are clearly implied that given only after Omori finds them, faceless stopped recognising Omori meaning beforehand they did in fact, knew about The Truth. They are cryptic, but again, they are one more potential key to revealing everything.
Now how interaction would go on Psychonauts’ end? Well, from starters let’s see how Omori would interact with Psychonauts mental enemies if these were against him. Sasha did state before that if a person's sanity isn’t average, Censors and other similar mental beings can as well attack you despite being the host. And Black Space is only the most natural place for them to appear in, rather than Headspace. Gladly Psychonauts enemies are a lot easier to sort around. Let’s start with Censors, all 3, normal, shouting, big ones, small ones, they come in big numbers but Omori already had experience in fighting off against each of the kind in Headspace, whether it be projectile shooting or muscular foes, though it does becomes harder for him in this encounter given he is alone in Black Space, instead of having his friends to support him.
Personal Demons are basically Bubbles Omori had to fight against inside of Humphrey, Doubts Omori would have some actual trouble dealing with, simply cutting them or smashing them won’t do, and what they are made from can heavily slow him down, so he will have to build up his potential “nukes” a lot more often, given he has 0 methods of actually flaming Doubts with the exception of dynamite, which on the other hand Omori has 0 knowledge of that he needs to use them specifically.
Regrets normally are out of Omori’s reach, but with Red Hands he should land right onto them. Actual flight is practically the only advantage they have here. Bad Ideas can shoot out explosives around, which essentially will work out against Omori as mines, Omori has certain amount of experience against explosive foes, so he eventually can get to them as well, though chances to meet specifically them are a lot less likely compared to others, Enabler is kind of like Kite Kid, except it can make a lot more harder foes to beat invincible, and not only that, but they are really quick to the point of being able to dodge melee attacks, Omori needs to heavily lock in with that one, and eliminate quickly, which is pretty hard when within the Black Space, as I’ve mentioned he is alone, without his friends.
Now let’s look at some larger foes, starting from the hypothetical Mega Censor, given Omori tries to repress and repress everything surrounding him, it is possible that closing his mind so much may release Omori’s own version of the Mega Censor, against which Omori has pros and cons. Pros is the fact that Omori already experienced fights against larger enemies, take Pluto for instance, and he is a lot more versatile as the only thing Mega Censor can do is stamp you to death. Plus Mega Censor will be trying to deal with Omori physically which is a no go way against Omori. On the other hand, Mega Censor is regenerating from Censors and chances are it will take really a while before Omori will start doing actual meaningful damage, making this overall conflict leaning in Omori’s favour but taking a really big amount of time to deal with. However Mega Censor specifically here is more hypothetical, we don’t have to worry about it for much long, how about other Mental World bosses?
Well let’s see, Nightmares probably would require Omori to do straight up reset, they are not as terrifying as Somethings even though represent same ideas, but Omori can’t really defeat them physically, and given it can straight up become temporarily invincible while regenerating sending Personal Demons after Omori, makes it near impossible foe for Omori to beat directly, given Omori doesn’t has idea that he needs to put these demons right into Nightmare’s mouth, and probably like with Mega Censor it will take him awhile to figure out specific weaknesses.
Panic Attacks are well, really fast, Omori will definitely have hard time hitting it, given it can teleport, moves faster and can even duplicate, unlike Raz, Omori doesn’t has option to just make it slower, Omori would need to specifically hit it with some projectile first in this scenario. If he plays his strongest moves right, he can deal with it in a bit quicker manner.
Judge (not the OFF one) while is pretty hard to deal with because of his giant Gavel he can protect from attacks with, Omori can’t exactly do what Raz normally does (take it away via Red Hands), given he is physically weaker here and he probably would rather go for direct hit rather than making him lose weapons. Essentially making it a slightly easier version of the hypothetical Mega Censor fight, given the fact that Judge can’t regenerate, though support from Enabler would make it harder for Omori a lot.
Last but not least, Bad Mood is perhaps the hardest for Omori to fight here, he quite literally needs to see the source of it to damage Bad Mood at all, otherwise it is both invincible and can blind Omori for a good period of time. Playing with emotions is a potential saving grace here, if Omori will make Bad Mood happy then he can eliminate it quickly. But that is potentially, because by just trying to make it Happy, Omori probably won’t destroy the source of Bad Mood, in this case especially being his own Bad Mood. I’ll leave it like that, best case scenario, Omori deals with it eventually by making it Happy, worst case scenario, Omori probably would need to reset again.
With that into account especially when all these forces are combined, it’ll take Omori to do plenty of brainwork to figure out how to deal with all these foes simultaneously, it’s basically turned tables from Raz’s situation in the Headspace territory, because now Omori is alone against plenty of enemies he has usually less experience fighting against, even though he faced similar foes here and there. Which can give Raz some time if fight would reach Black Space grounds.
Now with everything taken here, I think my conclusion here is that Black Space while is still kind of Omori’s strong win condition in terms of repressing Raz, it is also a land that Raz can use potentially against Omori, Raz may not reach Red Space at least immediately, Black Space 2 offers Raz 12 clues with which he can build part of the picture already. A lot of the Mental World enemies here can also serve as a bonus evidence of what symptoms Sunny possess, and a solid distraction against Omori. Especially if we also take into account Memory Vaults, which I haven’t told about until this moment, but there are probably a good amount of them walking around in the territory of Black Space. Memory Vaults can also pretty much directly tell Raz the whole story already, giving him “The Truth” in various shapes and forms. However as mentioned previously, Omori can use it to his advantage as well, at least if he basically makes Raz lose all of his escape options, I’m sure TMK talked about them in his verdict, it includes: Smelling Salts (making Raz Afraid and holding him with Red Hands), PSI-Popper (basically killing it), Ford (same as with Raz), Killing Himself (not trying to actually killing him). And well, either option is a possibility here, but let’s start with the question “will Raz even try doing all of these complicated shenanigans instead of trying to fight, it is Death Battle after all!!!”. To answer this question, let’s go directly to our next part!
Part 8: OMORI is (almost) everything Raz was fighting (and is supposed to fight) against
Alright that one is…both pretty simple to understand but rather a complicated topic which I think is important to talk about, both due to the themes of the MU and its debate. By what’s been pointed out from above you are probably starting to figure out the gimmick behind their win conditions. If you did not, well, this section probably works as an explanation. Alright so we know of a lot of complexities behind Headspace (along with other spaces) and how it serves as a place full of potential clues for Raz to figure out. The trick here is, that all of it leads to a reason why Omori exists, and how it’s possible to defeat him. And as long as Raz uses part of the clues to figure out the history via various methods, he can figure out the source and what he really needs to do to finish Omori for good. But does Raz possess needed skills, experience and knowledge to perform the potential method of dealing with Omori? You might be surprised but practically Omori and what he presents by himself is a little from almost every single problematic mental figure Raz had to fight, in similar ways. Don’t believe me? Well let’s take a look, I have just several cases scattered here and there, honestly you can connect almost all levels to Omori in some way but I will mention 7 cases that I think stand out the most. Quite a lot of them have similar scenarios of having a tragic past that developed their mental issue, to the point that nowadays when Raz visits them they self-isolate from the world by using unhealthy coping mechanisms, though despite that each case is still fundamentally unique so they are worth to be looked at individually…now, from whom I should start…oh, how about this one.
