Ōkami
Publisher: Capcom
Review: Anybody who has spent a decent amount of time talking to me about video games in the past knows that the "The Legend of Zelda" series is not only my favorite Nintendo series, but possibly my favorite video game franchise of all time. When I heard then that there was a game that closely followed the structure and style of "The Legend of Zelda" but with a traditional Japanese art style, I was incredibly excited. I purchased the game right away for the Nintendo Wii in 2014 and intended to play it as soon as possible. This was unfortunately, like many of the games I have been meaning to get around to, right around the time I stopped playing single player games in favor of multiplayer ones and as such this game fell by the wayside in a sea of "plan to play" games I thought I would never actually get around to. Now though it has been released on the Nintendo Switch in glorious HD and I have been finding value again in completing single player games, so the stars have aligned for me to finally get around to this game. It took a while, twenty-nine hours in all, but I have completed this game and have much to say about it that may be upsetting for some who are big fans for this game. From what I can find online this game receives near universal praise, so it may come as a surprise for some to hear that I actually had a lot of issues with the game that keep me from liking it nearly as much as I would like to - and unlike with "The King's Speech" this game is in a genre I adore. I will keep things spoiler free, so if you plan to play the game eventually, fear not, I will not be including any spoilers in this review/critique. With that out of the way, here are my thoughts on "Ōkami"!
For starters, it's no secret that "Ōkami" is a breathtakingly beautiful game, in fact it's one of the most beautiful games I have ever played in my life. Every screenshot is like a japanese painting, and as one so taking by aesthetics as myself this was far and away the highlight of the game for me. The only complaint I have of the visuals in this game is that many of the locations do start to look similar to one another after a while and the colors are not quite as vibrant as I would've liked them to be in some areas, but this is a small complaint when looked at in comparison to how positively the art style and design of the game impacts the overall experience. Too, the theming in this game is, like the art style, superb and it shouldn't come as a surprise. This game is based heavily on Japanese mythological stories, and as such many attributes of the game's theming take directly from them. "Experience" in this game is called faith as you are the god Amaterasu, you wield sacred swords or holy rosary beads as are normally used to cleanse evil figures in mythology, many of the items you can purchase in the shops are spiritual objects in Japanese folklore, this is what I mean when I say the game has good theming. It's little aspects like these that in addition to the art style, that really make "Ōkami" shine as a piece of art. Thematical consistency as I usually hear it called is something I value strongly in games, and is something this game does excellently. Now let's talk about "Experience" a bit more, since the progression system in this game is definitely noteworthy as well.
As I stated before, instead of "experience points" in this game you have faith that you earn by helping cleanse the world of evil, feeding animals, beating bosses, types of things you'd expect would give experience to a godlike entity like Amaterasu. With faith you can purchase upgrades that give you more health, ink pots, astral pouches, and wallet upgrades. It's a simple but rewarding system that makes cleansing the world of evil fun and enjoyable rather than tedious as you really have an in game incentive to do so and you can see yourself as a god growing stronger as evil is banished. It's a really cool aspect of the game that's super satisfying, and that I enjoyed a whole lot. Speaking of ink pots though, you may be wondering to yourself what I mean when I say that you can get more of them. Well the gimmick of this game if you did not already know is that you control a celestial brush that you can use to do a multitude of things. The things you can do grow as you learn new brush strokes from different gods - another thing that bolsters the thematic consistency of the game. How well this gimmick is implemented though is much more up for debate. In my opinion, the brush mechanic in this game is not taken nearly as far as it should have been for how pivotal a mechanic it is. You spend a great deal of time learning and using these brush strokes, but its a shame in my opinion how many of them just end up being too similar to one another, being mostly useless, or being largely forgotten. This is with its exceptions for sure - some of the techniques are really well implemented, unique, and engaging, but most just feel like watered down Legend of Zelda items. With the mention of The Legend of Zelda I think it's time to shift gears a bit as most of my complaints with the game do lie in how it compares to other games within its genre for as an action-adventure game, I think "Ōkami" is really quite disappointing.
Let's not shoot the shit, "Ōkami" does not have most of what I think makes an action-adventure game fun. There are no puzzles unless you consider seeing a statue and using your brush technique on it a puzzle, there are no long side quests unless you consider having to go do something out of the way so you can progress the main story a side quest, and there are no dungeons unless you consider a really fancy series of hallways a dungeon. I'm exaggerating of course, but I need to emphasize just how strongly I feel this game has failed to replicate what games that came before it have done so successfully. It is a shame too since if this game succeeded in these areas I think it would be in contention for one of the best within the genre (even with everything negative I say about it below). So many times I came to a fork in the road only to realize that one direction lead to a locked door and the other to a room with a key. So frequently I got the excitement of entering a new dungeon only to reach the boss in twenty minutes. So many times I tried to explore the dungeon further only to realize there were no hidden paths, no secret treasures, nothing. Each dungeon is just a series of hallways with a boss at the end, nothing more nothing less, and that's really disappointing. I understand that this game is more story driven than most other action-adventure games and so, feels the need to be more linear, but just because it is more linear does not excuse it failing to do so many things. Perhaps I may be less critical of what I perceive as the game's blunders if the story was executed well, but unfortunately I don't think this either is the case.
