Nothing really too major to report. All I did today was play through the obligatory first three-day cycle, and now the real game can begin.
One thing that's always fascinated me about this game is the way the first section is designed to be played through in exactly 50 minutes, otherwise you lose and have to start the entire game all over again. I'm sure more than a few kids have run into this, unable to complete it correctly on the first playthrough, and then being dumbfounded when the end of the world happens.
That kinda stuff can scar a kid for life.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Okami - Retrospective
Stop me if you've heard this one. A wolf, accompanied by an annoying character that rides around on it, speaks for it, and taunts it repeatedly, runs around an ancient land, battling creatures of darkness in an effort to purge the shadows from the land. Along the way you collect new items and powers, that help you access previously inaccessible areas of what would otherwise be a truly free-roaming world.
Yeah, comparisons between Okami and the Legend of Zelda series (specifically Twilight Princess, also on my list) are inevitable. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Zelda's formula has been duplicated, copied, cloned, modified, and ripped off numerous times ever since it first exploded onto Famicom systems in the mid 1980's. You could even argue that Metroid, which came out 6 months later, even ripped off the concept, but in a side-scrolling presentation. Perhaps Metroidvanias should be called Metroidzeldavanias.
This style though, has proven to consistently yield extremely positive results. Games like Shadow Complex, which pay tribute to the style are excellent examples of what an unashamed clone can be. The Zelda and Metroid games are all among the highest rated of any game on the console. Even on the CD-I, the Zelda games hold the #2, 3, and 4 slots in popularity on Gamespot. Axis and Allies must be a pretty good game.
It's unavoidable to compare it to similar games, but even allowing for that, Okami is a damn fine game in its own right. I'm not going too much into the actual gameplay, because anyone reading this has likely already played the game, or at least heard enough about it. But for the uninitiated, you play as the goddess Amaterasu, who has come to Nippon in the form of a white wolf to fight demons. There's a deep story behind all of this about an evil eight-headed dragon named Orochi and a legend that goes back 100 years of a similar wolf fighting and defeating the same dragon, but in the end it all boils down to: "You're a god. Fight evil."
The thing that really sets Okami apart from other games aside from its Katsushika Hokusai visual style is the Celestial Brush mechanic that has you drawing representations of powers on screen in order to activate them. While this sounds fun in theory, it begins to get troublesome when you realize it's impossible for the game to walk the line between "simple" and "distinct" with all 13 powers' brushstrokes. I don't doubt the advanced technology that programmers must have pulled their hair out over when creating the Celestial Brush, but it's not perfect. You will end up using the same gestures for several different attacks, and others that use very similar gestures. The problem with context sensitive controls is you will almost always run into a time when the same context is happening simultaneously. This can result in creating a useless waterspout circle when you're trying to form a lily pad or gust of wind, or causing a trail of fire when you only want to use the slash ability.
The overall presentation of the game is enjoyable, and you can tell a lot of care and humor went into creating all of the memorable characters. If you can begin to actively HATE someone who doesn't exist, it's always a testament to the skill of the writers. One thing I could have done without, though, is the annoying nippon-ese that the characters speak in. It's okay for letting you know what a character sounds like, but it gets VERY annoying VERY quickly, especially when you don't want to skip the text because you actually want to read the story. This is actually a considerable detriment to the game, because I found myself skipping what I was fairly certain was a very well written story simply because I didn't want to hear the gibberish anymore and just wanted to get back to the gameplay. PLEASE, Capcom, put an option to turn the speech off in Okamiden, or omit it altogether.
Okami is a very good and very long game. This is the kind of game a kid who only gets one or two games a year could get for their birthday or Christmas and it would get them through many, many months down the road. If I were younger, I could definitely see myself devoting many weeks of my life to this game, seeking out every hidden bead, powering up every weapon, playing through multiple times to unlock every hidden reward and then looking back on the time with fondness 10 years later, just like certain gamers do now with games like Ocarina of Time or even the original Legend of Zelda. Okami is the kind of game that defines "instant classic."