Case №1: Napoleon Bonaparte
That’s right, the well known French military, though this one isn’t literally Napoleon just to be clear, but rather "hallucino-genic" memory of Fred Bonaparte's ancestor that is actually Napoleon Bonaparte! Would you look at that…This Napoleon in Fred's mind is obsessed with war and defeating his opponents. Although he is Fred's opposition, he doesn't actually want him to lose, quite the opposite, he is the subconscious force that represents Fred’s desire to win, which Fred manifested inside of himself after repeatedly losing to a mentally disabled person, 27 times in a row as a matter of fact which built this inferiority complex. Though as mentioned unlike Omori, Napoleon wasn’t made to avoid something, quite oppositely Fred is the one who runs away from a conflict, while Napoleon trying his best to reawaken the aforementioned desire of winning. Waterloo world and essentially the war inside of a board game was designed as an essential method for Napoleon to attempt to make Fred actually pursue for a victory. But each time Napoleon is making a move Fred immediately gives up and admits that he lost, without even giving himself a chance to fight back.
Basically speaking, Fred developed Learned Helplessness - a state that occurs if we have experienced a stressful situation so often that we start to believe that we are no longer in control of our lives, unable to change the course of actions. So much so that even when we have the opportunity to avoid a negative outcome, we do not take it. This state is a product of many behaviors from low self-esteem, expectation of success and motivation, to a belief that success is unreachable by us. Because if we have lost so many times, if we didn’t managed to reach our goals for so many times, what guarantees that we’ll make it now, maybe it’s better to just give up, rather than experience yet another failure and humiliation afterwards…This is essentially what kind of complexity is implied in Fred’s mind, perhaps throughout his life, Fred Bonaparte never truly succeeded and after years worth of losing which was boosted not only by the factor of losing to disabled “inferior” person, but also by being nearby Psitanium (which as we know boosts person’s “craziness”), all in all just twisted Fred to what we have in this picture. His urge for a victory simply couldn’t take it anymore.
So how did Raz defeat Napoleon? After all, Napoleon was an inner desire for a victory to Fred, and as long as Fred himself doesn’t get that desire to overcome learned helplessness, it won’t be possible to “defeat” him. Raz himself moved pieces around and eventually made Fred win, but making Fred win a board game alone wouldn’t really do anything, no, throughout the game’s progress Raz essentially reminded Fred that he wants to win. Raz managed to remind him that despite the big amount of losses he shouldn’t give up trying, he shouldn’t quit so easily when being faced with a problem. And you can even notice that the more progress Raz makes in the game, the more Fred actually starts to believe in the fact that maybe he can win, that maybe it is worth trying for and the success is not that out of reach, maybe he actually has a power in his hand to change the course of actions to his favor. The figures that reflected Fred’s refusal to do anything to win, were convinced, motivated by Raz to want to fight, inducing that warrior instinct. And eventually as soon as Fred got his “warrior spirit”, his “desire to win” back, Napoleon was gone, perhaps merged back to Fred and became one with him. In the end Raz convinced Fred that it may feel like we can’t make a good choice, we still have what it takes to use our will upon the world.
Well, how is that familiar to Omori? Let’s switch a few definitions here. Omori cannot be taken down by any direct means, he is manifestation of Sunny’s guilt and escapism and will exist as long as Sunny feels guilt. Napoleon is a manifestation of Fred’s desire to win and will exist as long as Fred won’t get it back. Additionally both have quite similar cases of learned helplessness as while Fred believes he can never win, Sunny believes that he is too weak, too helpless to be able to save himself after he’s been saved many times by others…including Mari herself. As you can notice despite being a bit different kinds of sources, their connection and purpose is relatively the same and given Raz used quite a specific method of figuring out and using method to convince Fred to get back his victory desire, it’s not impossible to assume he can do the same to Sunny with aforementioned potential clues. Though is Napoleon the only example here, are there any other closely similar cases which can prove consistency behind the method? Sure thing! Let’s go to the next one:
Case №2: Jasper Rolls (aka The Critic)
Our next topic is none other than Jasper Rolls, mainly known as The Critic that lives inside the head of Gloria Von Gouton. Now before going into what Critic is, let’s try to look at Gloria herself, it is her inner critic after all. Ever since childhood, Gloria lived under…to say the least uncomfortable conditions, Hagatha home, was ran by a vicious headmistress who while studying girls the art of theatre, was punishing those who do something wrong with a whip, this alone already gave Gloria an image of need to be perfect so she won’t be punished, physically or mentally.
These conditions under which Gloria kept performing were going for years, years of aiming for perfectionism, for the sake of escaping the punishment, at that point even slightest criticism can give a hurtful mental image, while Gloria could only fantasize of being saved from here. Going a bit further we know Gloria got an actual career as an actress, given eventually to her Mother even though she never sent promised letters while forcefully sending her here, essentially abandoning her, came back to “rescue her from this terrible place”. She had gained praise, glory, and she was far away from the previous lifestyle of torture, this glory was so bright, her mother became straight up jealous to the point of psychologically tormenting her, until eventually when Gloria went to Paris, the mother decided to answer to that by committing suicide.
The pure shock behind Mother’s suicide caused Gloria to have a breakdown, the guilt she felt right here was obnoxious, to the point that she was thinking that it is her fault that Mother died. Eventually she started to lose control over herself in the theater scene as well, at which point critics started to notice that and cruelly note her mistakes.
At this moment, Jasper Rolls was born within Gloria’s head. And this critic was now tormenting inside of Gloria, especially triggering her mood swings when there were visual triggers of her mother’s suicide. Later on when he was sent to Thorney Towers, Psitanium only amplified the presence of Jasper. Now important to note Gloria herself wasn’t actually present in her Mental World either, but rather her personality was split into several identities: Becky who was a regulator and maintained order, even if eventually losing control, rational part of Gloria’s mind, Bonita - spirit of Gloria’s youth, inner drive/confidence of hers that lets her talent move forward, yet this light is being blocked by, you guessed it, Jasper Rolls - Gloria’s inner critic who shatters said confidence Gloria had during her acting career, he is the kind of voice we hear in our head when doing mistakes, however if what we hear in a normal instances is constructive criticism, which tells us on what mistakes we must develop to move forward, destructive criticism only harms us, it doesn’t tells us how to move past these mistakes, how to not repeat them, it only fixates on them, almost killing us on the inside. Jasper also has a persona of Phantom which self-sabotages the theater to convince Gloria to keep confidence remain hidden. And the worse this destructive criticism gets, the more power Jasper gets as a critic, to the point that he reaches big to the point that it is impossible to ignore him.
