Unmarked spoilers below!
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General
- For Omori's birthday, Omocat posted a comic about Omori getting gifts from everyone in Headspace. At first, it's silly and heartwarming, as Omori abruptly dashes off with the gifts to their confusion, but it takes a turn for the sad when it shows why: Sunny is back in White Space on the floor, curled up and crying, and Omori's bringing the gifts to cheer him up. Sunny takes one look back at Omori and vanishes.
Headspace
- A small case: a Sprout Mole inside the dungeon is excited about getting close to leaving the dungeon, but the Sprout Mole is blocking a button. Pushing another button ends up making the Sprout Mole explode. There is no way you can convince the Sprout Mole to join you out of the dungeon; you have to press the button.
- Sweetheart marrying herself may be funny and fitting, but Aubrey brings up that it is actually sad; Sweetheart is only marrying herself because she does not think that there is anyone who can love her. Sweetheart ends up confirming this sentiment; she quickly drops any pretense of marrying herself once she sees Hero again, and she hooks back up with Captain Spaceboy after her boss fight.
- After getting dumped by Sweetheart, getting some sense beaten into him, and then crashing her wedding to propose to her, you last find Captain Spaceboy in the main route singing the blues away after Sweetheart has divorced him, the marriage barely lasting a day.
- Throughout the course of the game, the dream versions of Kel, Hero, and Aubrey slowly end up forgetting about Basil. It starts with their quest to find him getting sidetracked by trying to help Spaceboy or by Sweetheart's show, and by the time they get tricked into working in a casino, they straight-up begin to forget their quest for him in the first place, then they start to forget what he looks like, then what his personality was. Finally, after beating Humphrey, they just forget him completely. To really drive the point home, when talking with dream Mari, the "Basil" quest quietly goes away at some point in traveling through Humphrey, replaced with a quest about the "Empty House", the owner of which has become unknown to Omori's friends.
Faraway Town
- Seeing the effect that Mari's demise had on the real-life friend group is just devastating.
- For Aubrey, this wasn't the only thing that went bad in her life. From what we can tell, Aubrey had problems making friends when the group found her, and then the group ended up drifting away from the trauma. Eventually, her father left her, with her mother seemingly not even there mentally — when you finally visit her house, it's not in the best shape. And of course, thanks to Kel, she gets shunned by random people in her mourning place (even though she has been attending the church for years).
- Hero was also heavily affected by Mari's death, shutting himself indoors initially until Kel tried to forcibly reach out to him. When he returns home on Two Days Left, he's had most of his life together, come back from college for the summer and being pretty successful for himself. If you try to revisit the Graveyard with him at the first opportunity, he refuses, saying he's not emotionally ready yet. Towards the end of the night, after Sunny's abruptly roused by music in the piano room, Hero comes in, curious about the music, and encourages Sunny to head back to sleep. Leave and re-enter the room, and you can see Hero crying over the piano, still mourning the loss of Mari.
- Kel is faring better than the others, but it's clear that he's still hurting despite his cheery demeanor. He tells Sunny at Mari's grave that he attempted to comfort his big brother, and Hero responded by screaming at him, saying things that Kel admits were hurtful enough to block out. Their parents heard the commotion and went to comfort Hero first, ignoring Kel and leaving Hero himself to comfort his little brother after he came to his senses. It's implied this incident had a lot of impact on Kel's self-image, as later on he admits that he avoided his friends out of fear that he'd "somehow make things worse" again.
- The group is all hit hard by Mari's death, but Basil is utterly broken by it. Partly because he helped Sunny fake Mari's suicide in order to protect his friend. Basil has become a Stepford Smiler in deep denial, to the point he has become convinced that a monster (SOMETHING) was responsible for killing Mari and everything else bad that happens. The boss battle with Basil is basically a showdown between two scared little kids unable to process fully what they've done, with Basil screaming, pleading, and crying for Sunny not to leave him alone. And if Sunny doesn't confront Basil at all, the latter will kill himself rather than endure any more suffering.
