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Author Topic: Okami  (Read 7368 times)
Shiver
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Okami
« on: October 19, 2006, 12:59:58 am »

Simply put, this obscure little gem for the PS2 is amazing. It plays like a Zelda game, except you're this crazy white wolf deity that has to heal the land because a bunch of demons took a giant crap all over it. Despite being cell-shaded, the game looks beautiful. It's also a very long game if you do all the sidequests. I would say the thing I like least about it are the little voices they gave the characters that all ramble in moon-language. And I DO mean moon language - Japanese would've been cool. Also, the fights are a little easy. The first fight against Waka caught me by surprise so I died on him and Ninetails ate up a lot of my healing items, but every other fight really didn't do much to bring out my Ninja Gaiden skills.

I'll leave you guys with a bit of imagery:

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EDIT: The people running RPG-o-Mania and Games Radar suck too much to let me host thumbnails for more than an hour, apparently. Sorry about that.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2006, 08:07:33 am by Shiver » Logged
AngusThermopyle
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Re: Okami
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2006, 04:34:28 pm »

This game does indeed look very interesting and I’ll probably wind up picking this up at some point.

The artwork does indeed look unique, especially for a modern console game. How does it look animated?

Also, what are the side-quests like? Are they puzzle-oriented, or more the go-kill-the-big-bad-monster kind of quests?
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Draxas
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Re: Okami
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2006, 04:55:02 pm »

Playing through this right now. Super-happy-fun-Okami-time has a habit of stretching out way past the time any sane person would normally go to bed when they have to get up the next morning for work. Tongue

Despite being cell-shaded, the game looks beautiful.

More like because it's cel-shaded. The entire game has the look of being painted with a calligraphy brush, which adds greatly to its charm. In fact, there's an unlockable movie of one of the early internal promos done in standard "realistic" style, and just by watching it's 10-20 seconds, the loss of the unique aesthetic style style really hurts the appeal.

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I would say the thing I like least about it are the little voices they gave the characters that all ramble in moon-language. And I DO mean moon language - Japanese would've been cool.

And considering the sheer amount of voiced dialog this would have resulted in, it would also have been completely impractical. Besides, the characters' mumbly-talk is fine to convey the sense that they are speaking; they could just as easily have done "blip-talk" like so many other games, where each letter makes a little pop as it comes on screen, or kept it silent, and nobody would have been any wiser.

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Also, the fights are a little easy.

A lot easy, if you're a Zelda nut like me. The toughest battle I've encountered so fas was against Blight, and tht's only because it took my 3AM-addled brain a while to figure out what his gimmick was. He and the second Waka fight were the only ones that I even needed to heal during at all.

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The artwork does indeed look unique, especially for a modern console game. How does it look animated?

Really good, actually. The only thing I've noticed is some occasional instances of "black pain blur," where a dark area seems to leave streaks of black paint across the screen momentarily. It's a bit distracting when it happens (and has never happened to me at any kind of critical moment), but is a neat artistic effect at least. Otherwise, the best way to classify it is "art in motion," since the game really resembles calligraphy come to life.

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Also, what are the side-quests like? Are they puzzle-oriented, or more the go-kill-the-big-bad-monster kind of quests?

Having not finished the game yet, I couldn't completely tell you for sure, but most of the ones I've encountered are either puzzle-oriented, or fall under the general heading of minigames (such as the digging subgame, or the footraces).
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Shiver
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Re: Okami
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2006, 06:11:47 pm »

A lot easy, if you're a Zelda nut like me. The toughest battle I've encountered so fas was against Blight, and tht's only because it took my 3AM-addled brain a while to figure out what his gimmick was. He and the second Waka fight were the only ones that I even needed to heal during at all.

Blight is pretty much a one-trick pony. Bring a good batch of healing items for Ninetails. I don't care how good you are, that boss has a rather... unique ability that will mess you up something fierce. At first you'll think "holy crap, there are enemies that can do that?!" and then you'll start to find it frustrating when you've eaten up half your stash of dog bones.
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Shiver
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Re: Okami
« Reply #4 on: October 26, 2006, 06:25:41 am »

Okay, I beat it. I beat all the really hard sidequests too. The three most difficult sidequests in the game are:

1) Pushing a giant bee hive up a cliff for the sleeping bear. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE THE WIND MIRACLE.

2) Blockhead Grande. Get a dry erase marker and some kleenex before attempting this puzzle, you've gotta draw on the screen to pull this off. Even then, it's still nightmarishly hard.

3) Racing Kai through the forest, which you can do right before the end of the game. Use shortcuts and be prepared to reset your game a lot.