When I say that the execution of the story is poor I am not saying that the story itself is bad, not by any means. It's really cool to see how the game adapts old Japanese Mythology, the stories themselves are really cool. What I mean when I say the story is executed poorly, is that you have no idea what's going on or why you're doing anything aside from "it's what the game is telling you to do." You go from story to story with the only thing connecting them being that you are trying to banish evil from the world. It feels like by the end everything you have done was leading up to this moment, but you only knew that it was going to happen for an hour or two. I really think there was a missed opportunity to include bits and pieces of the different stories throughout the game instead of only including them in their self contained parts. This way when you finally get to the end of the game you aren't like "okay I guess I'm doing this now" you're like "oh shit that's what they meant when they said this". Because of this you have no idea when the game is going to end until you literally get to the final section of the game. I can see why they chose to structure things this way, to keep the Japanese mythological stories self contained and faithful, but I can't for the life of me say that how they chose to do things was correct. I just felt so lost and directionless, and unless that was the goal of the story (and it certainly was not) it is a damn shame.
There's a lot more I want to say about "Ōkami" but I don't think any of it is as important of detrimental to the overall experience as what I have said above. I think the game is far to easy and lazy in how it directs you from place to place, often literally having an arrow pointing in the direction of where to go. As well, every single time a puzzle magically does appear, Issun (your guide in the game) will tell you exactly what you have to do to complete it without you even asking. As if it was bad enough there are hardly any puzzles in the game, whenever one does by miracle of god appear the game flat out tells you how to complete it. It's not just in puzzles either, the game constantly tells you how to do stuff over and over and over again even after you've already done it a hundred times. It's such needless frustration too since this game has a T rating and anyone with an attention span higher than a goldfish should be able to remember what to do 5 minutes after being told how to do it. The combat, while much more complex than The Legend of Zelda, wasn't all that much better since I was able to win almost every single one by mashing attack over and over again. I hated how much artificial railroading there was in the game - it's okay to have a character who won't let you in until you get a certain item (good railroading), it's not okay to have a path be open only after you have a certain item in your inventory that doesn't in any way relate to the path you need to go (bad railroading). While some bosses were really cool many were tedious and I cannot fathom why they made you fight a 10 minute boss 3 times who, if you know what you are doing, will not threaten a single damage on you throughout the whole duration of the fight. It's a really special boss the first time around too and the magic totally disappears when you have to fight him more than once. Also do not get me started on the camera. This game has quite possibly the worst camera of any game I have ever played, and you should know that I played Ocarina of Time a few months ago. It is so fucking bad and it pains me that you have to experience it for yourself to truly understand.
Now I know above I said a ton of bad things about this game and it's true that I have lots of problems with it, but none are as bad as what I said before - the fact that it fails as an action adventure game. What I said above are only nitpicks in comparison. I really would rather leave on a positive note though. This is one of the most beautiful games that I have ever played and it is so god damn charming. What I mean to get across in what I have said above is that this game does a decent number of things very well and a decent number of things very poorly. Luckily in my opinion the things it does well are good enough to make up for much of what it does poorly, but it by no means can mask them. I know the problems are there, and unfortunately they are glaring. Were it not for this games beauty or charm I would have a hard time knowing if I would've enjoyed it at all. Already I had a hard time getting to its conclusion as is. Still though I think the game does have its appeal and luckily that appeal was strong enough for me to be able to reach the end, albeit with a three out of six overall rating.
Recommendation: Now I think if you've read up until this point you will have a good idea of whether you will like this game or not, but for consistencies sake let me give a recommendation. I recommend this game to anyone who really loves Japanese art or mythology, games that are beautiful and have a lot of charm. It's one of the most visually and thematically consistent games I have ever played, if that theme speaks to you then you will absolutely adore this game no doubt. If not, watch a bit of game-play of it. If it doesn't immediately woo you with its art style and charm, you should probably pass.
...
And that's my review of "Ōkami"! This one was very long, and my completion of the game took way longer than I could have expected so I'm sorry I'm getting it out so late. I will be getting to my "Lord of the Rings" review soon... It's going to be a special longer one so it needs a bit more time. Saying that, my next post will be on my picks for July, until then!