So how Raz defeated Jasper? First of all, Raz needed to realize that not only Phantom exists, but he needed to identify who it is and cause triggers of traumatic episodes. Determining the roots, he now knew what steps were needed to avoid and/or confront those triggers. Over the course of battle when Raz figured out the origin of the phantom, Critic in a direct fight was using verbal words against him. The practical way to defeat Jasper for Raz was to not focus on his criticism and focus on what is important. In defeating him and not letting his voices overcome us, this inner critic became smaller and smaller, to the point that his voices were not heard anymore. Now again, Jasper’s entire existence was tied to Gloria’s inner sunshine being blocked and his destructive criticism being heard. Essentially as long as his words had power, he had a “meaning” behind his existence. Similarly Omori requires an identical way of being defeated, his existence is tied to Sunny’s guilt, and once The Truth is released, Omori himself activates his inner criticism, attempting to force to take over Sunny by fixating on Sunny’s past mistakes. Given that Omori’s existence also has a root, it is only in character for Raz to try and eventually find it.
Case №3: The Moth
This is one of the 4 examples that I’ll provide here which come from Psychonauts 2, and serve as an example of the past events causing self-isolation. In this scenario we have Bob Zanatto, one of the members of the Psychic Seven that isolated himself and kept a more self-destructive way of life. The Zanatto family is a bit known in this story to solve their sorrows with alcohol. So much that said alcohol makes them simply addicted. Bob’s mother was secretly drowning her sorrows in it until her lonely death.
Bob was close to this path as well, until he got to join Psychonauts where life changes for him quite fundamentally. In the company of friends and even a lover. In these times, he has found home, community, purpose all of which helped him to keep his health, generally speaking. This didn’t last long, given as soon as Maligula incident happened, not only Bob lost a man he was married to, losing his purpose, he eventually lost all people from his previous community. Instead he now was surrounded by another community. With another community his alcohol addiction was coming along a lot more frequently during the job. And with that, his health was becoming worse, along with his control, to the point that he couldn’t even control himself during the job. This led to his son, Truman Zanatto, firing Bob from his job despite him being one of the first Psychonauts members, making him essentially lose his home. After losing all of that Bob couldn’t do anything but isolate himself and end up drowning his sorrow through the alcohol.
At this point, he kept himself locked away from everyone for basically years, with no self control. To deal with moth Raz had one solution in his mind: go directly to Bob’s roots and find seeds that remind him of his past. That way, he managed to quite literally pull out all of Bob’s tragedies in one place but it is in that way, Bob eventually started to notice obvious contradictions in his point of view, in his way of life. Which eventually at the end of the fight made him take control and Moth now instead of being giant and threatening into small and inanimate. Almost kind of like aforementioned Jasper, as well as like in a certain way Omori.
As mentioned Omori isn’t just a person, it is sort of like a way of life Sunny developed for himself as a coping mechanism to escape from reality. You see it’s just…if Bob was hiding his sorrows away through all sorts of alcohol, Omori was hiding his sorrows away by pretending that nothing bad happened and it’s still the same fun times of his youth. Again you can connect the dots here and come to the conclusion that Raz’s method of how to deal with these Mental Enemies, is still identical to what he needs to do to take a win against Omori. The next 3 examples before the most blatant one are more loosely connected, but I still wanna point out their mechanics and that methods of dealing with them are identical to what Raz, again, has to do and by virtue will try to do.
Case №4: Librarian Cassie
Now this is probably by far my favorite level in Psychonauts 2 due to sheer versatility and size, Cassie’s collection is a massive Mental World that probably has everything that defines it, from person’s own recreation of people and memories up to having own logic and the way it built, whether it be books that transport you to different locations, various creatures made out of paper, pocket spaces in small objects, etc. It is a deeply designed world which demonstrates how mental spaces can defy logic and be almost whatever your imagination thinks of. But behind this enormous library full of secrets, one being is trying to take all under own control - Librarian Cassie. Now, remember “Inner Selves” part of Mental World, a Mental Figures that are a split part of personality trait. Now it is important to remember that technically everything and everyone in the Mental World represents a person in one way or another and are a part of a person, but inner selves in this scenario are pretty much “cores” of definition of who we are. Just as Cassie herself has been explaining, it’s impossible to define ourselves by a single trait. We as a human being, tend to fluctuate with who we are, at least depending on what people we’re surrounded with. We can portray ourselves differently depending on the situation life puts us in. And hence we have several traits, necessity of which depend on the given situation. This is practically the initial purpose of such ability as Mental Projection, projecting our different traits to use in different situations. Cassie was no different with such ability. At first Cassie was an unwilling worker. counterfeiting money, which her boss was using for own business, however the crimes she commits eventually becomes more noticeable by the police, which tries to get information about the boss out of Cassie.
While it could’ve been an easy way out, Cassie did not see the police as people of justice, as far as we see in both direct statement from Mental World versions and Memory Vault, the cops were most likely planning to just blackmail the criminal business to get some cash ourselves instead of actually freeing workers from such guilty market. Should Cassie simply keep doing counterfeiting, she probably wouldn’t have managed to continue on, yet simply running away wasn’t an option for her either. At around this moment is when “Mental Projection” came in useful.
The plan was relatively simple, while keep doing counterfeiting business during the day, she was writing own book during the night, eventually after finishing own book, Cassie ended up using presses at her counterfeiting place to secretly print her books instead of fake money, as well as sending the script to the publisher. Combining both her counterfeiting skills and “life” with her writer skills, led to her own book being mass-printed, which she managed to sell to people around the town. With funds from her books she managed to legally get out of Shanghai leaving herself out of trouble with either police or counterfeiting business, becoming practically free.
Eventually she does end up joining Psychonauts’ cause as well, becoming one of the seven members of the team. Mutually, the team was as close as family for Cassie and the aforementioned Maligula event was just as tragic for her as well, given she’s been trying to reach out to Lucy as well, yet attempts were useless. And when the fight was over, no one was really the same person, Hellmut Fullbear one of the more cheerful members of the crew was supposedly dead, to an extent so was Lucy, in a way at least, Bob we pretty much know how he ends up doing, Otto was more focused on what’s going on around the Motherlode, Compton, about whom we’ll talk later, was full of self-loathing and Ford was quite literally not the same person anymore, given the damage he gave himself through Astralathe.