- Kel's accusations in the middle of a sermon at church exacerbate Aubrey's already poor reputation, so there's no wonder why she just lashes out and starts a fight. But while the fight is progressing (and for a while after it ends), the onlooking churchgoers have taken notice and are passing around judgmental comments on Aubrey with nary a clue to what went down before. It's not hard to feel sorry for her at this point, and if you do win the fight, Kel also expresses regret with inciting the fight.
- The scene in Basil's bathroom. Earlier that day, Basil finally got to see Sunny after four years of silence, and with Kel's help, he recovered his beloved photo album (despite being incomplete). When it looks like things finally will start getting better for him, he finds out that Sunny is moving away in three short days. His best friend, the only one he can talk with about what they did, and the one reason he did what he did is leaving, practically abandoning him again — and this time for good. It's heartbreaking seeing him break down in tears when Sunny, with no way to comfort him, can only walk out of the bathroom.Basil: Don't leave me alone... Not again...
- The scene in the real world where Kel and Sunny confront Aubrey for bullying Basil, by their old hangout spot near the lake. Aubrey's new friends have left after Aubrey tells Kel and Sunny to leave. Kel gives Aubrey a What the Hell, Hero? for treating her old friends like crap and acting like Mari's death didn't affect them either. Aubrey shakes in rage, and then turns her fury on Basil, pushing him into the lake claiming he did something terrible. Then he starts to drown. Kel screams at Sunny to save Basil after calling out Aubrey, who's stammering she didn't mean it while still looking angry. Sunny has to face his fear of drowning to get Basil out of the water.
- A Mind Screw event occurs: Mari appears underwater and starts guiding Sunny. Sunny then has to leave her to find Basil and save him. A soft piano track plays before Something drags him down. During the boss battle, someone reassures Sunny to not give up, and keep breathing. The only way to win is to Persist; even then, Mari has to reach down for a drowning Sunny. It's revealed later that this was Sunny recalling when Mari saved his life from the lake when he almost drowned as a kid.
- It turns out that Hero got Basil and Sunny out of the water. He assesses they need to get Basil home and warm quickly, gently picking him up. Aubrey calls after them, asking where they're going, but Kel shuts her down. He says she's done enough harm already, and she got what they wanted: they're leaving. All she can do is stand in place in My God, What Have I Done? mode.
- Polly's reaction when Hero knocks at the door with a semiconscious, waterlogged Basil. Hero explains to her it's lucky he didn't get too much water in his lungs, but Basil needs a change of clothes and a warm bed.
- After getting Basil home, Hero explains how he came to be there in time: he heard that Sunny and Kel were looking for Basil, and logically concluded that they'd be in the park. Then he heard the fighting and commotion. Hero is shocked when Kel says that Aubrey pushed Basil into the lake and nearly drowned him. Kel bitterly tells him that Aubrey became all messed up and she's not their friend anymore. When Hero muses that maybe he shouldn't have left for college, Kel reassures him that he saved Basil and Sunny's lives.
One Day Left
- Basil's repeated deaths in Black Space are as heartbreaking as they are horrifying, as you finally find him after spending the entire game looking for him, only for him to die in all manners of gruesome deaths, like getting decapitated by an elevator or being Eaten Alive by spiders. But perhaps the worst is the last room you find him in, which takes on the look of the Neighbor's Room. You find him, and then you find Hero, who leads both of you to Aubrey and Kel. Hero blows a whistle and Kel beans Basil with a couple of balls and Aubrey finishes him off with a swing of her bat, leaving him to bleed out and die. After spending three days with your friends trying to find Basil, with your friends gradually forgetting about him, it's gutwrenching to see facsimiles of your friends brutalize him.