The Good
The Bad
The Defining Moment
The Burning Question
Yeah, comparisons between Okami and the Legend of Zelda series (specifically Twilight Princess, also on my list) are inevitable. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Zelda's formula has been duplicated, copied, cloned, modified, and ripped off numerous times ever since it first exploded onto Famicom systems in the mid 1980's. You could even argue that Metroid, which came out 6 months later, even ripped off the concept, but in a side-scrolling presentation. Perhaps Metroidvanias should be called Metroidzeldavanias.
This style though, has proven to consistently yield extremely positive results. Games like Shadow Complex, which pay tribute to the style are excellent examples of what an unashamed clone can be. The Zelda and Metroid games are all among the highest rated of any game on the console. Even on the CD-I, the Zelda games hold the #2, 3, and 4 slots in popularity on Gamespot. Axis and Allies must be a pretty good game.
It's unavoidable to compare it to similar games, but even allowing for that, Okami is a damn fine game in its own right. I'm not going too much into the actual gameplay, because anyone reading this has likely already played the game, or at least heard enough about it. But for the uninitiated, you play as the goddess Amaterasu, who has come to Nippon in the form of a white wolf to fight demons. There's a deep story behind all of this about an evil eight-headed dragon named Orochi and a legend that goes back 100 years of a similar wolf fighting and defeating the same dragon, but in the end it all boils down to: "You're a god. Fight evil."
The thing that really sets Okami apart from other games aside from its Katsushika Hokusai visual style is the Celestial Brush mechanic that has you drawing representations of powers on screen in order to activate them. While this sounds fun in theory, it begins to get troublesome when you realize it's impossible for the game to walk the line between "simple" and "distinct" with all 13 powers' brushstrokes. I don't doubt the advanced technology that programmers must have pulled their hair out over when creating the Celestial Brush, but it's not perfect. You will end up using the same gestures for several different attacks, and others that use very similar gestures. The problem with context sensitive controls is you will almost always run into a time when the same context is happening simultaneously. This can result in creating a useless waterspout circle when you're trying to form a lily pad or gust of wind, or causing a trail of fire when you only want to use the slash ability.
The overall presentation of the game is enjoyable, and you can tell a lot of care and humor went into creating all of the memorable characters. If you can begin to actively HATE someone who doesn't exist, it's always a testament to the skill of the writers. One thing I could have done without, though, is the annoying nippon-ese that the characters speak in. It's okay for letting you know what a character sounds like, but it gets VERY annoying VERY quickly, especially when you don't want to skip the text because you actually want to read the story. This is actually a considerable detriment to the game, because I found myself skipping what I was fairly certain was a very well written story simply because I didn't want to hear the gibberish anymore and just wanted to get back to the gameplay. PLEASE, Capcom, put an option to turn the speech off in Okamiden, or omit it altogether.
Okami is a very good and very long game. This is the kind of game a kid who only gets one or two games a year could get for their birthday or Christmas and it would get them through many, many months down the road. If I were younger, I could definitely see myself devoting many weeks of my life to this game, seeking out every hidden bead, powering up every weapon, playing through multiple times to unlock every hidden reward and then looking back on the time with fondness 10 years later, just like certain gamers do now with games like Ocarina of Time or even the original Legend of Zelda. Okami is the kind of game that defines "instant classic."
The Good
- Classic Zelda-esque free-roaming/dungeon diving gameplay
- Unique Celestial Brush mechanic
- 40+ hour epic; very good value for the price
The Bad
- Game might be a bit TOO long for the average gamer.
- Nippon-ese gibberish gets grating after a while
- Celestial Brush is not perfect
The Defining Moment
- The second celestial brush appearing during the battle against Ninetails. I almost shit myself.
The Burning Question
- Okay, so what exactly is the point of the whole time travel subplot? I'm usually really good at figuring these things out, and I'm pretty sure it's explained somewhere else in the game, but the nippon-ese kept me from reading too much further into it.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Progress for January 8, 2010 - Okami - COMPLETED!
