Quick Look: Ōkami HD

Yeah, it doesn't agree with my eyes at all. Everything just looks out of focus.

I got the platinum trophy on this re-release. I enjoyed pretty much all of it, even the parts that people here didn't like! Well, except the fishing. Not so much that. Anyways, Okami is a fantastic game and everyone should definitely check it out.

There have been faaaar less flattering Quick Looks than this. For example, Dan's look at Yooka-Laylee, or Brad on that stealth game.

I played this a lot on PS2 but didn't finish it. I remember grtting pretty far in it I think, the story just continuing on into enemy territory.

IMO, Okami was never that good. It was a B-Zelda with a cool art style (that was often grating in its devotion to the concept).

Oh hey it is the best game/Zelda ever made!

Always meant to play this. Maybe for this, Okami's 43rd re-release, I might actually do it.

This game has been on my ever growing list of games that I have said, "Hey that looks very cool!", and never actually got around to playing. Might need to change that.

Another attempt to resell Okami. I've never felt a greater disconnect between how good a game looks and how unpleasant it is to play. And any feeling of grandeur is instantly squashed by the irritating comic relief character who takes center stage.

was twilight princess inspired by this game?

Talk about verbose and story heavy games - I bought Persona 5 over the sale and 20 hours in I'm still doing tutorials and it feels like the game hasn't even began to REALLY open up. Great game, super stylish and I like a lot of the characters (surprisingly after all the hate I read online I kinda like Morgana) but booooy it's a long opening to what I'm led to believe is an even longer game.

You are wrong on that one. Converting a motion blurring algorithm originally written for PS2 architecture to a modern renderer and maintaining its appearance was quite likely a lot more difficult than just stripping out the motion blur entirely. This is generally the case with any frame buffer based effects. Spoken as someone who has actually done some graphics programming.

This game is designed to look like a water color painting. Note that the blurring on deep blacks is far more pronounced than other colors. This isn't just generic motion blurring, the game specifically makes black details blur and shift around to simulate the way that black water color paint runs. For evidence, watch from 0:45 to 0:52 where the camera isn't moving at all. The black shading details on the landscape shift around while all other details are stationary. The blurring is very much an artistic choice, like it or not.

I feel like when the game calls her "mother to us all", it's a pretty big hint!

For the record I think Dan is 100% wrong about the Wii version of this game. The IR pointer stuff was the part of Wiimote controls that worked pretty much ideally; it was gyro-motion that was finicky and unreliable (MotionPlus made it a lot better, but still not perfect).

I like my handhelds....the DS version is alright?

Something about the motion blur in this game seems incredibly excessive. It was uncomfortable to look at.

yes

Plus 4K.

Didn't end up getting right away on PC when I heard about the 30fps lock, but I'll grab it when it's cheap.

@lawgiver: They came out the same year, so probably not...

Played through the remastered version on PS3, watched this for 2 minutes and now I wanna play it again.

You know the release schedule is slow when they find time to make another Quick Look of a port, that's basically the exact same as the previous release. The one new thing this release is supposed bring to the table is 4k support, but the PSN store page says that 1080p is the highest resolution. But I've seen people mention that it does have 4k support, though, so I guess it's probably there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see more video of the GB crew playing Okami, but I can't see a single reason for this to be a Quick Look, since there's already one up on the site for the same HD release. It even shares to the very same trophy list as the PS3 version, so there's nothing new to unlock there if you already played did that on PS3.

DS version is actually the sequel

@basketsnake: the DS game is good, but keep in mind it's actually a different game (called Okamiden)

It's very similar though

Watching the battles, it seems Abby is under the impression that she needs to use the brush waaaay more than she actually needs to. That would be a really tedious way to play the game. For the basic battles, it's far faster to just mash out attacks and only use the brush when you specifically need to defeat enemy block techniques.

Also there are two drawing speeds depending on the button you hold. Making a straight line for the swipe is far easier using the faster speed.

Just don't call her a cat

@mythdark: They have the same trophies, but I don't think they literally share the same list of trophies. By that I mean, you can buy both and platinum both individually, that is. If you couldn't, they would be listed as the same game purchase on PSN.

Dante's Inferno?

@basketsnake said:

The DS only has Okamiden, the sequel.

It coming to PC/Xbox One is also notable IMO.

Nope - it's literallya shared list.

@efesell: Its certainly long but the last chunk gets really weird in a great way.Ive finished it on both the PS2 an d PS3.

The comic relief character gets an entire side chapter explaining his backstory that goes a long way in helping understand him, but he is fairly grating early on.

17:23 "Oooh, make that tree...good." -Dan Ryckert, author

Also just sheer amount of boring text you have to go trough in this game. Irember that it was bad even by the standards of it's day when it came out.

Doing the brush strokes for every combat situation like Abby wants to do, seems like a bad way to play the game. It looked like it took longer than mashing the attack button.

Yeah, i wish Dan was driving and Abby was the 2nd seat.

+1 godhood is the most inexplicable stat buff I've ever seen.

I was always interested in playing this game, but Amaterasu looks blurry.

So other than being released to newer consoles and PC, there's nothing actually new here compared to when it was released as Okami HD in 2012?

Then the only thing that makes sense for this Quick Look to get greenlit during a production meeting, would be that 1) they either totally forgot about Okami HD, or 2) not aware of its existence to begin with. Actually, the way this Quick Look opens with that Okami now is available in HD, suggests that both of those examples are 100% possible. Kinda sloppy, but sure that's just dumb human error, it happens. Which is very ironic, though, since they work for a website that basically is a wiki for games.

The very moment I saw this on the schedule my first thought was "Didn't they Quick Look this already?" *10 seconds later* "Yes, yes they did."

Correct. I just started this the other day, and it said to attack them till they turn grey, then use the brush to finish them.

How did Abby play for 5 hours and not invert the camera? Haha. I get that maybe Mario Sunshine has warped your worldview, but most games not made by crazy people do allow you to choose whether the camera is inverted or not. Literally the first thing I did when starting Okami was mash buttons until I found the camera menu.

I think Abby should do a little more research if she's gonna be the "host" of a quick look. Might be a good thing to keep in mind for next time.

I mean no one else hosting a Quick Look does so may as well keep things rolling.

Sadly this was a pretty lackluster QL. If it wasn't for Dan's 10+ year old knowledge of the game, I wouldn't have gotten any real information for a video that was almost 50 minutes other than the bit I already knew, it has a cool art style.

Heads up to anyone on PC, you turn off the motion blur and bloom (along with a ton of other options) with the Special K mod. It's the same mod that made NieR: Automata playable on PC.

I don't understand how so many incorrect things about the game could be said so early on, when the game makes them explicitly obvious:

• Camera control is the first option in the menu.
• The game walks you through using praise to level up.
• Every character in the game refers to Ammie as a Goddess.

Can't spell okami without the "Oh" and lemme tell ya that oh its so good!

@efesell: Same.

@steevl: that really sucks dude. think of going back to okami as a memoir to your cat

I remember this is one of the only games I did everything then got to the very last boss before credits (boss rush), said to hell with that, and never played again.

It is an inefficient way to do the fights, yes. There is a combo system as well as different weapons with different attacks. I remember using a combo that involved attacking normally in to a launch move followed by using the brush stroke to finish.

@jonny_anonymous: Yeah I thought about that one too but of course that's more based on the Divine Comedy.