i am still baffled by the ’ i wish okami was a good game ’ post and i haven’t gone back to play it in a few weeks but how can something that has brought me countless hours of joy possibly be bad?
someone please help me understand
i, a video game plebeian
i feel like it’s just ’ dog zelda ’ moreso than even twilight princess and i love that game too so woo boy, guess i’m gonna get torn to shreds in this thread, huh
I’ve only had the critique it’s too easy. The battle system is well designed just a bit sloppy in execution, between Ammy’s movement and the camera. And the cute people voice-noises can get a tad too much over time.
Otherwise it’s a near perfect game in assets vision charm myth, shinto essence, creativity, etc etc
That 4 (5?) disc soundtrack too!
But yeah I’m curious how it’d be considered not good, and what would be in those same regards
twilight princess definitely provoked the most interesting zelda smut i’ve seen, esp compared to breath of the wild stuff
Old man dances a cherry tree blossoms
Can’t you see this is fuckin awesome
one of the reasons i appreciate it is because it seems to be more about telling the story and letting you experience that without having to be necessarily be good at games. i don’t think it would’ve been made any better if the game was harder. okamiden is proof of this.
the camera can be a pain in the ass for sure though, so i’ll def grant you that. you can be fairly generous with the brush strokes, even sloppy and get what you want and i don’t know if that’s because it was aimed at kids or what.
this is why my brother didn’t finish and that made me sad.
oh dear, i almost want to look this up but i will refrain
i always got the impression it was just an extension of zelda hate? complaints about the format like too much talking, too much errand running, and that the neat art style & brush mechanic are spread too thin over its length.
it’s true that i would probably like it more as a “pure” art game, without any quests or gating
I haven’t played okami in ages, so I can’t speak to its difficulty, but I do know that if a game is easy enough that it doesn’t ask anything of me I can end up feeling alienated from the narrative itself and end up shelving it. there are plenty of other ways a game can invite investment, but that’s one way I’ve previously bounced off of games.
You’re right this is more of a personal nitpick. The characters story and environs are def forefront to experience (as they should be, excellently). I think what I’m remembering (and this isn’t even from my usual looking for steep challenges) is that Okami is so long, full of fun side quests, collecting, treasures and such that during the second half of the game most things went down without even trying. But you are supposed to be and can get pretty supercharged. I think the Hakkenden/Canine Warriors was a good scrap, and the final boss-boss rush.
Like Curry mentioned though if that part doesn’t engage properly it probably stands to lose some players being so lengthy, maybe not a common complaint w/Okami but I’ve heard it before.
I love Okami. Its one of my favorite games. Its such a beautiful, sweeping adventure. which is also clever, cool, and goofy. Its such a potent mix that I found myself wanting more and more and more. And the game seemed to never let up. Its like a 3 arch epic or something.
Okami’s combat is too easy. Its so easy, I went very nearly the entire game without knowing how to shoot the beads. In other words, I went the majority of the game without knowing an entire segment of the combat mechanics, and had zero trouble. I didn’t need it at all. While I would have enjoyed it being actually more difficult; It could have at least been designed so that the combat mechanics on offer, were actually needed. Like there could have been some enemies with patterns where it was more useful to shoot them, rather than melee them, or something. So, if we aren’t going to demand mixups from the player with skill and timing; lets at least feature the mechanics so that we don’t feel like we’re just button mashing.
I think the talking had two problems, and too much talking, wasn’t really it. 1. In the original PS2 version, you couldn’t speed up the dialog. And it was pretty slow. 2. The sounds characters made while talking, got annoying real quick. Combined with having to sit and slowly listen to it…ugh. I dunno if later versions had options or not. But, being able to speed up dialog and also turn of the talking noises, would improve the game 200%. It was actually kind of embarrassing to play the game around others, because of the noises during talking.
I don’t recall there being a lot of annoying and blatant errands. They were usually roped in with some other stuff, so it didn’t usually feel like you were doing this one dumb thing, before you could advance. Also, I don’t remember thinking any of it was actually dumb, either. Its been awhile, though…
Also, the game has a ton of personality and the payoff in personality for doing quests is often immense. That’s a key area where Okami is clearly better than Zelda. Zelda often doesn’t have characters. Its always heavy on setting and mood. But aside from one or two token goofballs in each game----Zelda often lacks characters to fill out the settings. Its usually people just standing around with whatever dialog----just like most every other character. And the payoff for completing things is just another item or another gate unlocked. With little reaction from the NPCs.