Due to that, Cassie decided to retreat to the woods instead, isolating herself from anyone and trying to cope through it while spending time with a bee hive. However eventually she herself became isolated to such a degree that she subconsciously controlled bees’ mind to form the “Queen Bee” who now was at the choice whether Cassie stays in or out of her comfort zone. At around that moment, Cassie formed a “Librarian” projection, Librarian who tried to force control over Cassie entirely, keep herself isolated and keep other of her selves locked in her bookshelf, all because other selves were “useless” when there was a time needed to protect their friends.
Now, let’s digest what we’re dealing with here at least from a narrative standpoint. Cassie has been using Mental Projection to use several of her traits for a variety of situations, basically having multiple “personas” each of which was responsible to benefit Cassie. But eventually after isolating herself from others, one of her selves decided to take over and keep things the way they are now. Now from here you already can draw small parallels with Omori, at least given that both Librarian and Omori were manifesting/taking over via self-isolation and guilt being a factor. But it does not end here, as how Librarian is “defeated” I think is loosely tied to how Omori was defeated as well. Throughout this Mental World, what Raz was doing is basically searching other Cassies to team up with them and deal with the Librarian Cassie. While the boss of this Mental World was Raz literally fighting Librarian, the key to the victory wasn’t brute force at all, but giving other selves of Cassie power as well and making Librarian come in terms with other Cassies, that, despite the shortcomings and what’s been done in the past, all of the 4 are still what make Cassie Cassie. Just as we’ve discussed earlier, Sunny is Omori, and vice versa. And because of that Sunny must come to terms and accept his past mistakes for granted instead of feeding Omori on own guilt. While this connection is more loose it is rather another example of Raz:
Understanding that he needs to do something else than offensive approach to deal with the issue
Several beings representing person’s consciousness being a common thing within context of Psychonauts
Now with that in mind, let’s take a look at next Mental Figure who just like Librarian is connected more loosely but has a similar scenario and requirements to deal with as Omori:
Case №5: Dingo Inflagrante
Black Velvetopia is also decently big though quite closed off Mental World, it is full of artistic paintings being spread not only through dogs who somehow can play poker, but in the entire world, even on Raz himself the moment he enters this world. However this world’s host has the issue that is far more aggressive and destructive than your anxieties or self-loathing - pure rage and fixation. Edgar Teglee at the moment of Raz’s visit was in Thorney Tower’s psychiatry just like Fred and Gloria, though if you look at these 2 their shenanigans are pretty clear, but what is Edgar’s problem? Well you can probably already get, while he is at this period of his life an artist, he still was…fixated on one art, on one being that no matter how hard he tried to avoid drawing, was drawing practically subconsciously - The Bull.
The fixation on this bull was so much frustrating for Edgar that he just couldn’t help but became very openly aggressive about it. To such a degree that he has no control at all. It was pretty clear that Raz had to do something to deal with such an issue. And such an issue wasn’t born out of nowhere. Bull fixation wasn’t just in the real world, but also in the Mental World, and this time with an actual physical form of a bull. The Bull - El Odio, terrorizes the small town of this Mental World and doesn’t allow Edgar to build a card ladder to get to his beloved one. So what Raz had to do is to find all necessary cards. But beforehand let’s take a look at some basis around Edgar’s past for better understanding of context behind BV.
Edgar wasn’t always an artist, in his school time he was a wrestler, a pretty good one, he had a whole team full of friends with whom he was sparring, but beyond that, he had a love life with a female cheerleader. Long story short, while Edgar’s love was genuine, said cheerleader was only interested temporarily, being interested only by Edgar’s strength, eventually leading to her to get bored and leaving him for a male cheerleader (which personally I actually found for myself out of ordinary until seeing that there can in fact be male cheerleaders, huh, the more you know). This act devastated Edgar to such a degree that he lost his fighting spirit, which caused him to lose his next wrestling match and caused his teammates to all turn against him.
The rest is kind of history, instead of wrestling Edgar decided to participate as an artist but he just couldn’t throw these 2 out of his head, to the point that whatever painting Edgar tried to draw it always ended up a bull fight. Now from here we can talk about what actually happens in Black Velvetopia. Edgar’s fixation over cheerleaders constructed a narrative in this bizarre artistic setting, we even see residents of the Mental World mentioning what happened to Edgar in real life, just under a new narrative, now instead of wrestler, he was a famous painted who had a beautiful wife who got seduced by a famous bullfighter - Dingo Inflagrante. El Odio, the bull in actuality was Edgar this entire time and Dingo was simply provoking him into bursts of rage which was turning him into a bull.
Now aside from collecting cards and getting to know Edgar closer both through visuals and actual spoken narrative across the Mental World, Dingo still was an issue to deal with. This is one of the examples where Raz technically was beating him physically, but the final blow was still behind Edgar. Only when Raz made Edgar see that these 2 having love is not something to be fixated on, only when Edgar became convinced that he does not need to be fixated on past love, he simply willed them out…no I mean, literally he just thought and these 2 immediately went down into hole, forgotten by him. This is probably one of the more blatant examples of how being convinced makes you stronger over your problems in the Mental World. You already can build the picture here and notice that Omori is also defeated similarly, once Sunny has a will to move on from his past trauma.
Case №6: Gluttonous Goats
Alright that one is also a weird situation, this time the Mental World we are dealing with is basically Hell’s Kitchen, except instead of Gordon Ramsay, we have goats. And not just any goats, goat versions of the most influential and still active Psychonauts members, here they are from left to right, Truman, Hollis, Ford, Otto. And these goats are very judgemental of your actions, whatever you are cooking you better try and impress them, with both your mouth and your dish.
But who would view these people as someone who will be hating them no matter what they do. Well, let’s talk about this Mental World’s host - Compton Boole. If you’ve played Psychonauts 1 you know about Dogen, a quiet kid who can talk with animals while squirrels made him go so mad he exploded their heads. If you’ve played Psychonauts 2 you’ve seen Sam Boole who, while making delicious pancakes, eventually is gonna have a breakdown on animals she herself uses to help. But aside from Sam there was another one from Boole bloodline, Sam’s and Dogen’s grandad and yet another of the Psychic Seven members - Compton Boole.
If you happen to not play Psychonauts games then by sentences I gave you, you may tell that Compton also can talk with animals. As a matter of fact Booles have mastered powers of talking to animals to such a degree that they can forcefully manipulate their minds, as in straight up hypnotizing them from a distance. However if Sam and Dogen were already among Psychonauts discovering their powers in a more safe place, Compton wasn’t as lucky. At his young age he loved animals and was aware when they were being mistreated. So he snuck into the animal sanctuary and released them from their cages. Animals in a form of gratitude decided to lick him, like animals do, around this time Compton’s powers started to overwhelm him and he accidentally blew up all of their heads. Right in front of himself.
