N+ Review: Okami (Wii)
By -MK. Saturday, 31. May 2008, 17:27:38
Okay look everyone. I admit it. I'm a jaded gamer who has the attention span the size of a hey what's that? Because of this, I rarely finish games. Sometimes, I get lost and lose interest. Other times, I'll get right to the end of the game and decide to call it quits. Most of the time, however, a new game comes out and it's shiny. And I get distracted. This is why I prefer arcade-type games where you can beat them in one sitting. I don't have to worry about where I was headed before when I boot up a save. House of the Dead and Virtua Fighter beckon my name. I was raised by Sonic the Hedgehog in his glory days. Power Stone, anyone? Sega and Capcom have always been there for me.
Don't get me wrong, I love adventures. I just don't have the patience/attention span to finish most of them. Of the few I have completed, I've done so because they are particularly amazing. First to strike my mind is Grandia II and everything Shenmue. However, I've never finished a Final Fantasy game. Ever. I haven't even beaten Pokemon Pearl (please don't hurt me, Nintendo Defense Force)! The only reason I quit playing No More Heroes (which is made of badass) was I got hooked to Team Fortress 2. I loved the hell out of Shining Force until I realized how much more Gunstar Heroes I could be playing. Balloon Fight has destroyed any remaining chance of completing anything (special note: Balloon Fight owns). For the most part, I simply can't get into anything that takes me more than 10 hours to complete.
Long-winded introductions aside, I felt it was very necessary to express how hard it is for me to stay focused to stress this very point: Okami is one of the best damn games I have ever played.
Never before have I put other games on hold so I can complete this 30+ hour adventure. In fact it took me a little over 41 hours to get through my FIRST playthrough. Normally, a game like Mario Kart Wii or Wii Fit would come out to distract me and I'd forget about the whole game. I bought them when they came out, but a few hours later I ended up just booting up Okami again. Even Team Fortress 2 was put aside! So many sentries were left unasploded! I think if Okami has enough to keep me hooked for 41 hours, you should like it, too. The sad truth is Okami has been released before for the PS2. It received high review scores--yet no one bought it. Capcom thought the game should be given a second chance so they got Ready At Dawn studios to port it to the Wii. All the reviews already out keep comparing the Wii port to the original Playstation 2 version. They nitpick and nitpick. Their incredibly myopic viewpoint neglects to compare Okami what it has to offer against the rest of the Nintendo Wii library. As for someone who has played both versions (the majority of the game on the Wii), I'm going to review it as a Wii game and a not Playstation 2 port.
As a game developed by late Clover Studios (you know, Viewtiful Joe and God Hand), you should expect Okami to be an incredibly stylistic game. But it's not just fancy cel-shading--the whole game is designed to look like Japanese watercolor paintings. The game is rich with Japanese culture and mythology. Long story short, 100 years ago, a mean ol' 8-headed dragon called Oroichi used to come out and demand a sacrifice from the village of Kamiki every year on the full moon. Nami, a sake brewer, was chosen as the sacrifice and her boytoy Nagi was pissed. So, taking her place, he planned to slay the serpent. Followed by a mysterious thought-to-be-bad wolf, Shiranui, he headed over to Oroichi's place and gave him a good whallop. Although Shiranui died protecting Nagi in battle, Oroichi was defeated. 100 years later, Oroichi was unleashed onto the world again. The whole country of Nippon is covered in darkness! The statue of Shiranui springs to life as you, Amaterasu the sun goddess, set out to save the world. Acting as the reincarnation of Shiranui, your goal is to restore the world to its former beauty and kick Oroichi's ass.