Can you elaborate on this? The art style…never ceased to impress and surprise me.
The brush mechanic was always fun and refreshing. I think the only area it was actually underused, is with the main boss. You fight him like 3 times and its basically the same exact fight and methods to win. So, they could have come up with something else. But, other than that, I thought the celestial brush mechanics stayed on point.
Now that they have direct touch-to-brushing action on the Switch version: I would love to see a sequel which expands the mechanic with more refined inputs. Such as, actually dotting out constellations from memory. and more completed shapes (existing example being the bomb). Even on a PS2 controller, I always wanted to be doing more shapes.
I don’t remember much except I always felt bad about not finishing it because somebody bought it for me, but I remember it feeling like the tutorial just never ends
Yeah I just hated the first two hours for the slow dialogue and never picked the game up again.
I would also add that brush painting with a PS2 dualshock controller is about as intuitive and satisfying as controlling 3D Mario with a stylus in Mario 64 DS
I think I bailed because it was too long and started to feel repetitive. I didn’t hate it. I think folks here also disliked that it kind of held your hand like a lot of latter-day Zelda games
Okami was such a disappointment for me. So much about it was great, but the writing was bad enough to ruin the entire experience. Particularly that sidekick character, without which the game might at least be tolerable (and I’d be tempted to try out one of those HD versions on modern platforms).
Playing video games, you can’t help but build up some tolerance for mediocre or bad writing, but in Okami it’s just too much. I still listen to the soundtrack sometimes, though.
Also, Wolves have long been my favorite animal. So…that’s why I can love a game with combat which probably never killed me.
I played okami a couple years back and got to, I guess, the end of the first act? I beat the dude who had been hyped up to be the big boss, saw that the game kept going, and dropped it.
I appreciate what they’re trying to do with the combat but it’s so easy it just comes off as repetitive as I don’t feel invested in it. The world was cool! I liked exploring it. The story didn’t particularly interest me as there was nothing that left me feeling “hm, I really have to see how this plot thread gets dealt with”.
I plan to revisit it someday, probably in Japanese instead of English so my brain will be more actively engaged in the game. I love the art style and want to love it! I definitely don’t hate it, I just wish it was more engaging.
I need to play this not on Wii one day. I did find the amount of text and the sidekick character off-putting, but I was ultimately discouraged from continuing because I did not enjoy the motion controls. Everyone thought painting with the Wii remote would be a revelation, but got, it was the worst.
I do have it on PS2 and PS3 both, but still haven’t given those copies a shake. Tempted to get it on Switch now, but also wary to buy a fourth copy of a game I’ve never felt inspired to finish.
like others have said, really repetitive, really easy, really bad writing and tutorializing, has random battles like the PS2 yakuza games that feel bad with the pacing. feels like they wasted the art direction on all the worst qualities of 3D Zelda
it’s like the height of “why am I doing this, none of it is fun” from that era
luckily most of the ways in which it’s atrocious are no longer widely regarded as good game design so hating it doesn’t feel urgent or anything
The deliberately slow intro recounting the legend of Shiranui and dialogue heavy opening chapter without offering more hooks to enage some players - that really did put off a handful of people I strongly recommended it to. I remember nearly buying it for a friend I thought would love it and they were just so unenthused/unengaged after 2 hrs. “Annoying and childish” iirc
I think that’s entirely fair to see why many people bounced off it, especially in the long run for reasons mentioned - the writing a little more depending on what you’re looking at imo. It’s definitely not something you could posit as high form in general, but a couple factors going on. First I think I was all written by Kamiya, who I wouldn’t entirely rule out for usually being juvenile or crude, artfully style over substance (reflected obviously in other known designs). I feel Okami’s dialogue and general script are full of very in the know, adult telling a tale to children accents, and intentional or not there’s a kind of light hearted story tell to contrast with the often stilted feel folklore (sometimes) reads with. Issun’s brash overly pokin’ around attitude could be a grater, sure, but again playing against Amaterasu’s woofs and the rest of the cast, I think it’s fun characterization just, a lot to wade through.
I’d say it’s written fine or even above average endearing/humorous when you’ve seen enough of the game and its pockets, curious now how much localization went on. Something I think plenty of games deliver worse but aren’t faulted for so much, when this asks and requires a large pool of time/patience if you aren’t carried by the aesthetic or brush miracles via god art.