Gaming Okami

[Shinjitsu]

[img]http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/previews/featured/ps2/okami/okami6.jpg[/img]
[color=dodgerblue]Included in the preview disc with this month's Official Playstation Magazine is a playable demo for a game I've been looking forward to since hearing about it at last year's E3 - Okami, which is being brought to us from Clover Studios, the lovely people responsible for the Viewtiful Joe series.

Okami is an adventure/platformer in which you play as the goddess of the sun taken the form of a wolf, charged with restoring color and vibrance to the world and defeating the demons responsible for bringing darkness to the world. Your abilities are standard fare for platformers including running, jumping, and dashing into objects and enemies, you can also paw at the ground in search of items and bark to inspect your surroundings and talk to people.

The magic of the game is revealed in brush mode, by pressing R1, the camera shifts and the scenery becomes monochromatic as if showing you a desktop print of the action of the game, with the directional stick and square button, you can draw on the scene and repair broken objects or fill in missing pieces of architecture. In the demo, you use brush mode for filling in constellations, repairing a bridge, and drawing a river to swim through. As you progress through the game, other brush strokes and techniques are made available to you.

As with Viewtiful Joe, Clover studios again brings for a unique and imaginative visual style in Okami, the game's style resembles Eastern style ink paintings and looks absolutely gorgeous in motion; to the point where there's a very slight grain over-top of the action to give you the feeling that everything is taking place on sheets of rice paper.

Okami presents both a fun and entertaining adventure game, as well as a visual experience, in my opinion, on par with Shadow of the Colossus, so I'd easily recommend this to fans of adventure or platforming games and gamers who're looking for titles which further push the medium as an art form. Designed by Clover studios and published by Capcom, Okami is set to be released in Japan later this month, with US and PAL territory releases in September. Right now, the game is a PS2 exclusive; no word of a release on any other console.

Links:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okami[/url] - Wikipedia entry with background information
[url]http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/adventure/okami/index.html?q=okami[/url] - Okami @ Gamepsot
[url]http://www.o-kami.jp/[/url] - Official website (Japanese)
[url]http://www.the-magicbox.com/0604/game060402d.shtml[/url] - Okami screenshots at the MagicBox[/color]

[Goodbye, Face]

[font=arial][size=1]So, I just got Okami yesterday and have played a few hours into it. Frankly, the game is beautiful, I love watching the flowers grow behind me as I run (although they dissappear after a while) and the dead leaves fly out when I tackle. So far the best graphic parts have been where you ressurect one of the Guardian Saplings and all the darkness in the area turns into beautiful gardens and the fresh water replaces the swampy areas. One problem I had with the graphics is that there is no progressive scan, which would be very useful here. I have a monster LCD monitor and the screen stretches more that it should and vertical bars appear where a line of pixels is stretched into two. There's an LCD mode but it hasn't really improved much.

As far as gameplay goes, it's totally on par with the graphics, usually there's some issue where I'm like "Why can't I do that in this game?" for me. Usually it's jumping or something, but here you can pretty much do anything you want and the game encourages you to explore around and figure out all your moves. It's awesome.

So, who else has picked it up?[/font][/size]

[Ikillion]

[color=#56995e][SIZE=1][FONT=Comic Sans MS]Oh my this game is just to beautiful for words. I picked this game up sometime on Thursday and only have played just about three hours of it. The one really nifty feature I love about this game is the brush drawing. I just got the first green sprout from that one cave and am exploring around the new area that I had just unlocked. For some reason I just like to go around the area and just use power slash on just about everything I can find.

For some reason this game gives me the feeling of Loz The windwaker, I really don't know why but it just does. I love how the battles are played out and how you can use your brush techniques. And Susano makes me laugh for some reason, probably because he is so stupid.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[r2vq]

[color=#007520]*sigh*

I've been looking forward to this game since they mentioned it on the 1upShow. Honestly, it is beautiful, and it looks amazing. The only problem is, I haven't had a chance to play it yet! T_T

I was supposed to play it last night at a friend's house. But because I had to work late, she played it ahead of me. Like you three, she's had nothing but good things to say about it.

For those who played the game, tell me. The brush feature looks like it would work well on the DS. Do you think this game would work better with a control interface like the DS or is it pretty natural with the PS2 controller? I know the graphics for the game are way too intense for the handheld, in an interview someone from CLOVER said the graphics pushed the PS2 to the limit, but how can you not be reminded of a DS Stylus when you use the brush?