- On the last day, you can arrive at an emotional scene where Aubrey places a pinwheel on the stump, formerly the tree where Mari ostensibly hung herself. She says that when Sunny stopped going to school, she visited Basil, and wanted to look at his photo album. Someone, ostensibly Basil, had blacked out the photos including Mari, as if they were trying to erase them. Aubrey mistakenly thought that Basil did this and lashed out by stealing the album and bullying him. She cries Tears of Remorse, saying that she ought to have understood how he was feeling rather than wallowing in her own grief and cutting herself off from everyone. Kel then apologizes for staying out of everyone's drama rather than comforting Aubrey, and Hero admits that as the oldest of the group, he was the most responsible. Cue a Group Hug.
- The truth of Mari's death is equal parts tear jerker and Nightmare Fuel: Sunny and Mari had an argument after Sunny smashed his violin in frustration. When trying to get away from her, Sunny accidentally pushed her down the stairs, killing her. Made especially tragic as up to this point, it had been shown that Sunny loved and admired his sister immensely, and the hidden descriptions of the photos make Sunny's confusion and shock over what he did evident.
- Of special note, the hidden descriptions show that Sunny didn't get the idea to fake Mari's suicide. Far from it, his first response was Please Wake Up and apologizing for hurting her. He even tucked her into bed in a desperate attempt to help her. Basil had to order him to take Mari's body outside and grab a nearby jumprope.
Hikikomori Route
- If you've gone down the Hikikomori Route and reached One Day Left, you get to properly fight the three phobia-based Somethings. Do so and the piano in the Lost Library, which leads to those three boss fights, fades out of existence, implying Omori's straight-up repressing all Sunny's unpleasant memories of Mari. To rub it in, the first time you awaken in the real world from that point on, you can access the piano room proper — but the piano is straight-up invisible despite you being able to bump into it, and trying to interact with the squares it normally occupies gives "There is nothing here" as a real-time demonstration of the strength of Omori's repression. Also, all the books in the Lost Library become scribbled out, as if Sunny has completely purged his memory of the time he spent with his friends in the real world. The following excerpt included...Book excerpt: "...He is happy... very, very happy. And he makes a vow to himself, that no matter what, he will remember this moment forever."
- In general, the entire revisit is this. In a sense, the Lost Library isn't a location so much as it's a Boss Fight with what's left of Sunny himself. The books in this library, protected by the Something enemies and phobia bosses, were Sunny's most cherished memories. This isn't just an Optional Boss like Perfectheart, it's Sunny's unconscious effort to protect his memories from a monster that's consumed him. It's probably not a coincidence that once they're gone, Black Space 2 is unlocked.
- The effects of Captain Spaceboy's mistreatment by Sweetheart are made clear when you ascend to the top of Snowglobe Mountain to find the broken Space Ex-Husband letting himself waste away in the cold. The battle that ensues shows he can never get over his former lover as he periodically reminisces about all kinds of memories relating to her, and the BGM itself
contains a haunting version of his Special Mixtape. You can't help but feel bad for him after all he's been put through. - Black Space 2 is mostly horrifying, but there's a point in the playground in one of the Omori heads, containing nothing but an empty infinite hallway of Kel, Aubrey, and Hero. Given the rather uncomfortable atmosphere, one would want to approach them. You can't. Sunny has irreparably broken his bonds with his friends, and no matter how much he yearns for it, all he has, and will ever have, is an increasingly inaccurate facsimile of the friends he used to have.
- It's not the only commentary. If you look very deeply, one of the harder Easter Eggs to find in Lost at Sea is a well, which leads to a long ladder to one of the deepest places in the setting, perhaps the deepest in the lore. What is it? A twin bedroom. Moving the left bednote and going just a little farther and you get a blurred message that can only be read one letter at a time. What does it say? "I'm sorry." Omori may have destroyed the memories of Mari, but the guilt will always be there.
- The console ports include a special, as harrowing as it is sorrowful, "polaroid hunt" that is triggered inside the playground's leftmost intact Omori head, where the sleeping Sunny can be found and interacted with; narration states he's "breathing steadily", and upon trying to leave you get photographed out of nowhere. After seeing the first polaroid, Mari takes Sunny's place in his bed and examining her shows she isn't breathing. From here, upon leaving Sunny's bedroom, you find more polaroids featuring a distorted Omori slowly transitioning with Mari's hanged corpse behind him up to the final polaroid smash-cutting to a lonely, crying, demonic-looking Sunny horrified over killing his sister... It ends with Omori stabbing himself, then waking up in place of Sunny in the same bedroom. No matter how many times Sunny dreams of Mari being alive and well, it is all just in his escapist fantasies and given the Hikikomori route's circumstances, he has turned away from the chance to find solace and happiness.
