Okami

"Magnificently original, truly visually stunning, and a great epic action and adventure awaits for you in Nippon. It's all thanks to Okami."

The review is also available in GameSpot.

Of all the games that had already been released in the previous era, there are so many of them show a unique way of being majestic. Not only just because of the gameplay, the soundtrack, or because of a compelling storyline. It's also because there's no game like it had done before. Being incredibly unique than everything else at the earliest of times can also result to something epic and amazing. Many games have done it so far. There's Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Wolfenstein 3D, Shadow of the Colossus, Legend of Zelda, and so many more that I can mention. Sadly, great originality in games today is running thin these days. They appear probably zero to thrice every year. The PlayStation 2 entertainment system has some shares of its rare and unique great games. One of them was Capcom's Viewtiful Joe (also available for the GameCube) which had an amazing way approach side-scrolling action game. The developer behind that game, Clover Studios, has return with something far stunning than just being “viewtiful". This combines the beauty of Japanese art and the digital entertainment found in a video game. This game is none other than Okami.

Okami tells an old tale about a century-old victory between the warrior named Nagi and a wolf named Shiranui against an 8-headed beast named Orochi to prevent the lad of Nippon from destruction. As the next maiden within the Kamiki Village is being ready to be sacrificed to the beast, her husband Nagi planned to come along and slay Orochi once and for all. It seemed impossible. But with the help of Shiranui and its ability to control existence, they worked together to defeat the beast. The battle ended and ending with Shiranui being severly wounded and Orochi being sealed in Nagi's sword, which is later named Tsukuyomi. However, the battle wasn't a complete victory for the fact that Shiranui is poisoned as is slowly dying and Orochi can be unleashed once again. After the death of Shiranui, the villagers established a monument in honor of both the warrior and the wolf that defeated the wretched beast. 100 hundred year has passed since that fateful struggle occurred and peace engulfed the land of Nippon. However, a curious mind made a blunder that would spread darkness within the land once more. The Moon Cave has been infiltrated and Tsukuyomi had been disturbed from its slumber. This lead to Orochi's reawakening. Now, he's bent on filling the lands with darkness as his curse spreads far wide across Nippon, Due to this catastrophe waiting to fully ruin the supposed peaceful land and leave it as a barren wasteland, the son goddess Amaterasu (who is in fact Shiranui) had be reawaken from the underworld by a fairy named Kaguya. Now, along with a sprite named Issun, the two will travel the far regions of Nippon to relieve the cursed lands and restore its prosperous state once more.

Character development comes and goes from shallow to deep. You'll get to know probably all of the inhabitants of the land, especially in Kamiki village and in all the other parts of Nippon. A lot of them will be involved in your quest and many of them won't be as involved as the rest. You will encounter humans, animals, imps, or mystical creatures that also affect the story or merely play role to add more color to the entire casts of characters within the game. Issun is definitely one of the biggest characters within the game, besides Amaterasu, not just because he's your sidekick. But more on the line as also the one that gives a little panache to your travel by mixing a spunky advisor, a pervert, and a brat. To make it simple, he's like Tatl from Majora's Mask. He won't be the only one that will appear the most within the game, as far as I can tell you. Interaction within non-playable characters can be vital to your quests, especially when in times you are lost and don't know what to do, where should you go, or how will you do a certain deed.

Out of everything this game have, the visuals are definitely top-notch. To tell you the truth, it never even crossed my mind that Okami will push the PlayStation 2's graphical capability to its fullest. I never did. I just know it will have some great graphics. The game developer Clover Studios implemented Japanese calligraphic art style that was transformed into cel-shaded graphics which had gone and magnificently burst itself throughout the entire game. So many of the environments actually feel pretty soothing as you explore multiple areas, whether they are interactive or not. This is definitely the best looking 3D cel-shaded games that had came out so far since games as Dark Cloud 2, Jet Set Radio Future, Viewtiful Joe, and Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker came out. Character designs are well-done to make quirky animations and anything else they will do throughout the game. I always had a feeling that the graphics for Viewtiful Joe was just practice went I first saw Okami. They went all out here in Okami. It's a genuine visual feast.

