OkamiClover Studio/Capcom
Review by Anthony
Remember the story of the group that made that critically acclaimed game and was immediately shut down after its release? ...Aw! Poor Clover Studios. They release the critically acclaimed Viewtiful Joe, make a few sequels that aren’t as well received, then blow a bunch of people away with Okami and are subsequently broken up. Tough industry, I suppose. But postmortem, out of the ashes came the much-desired Wii version of Okami, and here we are!
The truth of the matter is Okami is a pretty dang impressive game. Many people are correct in comparing its scope to Legend of Zelda games. You travel throughout a big world, helping people through sidequests, gradually getting stronger and tackling massive bosses. Many games have that general dynamic, but it’s the style and scope of the game that makes it feel like a different breed of action/adventure games. The Wii version captures this element just fine and gives it the wii-remote treatment to moderate success.
What’s good:
- The graphics are expectedly beautiful. Scenes where nature is restored are just glorious in seeing everything bloom and sprout all over. The thick-line drawing style gives the whole thing a feel as though you’re playing a work of art, which is a fact made that much clearer when you use the “Celestial Brush” to paint effects upon the world. It looks glorious and colorful, though admittedly it does not seem to push the Wii’s hardware.
- Celestial Brush techniques are an excellent feature and really give the game a very dynamic and fleshed out experience, especially when exploring dungeons and fighting bosses. Using vines to fly through the air, using bombs to blow walls open, slowing down time to pass through traps, it’s fun, and some enemies/bosses especially do a great job of allowing you to try different techniques to beat them.
- The + button allows you to not only skip scenes, but skip even the dialog from NPCs you’ve chosen to talk to up to the end or the point where you make a decision. This was a genius inclusion that helps stave off the annoyance when someone’s about to repeat something unnecessary to you for the fifth time.
- Between the Japanese sounding music and effects, over-the-top characters, encounters with celestial deities, your tiny guide with a Napoleonic complex, rich and varied environments... pretty much everything about the game has a style all to its own. It’s memorable and you really get the rare sense in playing it that you’ve never played anything quite like it before.
- Overall, this is a game with a good length main game and tons to do for completionists. Hidden treasure lies hidden all around, hungry animals can be fed throughout the world, you can go fishing in various areas, many NPCs have special side quests or events to complete, new techniques can be purchased for use in battle, hidden brush techniques can be found, and a new game+ option rounds that out should you prefer to start again. There’s plenty to do, and much of it is fun as well.
What’s neutral:
- It’s not all good news for the new Wii controls. While the Wii remote use can be perfect for quickly doing certain brush techniques, it can be a struggle in other areas. Though they give you the Z button for painting straight lines, you’ll learn before too long that you need to start your stroke early and then hold Z, otherwise you’ll often find the line going at the complete wrong angle. No such problem existed with button controls. Further, attacking is now done by shaking the remote, and while with decent timing this isn’t too hard to overcome, one may be disappointed to find that the glaive weapons are now fairly difficult to use. You’re supposed to raise the remote up to charge a glaive attack, then swing to attack, but naturally these motions can get convoluted for the remote to sense properly, and the result often leads to messed up combos. Mirror weapons work fine mostly, but many people will end up just sticking to bead weapons so they can waggle the remote to ensure they hit a combo properly.
- They were a little too generous at times in the game. Earning “praise” to upgrade yourself throughout the game is a good example. While it was cool to see the fruits of my labors in various sidequests leading to my being stronger, I was fully upgraded before the end despite that I hadn’t come close to completing all of the happiness-related events and quests. I wouldn’t have minded being a little less than fully powered considering I hadn’t found everything. Similarly, by the end I had an absolutely huge cache of items that I never needed to use. At best, some might have been helpful for bosses, but even then I was more interested in doing the fights as they were intended than trying to make them easier with the wealth of items.
- Not a concern for most, but parents might like to know that the game, despite the innocent nature and colorful aspects about it, can actually be a bit racy/vulgar at times. Between it requiring you to sneak up on a bathing woman, talking to a gradually disrobing goddess, working with an overly busty woman whose endowment is heavily animated, helping barely-clothed dancers, and finding abilities that allow you to, uh... “excrete” upon the enemy... there’s a fair bit of surprising content here. Honestly, given the whole Japanese mythology of it, it felt rather out of place.
What’s bad:
- Not everything in the game is necessarily fun. While a boss may have been a cool fight, you may change your tune once you’re fighting the exact same boss with the exact same patterns for the third time. I know Capcom likes to do the whole “fight all the bosses again” thing in their games, but it really got to be wearisome by the end. The boss fights would’ve actually been more memorable if you only had one epic fight against them. One quest that has you doing a long race with someone is kind of a pain, unless you spend a lot of time gradually blooming a bunch of evil trees that attack only you along the way. The digging quests, while interesting and well designed, just felt more like a chore overall.
While the whole package isn’t all sakura blossoms, this remains a successful port of a very impressive game. Tons of companies have tried to make action/adventure and action/platformer games over the years, but few have ever drawn comparisons to the behemoths of the genre like Legend of Zelda. But after a long time of going between worlds, learning new tricks, seamlessly painting through enemies in your path and fighting some fairly epic boss battles, you do get the idea that the game is something rare indeed.