Woo! This game was... very... confusing. Characters and plot lines drop in and out with little to no setup, and function primarily to lengthen an already obsessively long game.
Anywho. Yami is dead. Nippon is saved. Full review later this week.
Final play stats:
Play Time 45 hr 36 min 5 sec
Days Passed 70
Saves....... 86
Deaths..... 0 (Pink tree)
Enemies Defeated 459 (green tree)
Money Gained 3,422,795 (green tree)
Demon Fangs 296 (green tree)
praise earned 4,269 (green tree)
Presents from Issun:
Karmic Transformer 1
Karmic Transformer 2
Karmic Returner
Stray Bead
Karmic Transformer 3
Anywho. Yami is dead. Nippon is saved. Full review later this week.
Final play stats:
Play Time 45 hr 36 min 5 sec
Days Passed 70
Saves....... 86
Deaths..... 0 (Pink tree)
Enemies Defeated 459 (green tree)
Money Gained 3,422,795 (green tree)
Demon Fangs 296 (green tree)
praise earned 4,269 (green tree)
Presents from Issun:
Karmic Transformer 1
Karmic Transformer 2
Karmic Returner
Stray Bead
Karmic Transformer 3
Progress for January 7, 2010 - Okami
Christ, how much longer is this game? I know I'm relatively close to the end, but I have no idea whether that's 2 hours or 20 hours away by this game's perception of pacing.
I just defeated Orochi for the second time. The time travel aspect was... interestingly handled. But I don't think it was entirely necessary.
Anyway. I'll probably continue tomorrow, after I take back some library books.
I just defeated Orochi for the second time. The time travel aspect was... interestingly handled. But I don't think it was entirely necessary.
Anyway. I'll probably continue tomorrow, after I take back some library books.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Progress for January 3, 2010 - Okami
Wow, this game just keeps on going, doesn't it? You certainly get a lot of gameplay for your buck. I've made it to the frozen north, and I spent most of today searching around Nippon for extra praise and treasures in order to boost my ink and health, and to upgrade my combat abilities.
I bought the Golden Fury attack.
Amaterasu pees on the enemies.
I'm afraid to wonder what Brown Rage does.
I bought the Golden Fury attack.
Amaterasu pees on the enemies.
I'm afraid to wonder what Brown Rage does.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Progress for January 2, 2010 - Okami
I think I made a lot of progress today. I'm up to about 33 hours, and I just killed Ninetails. The battle with him scared the shit out of me when I saw that second paintbrush show up O.o but I still prevailed.
One thing that really pissed me off: Without any warning or provocation, the game completely cuts off your ability to travel outside of North Ryoshima, forcing you to make due with whatever supplies and praise you've picked up since then. There is one merchant available, but your ability to upgrade your stats during this time is very limited. If you aren't able to defeat the boss, you better hope you made multiple save files.
One thing that really pissed me off: Without any warning or provocation, the game completely cuts off your ability to travel outside of North Ryoshima, forcing you to make due with whatever supplies and praise you've picked up since then. There is one merchant available, but your ability to upgrade your stats during this time is very limited. If you aren't able to defeat the boss, you better hope you made multiple save files.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Progress for January 1, 2010 - Okami
I'm starting to fall into the groove of this game. I think usually when I play a game like this, I try to do it perfect on the first playthrough. I grind for items, search high and low for every optional piece of treasure until it all just becomes monotonous and boring. I had the same problem with BioShock, and I think I'm going to have a similar problem with Fallout 3. But now in Okami, I'm just going from one objective to the next. I have too many games to get through to dawdle, and I hear Okami is pretty effing long.
I made it to north ryoshima coast, and now I'm trying to find the whirlpool to get to the dragon's realm. Sounds like fun!
I made it to north ryoshima coast, and now I'm trying to find the whirlpool to get to the dragon's realm. Sounds like fun!
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