Okami

"Okami really deserves my praise"

In year 2005, I heard about Okami at E3 promo 2005 which an adventure game where you could explore the world of calligraphy and using an unique celestial brush to aid your quest. I'm not that excited to hear this news cause I don't like japanese calligraphy art at the first place but what make I interest of okami is the celestial brush which you can draw and make happen in instant. So I decided to pick up after it release, and after I played through till end. I realize I will miss the greatest adventure game in my whole life as gamer if I didn't pick it up in the first place. So here's my review after finish this game for more than 70 hours : )

Story
The quiet village of Kamiki, filled with beautiful cherry trees, had a price to pay in order to maintain their peace. Each and every year a festival is held, during which a maiden must be sacrificed to the eight-headed serpent, Orochi, signalled by a white arrow being launched into the house of his chosen sacrifice. In the 100th year since Orochi's arrival, as the time for the sacrifice drew near, a pure white wolf the village dubbed "Shiranui" would appear and stalk the village's streets at night. A swordsman in the village, Nagi try to get rid Shiranui, believing him to be one of Orochi's agents, and repeatedly tried to drive the wolf away. When the night of the festival finally arrived, Nagi's beloved, Nami was chosen to be slain. Determined both to save the woman he loved and to put an end to the village's burden, Nagi went to Orochi's lair to slay the beast. At last, he was defeated and about to be killed when Shiranui stepped in and took over the battle. Using strange skills, the wolf battled valiantly against Orochi, but still could not defeat the serpent.

Tired and beaten, Shiranui released a powerful howl the heavens. Strengthened by the howl, Nagi struggled to his feet and took up his sword once more, leaping onto Orochi and defeating the creature. Shiranui, filled with poison and fur dyed crimson with his own blood, was carried back to the village by Nagi where he was praised as Kamiki's savior - and then died. A shrine was built in the image and honor of Shiranui, and the sword that had saved the village was interred in the moon cave where the battle had taken place, and used to seal Orochi away. 100 years of peace passed, and a man disturbs the sword at the moon cave, unleashing Orochi, who is not quite as fictional as the intruder had believed. Orochi immediately begins covering the entire world in darkness and evil. In response, Sakuya the wood sprite, guardian of the village, goes to the shrine dedicated to Shiranui and brings the statue to life as Amaterasu, the Okami, reincarnation of Shiranui and sun goddess incarnated in the form of a white wolf. And so there goes the adventure of Amaterasu follow by wanderer artist, Issun in order to defeat Orochi once and for all.
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The Okami's story is pretty good and has well design plot. That makes you feel you are a part of the story too. One thing that I should tell you that the story I told above is not the beginning, but it is far....far....from the beginning.

Graphics
At first, I didn't expect much of good graphics. Like I said I hate calligraphy art. But alas, after I saw the Okami's world for the first time. I was stunning of its beautiful world. The world as far as I know it is indeed draw like japanese art style but this is different, it is somewhat........alive? It is just like you really enter the living drawing calligraphy art. Yes, such as debris, wind, fire and other things you saw not like a real world. They not more than drawing art too. But they are all well animated smoothly and that makes you feel you really did enter the whole brand new world that you couldn't imagine how beautiful it is. At last, although I hate calligraphy but now I have to admit this one is the exception. Truly, Okami has the most beautiful visual graphics far from I could possible describe.

Gameplay
The controller really fluid and responsive. You take control the role as white wolf, Amaterasu the sun goddess. You can dash, jump by press X, attack to break object by press rectangle. You can also use your brush which called "celestial brush" to interact your environment by hold R1.

Celestial brush is Okami's unique drawing brush which allow you to draw and turn into something in instant. Like makes flower bloom, create wind and etc. There are 13 power of celestial brush for you to discover as the story progress. Each of them has its own power and abilities and might be very handful on solving puzzle, interactive with your environment, even very useful against your enemies. Very innovative.

When the battle initiate, it will create some kind of barrier. The enemies will come out and you'll have to defeat them. The controller will change to battle mode. Press rectangle to use main weapon attack, press triangle to use sub weapon. There are 3 types of weapon. Reflector, rosary and glaive. Each their abilities are different while you equip them as main or sub weapon. Also you can use your brush to aid in battle such as create a bomb, slash the enemy and etc. After you defeat the enemies, you will earn some cash. The amount of cash depends on how quick you defeat them.

You can upgrade your status such as health bar by using your praise points which you can earn by doing good things such as feeding the animals, help the villagers, make the dead tree bloom again and many other things. You can also buy a new weapon and upgrading them which they all cost amount of money and also you can learn new fighting style at dojo to improve your fighting abilities. Even your celestial brush can be upgraded too which I can't spoil how to get them : )

Difficulty
The game's difficulty is easy to average depending how good you are. But if you are a hardcore gamer, you will find disapointed in the first place cause this game makes to have fun, relax and enjoy the whole gaming not a frustration button smasher game even the puzzle is not that hard too. You will give a hint even it is not directly told you but it will at least give you a clue where you should start.

Sound & Music
Sound effect are pretty good. You could almost hear all kind sounds which you can interact. And as for the voice, the voice acting on this game is pretty unique. Cause the voice you heard contain a japanese mumble type which means you couldn't understand unless you read from the text. Though some people will find this newly talking conversation is a bit annoying. But rest as sure with this kind voice comes out with a great music cause Okami's music has more than 200 tracks of music which you won't heard the music twice on different place and it also involve 4 person who responsible of making the music. They quite famous, they are Masami Ueda, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Rei Kondo on T's music and Akari Groves. So be expect to hear the wonderful japanese musician along the way from the beginning till the end. And plus each music is very well done and really fits on its background. And also the final song over the credit sequence, "'Reset'", is sung by Ayaka Hirahara. No doubt, the music of Okami are truly marvelous of whole.

Replayability
After you finish the game, it will unlock several things for you to enjoy and also you will have new game plus which you could keep your money and several items which you already earn on last play. And as for replay, if you miss some of the stray beads which you collected from the last play, you could play back again and find again the missing one.

Overall
So what would you expect more? Long journey, beautiful japanese art world, deep story, humorous, wonderful musics, good gameplay. You can taste all of them just in this game, OKAMI. So undoubtedly, Okami is truly unique epic adventure you should definitely own it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/08/06