- The final fight of the console-exclusive Boss Rush with Basil in your party is against… Mari, Sunny's beloved sister. Even though it's explicitly a projection with the help of Humphrey's tech, you're controlling Omori and Basil, both wielding a knife and garden shears respectively, against a boss with an innocent battle theme who refuses to hurt you. Getting to this fight knowing the truth behind Mari's death is just a load of salt in the wound, especially when it then abruptly cuts to a fearful Sunny and Basil staring at Mari's hanging body. So much for repressing Sunny's guilt.
Endings
- Even though we don't see much, the effects of Basil's suicide in the neutral endings are shocking, especially considering you see everybody else's reaction first.
- Aubrey is unable to stand and is almost begging for forgiveness. Considering she doesn't know the truth behind Basil's depression, she's probably assuming that her actions played a major role in his suicide and is seriously blaming herself. And on top of that, she doesn't seem to emote at all — eyes covered in shade, blank expression… one friend committing suicide was already barely enough for her to handle. When Basil does the same? She's just done.
- It's heartbreaking seeing Kel's reaction, who's crying and confused, first asking why Basil killed himself, then asking Sunny why this keeps happening to them. It's a huge contrast to his normal self.
- Hero is barely managing to keep it together, telling Sunny it's best if he leaves since he's supposed to be moving and having a fresh new start.
- Entering Basil's room shows him slumped against a wall, with Something sprawled behind Basil and leaking from a wound in his stomach, shaped to look like blood. Upon trying to enter the room again, the door will simply vanish, with the flavor text saying "There's nothing here" — Sunny has gotten so used to ignoring things right in his plain sight, that he's simply not seeing the door anymore.
- Made worse by the fact that Sunny can either end up being stalked by Something, or be Driven to Suicide himself, although we don't see how his friends react to both Basil and Sunny committing suicide, without knowing why. And even if he doesn't, this is the last time the gang has ever seen Sunny.
- The friend group isn't the only one broken by Basil's suicide, Polly is as well. She spent two years with Basil's family, and just early that day his grandmother, her primary charge, died. And now the child she was expected to look after, provide for and care for, possibly the one she looked as a little brother, killed himself because (in her limited viewpoint) he didn't see her enough as family and in his grief over his grandmother, he decided he couldn't live alone. No wonder she thinks she has failed at everything she was supposed to be doing for this small, broken family."Why...Why am I so useless?"
- Basil's breakdown on the main route if you choose to save him. He's wide awake, eyes twitching, and says that he remembers what Sunny did. Basil says that of course, Sunny wouldn't kill his own sister, that "something" was behind him. The same "something" blacked out his photos, confirming Aubrey was wrong. "Sunny would never do that." With the room in black and blue tones, he screams that it's not fair Sunny is leaving him, that Sunny is not someone who gives up on him by moving away. Basil declares that he won't let his friend leave. Then he screams that Something is behind Sunny and pulls out garden shears, swearing to save him.
- Take away the format of the boss battle, and it's Basil having a psychotic break while lashing out at the friend unwittingly responsible for it. Sunny was very unlucky that no one else heard Basil screaming, or he could have avoided needing to defend himself.
- The fact that you don't have a choice but to fight Basil if you want to save him. Using Sunny's coping mechanisms fail in the face of a beloved friend attacking him. Running is also not an option.
- The Final Boss battle, with Omori wailing on Sunny while simultaneously delivering a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, culminating in saying that "[he] should just die".
- The music playing during it does not help. Rather than being epic boss music, it's a violin-style dirge.Because this time, A piano isn't the main instrument.