Yeah that’s not really a usual thing to happen in an attempt to help someone, so naturally Compton was really traumatized by this. Ford however, saw potential in Compton, so later on he joined Psychic Seven and was discovering depths of the mind along with other members, plus Cassie was there, and with her he both felt more comfortable/peaceful and less guilty/nervous. Obviously you must know by now, Maligula happened, and Compton on his own also didn’t manage to hold her back.
After these events no one in the team was really in a good state, you already know what happened to Bob and Cassie, Compton in the meantime also felt more traumatic, second time in an attempt to save a life he instead lost several...at least from his point of view. As well as people from his company eventually leaving wasn’t left unnoticed by him either, especially Cassie. Without Cassie, his anxiety and duties overwhelmed him to such a degree that he started to remember his own failures. Out of guilt he decided to lock himself up in Psychoisolation so he wouldn’t harm anyone.
Now let’s look at how it affected his own perception of people surrounding him. As mentioned, his small part of the mental world where Raz managed to enter is a cooking show, where Compton is supposed to cook a dish and if he fails he gets shamed in front of everyone and especially by goats with an appearance of his closest friends. These goats who judge his actions are obviously the reason behind his anxiety and self-loathing, and naturally Raz must find a way to deal with them. Gladly for him here everything was pretty clear. With judges approaching who is very anxious and who can be very critical of you, the solution perhaps is to impress them. Which is what Raz tried by making all dishes together, while making Compton go through all these interactions. With each step, Compton was becoming more and more confident in himself, until Raz gave him the opportunity to cook himself. At that moment Compton instead of fearing to do anything took all of his courage and started cooking as fast as he could with the ingredients Raz was serving. While forcefully feeding these goats until they just pop.
Now if you’ve been paying attention, you may notice that these goats have a hand under themselves, so they are not actual ghosts, but rather puppets that are controlled by a puppeteer. Who is a puppeteer though? Well, it should be obvious, Compton himself…literally, while simultaneously being in other places (Infinite Speed Psychonauts???), I told you Mental Worlds are just built different before so like, yeah that happened, but you get the idea. The only person who was standing against Compton’s achievements is Compton himself, and it’s only when Raz regained his confidence in himself, he managed to take control over his thoughts. You can guess again similarly like Jasper, Omori self-loathes, especially at the end, and Goats’/Omori’s existence are tied to the mental world’s host cognition. At that point I can just figure connections with all other Psychonauts levels all to just say “Raz does this every single day!!!”, so instead of making it way too long let me bring up the last example that is not only just similar to Omori, but the story behind of which is surprisingly really similar to that of Omori.
Case №7: Maligula
Now this is probably one of the magnum opus in Psychonauts’ mental issues. Maligula is a threat so powerful that she became a threat in both mental and real realms. As well as basically who initially moved the entire plot so it feels quite ironic to end up this section with her of all people. But from starters let’s look at the person behind the Maligula.
Lucrecia Mux, Lucy for short, has plenty of stuff happening in her life. After losing her husband in one of the Grulovia wars, she moved onto another country where she met Ford Cruller and Otto Mentalis, these 3 were the first step in what caused the existence of such a large company as Psychonauts. Upon discovering depth of mind’s potential they gained more members of the team, some of whom you already seem to acknowledge if you’ve been reading this entire section you probably should be aware of like, half of the members at least. That being said, let’s actually go in depth and try to understand what truly happened to Lucrecia Mux at that time.
All right, so after they were going through Astralathe experiments, Lucy’s mind weakened and were more open to have some sort of breakdown under circumstances that heavily trigger you. So what Lucy did at that state is went back to her country, Grulovia, to protect its people from invasion. However later, Gzar of Grulovia was using Lucy, with a title “Maligula”, for own political benefits so to speak. You see Monarchy and the way Gzar ruled wasn’t satisfying for citizens, they went into meetings trying to get changes to how they live. Gzar was using Maligula to scare away people, to make it impossible to be approached. Among those who wanted change were also Marona Aquato and Lazarus Aquato - Raz’s grandparents, as well as Lucrecia’s sister. Lucy caused a big storm anyway which covered the entire city, until a dam broke, flooding and killing almost if not everyone in this meeting with water. Including Marona, seeing that she killed her own sister, Lucrecia’s weak mind couldn’t handle it and Maligula went on a rampage. Causing destruction to the entirety of Grulovia to the point that its own Gzar left with fear. Ford and other Psychics, Lucy’s friends went on a mission to prevent her from ending any more lives, the mission ended up being only halfway successful, she managed to traumatize and almost kill all members, except for Ford. Who managed to lock Maligula away.
Ford knew that the world is too dangerous to leave Lucy alone, especially as Lucy, given now the world knows her as a mass killer. So to save her, he implemented an entire new persona onto her so to speak. Now instead of being Lucrecia Mux, she was Marona Aquato - the only Aquato left alive along with her son Augustus.
So what we have now is:
Killed sister in an accident
Couldn’t handle it and had mental breakdown
Had implemented another personality onto herself (specifically of her sister in this case) so she won’t feel mental pain
Reminds you of someone? That’s right, the situation with Lucrecia Mux falls in line with none other than Sumire Yo- oh I mean, Omori! Quite literally identical story events of guilt and repression. And just like with Omori, despite truth being locked away behind a shiny narrative…eventually it leaks away. Lucy wasn’t the exception, eventually she started noticing that something was off, so one day during an average circus performance, she wore a coat with fake coat, took a pamphlet to whispering rock psychic camp and gave it to one circus boy in a chance for him to change everything. That circus boy was Razputin Aquato.
So, how Raz exactly defeated Maligula? Well from starters he and Ford needed to release Maligula back and then lock her away in a deep pit instead of just hidden in a baggage. Now it is important to note that Maligula isn’t just Lucy’s darkest instincts, it is a flight or fight response, which all of us have. The problem was the fact that this fight or flight mentality was taking control over Lucy as a whole. Maligula is empowered by the sorrow, guilt, and rage associated with the death of Marona Aquato. If Lucrecia feels guilt and empathy, Maligula is cruel, sadistic, and diabolical to the point she would happily kill anyone. Maligula even reminds Lucrecia of her sins, emphasizing herself as a critical part of the psyche. Raz’s entire journey was led to fight Maligula and seal her away for real this time, but also to make Lucrecia accept what she did. You can notice from here that Sunny’s journey of acceptance beyond repression, isn’t just similar to Psychonauts, but practically is something Raz has done with all other patients in one way or another. This means, that method I’ve mentioned above should be actually in-character for Raz to implement, there is however one last and probably most important factor to consider.
