Ōkami

Okami is a game developed by the late Clover Studios. Clover Studios are a development studio funded by Capcom. Some of their most famous titles include Viewtiful Joe and the upcoming God Hand. Okami is one of the last must have UK Playstation 2 titles to come before the dawning of the Playstation 3. The game follows the journey of the sun goddess Amaterasu on her quest to vanquish the evil that has plagued the beautiful land of Nippon. On this quest you will encounter a vast amount of memorable characters and help them on their own personal journeys like any good protagonist should.

When the game starts you are introduced to the world with a little back story. Basically 100 years ago there was a white wolf, that with the help of the hero Nagi, vanquished a demon named Orochi and sealed him with Nagi’s sword. The adventure begins with the sword being removed and the world is thrown into turmoil. You are Amaterasu, the sun god and the white wolf that helped save Nippon 100 years ago, reborn but considerably weakened. The game is very similar to the Legend of Zelda games for a number of reasons. Amaterasu, much like Link doesn’t say a word, so to help the flow of the game and the story, Amaterasu is given a companion to do the talking for her. This character is a little tom thumb like character named Issun, who sits on the end of Amaterasu’s nose for the most part of the journey. Issun offers advice and talks to the game's various characters, much like Midna recently did for Link. Issun is a wandering artist, who joins Amaterasu because he wants to learn about the gods and their powers. Amaterasu and Issun set out to fix the world and destroy the evil that has been released.

Okami does offer one major gameplay innovation that will be the main driving force of the whole game; the celestial brush. The celestial brush basically works by stopping time and allowing the player to draw certain symbols, for example, drawing a line through an enemy or a tree would perform a cutting move. There are 13 brush styles and some have numerous uses. It all works wonderfully; you might think all the time stopping would detract from the fluidity of the game, but it doesn’t at all. The brush is used in a number of clever ways like drawing bombs and dropping them on monsters, exposing rooms behind cracked walls, and pretty much anything that you feel needs blowing up. The majority of the brush powers are used for dragging certain elements into contact with other elements, for example, if there is a wall of ice in front of you, you will need to 'drag' a flame over to it by drawing a line connecting the two. The brush is best used in 'interactive' cut scenes, but I'll explain that more later on. When the brush works it really is a fantastic gameplay element, but on the occasion it can be difficult to get the shapes spot on, and more importantly an angle to see the object you wish to manipulate, but for the majority it’s incredible.

The celestial brush isn’t the only gameplay element that the game offers. Like I said before, the game plays a lot like the Legend of Zelda games, but Okami seems to take their formula and improve on it in a number of ways. Like Zelda you are set in a massive world, and also similar to Zelda, you will only see about 85% of the world in the main game, due to the massive amount of side quests and secrets the game offers. The money in the game is put to good use as well. You can buy a whole range of useful items that can give you things like; infinite ink for a short time, increased defence for a short time, increased attack for a short time, etc. The game also supplies a range of weapons for you to use. The weapons are split into 3 categories. Firstly there are reflectors. You start out with a reflector, and as weapons go, they are a good all-rounder. Secondly you can get rosary beads, which are like a kind of whip, which are fast with a good range. Finally you can acquire swords. Swords act as your strong, slow weapon. The weapon system allows you to equip a weapon to main or sub. Main weapons fulfil the tasks I mentioned earlier, whereas sub weapons are used slightly differently to add some customisation to your character.

When running around the map, Amaterasu leaves behind a trail of flowers. This is a fantastic touch and it's appreciated when you have such a vast world to run across. The way Amaterasu jumps can be a little annoying especially when you approach a ledge of some description, as to prevent you from falling, the game will stop you as you reach the ledge. However, if you do want to jump off you still get stopped and just kind of awkwardly fall down. The interactive cutscenes I mentioned earlier are also a great element of the game. Throughout the game your task is mostly to help people, but because most people won’t see you as a god, they don’t always know it's you who is helping them. Therefore during certain parts of the game, your 'divine intervention' is needed and this comes in the form of interactive cutscenes. A character will be doing something and you will need to use your celestial brush to intervene.

The game's visuals are amongst the PS2's most impressive. The game uses a cell shading style very similar to the one Clover Studios used in the Viewtiful Joe games. However, Okami looks more hand drawn, which fits perfectly with the games artistic theme. When looking at the screenshots it's hard to imagine the game running smoothly, especially on the PS2 hardware. But the game runs without fault and for the most part, looks better than some of the Xbox 360 games. During the game you have to purify areas polluted with evil by cleansing them with your celestial brush or by defeating monsters in the area. Once this is done you are truly treated with a cutscene where the evil is almost washed away by a sea of flowers, and it looks absolutely amazing. The only flaw to be found is while during cutscenes, Amaterasu doesn’t sport your weapon of choice, but instead the default weapon that you start the game with. This isn’t really a problem but a point worth noting.

The sound is very traditional to Japan, and goes very well with most of the game's looks and theme. However, the talking 'noises' the characters make can get very annoying. There are certain characters that it sounds almost charming with, like Issun, Susano and Nagi, but mostly it's just irritating. The 'noises' sound like a mix between the voices on Chibi Robo and Animal Crossing. It's a shame because it’s really the only solid let down of an otherwise excellent game.

Before, I mentioned the vast amount of side quests the game contains, but as well as side quests there is a wealth of other non linear content. There are a number of mini-games, for example there is a game where you are supposed to dig down into the ground to find water to fill a hot spring, and during this you must lead a character down to search for the right spot. There are numerous other mini-games, ranging from chasing down thieves to digging up turnips. The list could go on. There are also a number of features to unlock by completing the game.

The story and characters are the game's best feature, however, Issun, your travelling companion, becomes one of the most memorable characters in games to date. He has a number of humorous and risky one liners becoming the source of most of the game's humour. Generally all the characters are designed astoundingly well. The story goes on to surpass the initial task and makes for one of the longest games to be released in a while. The game took me about 48 hours to finish, and only really scraping the surface of the game's extra content in my first play. It also needs to be said that the game is very funny, and while the humour is present though most of the game, it doesn’t distract or take anything away from the severity of the truly epic story.

by James Considine, Group_C