11/05/2006
Okami
I've been playing tons of video games lately, because I'm kind of a nerd. So, I thought I'd write a few reviews of them. I'm new to this whole reviewing thing, so I'm just going to get started. If you're not interested in these types of things (me, video games, 3rd grade level writing skills) you should stop reading this now. Otherwise, here goes.
What is it?
In Okami, you're this wolf, who's this chick, who's this god, of the sun or something. For some reason, the world has been cursed and I've read "the world has no color," so you're supposed to help restore it. That thought always turned me off and I think it's a bit misleading. While you do restore color to it, it never really seemed lacking in the first place. And restoring color tends to be more along the lines of watching flowers bloom. Whatever you're doing, it looks incredible. Not with any qualifiers such as, "it looks good for a PS2 game." It just looks good.
What do you do?
You spend most of your time running around and fighting people with one of any number of really sweet necklaces. Seriously, you press some button and your necklace whips them, or shoots them, depending on which necklace you have on. I guess that the necklace is technically a rosary, and you're probably not actually whipping them, but who the hell can tell what is going on. All that matters is that it's fun when you're doing it.
So anyway, you run around and have to gather up over a dozen brush techniques. Each one gives you pretty neat powers that are controlled with one of the neatest gameplay mechanics, since... well... ever. One technique is the "power slash," which means that when you press L2 (or something), the screen turns sepia toned and you can paint a "slash" across an enemy. Another one let's you draw a bomb in same way. It's a whole lot of fun.
This game is supposed to be a 30 hour game. When I finished it, it told me I'd been playing for 48 hours. I'm 100% sure that this game keeps counting time when it's paused, and I tend to leave games paused for dinner, movies, short naps, and trips to the store to buy more string cheese. But cheese trips or not, I still played this game for more than 30 hours. Probably late 30's early 40's.
Is it worth my money?
As I've mentioned before. This game is a lot of fun. I actually bought this game on the day it came out and I don't regret it at all. I can't see myself playing through this game a second time, but you never know. It was less than $40 and will probably long be considered a classic.
What is wrong with it?
The worst part about this game is occasionally agonizingly slow scroll speed of the text that you need to read. For example, sometimes when someone is telling you something you are unable to speed it up. It forces you to read it at whatever speed the game makers think you should read it at: slowly. However, most of the time you can get out of those conversations or at least speed them up, but sometimes you can't.
I am making this clear to developers all over the world. No matter how funny your cut scene is, not matter how important it is to the story, you should never ever make me sit through it without giving me the option to skip it. I'm not always good at the games that I play, so sometimes I have to sit through some stupid scene 30 times in a row because I keep dying directly after it. As a side note, pausing and rewinding these cut scenes would be nice too, but I'm sure that is pushing it.
Tell me something I don't know.
If you pay attention to these sorts of things you may already know this, but I'm going to tell it to you anyways. This game was developed by the game studio Clover. They're owned by Capcom and apparently operate totally inside of the Capcom building somewhere in Japan. They did some work on the Viewtiful Joe games, which bear a striking resemblance graphics-wise to this game. They made this game and another game called "God Hand," releasing them both in North America about a month apart from each other. Okami got consistently great reviews while God Hand had them scattered all over the place; Gamespot gave it an eight out of ten, while IGN gave it a three out of ten. Everyone I've spoken with has told me that God Hand is a great game, despite some problems with the control.
What is my point? Well Capcom closed the doors on Clover just days after the release of these games. I'm sure the producers will go on to make neato games somewhere else, but it's sad to see them go and almost certainly means there will be no Okami sequel... which is probably a blessing (and a curse).
In Okami, you're this wolf, who's this chick, who's this god, of the sun or something. For some reason, the world has been cursed and I've read "the world has no color," so you're supposed to help restore it. That thought always turned me off and I think it's a bit misleading. While you do restore color to it, it never really seemed lacking in the first place. And restoring color tends to be more along the lines of watching flowers bloom. Whatever you're doing, it looks incredible. Not with any qualifiers such as, "it looks good for a PS2 game." It just looks good.
What do you do?
You spend most of your time running around and fighting people with one of any number of really sweet necklaces. Seriously, you press some button and your necklace whips them, or shoots them, depending on which necklace you have on. I guess that the necklace is technically a rosary, and you're probably not actually whipping them, but who the hell can tell what is going on. All that matters is that it's fun when you're doing it.
So anyway, you run around and have to gather up over a dozen brush techniques. Each one gives you pretty neat powers that are controlled with one of the neatest gameplay mechanics, since... well... ever. One technique is the "power slash," which means that when you press L2 (or something), the screen turns sepia toned and you can paint a "slash" across an enemy. Another one let's you draw a bomb in same way. It's a whole lot of fun.
This game is supposed to be a 30 hour game. When I finished it, it told me I'd been playing for 48 hours. I'm 100% sure that this game keeps counting time when it's paused, and I tend to leave games paused for dinner, movies, short naps, and trips to the store to buy more string cheese. But cheese trips or not, I still played this game for more than 30 hours. Probably late 30's early 40's.
Is it worth my money?
As I've mentioned before. This game is a lot of fun. I actually bought this game on the day it came out and I don't regret it at all. I can't see myself playing through this game a second time, but you never know. It was less than $40 and will probably long be considered a classic.
What is wrong with it?
The worst part about this game is occasionally agonizingly slow scroll speed of the text that you need to read. For example, sometimes when someone is telling you something you are unable to speed it up. It forces you to read it at whatever speed the game makers think you should read it at: slowly. However, most of the time you can get out of those conversations or at least speed them up, but sometimes you can't.
I am making this clear to developers all over the world. No matter how funny your cut scene is, not matter how important it is to the story, you should never ever make me sit through it without giving me the option to skip it. I'm not always good at the games that I play, so sometimes I have to sit through some stupid scene 30 times in a row because I keep dying directly after it. As a side note, pausing and rewinding these cut scenes would be nice too, but I'm sure that is pushing it.
Tell me something I don't know.
If you pay attention to these sorts of things you may already know this, but I'm going to tell it to you anyways. This game was developed by the game studio Clover. They're owned by Capcom and apparently operate totally inside of the Capcom building somewhere in Japan. They did some work on the Viewtiful Joe games, which bear a striking resemblance graphics-wise to this game. They made this game and another game called "God Hand," releasing them both in North America about a month apart from each other. Okami got consistently great reviews while God Hand had them scattered all over the place; Gamespot gave it an eight out of ten, while IGN gave it a three out of ten. Everyone I've spoken with has told me that God Hand is a great game, despite some problems with the control.
What is my point? Well Capcom closed the doors on Clover just days after the release of these games. I'm sure the producers will go on to make neato games somewhere else, but it's sad to see them go and almost certainly means there will be no Okami sequel... which is probably a blessing (and a curse).