Part 9: Now it’s up to you…Sunny
Ok I did ramble about why it is completely in character for Raz to do such weird win conditions that practically no one would normally think of. So with that in line, we now have basically an entire blueprint behind each other’s win conditions. Both eventually will figure out the “immortality”, not necessarily how it works, but enough to think that fists alone won’t do in this match. Omori has better experience with Headspace and has plenty of help to overall take advantage in a direct confrontation, but Raz on the other hand is very good at avoiding conflicts, lots of his abilities basically help in doing so successfully, Invisibility, Time Bubble, Levitation and his own acrobatic skills. Headspace got plenty of space making it hard for Raz to overall reach the roots, but not easy for Omori to just find Raz either. Raz’s quick traversion method and some of the escape options make him really hard to put down for long. To the point that eventually Raz is gonna uncover some pieces of The Truth. We don’t know how exactly Black Space interaction would go, but in that territory while Raz may have less space for his acrobatic mobility, this is still a place with easier access to all truth clues at some point even potential direct answers, especially if there are Memory Vaults lying around which can give an answer straight up. And yet Omori isn't a simple foe to target, we must remember that while Raz is trying to figure everything out, Omori is trying to chase him down once he at least gets the awareness of his presence. Answers Raz can get to his questions are not immediate, while Omori to get rid of Raz for good will need to try multiple times.
It’s a very big playing field of the MU, with possibilities being here and there to the point that, despite the length of this verdict, it is impossible to tell in detail how everything would go, there are factors on top of various factors which also are on top of various factors, with each one creating dozens of possibilities, dozen of space for your imagination, I love that. But in this playfield you’ve got so much to do yet so little stuff that can actually help here. So what happens once Raz is actually close to realizing what is going on here, once he realizes the truth behind all events here. Well there is but one problem left - Sunny. Whether The Truth is released or not, Sunny is still afraid to actually accept them. And well, again, just talking about you killing your sisters won’t do any good. Screaming about that, pressing or trying to calm down with just words is not enough. The Omori journey is ultimately Sunny's journey, and in the end it is up to Sunny to not just uncover The Truth but to have the will and courage to go through it. In Sunny’s case, he had all of his friends to showcase how they managed to eventually overcome their problems in the matter of 3 days. Kel & Hero who managed to eventually move forward, despite how tragic events were, at the end of the day had each other to do so. Aubrey who after our help also managed to finally go through her personal issues that were happening after the Mari incident. Sunny, after seeing this development himself, had what it needed to choose to see the truth on his own.
Which is why, by his own forces Raz can’t just talk Sunny out of his previous way of life, with the only ways being to force him to do that, as a matter of fact usually when Raz attempts to do so he tries to get some sort of consent so both him and his patient could contribute to rehabilitation. It’s not impossible (sometimes not even super hard) for Raz to change people’s minds even if there is lack of actual consent, like in the case with Dr Loboto and Coach Oleander, both of whom at the time were actually “evil” but by digging within their past and setting things right he managed to, change their hearts. Hell, you might even see that some examples I brought up above are actually pretty similar to Sunny’s kind of mindset, it’s just knowing how Headspace is built and that at least initially Raz may not get consent, would make it quite much harder for him to contribute entirely. Even if Raz would perform Mental Connection, an ability that is known to change specific thoughts and in a way concepts within the Mental World, Omori would just try and repress it beforehand (the thought bubbles and what like, if change is done beforehand it probably won’t be reverted but Omori can still repress everything back).
It makes sense in a certain way, problems we have in our life, any emotional scars we are experiencing, eventually wear off, but just like the actual scars it takes a lot of time to recover them, it takes our effort or help from the closest people to us to treat them well. And the thing is, in this scenario, Sunny doesn’t have his actual friends with him, not yet, and Raz doesn’t have anyone to help him to work around Omori, except for Ford. Given that Sunny is so deprived about the true events, unable to face and comprehend them alone, it’d normally be an insanely hard task to actually convince himself for forgiveness. A task hard enough for Raz to the point that Omori’s repression counters would work out earlier.
Part 10: Conclusion
This match is anything but easy, it has so much possible to happen all around, so many things to consider, given that stats themselves are basically an irrelevant thing in this debate. Both have tons of abilities that countermeasure each other, both can use the environment and people around them to their own advantage. Both have a support that makes them hard to tackle, and multiple layers behind their defenses and “immortalities” that makes it insanely hard to pull off the win cons and win this battle.
Headspace may be a really big place of exploration, but Raz’s evasion makes him traverse anything much quicker than Omori, despite at first lacking the experience Omori has with Headspace. Black Space, while Omori's main win condition to take over Raz in this battle, also serves as a big place for potential clues for Raz. With enough clues it is possible for Raz to realize the true events behind Mari’s death. The problem is, Sunny can’t face them alone, nor can Raz.
Sunny needed a solid amount of help to eventually overcome his issues, which in this scenario he does not have, while Raz’s plenty of agents that can help him take needed time to make Sunny confront his issues are not in his average access. This means that after a lot of time goes by, eventually Omori will take over here and repress Raz. As probably has been pointed out before it is possible to “prison” Psychonauts agents, like Lady Luctopus did in her boss fight, with AFRAID effect and Black Space repression, eventually Omori can use that to his advantage, even though it’ll take time for him to use it.
Now, again, this is a really close match up, I dare to say this matchup is closer than some of the my favorite ones (like Strelok vs Artyom or Ippo vs Joe) or even one of the closest matchups that has been covered in G1^2 as of now (competing with Zorrohood & 682Doom), Raz is a tenacious fighter, with so much complicated abilities, insane skill and admirable determination that in a normal fight, he is near impossible to deal with by an ordinary foes. It’s just in this battle, he is a much more long term fighter, he needs time to play his cards right, and he certainly needs help to ensure that. Shall he get the help to give Sunny will to move forward and for him to use his win conditions more directly, shall he get the time to investigate more around both the real and mental worlds, as well as prepare other tools to infiltrate Headspace, eventually Raz will win the war, but in the battle Omori had the ways to end it before otherwise. Raz certainly wouldn’t succumb in this battle, but Omori eventually will find a way to make his efforts psycho-not for naught (joke was already told before but shhhhh). The winner is Omori.
To say some closing words identically to my 2 colleagues here…it was a really fun blog to work on, I’ve enjoyed practically every second. Though I gotta apologize a little, I went so all out here that it is practically my longest verdict I’ve ever written. And probably it would be hard to be beaten by me any time soon. But it is suitable for such a complexity of the MU. That being said I hope you had some enjoyment with this blog as well, and…not much else to say, thank you for giving your time, and see you soon! Now, it is time to finally build some bricks…
Stars
“An unhallowed burden has been placed upon you. You have the power to change the future.”