Publisher: Capcom
Review: Anybody who has spent a decent amount of time talking to me about video games in the past knows that the "The Legend of Zelda" series is not only my favorite Nintendo series, but possibly my favorite video game franchise of all time. When I heard then that there was a game that closely followed the structure and style of "The Legend of Zelda" but with a traditional Japanese art style, I was incredibly excited. I purchased the game right away for the Nintendo Wii in 2014 and intended to play it as soon as possible. This was unfortunately, like many of the games I have been meaning to get around to, right around the time I stopped playing single player games in favor of multiplayer ones and as such this game fell by the wayside in a sea of "plan to play" games I thought I would never actually get around to. Now though it has been released on the Nintendo Switch in glorious HD and I have been finding value again in completing single player games, so the stars have aligned for me to finally get around to this game. It took a while, twenty-nine hours in all, but I have completed this game and have much to say about it that may be upsetting for some who are big fans for this game. From what I can find online this game receives near universal praise, so it may come as a surprise for some to hear that I actually had a lot of issues with the game that keep me from liking it nearly as much as I would like to - and unlike with "The King's Speech" this game is in a genre I adore. I will keep things spoiler free, so if you plan to play the game eventually, fear not, I will not be including any spoilers in this review/critique. With that out of the way, here are my thoughts on "Ōkami"!
For starters, it's no secret that "Ōkami" is a breathtakingly beautiful game, in fact it's one of the most beautiful games I have ever played in my life. Every screenshot is like a japanese painting, and as one so taking by aesthetics as myself this was far and away the highlight of the game for me. The only complaint I have of the visuals in this game is that many of the locations do start to look similar to one another after a while and the colors are not quite as vibrant as I would've liked them to be in some areas, but this is a small complaint when looked at in comparison to how positively the art style and design of the game impacts the overall experience. Too, the theming in this game is, like the art style, superb and it shouldn't come as a surprise. This game is based heavily on Japanese mythological stories, and as such many attributes of the game's theming take directly from them. "Experience" in this game is called faith as you are the god Amaterasu, you wield sacred swords or holy rosary beads as are normally used to cleanse evil figures in mythology, many of the items you can purchase in the shops are spiritual objects in Japanese folklore, this is what I mean when I say the game has good theming. It's little aspects like these that in addition to the art style, that really make "Ōkami" shine as a piece of art. Thematical consistency as I usually hear it called is something I value strongly in games, and is something this game does excellently. Now let's talk about "Experience" a bit more, since the progression system in this game is definitely noteworthy as well.
As I stated before, instead of "experience points" in this game you have faith that you earn by helping cleanse the world of evil, feeding animals, beating bosses, types of things you'd expect would give experience to a godlike entity like Amaterasu. With faith you can purchase upgrades that give you more health, ink pots, astral pouches, and wallet upgrades. It's a simple but rewarding system that makes cleansing the world of evil fun and enjoyable rather than tedious as you really have an in game incentive to do so and you can see yourself as a god growing stronger as evil is banished. It's a really cool aspect of the game that's super satisfying, and that I enjoyed a whole lot. Speaking of ink pots though, you may be wondering to yourself what I mean when I say that you can get more of them. Well the gimmick of this game if you did not already know is that you control a celestial brush that you can use to do a multitude of things. The things you can do grow as you learn new brush strokes from different gods - another thing that bolsters the thematic consistency of the game. How well this gimmick is implemented though is much more up for debate. In my opinion, the brush mechanic in this game is not taken nearly as far as it should have been for how pivotal a mechanic it is. You spend a great deal of time learning and using these brush strokes, but its a shame in my opinion how many of them just end up being too similar to one another, being mostly useless, or being largely forgotten. This is with its exceptions for sure - some of the techniques are really well implemented, unique, and engaging, but most just feel like watered down Legend of Zelda items. With the mention of The Legend of Zelda I think it's time to shift gears a bit as most of my complaints with the game do lie in how it compares to other games within its genre for as an action-adventure game, I think "Ōkami" is really quite disappointing.
Let's not shoot the shit, "Ōkami" does not have most of what I think makes an action-adventure game fun. There are no puzzles unless you consider seeing a statue and using your brush technique on it a puzzle, there are no long side quests unless you consider having to go do something out of the way so you can progress the main story a side quest, and there are no dungeons unless you consider a really fancy series of hallways a dungeon. I'm exaggerating of course, but I need to emphasize just how strongly I feel this game has failed to replicate what games that came before it have done so successfully. It is a shame too since if this game succeeded in these areas I think it would be in contention for one of the best within the genre (even with everything negative I say about it below). So many times I came to a fork in the road only to realize that one direction lead to a locked door and the other to a room with a key. So frequently I got the excitement of entering a new dungeon only to reach the boss in twenty minutes. So many times I tried to explore the dungeon further only to realize there were no hidden paths, no secret treasures, nothing. Each dungeon is just a series of hallways with a boss at the end, nothing more nothing less, and that's really disappointing. I understand that this game is more story driven than most other action-adventure games and so, feels the need to be more linear, but just because it is more linear does not excuse it failing to do so many things. Perhaps I may be less critical of what I perceive as the game's blunders if the story was executed well, but unfortunately I don't think this either is the case.