Because this time Mari isn't the one playing the song.
Because this time, its you, you have to move on.
Because she can't play the piano for you anymore.
— GP Link 1223- Omori has a Thousand-Yard Stare during each phase of the boss battle, with black holes instead of eyes. It's understandable; when Sunny confronts him and accepts his guilt, Omori will disappear. Omori is not a real person: he's a defense mechanism, a maladaptive one, made to be the hero. The Tomato in the Mirror has hit him badly, and he rebels against his creator to fulfill his purpose.
- When you reach the fifth phase, Omori stops mincing words and goes straight for the source of Sunny's guilt. It's already been a tough time confronting the Awful Truth himself, but just outright telling it rubs salt in the wound. And unlike every phase before, Omori starts using skills that inflict Afraid on Sunny, threatening to push him into his old ways.You killed Mari. She loved you and you killed her.
Hero loved her and you killed her.
Aubrey loved her and you killed her.
Kel loved her and you killed her.
Basil loved her and you killed her.
You loved her and you killed her. - To twist the knife, there is no way for Sunny to win: the only way Omori will stop is for Sunny to accept his flaws and to move on from his guilt or give up and let Omori take over.
- The music
- The act that allows Sunny to overcome Omori's sheer oppressive nature and suicidal urges? To play his part of the recital he and Mari were going to do together, causing him to fully remember Mari's hand in his life as well as her part in the duet. By confronting and completing the very thing that caused him to lash out at her by accident, he finalizes his own redemption within his mind in a beautiful collage of his memories with her — which still ends on a solemn note and her piano fading away, since even with his depression subsided, he may never get over his grief of her being gone forever.
- One of the heaviest hits in the duet cutscene comes at the end of the Good-Times Montage, where Mari is shown saving Sunny from drowning in the lake at their hangout spot. Afterwards, we see her tearfully hugging him… at which point the scene Jump Cuts to an older Sunny, sitting alone with a Thousand-Yard Stare. It's a painful summation of how close the two were and how deeply Mari's death has affected Sunny.
- Omori's departure in the good ending. He drops the knife, approaches Sunny, and hugs him. Then he vanishes.
- The bad ending, in which Sunny succumbs to his suicidal depression (as represented by Omori) and throws himself off the hospital roof.
- To elaborate, Sunny, unable to defeat Omori, gives up fighting him and allows Omori to consume his mind. The player ends up in White Space as Omori and exits to the Neighbor's Room, where he meets his friends again (except with the music a bit slower) as they head off for another Headspace adventure before the game cuts back to the real world as Sunny kills himself. It all represents Sunny, despite all that he went through, being unable to move on from Mari's death and choosing to turn his head from reality one last time.
- In all the endings where Sunny kills himself, we never actually find out how his mother reacts to his death. Perhaps it's for the best.
- Not even the Golden Ending is exempt from this.
- When Sunny wakes up in the hospital after his fight with Basil, the first thing he does is burst into tears. It seems that having rid himself of Omori, the manifestation of his suicidal depression and denial, Sunny is finally able to process the emotions he's been repressing for so long. Seeing the stoic, emotionless, shut-in finally able to feel something is as heart-breaking as it is poignant.
- Even though both Sunny and Basil live, and in the best possible ending (if you water Headspace-Basil's flowers) where the two of them finally see it in themselves to move on, we're never shown how Aubrey, Kel, and Hero reacted to Sunny breaking the news of how Mari really died; when he starts to tell the truth, the game cuts to the credits. The game doesn't guarantee that they forgive Sunny and Basil the same way those two forgave themselves. You don't get to see the four of them say goodbye to Sunny either, assuming they even did. What if they conclude that Sunny's and Basil's mistakes are unforgivable and leave them for good?
- The good ending credit roll takes place from the POV of Sunny riding in his mother's car as they roll down the road towards their new home, all while the ending theme "Good Morning" plays. It really settles in that Sunny's adventures are now over both in Faraway Town and in Headspace (due to Omori ceasing to exist), and now he must move on to a new chapter of his life.
