BROs, sell me on Okami

[Malpercio]

It's like the recent Zelda games, but good.

 

[spekkio]

2nd page and nobody was called a fucking faggot yet?

What is it, Weaboo Dicksuckcion?

 

[Jaedar]

I played okami on wii. It is a pretty good game, but I remember being very annoyed at the constant cutscenes and unskippable trash mobs iirc. Also I have some vague memory of there being some dumb item grinding needed or something.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

So I'm playing this on Switch after getting it on sale for $5 and it's... fine? The fact that it's lauded by some as one of the greatest games ever though... well, let's just say I think I've discovered a new dumbfuck test. I just finished the Moon Cave, and I guess I'll keep going for now, but I'm starting to doubt whether or not I'll have the stamina to finish. As others above have noted: the amount of cutscenes in this game is just fucking insane. I have to seriously wonder whether anyone on the dev team did a QA pass on this, because so far the game says I've played just under ten hours and at least two hours of that was cutscenes. I've several times gotten to the point where I'm just dicking around in a hub area because I know that if I advance the story more I'm going to have to sit through another 5-15 minutes of cutscenes. It's especially mind-boggling because the story is thus far both super-serious and also balls-to-ass boring, but meanwhile the characters are all fucking moronic loony toon characters (the worst is the effete samurai-prophet who peppers his conversation with modern French...WHY?!). In the sense that it's a Zelda-clone it's really just a Skyward Sword (easily the worst 3d Zelda) clone, but with much better art design and (thus far) much worse dungeon design.

So at this point I'm pretty resigned to interminable lengthy cutscenes and idiotic characters/plot developments, but I'm curious if the dungeon design improves as the game progresses. So far they've been extremely linear, but Moon Cave has given me some hope, as it was easily the best of the three of seen so far, although I would say it's still nowhere near Zelda dungeons like Forest Temple, Water Temple, Arbiter's Grounds, All 4 Majora's Mask dungeons.

So Codex bros, does the level design improve? Does the narrative become any less annoying?

 

[Jacob]

My favorite part is the jumpscare in a certain middle game part. I quit there. The game lies to me, it's supposed to be wholesome!

 

[Ivan]

So Codex bros, does the level design improve? Does the narrative become any less annoying?

The level design doesn't get as complex as the temples you've mentioned, but they do make use of the new abilities you pick up along the way. And I agree, Okami is pretty notorious for having a bloated intro, much like Twilight Princess. I'd say since you're already at the Moon Cave, you might as well keep playing a little further until you reach a pretty climactic encounter. At that point the game pulls a, "THIS IS ONLY PART 1 of the game, PART 2 STARTS NOW." You may choose to move on then I'd say. You gave it an honest try, that's the best you could do.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the game's sense of humor (Susano, Mr Orange, The Sparrow Inn) or the fantastic soundtrack.


Jacob Remind me, which one was that. Use spoilers plz.

 

[Jacob]

So Codex bros, does the level design improve? Does the narrative become any less annoying?

The level design doesn't get as complex as the temples you've mentioned, but they do make use of the new abilities you pick up along the way. And I agree, Okami is pretty notorious for having a bloated intro, much like Twilight Princess. I'd say since you're already at the Moon Cave, you might as well keep playing a little further until you reach a pretty climactic encounter. At that point the game pulls a, "THIS IS ONLY PART 1 of the game, PART 2 STARTS NOW." You may choose to move on then I'd say. You gave it an honest try, that's the best you could do.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the game's sense of humor (Susano, Mr Orange, The Sparrow Inn) or the fantastic soundtrack.


Jacob Remind me, which one was that. Use spoilers plz.

Spoiler

In the Sunken Ship, you can find the ghost of Spider Queen that jumps to fill the entire screen when you get into its aggro range. In hindsight, iit's kinda funny, though, since I thought it was an unrelated character until the ghost jumped into my screen and revealed that it has the face of the Spider Queen.

 

[Matador]

The art looks great but I can't play as animals in videogames, can't suspend disbelief. I like to play as men or nanomachine cyborgs, son.

Only exception are blobber parties or DCSS because of fun race traits. Imagine not having Draconian bros in your party chopping heads, but always have more humans than other races.

Same applies to books, I love 1984 but never wanted to read animal farm or other famous books with animal characters.

 

[Amurada]

Combat looks like total mess too (just mash buttans to win).

Okami derives a lot of it's combat mechanics from DMC1, which is unsurprising given that the development of both games were helmed by Hideki Kamiya.