-r2[/color]

[Ikillion]

[color=#56995e][SIZE=1][FONT=Comic Sans MS][quote name='r2vq][color=#007520']For those who played the game, tell me. The brush feature looks like it would work well on the DS. Do you think this game would work better with a control interface like the DS or is it pretty natural with the PS2 controller? I know the graphics for the game are way too intense for the handheld, in an interview someone from CLOVER said the graphics pushed the PS2 to the limit, but how can you not be reminded of a DS Stylus when you use the brush?[/color][/quote]
Yes you really should play it, you have no clue what it is that you are missing out on.

As for your question. I was actually worried about that, I really feel that the entire brush using system would work rather will with the stylus instead of the PS2 analog stick. For example, one of the powers you get on is [spoiler]The ability to draw a circle in the sky to draw a new sun and bring night into day[/spoiler]. I am thankful the system isnt too specific since I have drawn a shape somewhat closer to an oval and still gotten the [spoiler]sun[/spoiler] drawn correctly.

I really wish to play more of this game, whenver my homework subsides, its really a game that to me lives up to the hype.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Goodbye, Face]

[font=arial][size=1]I alos agree that the stylus would've been a better choice, however I can surely understand that the graphics were made for the PS2's capabilities and would not translate well elsewhere.

I'm now 17[COLOR=SlateGray]![/COLOR] hours into the game. Granted, there've been a few wasted hours where I've had the game on and had to walk away or something, but I'm now exploring the whole area I've been able to unlock and just figuring out what I should do next. There's seemlingly a million different ways to get through all the events.[/size][/font]

[Charles]

[quote name='RiflesAtRecess][font=arial][size=1]I alos agree that the stylus would've been a better choice, however I can surely understand that the graphics were made for the PS2's capabilities and would not translate well elsewhere.[/size'][/font][/quote]

Have you ever played Viewtiful Joe for the DS? While Okami would not translate [I]perfectly[/I] onto the DS, I am confident that the game would look fantastic on the handheld.

I picked this game up last Saturday and I'm about eight hours in. Thus far I'm impressed by the silky smooth animation but I'm not a fan of the art style. The visuals look too dithered and dull for my tastes. Certain scenes, however, like when a guardian sapling is revived and nature explodes back into a cursed zone, look fantastic.

From what I've played the game is enjoyable, and the brush adds a unique element to solving puzzles and defeating enemies, but the simplicity of the brush mechanics sort of dampens the fun a little.

Okami shows a lot of potential so far: it looks pretty good, introduces some cool concepts, and the writing is great. However, I've yet to reach a point in the game where I've been really "wowed." Hopefully things pick up a little soon.

[Goodbye, Face]

[font=arial][size=1]*has been playing this game all weekend and is now about 50 hours in*

No, I haven't played Viewtiful Joe on the DS, but I really wanted it a while back and I'm just getting some of my own money, as I paid off the debt with the parents. Thank you for reminding me about the game, I might go buy it after FFXII and New SMB.

Graphically, the guardian sapling moments are probably the best parts of the game. Too bad there's so few of them. However, the big "wow" moments for me were the humor put in the deities who give you new brush techniques. There's one that drinks a whole bunch of Saki until it gets drunk and then starts talking. There's also a cat god that bats around Issun with its paws. XD

Also, I'm sure you've reached a boss battle by now. Some of them are really intense, such as [spoiler]Ninetails, which can also use brush techniques against you. You have to burn its tails with the torches above and then it raises a sword and you have to make lightning strike it, the fox then separates into a pixie for each one of its remaining tails and you have to kill them in various ways.[/spoiler]

Another main thing I love about the game is that there's all these false endings, in a sense. You start off thinking that a certain enemy further up the road is the end goal, but it keeps surprising you. They make these bosses that you thought were a really big deal at the time look so small in retrospect. I mean, you eventually go on to fight [spoiler]the root of all evil itself[/spoiler]! Well, that's what I'm assuming anyway, as the game basically said that after I beat the boss I mentioned above. >_>

So yeah, this game really likes to surprise you, and I think that's the best think about it. I also love all the Viewtiful Joe references, there's also a character who exclaims "Let's rock, baby!" as a homage to Devil May Cry. Fun stuff.[/font][/size]

[Guest Tsorin]

When I heard Okami was coming out on the Wii, I was preparing to sell my soul to get this game. (I've played the PS2 version at least 3 times.) However, I recently recieved my new copy of Nintendo Powe, and in the game's review, the writer claimed there were issues with the controls, such as the Wii's inability to recognize the brush strokes, and now I'm hesitating. I don't want my memory of Okami to be ruined!

Has anyone else heard something similar? Do you think it would be worth it to buy the game anyway?