A lot of people compare this game to Zelda, and they have the right to do so. The structure is similar. It's got sidequests, secrets, dungeons and NPC's galore. Each new upgrade you get allows you to gain access to a new area or defeat a new enemy. What makes this game so unique is how your abilities are put to use: by holding the B button you turn the world into a giant rice-paper canvas. Using your Celestial Brush, you use your brush strokes to lay waste to evil creatures, repair destroyed fixtures, restore decaying trees, and best of all--set things on fire. Need to get to a higher place, once you learn the ability, you can simply draw a line from a plant and a vine will instantly appear and pull you up! Draw a lily pad in the water to keep you afloat. Drawing bombs is helpful to find secret areas or just blow enemies into smithereens. With 13 different elements of Brush Strokes, most of which can be expanded or upgraded, it's hard to run out of ways to make that imp pay for smacking its butt at you.
Granted, it's not a perfect game. Issun, your traveling companion, acts as your voice and he is quite chatty. However, he does supply a lot of the game's humor. There's a bit of a learning curve to quickly drawing the brush strokes with the Wii Remote and sometimes the game has a hard time recognizing your artwork. Most reviews complain about the combat with the Wii Remote. That too, takes a little practice... but it's not broken. It takes a bit of rhythm--wait for the weapon to return to you before you attack again. This way, you can keep your combo up. Also, the camera pissed me off a couple times. It feels sluggish to move around, which will prove annoying in tighter areas. One problem I had with the game is that Capcom felt like they needed to remove any trace of Clover Studios from the game for the new port. They cut out the ending credits, man. It doesn't make the game any worse by any meanh, though. To ease the pain, you have to find and bloom clovers all over Nippon for bonus praise--so Clover Studios is not completely out of the picture. Also, the frequent Viewtiful Joe references rock my socks. So, for those of you who are protesting against the Wii port of Okami should suck it up. Clover Studios is gone--it's Platinum Games now. Buying the PS2 version won't help Clover come back--you should buy the Wii version to show Capcom that the world needs more games like Okami! Let's wrap this puppy up: People need to stop treating this game like a Playstation 2 port and give Okami the appreciation it deserves. How many epic 30+ hour adventures are there on the Wii, anyhow? Okami is a beautiful, stylistic game that integrates Japanese mythology and a unique gameplay mechanic into an incredibly captivating adventure worthy of anyone's time. Don't let the Wii's lower scores on other review sites convince you otherwise, this game is much more than that. I dare say this game beats the hell out of Twilight Princess any day. That's right, I went there, sent you a postcard, and got this lousy shirt.
N+ Summary
Game: Okami
Developed by: Clover Studios
Ported by: Ready At Dawn Studios
Published by: Capcom
Genre: Action-Adventure
Players: 1
Release Date: Out now (US), I don't know (JP and EU)
Rating: Teen
Supports WFC: No
N+ Points
N+ One of the most artistically crafted games ever made
N+ 480p and widescreen for the win
N+ The Wii Remote is perfect for quick brush stroke action
N+ Packed with sidequests and collectables
N+ A giant 30+ hour adventure
N+ You can gain the ability to pee on your enemies for bonus points
N+ You can also poo
N- Points
N- Camera is sluggish
N- Nunchuk dodging, like in every game that utilizes it, sucks
N- Recognition of brush strokes off at times
N- You can't pee on NPCs... or poo.
JudgmeN+: 9.1
MK's Tilt: 10.0
That means if you don't buy this game I will bite your damn face off.
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(11%)
WIDGETIZE
By G-off, # 31. May 2008, 17:57:53
The pee, called Golden Fury, only gives you 1 bonus Demon Fang.
By -MK, # 31. May 2008, 18:50:06
By Wiidark, # 31. May 2008, 22:32:10
By shoppingpenguin, # 1. June 2008, 05:10:08
By Wiidark, # 2. June 2008, 00:32:01
Hopefully the similarities are so much that it feels like I am playing LoZ:TP
By moirob, # 3. June 2008, 09:21:25
By shoppingpenguin, # 25. July 2008, 23:44:40
By shoppingpenguin, # 25. July 2008, 23:47:38
By Wiidark, # 26. July 2008, 00:13:28
By shoppingpenguin, # 26. July 2008, 07:01:53