There's one weapon focused more on cancelable techniques (Reflectors) versus another weapon type (Glaives) revolving around devastating charged moves, comparable to Alastor and Ifrit in DMC1. Okami deviates a bit from the DMC1 formula in that there's a third weapon type, Rosaries, that are all about ranged shots and Area of Effect sweeps. And instead of guns, a la DMC, Okami allows the player to equip another weapon to serve as a secondary, with varying effects depending on the weapon type (e.g. a Reflector equipped as a secondary allows for a timed block and counter move and Rosararies, depending on their make, offer rapid fire bead action or a shotgun-like burst all at once). It's a decent amount of variety, certainly more than your average 3D Zelda title, in which your core combat capabilities tend to be slash, jump-slash, and spin slash (Majora's Mask being the standout exception, what with the different forms; go go Goron Roll!).

And to further the Zelda comparisons, the primary puzzle solving pickups (treasures in Zelda games, brush powers in Okami) also play a secondary role in combat, with certain brush powers being extremely effective against certain foes; using a gust of wind against an enemy engulfed in flames will often blow them out, things can be cut in half with the brush slash, etc. Like Zelda games, it relies on varied and interesting enemy design to accomplish this. Unlike Zelda, the enemies are a little less linear, there's a bit more leeway in how to deal with them; skilled players might be able to slay a lot of demons in entirely different ways tthan they were intended, exploiting frame properties of moves rather than hitting the scripted weakness of the foe.

It's clear Okami combat was designed for people who liked action games, even if the difficulty was certainly not tuned for that crowd's typical preferences. There's a decent amount of depth, and the systems are fun to play around with. Even some content tries to push the limits a bit, namely some optional Demon Gate Challenges, though the horrible overabundance of recovery items makes the entire game a joke if one chooses to lean upon them at all. Like I said, difficulty isn't tuned for the action game crowd, especially not when in a Zelda-like you can carry 99 of every potion in addition to 5+ fairies. My suggestion, ignore items altogether and reset/reload if you would die rather than abuse the pouch of godhood or whatever it was.

People compare this game to Zelda series (at least the 3D ones), but all 3 I played (OoT, MM, WW) were interesting almost from the beginning.

It has an extremely slow start, especially the 10 minute intro cutscene that drags on forever due to the unskippable Banjo-Kazooie impression done at quarter speed. Even once free of that mess, the "tutorial" can be extremely boring, and the game only beings to pick up about 2-4 hours in, once the player has a couple weapons, brush powers, and is facing more than bog-standard foes.

After that, it picks up the pace a lot and plays far swifter than 3D Zelda games, if only because Amaterasu is way faster than (non-Goron) Link. Not to mention, the way brush powers are handled eliminates a lot of the annoying menu-swapping that comes with practically every Zelda game (2d or 3d, menuing is a huge deal, even before crazy shit like pause-buffering just-frame techniques). But be aware, the ending is terrible (besides the final boss track).

It's a fun game in the middle, though, and if you enjoyed Wind Waker, you should certainly be able to have fun with most of Okami.

Okami can definitely be a drag on the soul. Practically the reason why I've beaten it the one time, and dropped it on repeat playthroughs. I back everything Edward_R_Murrow has to say in his post as I was about to mention these qualities myself -- in particular, the comparisons to DMC1 and Kamiya.

 

[Silva]

The art looks great but I can't play as animals in videogames, can't suspend disbelief. I like to play as men or nanomachine cyborgs, son

Bro, you know you're playing a god, right?

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I love 1984 but never wanted to read animal farm or other famous books with animal characters.

wtf
why though?

 

[Bigg Boss]

I never played Okami so I can only determine that it is not worth playing. Don't play it.

 

[Ialda]

I liked my PS2 playthrough back in the day, still a better Zelda game than TP or SS with a cool cartoony Japanese-folktale art theme.

But the joke about Okami 1 being a trilogy in disguise quickly feels quite real and the game drags on and drags on... it's exhausting.

 

[Ivan]

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Maybe you can try to play it in Dolphin emulator. I think that the Wii is the best version, and you can map the brush movement to the mouse.

 

[Talby]

You can write all kinds of things if the version you get has touch controls.

 

[samuraigaiden]

It's a game about doing it doggie style.

 

[Falksi]

That first time playthrough us mint, I fucking totally fell in love with the game, and thought some of the small snippits of humour which you get were spot on.

But returning to it last year I found it way more boring, and way more annoying too, simple because some of the gameplay mechanics felt so outdated & old-school.

Would love to see a sequel, but have no interest in returning to it again.