Okage: Shadow King

"How *not* to combine humor and dark tones, craptacular battle system included"

Pig Latin curses!? Evil Kings!? Pink and possessed shadows!? Such is the crazy, hilarious insanity there is to encounter in Okage: Shadow King. What starts off as an ordinary life for young Ari is all changed when his sister is afflicted with the horrible Pig Latin curse and can only be cured by the Evil King Stan. But there's a price to be paid: Stan will only cure her in exchange for someone being his host in order to aid Stan to regain all the power he's lost during his imprisonment… in the form of becoming that person's shadow, and none other than our somewhat neutral protagonist is chosen.

Undoubtedly, Okage: Shadow King is one of the funniest games I've ever played. The typically generic NPCs all have amusing names to fit their distinct, comedic personalities, Stan randomly boasts his “greatness” in comparison to the “puny” villagers, the dialogue amongst the outlandish PCs- when combined with the excellent Tim Burton-ish environments and character models and the light-hearted music create an amusing and jovial setting.

Unfortunately, from there, the game takes a sharp turn for the worse. Further into the game, the plot is compelled to face the rather dark goal that hitherto it had handled well, but deep plot and characters is not something this game was designed to handle, considering that Ari, yet another silent main, has enough personality as a stick. While the hilarity certainly kept me entertained, no space was left for any strong character/plot development and so latter portions of the game are blundered.

And while I did praise the music earlier, often times the music is inappropriate for the environment e.g. In a big, bad dungeon, instead of serious and suspenseful music, your ears will be picking up the kind of tune you'd expect from a happy-go-luck mini-game with a chibi-sprite on the side.

The battle system offers no redemption either. One of the poorest battle systems I've seen in a long time, Okage: SK sports a measly three types of elemental abilities, crudely formed “Gain a level for a measly stat gains and maybe a spell (many of which are of minimal help)”, and lacks one of the most fundamental attribute of modern battle systems: Choosing any single enemy target on the field to act upon. Instead, you can only target enemies of a designated type, hitting one of however many there are at complete random (unless you're using a multi-target attack). Furthermore, the antiquated system of “Once the main dies, Game Over” is included.

The whole “main's death -> automatic Game Over” thing wouldn't be as nearly as bad if the difficulty of enemy sets didn't vary so much. For the most part, two different kinds of enemies exist: The ridiculously easy and the “I can beat you into the ground without even trying” (Oh, the evilness of boss fights…). Still, that's not the end of it: Enemies usually appear in large groups, further widening the gap in difficulty.

Normally, such issues could be skipped simply by leveling, but Okage's experience (EP) system works a bit differently. You need 1000 EP to reach the next level, always, but enemies which start out with a set EP value have that value halved for every level you gain. Big problem is, the only enemies you can readily gain EP against are the randoms that appear on the field that you encounter to enter a battle, but they only give a handful of EP and only the toughest foes have enough EP to make battles worth the while (at least money gained from battle isn't halved).

All in all, Okage's battle system starts off with a few minor flaws that amalgamate into a disaster. Sadly, Okage's only redeeming facets lie in the “happy” mood it sets, but even that funny/ironic contrast the game sets between the evil task you're trying to accomplish and the humorous surrounding in which it takes place also deteriorates as the two factors that scrape against each other frequently are now forced to tie together in a rather ugly fashion as the game approaches its closing. Ultimately, Okage: Shadow King neglects too many pertinent details, and, once you tear away the fleeting humor, little of an enjoyable gaming experience is anywhere in sight.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/05