Hey now everybody, hope you're having a great day, and welcome to my review of Okami HD! For quite some time I've heard people talking about Okami and what an amazing game it is. For some strange reason I never got around to actually playing it though, even though it was originally released years ago. In fact it came out for the Playstation 2 back in 2006, and I definitely owned a PS2 at that time, so I'm not really sure why this never made it's way into my library of games. Every time I would catch a glimpse of gameplay footage I was impressed by the watercolor art style, and the fact that the main character who you control is a white wolf. All these aspects of Okami made it very interesting to me and I have been dying to try it out. Now that it has been released on the PS4 and Xbox One with a HD remaster, I've finally had the chance to play this illusive game, so let's get into it.
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Okami is an action adventure game developed by Clover Studio, and published by Capcom. As I stated before it was originally released for the Playstation 2 back in 2006, but since then it's been ported to the incredibly popular Nintendo Wii console as well. Then in December of 2017 it got a HD port that came out for PS4 and Xbox One, but not the Switch for some reason. I've always heard good things about Okami, and pretty much every review I've seen has given it scores in the 90's, so I have been looking forward to experiencing it for myself. I'm a big fan of adventure games and RPG's, and I really like the unique art style that the game is done in, so I expected something really special, and for the most part that's what I got.
In Okami you play as protagonist Amaterasu, who is a white wolf that's actually the reincarnated version of the Shinto Sun Goddess. As a wolf your character is unable to speak and can only bark at things, so the game gives you a companion who does the talking for both of us. The companion is named Issun, and he is as small as a bug. He says he is a wondering artist who is in search of the thirteen Celestial Brush Techniques. Although he is pretty arrogant, he agrees to accompany us on our journey and help in any way he can. He also gives us the nickname Ammy, short for Amaterasu, and was, most of the time, an enjoyable companion to have.
The game is heavily based upon Japanese folklore, and it has a lot of story to tell, not just at the beginning, but all the way through to the end. It starts off in a small village in Japan, one day it becomes shrouded in darkness and gets attacked by a giant eight headed dragon type creature named Orochi. It looks as though the village is doomed when it's greatest warrior can't defeat the massive demon, but then just as all hope is lost a great white wolf joins the battle, and against all odds defeats Orochi and brings light back to the land. Then for 100 years the people lived in peace with no sign of Orochi or the white wolf. But on the 100th anniversary of said event a white wolf suddenly appears once again, just as a curse of darkness falls over the village and it's surrounding areas.
Someone has foolishly broken the magic seal that held Orochi at bay, and now the only one who can restore peace is the Sun Goddess reincarnated as Amaterasu the white wolf who we control. We learn from Sakuya, a guardian of the forest, that we have the power to restore light to the land using an ability called the Celestial Brush. Using this brush technique we can perform all sorts of different abilities that help us to defeat the evil forces. By holding down R1 it brings up the Brush, you can then move it around with the joystick. You can basically draw on the screen and perform special moves that do everything from repair bridges so you can cross over to somewhere, make dead trees bloom again, turn day into night, or night into day. There are thirteen different brush strokes to learn overall that you acquire slowly throughout the game.
The brush is a very interesting mechanic that gives Okami a very unique style. Not only can the brush be used in the game world to restore life to the plants, but you can also use it in battle to help defeat enemies. As you run around the world you will come across these floating green scrolls that represent enemies. You can avoid them pretty easily, but fighting regularly will help you become more powerful, and will help you save up money quicker to buy better items. You get a good amount of different weapons to use, but not a ton compared to other games. Amaterasu can equip one main weapon and one sub weapon, and you can switch these out at any time. When in combat you attack with these weapons, but should also make use of your brush powers. These will make fighting much easier, not that it's very hard to begin with though.
Another thing that makes Okami so unique is it's incredible art style, obviously this should be the first thing that people notice about the game. Everything is done in a cell shaded watercolor style that has a hand drawn feel to it. This really makes your time with the game more enjoyable, just roaming around and looking at everything come back to life as you defeat the areas boss is satisfying. Each new area you enter will be under the curse of Orochi, and it's up to you to track down and defeat the boss that's causing it. You'll have to talk to many NPC's and figure out various puzzles to learn where the boss is and how to kill it. After freeing each area of it's curse, the land will be restored to it's former beauty, and you will learn a new Celestial Brush Technique.
There are some RPG elements to the game where you can find new weapons and level them up, as well as collect "praise" that you can use to level up your health bar and ink reserves. It's all very basic and bare bones though and doesn't really add much depth to the game overall. Most of your time will be spent exploring each new area and talking to the dozens of NPC's there to figure out what you need to do next. I never had much trouble knowing where to go or what to do because it's all laid out for you in the journal that you can access at any time. There's also a map that you can pull up by holding L2, which shows you where the next objective is. Everything is done in a way that makes it easy for kids or newcomers to understand what's going on.
Now most things about Okami are very well done and it's quite fun to play as a wolf running around exploring the open world and fighting various demons. But I had a hard time becoming immersed in the game due to it's almost non stop dialog boxes. There is no voice acting in Okami, instead you read dialog boxes similar to a Zelda game. That would be fine normally, but in Okami every time I started getting into it, there would be another person I needed to talk to, and another cut scene, then more people to talk to. It took me out of the game and prevented me from playing at a pace I was comfortable with. In order to make any progress you need to speak with certain characters, and this happens every five minutes. As soon as I started getting in a groove and having fun, I'd have to sit through a bunch more dialog boxes. That's my main gripe with an otherwise excellent game, and for some people it might not be that big of a problem.
This is an especially beautiful game that has an interesting story to tell. It uses gameplay mechanics that you don't see anywhere else with the Brush Techniques, and learning them was a lot of fun. As you learn new techniques more parts of the game world open up to you and there are plenty of secrets and side quests to partake in if you feel like it. I just wish they let the player have more time to breath and become immersed in actually playing the game, instead of feeling the need to bombard us with dialog so often. This is definitely a game more suited for beginners or maybe kids, that would appreciate the story being directly told to them instead of experienced and understood for themselves. Nevertheless, for a game that was released for the PS2 over a decade ago it's still very impressive in a lot of ways, and I can certainly see why it gets so much praise from it's fans. I give Okami HD a grade of..................................
B+
Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed it!