Okami

"Beautiful, fun, but imperfect."

I had anticipated Okami for months and months before it came out, drooling over the beautiful graphical style and the intriguing gameplay elements long before the game was released in japan. In many ways, it lived up to my hopes, but there are places where it could have easily been far better.

The best thing about it is that it is very much a revival of the adventure genre, and I'd say action/adventure has not been done this well since Beyond Good and Evil came out, and as adventure games are possibly my favorite genre, I feel right at home with the gameplay. Of course, conversely, if you have a particular aversion to running around looking for big trees and trivial items for people and solving small puzzles, it will annoy you to death. It has everything that was loved and hated about adventure games back in the days of King's Quest and Monkey Island, so keep that in mind.

That said, let us move on to specifics. Firstly, the obvious: the game is gorgeous. The distinctly japanese art style and setting is stunning, and every time you enter a new area, you find yourself wanting to just pan around everywhere looking at the amazing scenery. Even the dark, evil locales are strangely compelling, and it is incredibly rewarding to banish the evil and bring hundreds of flowers and cherry trees springing to life. There are tons of subtle touches that are in themselves beautiful and soothing: being able to plant a tree with a dot of ink, rustling bushes, the flowers that spring up behind you when you run, the simple joy of making animals happy and flowers bloom, and so forth. The music is also extremely suited to the very japanese setting, and helps set the mood wonderfully. If pretty is what you're after, this is the game for it.

Now, the gameplay is somewhat more difficult to review. Firstly, it is quite easy. Not so much because the tasks are easy, but because your constant companion along with the much-too-helpful camera tend to spell things out for you. Even if I grasp a puzzle upon a first glance at a room, a few steps forward will yield an obvious pan to each piece of the puzzle, and an extremely overt hint in nice bolded red letters. The game is quite didactic that way, and it can get annoying that it assumes the player to be so stupid. It doesn't ruin the game, but it takes away a bit of the adventure game spirit of trying things out and slowly discovering the game's logic. It doesn't have that addictive quality that classic adventures had, or that newer entries to the genre like Ico and Beyond Good and Evil were able to bring back. This isn't universal in the game, but it is frequent enough to be frustrating.

The fighting is a bit more difficult, and can get intense, but there are plenty of items to help you out, and it mostly comes down to recognizing patterns. Luckily, it's quite fun, and your different weapons and brush techniques give you plenty of ways to conduct your strategy, so it doesn't get boring. Also, the normal enemies are easily avoided, and they aren't where you get your experience, only money, so you don't have to fight that much if you don't want to. The fighting is probably the most challenging part of the game, but it's still not high in difficulty. Much more suited for action-adventure gamers than for hardcore action types who like Devil May Cry, God of War, and so forth.

The brush techniques are an interesting addition. They are very fun to watch, and just making flowers bloom and bombs that explode in colorful confetti makes them satisfying, but outside of battle, they have a few problems. The main one is that it is incredibly obvious where to use them. The "puzzles" involving brush techniques are often identical to each other, with not much in the way of problem solving. You just see that it needs to be used and immediately do so. They're very pretty, and add to the feel, but could have been much deeper as far as gameplay. There are also occasional issues with precision, but they're not a constant frustration. I would have liked to see more done with them, but there are a large variety, and their use within battle is quite satisfying and varied (it is only the out-of-battle puzzles that are too easy). Also, as much as the interface is very artistically done, the concept itself is not that new, and the lack of innovation with puzzles stops it from feeling very new and exciting.

That brings me to my next point. The game can be a bit derivative. A lot of the puzzles and tasks came straight from Zelda games, and most of the game consists more of adventure game staples than new ideas. This, again, does not detract terribly from the fun of the game, but it has to be noted that this is more a beautiful example of things already done than a bold step in gaming. I often found myself thinking that I had played the same thing before, even as I was being stunned by the beauty of the game.

On a more positive note, it is much longer than most recent adventures, reaching an RPG-appropriate length of 40 hours or so, rather than the average 10-20 for such games. Along with that, the world is quite huge, and there is a lot to freely explore, even though the story moves in a generally linear manner. It is unlikely that most gamers would get tired of any given area, since one can move about so freely and find more and more to do. There are plenty of optional tasks and hidden treasures, and not everything has to be done in order, so those keen on exploring will have lots of fun. Here the game succeeds much more than where it forces you along a certain path, and that is where it manages to keep the adventure spirit alive.

The story, while highly grounded in mythology, and based around some interesting concepts, is not the game's strong point. The idea of bringing back life to the world is a very nice one, and it is all done with a distinctive japanese flair, with plenty of gods, magic, and beauty. Many times the themes seem reminiscent of a Miyazaki film, and a few locales very much bring to mind Princess Mononoke in particular. However, that's only the big picture. On a smaller scale, the story has some issues. It is incredibly positive and many of the small tasks result in a patronizing little moral suitable for a small child. A lot of the dialogue reads like a children's book, and those with a cynical streak will likely get a bit exasperated by it. On top of that, the translation is very weak. The dialogue is inconsistent in its casualness, and much of it sounds very awkward. The main characters can for this reason be a bit grating or bizarre. I very much feel that the US release of the game was shafted here, as I can see that the original japanese was quite a bit different and less silly-sounding. I'm sure the moralizing was present, but I think the phrasing would have been much better. As it is, it seems that the game is aimed at young children, what with the low difficulty and constant patronizing, but then the game throws in some innuendo and some difficult sections that make it somewhat inappropriate for that target audience. It's an odd mix much worsened by shoddy translation.

In broad terms, the game is a visual work of art, and very fun to play. If you like action-adventure games and traditional japanese paintings, you will love it. However, the story and difficulty level could have succeeded more than they did, and most aspects of the game are not nearly as original as the style. Nonetheless, there are so many simple joys in the game that I find it too satisfying to ignore.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/05/06