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Reviews » Okami [PS2]

With all the rigamarole surrounding the next-gen systems that have, by now, all hit the market, it's easy to overlook the games that are still trickling out for the systems you already have. Which, admittedly, aren't many. There hasn't been a worthwhile Gamecube game in like, a year, and Microsoft decided dropping XBox like a hot potato would be the thing to do. So Sony is pretty much the only one still catering to us poor kids. One such game is Clover Studios' Okami. Released in September with nonexistant advertising, but a robust word-of-mouth campaign, I wouldn't be surprised if it's flown under your radar. That's why I'm here to tell you to borrow, beg, or steal $40 and go get it right now, because it is, barring some other crazy shit out of left field, the last great adventure of its console generation.

Okami is a bit hard to describe if you haven't had the pleasure of playing it yet. The most apt comparison that comes to most people's minds is The Legend of Zelda series. It's certainly very similar in its implementation. By way of a well written epic story, you travel a vast world (and I do mean vast), collecting items, meeting people, and building up your abilities and weapons. You investigate labyrinthine dungeons, fight hordes of enemies, and battle huge bosses that test all your skills. You track back and forth over the game world as new abilities open up new areas and items. In a sense of the style of gameplay, it's imitation as very sincere flattery; you can tell the team spent a lot of time examining the kind of pacing, design and difficulty that made games like Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker so fantastic. And they did an outstanding job at it. Certain games we've come to expect that perfect balance and polish of- Zelda and Mario games. Castlevania and Metroid. Games where simply moving and exploring is a joy. When a relatively small developer like Clover manages to capture that same excellence so fully, it's deserving of a special mention.

Of course a straight-up Zelda clone may be fun, but that alone wouldn't make Okami the can't-miss ride-o-the-year that it is. They differentiate themselves in many creative ways. For one, you play as a dog. Well, a wolf. You take the role of Okami Amaterasu, sun god of the land of Nippon, come to earth in the corporeal form of a white wolf, to set right a 100 year-old curse that has returned to plague the land. As is befitting a dog, you can sprint at impressive speeds, dig for goodies and treasure, and hold your own in a fight. But when physicality limits your interactions to digging and headbutting things, you're going to need some help. Luckily, you're a god, and in comes the most impressive and original mechanic of the game: the Celestial Brush.

Holding R1 opens up a scroll mirroring the world you're in, effectively pausing whatever action is onscreen. In this way you can use your brush, controlled with the left thumbstick, to actually paint on the environment, enemies, and treasures. This freezes the clock, and you can take your time to implement one of many Celestial Brush Techniques you learn throughout the game. Amaterasu has been gone a while, and you need to recover your past abilities from their 13 guardians. Restoration allows you to use the brush to fill in broken and incomplete items in the environment. Power slash turns a straight horizontal brushstroke into a punishing sword attack. Manipulating water, fire, lightning, wind and plant life with your brush are all skills available to be learned. As long as you have enough ink pots (don't worry, they slowly regenerate, and are upgradable in quantity), you're free to paint up a storm. Most abilities require a certain pattern or glyph to activate, which can at first be a little frustrating, as a thumbstick is not the most intuitive drawing tool. It makes you think it would have lent itself better to DS at first. But as you get into it, you'll soon be able to draw most anything quickly and easily, and depending on your brush skill, combat and travel become cake, albeit in a very satisfying fashion.

Brush skills, formidable as they are, aren't all you have to help you. Dojos across the land allow you to learn new battle skills and moves. You can collect many different kinds of holy upgradeable weapons, equippable in pairs for various effects. There are also many tools that provide beneficial status effects, or provide special abilities. This all adds up to a great time, especially in combat. Realized as a separate mode, an enemy encounter occurs in the world when you contact a Demon Scroll, a wandering (and avoidable, if you so choose) floating scroll that summons a few of a wide variety of enemies for you to battle. At this point you are confined by magical energy to a circle of varying size depending on the battle, and the buttons normally used for headbutting and digging are utilized to control your divine weapons. You still have all your brush techniques at your disposal, and combining physical attacks with deft brushwork will allow you to dispatch your foes in a stylish, and supremely satisfying fashion. When all are defeated, you are given a small battle summary that awards you money depending on how quickly you won, and how much damage you took.

The transition between modes is very quick and only seemed distracting or clunky the first few times, it soon becomes very natural. Bosses are handled much the same way, but on a larger scale, and you will often be given environmental tools to help you in the battle. The bosses are not too many in number, but when you do battle them they are challenging, often very large, and most importantly, fun. The final boss, though it formulaically draws upon all your skills in sequence, is simply a joy to fight, making you feel just in control enough to feel that you are a badass sun god, but that he's no slouch either.