The sound design is a little weird. What makes it weird? The characters in the game only talks in gibberish. No voice-acting are featured within the game, unless you count the one on the Title Menu where a young girl's voice will shout “Okami”. It may sound annoying, seriously, but it does bring eccentricity to how the animations of the characters are looking during a segment involving a discussion of any sort. The soundtrack in the game is simmering with soothing and enthralling traditional Japanese music (it reminds me of Tenchu, without the techno and alternative rock). The volume increases depends on the time within the game, and where you are. It does help for such game based on a folk tale to have this kind of music soundtrack. In times, the music feels like you really are in an epic adventure. But sometimes, it does feel nice to give a more sinister or humorous sensation when the background music changes for a certain reason. Pretty much, the soundtrack is magnificent. How the game's sound effects? Most of them are actually match with the movement of anyone or anything nearby. The sound when you disturb the grass within the field or the rocky road as you run through fields and other areas does deliver nicely. The sloshing and splashing water isn't as well-thought of as in the 3D games that have water features. The attacks you inflict to your opponent sounds like a samurai sword tearing clash through a flesh or steel, depends on what did your attacks hits. Overall, the sound department is great. Enough said.

Now, with nearly every eye candy put aside, let's analyze the gameplay department, shall we? The game supplies tons of action, various places to visit, great platforming, and interesting puzzles and side-quests to keep you busy for hours and hours. This game will take you 30 hours or more to finish, especially when you're just starting a new game. One of the game mechanics Okami genuinely has is the use of the Celestial Brush (i.e. you draw/paint) to affect your environment and use within battles. You're entitled of using 2 attacks during battle: the Divine Instruments or the Celestial Brush. Your Divine Instruments are your normal weapons, if you have your ink pot isn't all used up. There are 3 types of Divine Instruments: Mirror, Rosary, and Glaive. You can equip 2 weapons, one being your Main Weapon and the other being your Sub-Weapon. The ability of a certain weapon changes whether you equip it as your Main Weapon or your Sub-Weapon. You either add an offensive or a defensive ability to the Sub-Weapon while the Main Weapon is only for offensive purpose. The Celestial Brush will play a big role to your battles, too, especially when your progress much more within the game. It's great to experiment what brush techniques to use against enemies and what not to use. It does add strategy to the battle but it can also add a little frustration since you may end up using all your ink just figuring out what, when, and how to use a brush technique during battle. After a battle, you're awarded with a certain amount of Yen depends on how long the battle took or how much damage did you take during battle. New brush techniques definitely add the power within your arsenal for future adventures and battles, wherever and whenever they may be. You also received health, ink, and money if your enemies drop any of them. A special item to look forward to acquire is “Demon Fang” in which you can trade for relics that you can equip or other items.

Solar energy, ink pot, astral pouch, and wallet can all be upgraded by means of “Praise”. “Praise” is received after you fulfill a task by means of helping someone, proving certain worthiness to a challenge of any sort, feeding animals, or restoring what once was ruined. The more “Praise” you get, the more chance you can upgrade any of the four attributes. Solar energy is your health. The ink pot is for the total amount of ink you which use whenever you perform a brush technique. Astral pouch is for the rebirth item that fully restores your health when ran out of it. Your wallet determines the amount of cash that your carry. The bigger the place value of your wallet, the bigger its capacity gets and you'll be able to carry more money. You'll need lots of cash since many of the items in the game are pretty expensive, especially weapons and key items. You pretty much need to upgrade some of them from time to time so that you can ensure your survival within the game.