There is a lot to talk about when it comes to a debate like this… honestly this matchup has the opportunity & potential to be extremely heartfelt while at the same time devastating. I’ll always support this matchup because one: Gator is my friendoooo, but two it has a LOT of neat things in retrospect that people tend to overlook. Omori is one of my favorite RPGs of all time & an experience I don’t think will ever really be replicated for someone like me & Psychonauts is an extremely charming adventure that really gives off Indie vibes with how much detail & charm it gives to every character… so I’ll try to do the matchup justice & keep it relatively simple with categories the same way as any blog.
Stats
Their physicals are actually pretty darn close to each-other! Raz can tank Building level Ice Constructs at around 2-3 Tons of TNT, survive fierce some flames at over 1204 C, & has some pretty standard superhuman stuff like beating Grizzly Bear. Omori on the other-hand was capable of similar showings of strength, cleaving through plastic & traffic cones like tissue paper, uprooting roots with his knife, destroy flesh & tissue, shatter steel, destroy small planetoids- and also fight a Grizzly Bear (CONNECTIONS WOOOO). Physically, both are within the 110-120 Tons of TNT range at their physical peaks without involving reality warping shenanigans, which is such miniscule a difference that it’s not a stretch to say that the two could pull off each other’s feats beat for beat. In terms of actual lifting strength it’s pretty obvious that Raz would get the edge, with it Raz has lifted anywhere from 467.7 Metric Tons to 71,391.575 - 85,669.89 Metric Tons as telekinesis is a pretty generic ability within Psychonauts that he uses a lot (well unless you want to say Omori creating the Universe’s mass means he can move it, which would be a pretty big stretch). Though the most important part is that outside of that, both can match each-other’s high-ends beat for beat. Both Mental Worlds have stars inside, both Mental Worlds are called Universes, and both Mental Worlds have had someone create, destroy, or alter them massively… they have the exact same amount of legitimacy because of the context of both stories, so if you buy one… you buy the other… and even then they both would be relative in Attack Potency to where it’d be a tie in strength (Attack Potency) & edge to Raz in lifting strength.
Speed is a whole other story about how cosmic both can scale at their peaks. Omori has showcased the ability to dodge laser-fire, dodge Mach-speed Planes & Marshas, & climb to other planets like Otherworld at around 0.6c... which puts him all over the place when using low-mid ends. Raz isn’t much better though all things considered, he’s dodged sound-waves, missiles, cannonballs at around Mach 1.71 - Mach 18.82, bullet-fire, & planet-spanning telekinetic abilities like Milla’s 0.13c - 1.31 c telepathy signal transfer feat. While close, this would obviously put Raz into the lead, until we get to their good feats- the HIGH-END stuff. Both could eventually scale to people who could cross or alter vast cosmic distances, Psi-King being capable of spinning Star Systems extremely fast at around 166 Million c, & Pluto who was capable of not only flying across galaxies… but could travel across all of Headspace in a short amount of time at around 27 Million c - 913 Million c. Taking this at face value, it’d mean that at their peaks Omori would be around 5.5 x faster than Raz making it a light blitz in his favor, making Omori take speed! This enhanced speed gives a LOT of wiggle room for our next category!
Arsenal & Abilities
This is where the majority of the matchup actually lies, like legitimately this is the entire debate right here and I’m going to cover literally EVERYTHING that I possibly can in this section. The main stuff (items) is largely unimportant to the overall outcome, but when looking at both… both can increase stats, inflict status effects, cure status effects, lower stats, and more… Omori just has a lot more obviously netting him the Arsenal category.
O = They HAVE the HAX
N = They DON’T have the HAX
X = They RESIST the HAX
Y = They DON’T resist the HAX
Z = Has ways around it
Both have an immense amount of hax to throw at eachother, though in terms of overall versatility & functions/arrays of haxes… I’m definitely siding with Omori. To be clear, neither can really KILL eachother in the Mental World, so this category sorta has to be decided by who has more useful abilities. And with Raz having dozens of different elemental attacks Omori has never showcased, dozens of abilities he can counter with from outside & within Sunny’s mind that he’s never seen before (such as the Mind Adjoining & Cognitive Manipulation), and the broader array of overall skills- I’d personally lean towards Raz taking the Abilities category while Omori takes Arsenal (I’ll go over this much more in depth in the summary however).
Tertiary Factors
This is probably the most obvious section, as it delves into what both are both lacking in, as-well as what they strive for. Raz obviously has a huge lead with experience & skill, it’s his job to explore vast locations & traverse obstacles… he’s basically done what Sunny has done in his few years he’s remained isolated, throughout the course of his career dozens of times. Raz has been trained in all forms of Psychic Mastery and has explicitly mastered his craft to the point of receiving degrees and praise from his teachers who have been teaching for years; in terms of any experience we can attribute to Omori, we can only consider the things we explicitly know. While Omori is pretty good at hiding the ‘Truth’ with actual battle experience, we can’t really prove much- if the beginning of Omori is what we can consider being an average day for him (with it going off the rails just this one time presumably with Basil literally getting yoinked), it’d mean he spends a primary amount of his days just sort-a sitting around and hanging out with his friends with an occasional fight or two. The only real experience (long-term experience) would be the actual game, where he went across all of Headspace… which means compared to Raz, Omori only really has one adventure to his name compared to dozens making it a pretty easy call in that regard for Skill & Experience. Though Stamina was definitely a bit of a weird one, Omori is literally just a manifestation within Sunny’s Mind, it doesn’t really… seem to have Stamina, it never tires, it goes through fights back to back even when on deaths door, and can completely recover that ‘stamina’ through refusing the succumb- making it near impossible to actually tire out Omori. In comparison, Raz pretty clearly DOES have limits. I mean he’s a kid… he needs rest now and then, but he has an INSANE amount of energy when he’s a mental projection. Raz has been capable of traveling & fighting for hours on end inside Mental Worlds as-well as traversing them, doing numerous missions a day across multiple minds… though Raz’s Mental Projections, on the other hand, are different. Similar to Omori it’s not bound by physical constraints and acts as an Avatar for Raz to use inside these worlds, while they did at one point have finite energy, it was eventually made so that Raz could use indefinite energy via ‘Limitless’ meaning Raz can keep fighting mentally until his projection literally dies… and even if that’s the case it can come RIGHT BACK at its peak condition… meaning Stamina-wise it was basically a stalemate when comparing their Mental Counterparts. So Raz takes Skill & Experience, but ties with Omori in Stamina (at-least when considering the Mental Worlds).
Overall
“The only thing I can offer now...is everything I've got.”