Other than that, I gotta say the boss fights near the end are a lot more fun than the earlier ones. Lechku + Nechku was pure genius, as was the end boss.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2006, 06:29:10 am by Shiver » Logged
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Re: Okami
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2006, 07:43:03 pm »

I'm at the point where I can enter the final dungeon now, so I'm pretty well caught up. I have to admit, Lechku and Nechku was pretty awesome, especially considering that most of the other enemies you fight between them and Ninetails are simple slugfests (or repeats). Then again, they were also really easy, whereas Ninetails and Oki both messed me up pretty good.

I did the beehive thing almost immediately after I found it. Frustrating, yes, but Galestorm was certainly not required; it's just a matter of getting the stupid thing to hug the walls, and you can move it upward pretty easily. Then again, I question the sanity of the person who thought that said task would be "fun and interesting."

The race against Kai is an absolute soul-crusher; I really despise tasks that demand nothing less than perfection for really long stretches like this. However, I find that the course is at least a bit easier to manage if you go in there and neutralize all the evil trees beforehand... Which is not to say I've managed to beat her yet.

I refuse to draw on my TV screen, nor am I willing to videotape blockhead's pattern. Therefore, I've sort of resigned myself to taking a halfhearted stab at him every so often, and probably never actually winning.

Ah well, I'm still trying to find all the technique upgrades I missed earlier, but I'm sure I'll have it finished soon enough.
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LoreAlmighty
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Re: Okami
« Reply #6 on: November 19, 2006, 06:44:27 am »

Those Japanese games scare me...
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Shiver
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Re: Okami
« Reply #7 on: November 21, 2006, 03:10:19 am »

Those Japanese games scare me...

I hate JRPGs with a passion, but Okami is no JRPG. Out of my topic, troll. Shoo.
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Re: Okami
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2007, 09:55:55 pm »

I just picked this game up over the holidays and I really like it so far. Really nice graphics and interesting gameplay.

I did have a couple of questions:

Is there any point to items such as the Bull Horn or Laquerware Set other than selling them for cash?

Is there any point in catching all of the fish types? (Aside from selling for cash…)

Getting praise for feeding animals is nice. Do you get some sort of super-bonus for feeding all of the animals?

Anyways, I hope this game sells well and encourages publishers to make more innovative games like it. I never heard of Clover before, but I'll be keeping an eye on them in the future.
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Re: Okami
« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2007, 01:40:41 am »

Is there any point to items such as the Bull Horn or Laquerware Set other than selling them for cash?

Is there any point in catching all of the fish types? (Aside from selling for cash…)

No. Sell them. The game keeps track of what fish and artifacts you've picked up and that's all that matters. The gold dusts and higher level weapons are really expensive so you will need cash.

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Getting praise for feeding animals is nice. Do you get some sort of super-bonus for feeding all of the animals?

Ha ha, probably. I got like 98% of them. A few can be missed and never found again, such as the spotted bunny Inaba. If you return the spotted bunny to his owner before feeding him, you've missed your chance. Don't go ballistic if you can't get every critter ever, it's not worth the trouble.

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Anyways, I hope this game sells well and encourages publishers to make more innovative games like it. I never heard of Clover before, but I'll be keeping an eye on them in the future.

I think the company disappeared for other reasons, but I doubt the game has sold poorly.

One more thing. There's a hard to find sidequest just before the end of the game that's very combat intensive. It's basically impossible without a huge stack of combat items. Since the rest of the fights are fairly easy, you should be saving all the miscellaneous battle items you never use just for that sidequest if you want to do it. I sold them not knowing this, so I never bothered with the quest.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2007, 01:42:23 am by Shiver » Logged
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Re: Okami
« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2007, 06:37:19 pm »

One more thing: I finally managed to get past the 5-hit Blockhead on the Island, but now I've found Blockhead Grande. He looks to have 8-hits or so, but it only looks like he's gaurding treasure and I can skip him if I want.

Is he worth it? The 5-hit blockhead was a major headache, so if I'm gonna tackle Grande, there better be some good loot!
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Re: Okami
« Reply #11 on: January 09, 2007, 07:52:36 pm »

There's at least one stray bead in his treasure hoard, if you're into collecting all of them. Other than that, beats me; I didn't have the patience nor external recording device necessary to defeat him.
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Re: Okami
« Reply #12 on: February 20, 2007, 06:51:39 pm »

Good news! Looks like some of the Clover team is forming their own studio:

http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/02/excapcom_design.html
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Re: Okami
« Reply #13 on: February 23, 2007, 12:01:40 am »

Whoa, these guys had a hand in Devil May Cry and Resident Evil? Ha ha, Capcom's way up shit creek now that they've branched off.
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Re: Okami
« Reply #14 on: November 30, 2007, 06:06:01 pm »

Looks like they're now porting the game too the Wii. This makes a lot of sense, considering the Wii's cool controllers and Okami's mechanics. Too bad they're not updating the game in any other way, though.
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