When I say that the execution of the story is poor I am not saying that the story itself is bad, not by any means. It's really cool to see how the game adapts old Japanese Mythology, the stories themselves are really cool. What I mean when I say the story is executed poorly, is that you have no idea what's going on or why you're doing anything aside from "it's what the game is telling you to do." You go from story to story with the only thing connecting them being that you are trying to banish evil from the world. It feels like by the end everything you have done was leading up to this moment, but you only knew that it was going to happen for an hour or two. I really think there was a missed opportunity to include bits and pieces of the different stories throughout the game instead of only including them in their self contained parts. This way when you finally get to the end of the game you aren't like "okay I guess I'm doing this now" you're like "oh shit that's what they meant when they said this". Because of this you have no idea when the game is going to end until you literally get to the final section of the game. I can see why they chose to structure things this way, to keep the Japanese mythological stories self contained and faithful, but I can't for the life of me say that how they chose to do things was correct. I just felt so lost and directionless, and unless that was the goal of the story (and it certainly was not) it is a damn shame.
There's a lot more I want to say about "Ōkami" but I don't think any of it is as important of detrimental to the overall experience as what I have said above. I think the game is far to easy and lazy in how it directs you from place to place, often literally having an arrow pointing in the direction of where to go. As well, every single time a puzzle magically does appear, Issun (your guide in the game) will tell you exactly what you have to do to complete it without you even asking. As if it was bad enough there are hardly any puzzles in the game, whenever one does by miracle of god appear the game flat out tells you how to complete it. It's not just in puzzles either, the game constantly tells you how to do stuff over and over and over again even after you've already done it a hundred times. It's such needless frustration too since this game has a T rating and anyone with an attention span higher than a goldfish should be able to remember what to do 5 minutes after being told how to do it. The combat, while much more complex than The Legend of Zelda, wasn't all that much better since I was able to win almost every single one by mashing attack over and over again. I hated how much artificial railroading there was in the game - it's okay to have a character who won't let you in until you get a certain item (good railroading), it's not okay to have a path be open only after you have a certain item in your inventory that doesn't in any way relate to the path you need to go (bad railroading). While some bosses were really cool many were tedious and I cannot fathom why they made you fight a 10 minute boss 3 times who, if you know what you are doing, will not threaten a single damage on you throughout the whole duration of the fight. It's a really special boss the first time around too and the magic totally disappears when you have to fight him more than once. Also do not get me started on the camera. This game has quite possibly the worst camera of any game I have ever played, and you should know that I played Ocarina of Time a few months ago. It is so fucking bad and it pains me that you have to experience it for yourself to truly understand.
Now I know above I said a ton of bad things about this game and it's true that I have lots of problems with it, but none are as bad as what I said before - the fact that it fails as an action adventure game. What I said above are only nitpicks in comparison. I really would rather leave on a positive note though. This is one of the most beautiful games that I have ever played and it is so god damn charming. What I mean to get across in what I have said above is that this game does a decent number of things very well and a decent number of things very poorly. Luckily in my opinion the things it does well are good enough to make up for much of what it does poorly, but it by no means can mask them. I know the problems are there, and unfortunately they are glaring. Were it not for this games beauty or charm I would have a hard time knowing if I would've enjoyed it at all. Already I had a hard time getting to its conclusion as is. Still though I think the game does have its appeal and luckily that appeal was strong enough for me to be able to reach the end, albeit with a three out of six overall rating.
Recommendation: Now I think if you've read up until this point you will have a good idea of whether you will like this game or not, but for consistencies sake let me give a recommendation. I recommend this game to anyone who really loves Japanese art or mythology, games that are beautiful and have a lot of charm. It's one of the most visually and thematically consistent games I have ever played, if that theme speaks to you then you will absolutely adore this game no doubt. If not, watch a bit of game-play of it. If it doesn't immediately woo you with its art style and charm, you should probably pass.
...
And that's my review of "Ōkami"! This one was very long, and my completion of the game took way longer than I could have expected so I'm sorry I'm getting it out so late. I will be getting to my "Lord of the Rings" review soon... It's going to be a special longer one so it needs a bit more time. Saying that, my next post will be on my picks for July, until then!
The thing about Issun telling you what to do and the lack of "puzzles" in the game were really what got me. The linearity I could forgive if the combat wasn't so one dimensional. But yeah the first two things were awful to me, especially with how much potential the brush mechanic had
ReplyDeleteDefinitely agree and it didn't let up throughout the game either. Super missed potential all around on this game... I feel like I learned a lot about game design playing it though.
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