Okage: Shadow King

I'm on the edge with Okage, it had alot of flaws, but the creative storyline, funny dialog and great characters saved it for me. The characters could get a little long winded in the tooth though. The dungeons were repetitive and generic, but luckily they're short. The random battles can get really hard at times, but you can run away very easily. The loading times are terrible, and I had some really bad slow-downs in a few spots, the bridge at Highland was the worst. I had fun with it though, nice short game.

----------Battle System----------
The battle system is a basic turn based Final Fantasy clone, with a small twist. When using regular attacks, all your characters will jump in and fight at the same time if time perfectly. The enemies can do the same thing as well, so this speeds the battles up a lot, but can make it a little harder. Only 3 people per battle, and for some reason the Magic Points (LP in Okage) is divided into a pot, no one has their set Magic limit. If a character uses a spell in or off battle, it counts against everyone. Although, some spells take away from your HP though, so that evens things out a bit. You can only attack "groups" of enemies, similar enemies are grouped together. You can't attack a certain enemy unless they're grouped by themselves. Sometimes Stan will join in the battle, but that’s very rare to happen. The only time you can switch your characters is in a hotel. You can't got to your menu and do it, or even do it at a save point.

If your main character (Ari) dies in battle, the game is OVER and you start back to your last save. This is the most annoying thing about the game and makes it a bit difficult if you don't watch his HP. Your characters don't get alot of HP in the game either. Leveling up takes a while too. You gain a level after every 100 EXP, but as you level up the less EXP you get from the same monster. This reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics or games of that ilk.

The enemies are semi-random, as in the sense that it takes about 10-15 seconds for them to appear and follow you or run into you for a battle. You can run away from them, but you'll eventually run into one. The enemies (except for bosses) appear as Ghosts on screen in the field, but as you fight them they're usually something stupid like a killer Onion, or tree trunk, a little generic and quirky at the same time. The most ghosts I’ve seen on the field / dungeon screen is four. The ghosts appear as Red, Blue and White ghosts, so far I don't think there’s a difference to them though.

Your only equipment in the game is a weapon, armor and accessory. You won't be equipping to many of these, as there’s not a whole lot of towns or chests in the game to find / buy them. Everything but accessories are character specific.

There’s a few sidequests to find as well, but most of them are short and not very satisfying. There's a Zelda-like trading sidequest, which is really easy to figure out. There a bunch of Tiny Gears hidden within the game, they're invisible and you just run into them. The puzzles are very simple to grasp aswell. The only puzzles in the dungeons are destroying Urns (that unlocks the next floor), stepping on green circles (that unlocks a door, lowers a grate or rises a platform) and invisible walls. All the dungeons play out like this, so it gets repetitive.


----------Characters / Story----------
All the characters have a ton of personality. The exception to that is Ari. The only time Ari speaks is when you're telling him what to say, and its either a positive, negative or sarcastic / no remark. Stan (your evil Shadow King) does most of the talking for Ari. The townsfolk have more interesting backgrounds and dialog than Ari in the game.

Overall the story is fun and quirky. The dialog is hilarious at times, possibly on par with Paper Mario.

----------Graphics----------
I love the character design style. The graphics reminded me of any cutesy Japanese RPG, Lego characters and Nightmare Before Christmas. There's even a hill that curls up like in Nightmare too.

All the characters look great (but Ari, who looks like a little girl). Even the sub-character townsfolk have alot of personality to them. The towns are big and there's alot of houses to visit. The enemies on the other hand could of had more thought put into them.

The only problem is the graphics look a bit dated and the colors are really dull. The loading is god awful too. The dungeons are very generic sewer based levels. Almost all the dungeons look exactly the same too. The camera is fixed for the most part, but you can turn in a 360 direction. Most of the time I'm fighting the camera trying to get a good view. Sometimes if there’s a large structure in the way, or ceiling, it will block my entire view as well.

There's no cut scenes in the game, except for the intro after the title of the game that explains the origin. The status screen is ugly and cluttered. The dialog screen is very bland and hard to read sometimes. There's no flash to the special attacks, for the most part all the magic attacks look the same.


----------Sound----------
I liked the music a lot in the game, there’s a bit of diversity to it. At points it can go from a slow droning acoustic piece to an upbeat jazzy tune. Outside of the rememberable songs, there’s not lot of production value to them, this still sounds like PS1 / SNES area music. The victory music is some of the best out there though.

The sound effects really lack in this game, really boring stuff. The biggest beef I have against in the sound department is no character voice overs at all! No grunts, sighs, anything. I can understand not having all the dialog voiced out, because this game is full of dialog with different directions it can lead, and all the sub-characters like to rabble on and on, but the main characters have no voice at all? That's hard to stomach for a PS2 game, there should be at least some expressions to get a sense of what they sound like. The only voice overs in the game is the narrator, and he's annoying.


----------World Map----------
There's no world map to view, the only map you get in the game is when you're walking in a field. The world is pretty much a straight forward linear world, you go from town to field, town to field. There's no vehicles or any other transportation, but there are warp areas you can find in the game.

The world is pretty small, there's only 5 towns and 5 fields overall. In the fields you'll find save points, warp points, treasures, circus tents, houses, and the hidden tiny gears. As the game progresses you'll unlock the dungeons scattered within them too.


----------Time to Complete Game (First run through, last save before final boss)----------
27:14

There's no reward for beating it, although there was hints of a sequel, doubt that will happen though.