Ōkami

Six Years Later....

Man, it feels great to finally finish this game and get it off my backlog; a place it has been lingering since it's release in 2006. I played a good chunk of it on PS2 when it came out, but I was unable to finish it at that time due to the discovery that I had cancer. You would think that such a negative and life-changing revelation would cause me to have sour feeling about this game; but on the contrary, I love this game to death. Throughout the past six years there have been many, many reviews of this game, most of which are positive and I tend to agree with. However, in this little write-up I am going to focus on the negative things about this game, and there are a number of issues I have with it. (Fair warning, there will be spoilers ahead)

Difference in culture, or universally annoying?

Firstly, I HATE Issun. Actually, hate isn't even an adequate word to describe how much I loathe this...thing. He is stupid, annoying and a sexist pervert. His constant, stupid, unfunny comments really ruin a huge portion of this game. The only time I laughed at something related to him was at the very end when he fell off the rainbow bridge into the river. Ha! Now, I understand the need for Issun from a gameplay and lore perspective; he is Okami's Navi equivalent, I get it. It's just the way he is portrayed that really bothers me. Then again, does anyone really like Navi?

Getting your money's worth.

I'm all for getting your moneys worth out of a game. The longer the better, right? Well, maybe not... My second issue is that the game does tend to drag on a bit towards the end. It definitely starts to wear out it's welcome at about the 25-30 hour mark. Now, granted I was doing every possible quest and side mission, so had I been focusing primarily on the main story I probably wouldn't feel this way. However, I must admit that towards the end I had completely lost interest in the story and found myself skipping through any text I could just so I could get this game finished; and this is coming from someone who loves Japanese culture and mythology. If you lose interest in the main story, what is there to keep you going forward? Little, other then the drive to just finish it, and that's not good in my opinion. The whole thing is compounded by the fake gibberish language, which normally I don't have a problem with, but it really started to get on my nerves towards the end; but I feel this is mainly a personal opinion.

Okami: Green in more ways then one!

Recycling is good, right? Sure, but maybe not so much in game design, which Clover was doing it's fair share of. My last issue is with the bosses and enemies. I feel that there was a bit too much recycling of enemies and fighting in this game, particularly the bosses. I mean, when you are having a player fight the exact same boss on three separate occasions, something is wrong. There is also too much re-skinning (or the slightly better variation, re-modeling) of generic enemies; all of which use the same fighting patterns as their slightly differently shaped/colored cousins. In fact, there are only about five or six unique enemy types. While we are on this subject, let's segue into the next issue which is directly related:

I'm a Goddess, of course I'm going to win.

This game is a little too easy. (with the exception of devil gate trials, of course) Granted, most of the combat is optional as you can just avoiding the demon scrolls, but it is still a major part of the game. The problem isn't all with the enemies, it's Amaterasu herself, or more precisely, her Celestial Brush. It breaks the game. There is really no challenge when you can just bring up your brush at any point and power slash your enemies to death, or fill the screen with fire, cast lightning bolts, etc. (oh, and time is also frozen while you draw your little pictures) To be fair, the game does try to add a little strategy to the mix by having certain enemies immune to certain elements or techniques until you do something to weaken them, but it doesn't really add much more then having battles take longer. I think one of the best ideas was having a boss who could also use brush techniques, but it's unfortunate that there wasn't more done to take advantage of this unique concept.

Beautifully Flawed

But in the grand scheme of things, this is still a wonderful game. The music is superb, it's absolutely filled to the brim with wonderful Japanese Mythology and stories, and it is quite possibly the most beautiful game I have ever played; (Uncharted and Journey are pretty close, though) and somehow the HD remake managed to make it even more beautiful. Okami does an excellent job of making you feel like you are inside a living 17th century woodblock painting; the sense of location in this game is beautifully realized. Plus it is unique, an accolade which means more and more with each Shooter and trilogy released. Issun aside, the game can be quite funny too. There are lots of little references to other Capcom games such as Viewtiful Joe, and of course, Street Fighter which I got a kick out of. I feel that maybe you get more out of this game if you know the basis behind the characters and stories, so perhaps someone familiar with Japanese Mythology will get a bit more mileage from the side quests and such. (although it did nothing for me with the main story.) It's such a shame that the company who made this gem couldn't even recoup costs after release and had to shut down. But hey, at least we got PlatinumGames and Bayonetta out Clover's closure.

I will never forget this game, it is truly one of my favorites of all time.