Ambition went a long way here, as even if the less functional aspects of the game are considered, this will surely be a memorable game for its incredible style and unique gameplay.
The truth of the matter is Okami is a pretty dang impressive game. Many people are correct in comparing its scope to Legend of Zelda games. You travel throughout a big world, helping people through sidequests, gradually getting stronger and tackling massive bosses. Many games have that general dynamic, but it’s the style and scope of the game that makes it feel like a different breed of action/adventure games. The Wii version captures this element just fine and gives it the wii-remote treatment to moderate success.
What’s good:
- The graphics are expectedly beautiful. Scenes where nature is restored are just glorious in seeing everything bloom and sprout all over. The thick-line drawing style gives the whole thing a feel as though you’re playing a work of art, which is a fact made that much clearer when you use the “Celestial Brush” to paint effects upon the world. It looks glorious and colorful, though admittedly it does not seem to push the Wii’s hardware.
- Celestial Brush techniques are an excellent feature and really give the game a very dynamic and fleshed out experience, especially when exploring dungeons and fighting bosses. Using vines to fly through the air, using bombs to blow walls open, slowing down time to pass through traps, it’s fun, and some enemies/bosses especially do a great job of allowing you to try different techniques to beat them.
- The + button allows you to not only skip scenes, but skip even the dialog from NPCs you’ve chosen to talk to up to the end or the point where you make a decision. This was a genius inclusion that helps stave off the annoyance when someone’s about to repeat something unnecessary to you for the fifth time.
- Between the Japanese sounding music and effects, over-the-top characters, encounters with celestial deities, your tiny guide with a Napoleonic complex, rich and varied environments... pretty much everything about the game has a style all to its own. It’s memorable and you really get the rare sense in playing it that you’ve never played anything quite like it before.
- Overall, this is a game with a good length main game and tons to do for completionists. Hidden treasure lies hidden all around, hungry animals can be fed throughout the world, you can go fishing in various areas, many NPCs have special side quests or events to complete, new techniques can be purchased for use in battle, hidden brush techniques can be found, and a new game+ option rounds that out should you prefer to start again. There’s plenty to do, and much of it is fun as well.
What’s neutral:
- It’s not all good news for the new Wii controls. While the Wii remote use can be perfect for quickly doing certain brush techniques, it can be a struggle in other areas. Though they give you the Z button for painting straight lines, you’ll learn before too long that you need to start your stroke early and then hold Z, otherwise you’ll often find the line going at the complete wrong angle. No such problem existed with button controls. Further, attacking is now done by shaking the remote, and while with decent timing this isn’t too hard to overcome, one may be disappointed to find that the glaive weapons are now fairly difficult to use. You’re supposed to raise the remote up to charge a glaive attack, then swing to attack, but naturally these motions can get convoluted for the remote to sense properly, and the result often leads to messed up combos. Mirror weapons work fine mostly, but many people will end up just sticking to bead weapons so they can waggle the remote to ensure they hit a combo properly.
- They were a little too generous at times in the game. Earning “praise” to upgrade yourself throughout the game is a good example. While it was cool to see the fruits of my labors in various sidequests leading to my being stronger, I was fully upgraded before the end despite that I hadn’t come close to completing all of the happiness-related events and quests. I wouldn’t have minded being a little less than fully powered considering I hadn’t found everything. Similarly, by the end I had an absolutely huge cache of items that I never needed to use. At best, some might have been helpful for bosses, but even then I was more interested in doing the fights as they were intended than trying to make them easier with the wealth of items.
- Not a concern for most, but parents might like to know that the game, despite the innocent nature and colorful aspects about it, can actually be a bit racy/vulgar at times. Between it requiring you to sneak up on a bathing woman, talking to a gradually disrobing goddess, working with an overly busty woman whose endowment is heavily animated, helping barely-clothed dancers, and finding abilities that allow you to, uh... “excrete” upon the enemy... there’s a fair bit of surprising content here. Honestly, given the whole Japanese mythology of it, it felt rather out of place.
What’s bad:
- Not everything in the game is necessarily fun. While a boss may have been a cool fight, you may change your tune once you’re fighting the exact same boss with the exact same patterns for the third time. I know Capcom likes to do the whole “fight all the bosses again” thing in their games, but it really got to be wearisome by the end. The boss fights would’ve actually been more memorable if you only had one epic fight against them. One quest that has you doing a long race with someone is kind of a pain, unless you spend a lot of time gradually blooming a bunch of evil trees that attack only you along the way. The digging quests, while interesting and well designed, just felt more like a chore overall.
While the whole package isn’t all sakura blossoms, this remains a successful port of a very impressive game. Tons of companies have tried to make action/adventure and action/platformer games over the years, but few have ever drawn comparisons to the behemoths of the genre like Legend of Zelda. But after a long time of going between worlds, learning new tricks, seamlessly painting through enemies in your path and fighting some fairly epic boss battles, you do get the idea that the game is something rare indeed.
Ambition went a long way here, as even if the less functional aspects of the game are considered, this will surely be a memorable game for its incredible style and unique gameplay.
No comments:
Post a Comment