Now with all of that on the table, it’s finally time… for me to do the thing I’ve been avoiding this entire time, which is to cover the ACTUAL DEBATE and how annoyingly convoluted it is. 😀I don’t think I need to tell you that Stats for this fight were pretty much useless, though I’ll cover them anyway… in AP they were completely dead even literally capable of matching all ends for each-other (except lifting strength which Raz had the edge in), in Speed Omori was completely blitzing Raz leaving little room to the retaliate. The big issue is that around 95% of what both can do to each-other is completely useless due to how both could just keep coming back indefinitely for as long as they wanted. While there’s definitely room to argue that Omori’s Immortality is MORE effective, the general equivalency meant that neither was going to die or give-up by conventional means. So when it came to actual abilities, what did this mean…? Well, it really meant that both were going to be going through their entire arsenals until they happened upon something that was working… which in both cases, they had inventories spanning 100s of different items & abilities… not really making this easy. Realistically, however, there was something that was always going to happen eventually, no matter how long you assume the fight is going to take… Omori’s whole thing is stopping stuff from revealing the truth about well- Something. So with Raz trying to pry so hard into Sunny’s mind, Omori is eventually just going to get sick of him and send him into Black Space. Now ironically enough this isn’t really an instant GG, Raz doesn’t resist BFR but not only does he have much better lifting strength feats (ensuring he’d be able to break out of the Red Hands that would restrain him there as long as he had his powers), he had the perfect counter to getting stuck with items like the Smelling Salts which would reset him back to square one… dropping him back into the real world where he could reenter into Headspace. Meaning one of Omori’s most commonly used & easily accessed abilities didn’t do much to deter Raz, though that’s until we get into the nitty gritty of Omori. Emotional Statuses are not your standard dose of Mind Control, as discussed before… it’s more like suggestive alterations, Omori is not forcing someone to change when they become Mad, Sad, or Happy- these conditions are simply brought on by the target’s reactions to things that Omori does (so resisting Mental Manipulation doesn’t really counter something that isn’t Manipulating anything). That means that even though Raz normally ignores Mental Abilities, Omori’s emotional statuses would still be able to affect him, and thus… so would his most deadly ability in a debate like this, which is the ‘Afraid’ Status. Now obviously as said before, Raz NORMALLY resists this sort-a stuff, it’s just its brought on by something suggestive that makes him so afraid he literally can’t act with his Special Moves- given Raz has no real resistance to Fear explicitly & has showcased instances of becoming afraid before (hell it’s even worked the same in Psychonauts with his fear of Water literally stopping the usage of his Psychic Abilities), there’s no real reason to assume that this wouldn’t work on him and depower him. Given both parties are going to be here an incredibly long time trying to figure eachother out, it was only natural that Omori would eventually use a Afraid skill to stop Raz from using skills. Though this admittedly wouldn’t completely leave him out of the game, as Afraid has showcased it eventualllllly wears off, the only problem is, it could open up for game-ender REALLY fast. There’s two different hypothetical scenarios the two are aiming for here, Raz is trying to make his way to Redspace to reveal the truth, Omori is simply trying to suppress these thoughts & get rid of Raz… so which is easier you might ask? Raz might be a adventurer at his core who is really perceptive to thoughts, but during our research it became quickly evident that he didn’t really have any easy ways to get to Redspace. Blackspace was just a bunch of disconnected voids that couldn’t be accessed from one another, so he had no real way to get closer the same way Omori could because he can’t travel across these worlds freely without actually going there first which he wouldn’t be able to unless he went to one of the secret locations in Headspace… and given Headspace is a literal universe, good luck with that! The second problem was that if Raz got caught by Omori, as said before… he’d be continuously warped to Blackspace, and if he was made Afraid beforehand… without the aid of his arms he’d have no lifting strength feats and be restrained the same way Basil was in the many endings of Omori where he was incapable of escaping. Raz does have some solace in the fact that Ford could probably break the bindings for him- but given that Omori is literally blitzing & just saw how effective it was against Raz, there’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t just restrain and make Ford afraid too… while Afraid DOES eventually wear off, the only real timeframe we have for this was when Sunny went unconscious and woke up in Headspace just fine- which given dreams only happen around 2 minutes before the individual wakes up by real life standards, means Sunny could have been incaptacitated for potentially hours (which would lineup with how he was in a Hospital by the end of the visit). Meaning yeah… if Raz gets comboed like that it’s wraps for him, Raz does have some potential ways to find out about Something or all the shady stuff happening in Headspace, but the problem is that’s going to take time… and REALISTICALLY there is like zero shot that Omori mid-battle just lets Raz go off and do his thing affecting his Mental World- and even if Omori did, the moment he senses something is off bye bye Raz goes to Blackspace then Headspace and then the fight begins once again, Raz’s biggest problem is that he’s always going to be on the backfoot. Omori has a insane amount of enemies to throw at Raz with over twenty different mental thoughts to chuck his way… infact his average companions make this more of a 4v1 than a 1v1 at anytime during their fights meaning he is getting COMPLETELY jumped from all angles which is not a good thing in a blitz like this, infact it sorta just means whenever Raz goes into Headspace he is going to get instakilled & while Raz does have counters for speed blitzing like time dilation, Omori can raise his own speed, and would have to actually get tagged with it first- which let’s be real… is not happening. It’s sorta sad to see, Raz has an abundance more skill & experience but no real way to captalize it, he’s never met a patient that has subconsciously CONTINUED to suppress memories after they’re revealed, he’d be the most persistent case he’s ever met, and with such an unsurmountable goal, ontop of the massive blitz, hordes surrounding him at all times, and the wincon Omori has to get around Raz’s immortality- it sorta just left him out of options in the longrun. Raz was a pretty amazing Psychonaut prodigy & a really tenacious psychic, but in the face of literal impossible odds, the inability to really move or escape Headspace when shit really hits the fan, and the fact that Raz is literally just speedrunning Omori to even have a chance of entering Redspace- yeah Omori was just the safer pick in the end, so in my opinion Omori would win the fight. To be clear it took a LOT of arguing to reach this point, so I’m dumbing down the debate quite a lot; so I’ll leave it to Oleg & TMK to explain the rest, love y’all! 👍(don’t think I forgot that one time you advertised in my blog you bozo, 👏 SEE YOU GUYS IN THE FLYING DUTCHMAN VS CAPTAIN LECHUCK BLOG!!!) 👏
(Art by @gizmo02)
Unfortunately, Stars forgot to add any art or thumbnails for the promotion of Flying Dutchman vs LeChuck, gladly, like a good friend that I am, I found an art on Tumblr, so take a look at it as well - Oleggator.
Team Raz:
Team Omori: The Monster King, Oleggator, Stars
Amazing Blog, guys! Is Lechuck vs. Dutchman your next time, or only Stars blog?
ReplyDeleteStars' own blog. G1²'s next MU stays Meta Knight vs Riku.
DeleteCool! Where can I find Stars Blogs?
DeleteI haven't posted it yet, but my blogs can be found here: https://starshasdiscord.blogspot.com
DeleteThank you!
Delete