Expect lots of running and platforming in this game. It helps that your character is an elusive wolf rather than the standard human-like character. The controls are pretty intuitive and the learning curve isn't that steep. Within less than 15 minutes, you may fully get used to the control scheme and the camera angles. The entire land of Nippon, also the nearby sea and other bodies of whatever, is waiting to be explored by you. Many treasures and other secrets can be found by means of platforming, digging, swimming, and the use of your brush techniques. Mini games also hones your ability to run, jump, or use a brush technique in certain way, whether you'll deal with racing, digging, or other side-quest games. Venturing Nippon will be a breeze once you receive all the brush techniques and your ink is enough to be used many times than before. The puzzles within the game ranges from easy to challenging, depends whether you're some kind of a puzzle wiz or just a casual Action Adventure gamer. Level designs are in many ways clever since you will probably take your time exploring a certain area and may end up figuring out how to advance, sooner or later. More areas will be unlocked and more treasure will be discovered once you experiment or just play around with your newly found abilities, whether they're physical or the Celestial Brush's powers.

The entire gameplay is definitely solid and really fun, yet in a few ways are simplistic.

As for the bad part, I found the game's flaws that halt the journey on Action Adventure nirvana. First off, even with the beautiful graphics that Okami has, it can get disorienting at times, especially when the smoke/dusts appear each time you come down from a jump or an air-to-ground attack. The cameras in many areas are uncontrollable (which isn't really a bad thing), yet some areas needs more camera work. You can end up platforming in the wrong area due to the area's camera fix. Another problem is that the game tends to slow down in terms of framerate. I don't really know if it's the same on the old PlayStation 2, but it does deplete my interest when running around the field. I have experience this more than 20 times by now, and it's getting annoying. Usually, this slow framerate happens when you're in your maximum speed when dashing throughout Nippon or anywhere else that you can run on. Both can also happen during enemy encounter. This can add frustration since you get bewildered of what's going on around you and why does the camera angle acts sick or something. Also, another aspect that drops the immersion factor is that when you acquire much more brush techniques, you end up using the wrong one on a certain place. I'll give you an example. I was on the sea along the Ryoushima fields and I'm using the Water Lily and Galestorm techniques to just explore the sea. In many times, when I try to point to the skies to draw Galestorm, it ends up as the Sun instead of a wind blowing. In water, it can end up being a Water Lily. That really frustrates me. Luckily, you can use alternative ways to travel if your usual methods (depends on what you do and use) aren't really the best to do so. If you're NOT really into text-based cutscenes, this may even tick you off since so many scenes you can't make them go faster or skip them. Since I'm used to that kind of scenes, it's not a big deal for me.

So, who in their right mind should buy this game? I would recommend this to Zelda fans that happen to own a PS2 (and still play games on it) or any Action Adventure enthusiast for that matter. Shadow of the Colossus fans would be really into this game, too. After all, it's also pretty much epic and unique. But it's less depressing than that game. I don't know if this is a 100% must buy, but it superb enough to be tried at least once… or twice… or thrice, whatever floats your boat. Its variety from other PS2 Action Adventure games makes it lean to the possibility that it shouldn't be missed out. Not a perfect game Okami is (nowhere near perfect), but its' definitely a really great game.

I personally love the game. But you don't have to fully take my word for it. I went head-over-heels with Okami after playing it for less than 30 minutes, not counting the opening scene, though. It's been a while since I saw something so great and distinctive for the PS2, aside from Shadow of the Colossus and ICO. Clover Studios has definitely nailed a great Action Adventure game. Not just because they're the makers of Viewtiful Joe, but more on the concept that the team thought of videogames as an artistic medium and a digital entertainment. You can miss out the phenomenon if you want to. But me, I say Okami may probably be the last magnificently original game for the Sony's black box. Games like such as this one appears rarely. So, if you're a PlayStation 2 owner and still looking for a great game, Okami is a certain choice for purchase. I'm glad to see that the PS2 will nearly say good-bye with a unique game as its parting gift. Now go out and conquer Nippon's secrets!!!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/06