The spot-on gameplay isn't the only area in which Okami shines. The presentation is quirky, stylized, and just plain beautiful. In keeping with the theme of the celestial brush, the entire game is rendered in a fashion that mimics a Japanese painting. Characters and environments are delineated in heavy brushstrokes. Colors are vibrant and the entire world is overlaid with a subtle texture of paper. The simplistic design and mix of 2d and 3d elements belie the fact that Okami is pushing an enormous amount of polygons for a PS2 game. Even the pop-up that occurs for animals and NPCs in the game somehow feels in keeping with the overall design of the game, and is not distracting or detrimental in the least. In every little way, it just works. Photorealism is the aim of many games these days, and something that is very easy to do badly. Vertex- or "Cel-Shading" is a route many others take, a once novel approach that has become just as boring and overused as anything else. Okami is really neither. I suppose it's technically vertex shaded, but stylized as it is, it sets itself apart. The entire world as a painting lends an atmosphere and personality to the game that it wouldn't have otherwise. Cartoony in a way, but taking nothing from the gravity of your quest, it's very simply a home run. Your view on the world is provided via a well executed camera. Fully controllable and self-centering, you'll rarely find yourself with an obstructed view. Even when painting with R1 depressed, you can rotate the camera to get it just right, and snag that elusive enemy so he won't see it coming. The only disappointment here is that while widescreen is supported, progressive scan is not. It seems a small crime for a game this gorgeous to be running at half the resolution it could be. Once you get into the swing of things, however, it still looks good even to the visually snobbish.

The story, too, is in keeping with the tradition of great adventure games. An original tale born of different elements of Japanese mythology, you battle many foes and meet many interesting friends in your travels. People speak in a garbled language remeniscent of Animal Crossing that seems strange at first, but is in keeping with the overall attitude of the game. You are accompanied by a tiny forest sprite companion named Issun, who is rude, headstrong, and decidedly lecherous, but is a good guy at heart. He provides you with information about the world and new brush techniques and does the communicating for you, because, well, dogs don't talk. The colorful cast of characters is large in number, but most all are distinctive and aren't a chore to talk (well, listen,) to. A seemingly simple story develops into a sweeping multilayered tale that is often funny, always interesting, and ends up truly touching at its end, leaving you wanting a sequel real bad.

Another thing I really enjoyed about Okami is that it is an enormously long game. A quick first time run could probably be knocked out in about 30, 35 hours if you're not into sightseeing much. I, however, am. Due to the amount of secret areas and collectible items, hidden enemies and technique upgrades, and a huge, huge world that's just plain fun to explore, it is very possible to get much more out of a single playthrough. When I completed it, I had about 67 hours playtime, and that's with about 85% of all the collectible goodies. I stopped early to knock out this review. I plan to go back and add another five or ten onto that. What's even better is that a "New Game +" mode is included, and while you don't get to keep your brush techniques or all your items, most of your weapons, collectibles, and battle techniques carry over. The game is pretty much designed so that you don't have to collect everything in one playthrough. You can if you so desire, though, because the game ensures that there aren't any important items or experiences that you can't go back and pick up later. For the slightly OCD gamer such as myself, this game is a dream, and I plan to spend as much, if not more, time with it as I did Resident Evil 4. Which, if you're wondering, is a hell of a lot.

I'd like to temper my glowing review with something annoying or bad about the game, but the simple fact is that, aside from a disappointing lack of progressive scan, there really isn't anything appreciably wrong with it. There is some slowdown sometimes if you're in a huge area, doing something awesome with a lot of motion, and there were a few instances where the camera kept snapping where I didn't want it, but a combined 5 minutes of less-than-perfection weighed against the the other 66 hours and 55 minutes of pure genius really kind of renders it a non-issue.

There are times when you may think to yourself why you decided to pick a hobby that ends up so expensive, is detrimental to your tan, and usually leads to you having sex very rarely. Games like Okami are the answer to that. Outstanding in every sense, if I could rate it any higher, I would. This game goes to 11.

Okami - PS2

Presentation

Beautifully stylized and expertly implemented, I expect some bad derivatives to begin ripping this game off real soon. I wish it supported progressive scan, but it's a small gripe.

Gameplay

The kind of outstanding you don't usually get unless you've got Miyamoto on your payroll. Engrossing, varied, at times challenging, and in all very, very fun.

Replayability

EPIC. Unless you're Chrono Trigger or something, you ain't got nothing on the collectibles, upgrades, and overall vastness that will keep people playing this game for full weeks of their lives.

Value

Outstanding. I'd pay next-gen prices for this much game. Luckily they're only asking 40 dollars MSRP, and it will probably soon be cheaper. Because if it doesn't go greatest hits I may have to choke a bitch.

Overall

If PS2 died today, it would be alright, because it hosted this awesome game. Don't miss this one.