Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding, 19 Feb 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
This game is just outstanding in every way. I have never seen or played a game like this before. This game should, and probably will, be a classic
What is the most striking about this game is the animation. It's absolutely stunning. The theme is a Japanese painting with the images in close range in full, dazzling colour and the mountains in the background no more than a brush stroke in the sky. The music is traditionally Japanese and fits the game perfectly. The word beautiful might appear a few times in this review but there really is no better word to describe everything about this game.
You play the white wolf God, Amaterasu, revived from her divine slumber to kill the evil monster who has covered the land with darkness. With the bug Issun for company (who is actually only there to learn brush techniques) you set out to rid the land of Ippon of evil.
Combat is in two forms. One is weapon equipped on Amaterasu's back. She used this is a primary battle weapon to stun her opponents. As they become stunned, Amaterasu can then use her Celestial Brush to finish them off. Brush techniques such as power slash also divide rocks blocking your way, or cut down annoyingly possessed trees. There are 12 brush techniques to learn and in so doing you are almost in complete control of shaping the environment. Don't like it being nighttime? Draw the sun in the sky and brighten the place up. Found a withered tree? Give it a brush and watch cherry blossom appear.
The Celestial Brush technique is the basis for the game. As well as a battle technique and the method of moving the game forward, it also opens up side quests such as feeding the animals. As a girl this was something I particularly liked. The more animals you feed, the more praise points you obtain to power up your stats. Plus a nice touch is having the animals you've fed have little hearts float around you when you go near them.
Combat is at times quite easy, it must be said. Once you've established the best technique for dealing with certain enemies, fighting them is pretty easy. The environments at huge although you have a map and Issun to help you keep your bearings.
My Playstation hasn't had any problems playing this disc but some people who have reviewed it have encountered problems. Found the transition between layers very smooth. Even if it did jump a bit I don't think I'd mind. This game is just truly outstanding. If it doesn't take off soon I think it will be similar to Ico. Eventually people will realise that it's a complete gem.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely amazing: a must buy!, 11 Feb 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Okami is a 3D role-playing platformer, in which you take control of Amaterasu, a white wolf god, who must journey to both defeat the evil god Orochi and restore the land to its former glory.
The graphics are stunning; since the game is based on Japanese mythology, the animation is a combination of Japanese brush prints and a cartoon, and is incredibly smooth and colourful without being particularly cute. The screenshots really don't do it justice.
As Amaterasu, you are free to explore a 3D world at your own pace, helping villagers, fighting monsters and rebuilding the landscape. Aside from the usual finding and offering of a hidden object, since Amaterasu is a wolf god she has magical powers, the most entertaining being the 'celestial brush stroke' - with a large paint brush you can make dead trees blossom, rebuild bridges and split enemies and rocks in half. You can even draw a circle in the night sky to create a sun and hey presto, it's daytime again.
You can interact with villagers, whose reactions and needs change according to the time of day and on which areas you've been to, and as you do so you accumulate faith spheres which enhance your power. Other gods from Japanese folklore also lend a hand, appearing as constellations in the sky and coming to life as you wield the celestial brush.
There are also plenty of monsters, either jumping out as bosses or appearing on the horizon as green scrolls - which you can avoid or fight by choice.
This really is a great game; you spend ages wandering around just exploring your surroundings and as you learn new skills you can return to old areas and uncover new secrets. You also learn techniques as you play with the help of tiny sidekick Issun, so no labouring through the manual with this one.
The only complaint I have about this game - and it's a rather trivial one at that - is the narration and character voices. The speech is subtitled of course, but the characters talk a bit like Bill and Ben and it can be rather annoying when there's a long dialogue, with the introduction for instance. I would rather they had left it silent, as with older Final Fantasy games, or left in the Japanese, assuming they recorded any voices to start with.
That aside, this is an excellent game for all ages, not too fiddly and difficult, the graphics are superb, and with a giant 3D world to explore and alter with magic it will keep you entertained for hours. Without a doubt the best game I have ever played on Playstation 2.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A stunning display of what the Playstation 2 can still do, 22 Mar 2007
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Okami is very similar to Zelda, gameplay-wise. You solve puzzles, help people and use an array of nifty combat and transport abilities which are obtained progressively throughout the game. Like Zelda, the game has a fantastic, mythological plot with its own legends and ancient characters. All the main characters in Okami are reincarnations of ancient, legendary heroes and villains. However, what's so brilliant about Okami is that these legends are genuine Japanese cultural stories, hundreds of years old and steeped in the elemental, natural mythology of Japan. The art style complements this Japanese feel perfectly, with Kanji script all over the place and calligraphic brush strokes used to draw every object in the game.
Okami's real gimmick is the way that you can draw onto the world yourself, as the player. With a touch of the button, the world is transformed into a parchment version which can be painted onto directly to solve puzzles or destroy enemies. It's a novel touch which works well and, along with the distinctive graphical style and characters, goes a long way to differentiating Okami from Zelda, the series it clearly owes so much to.
My only criticism of Okami is that it is a very long game and can feel overwhelming at times as there are so many subquests to keep in mind and characters to remember. This is why I have not given it the full five stars for "fun" - because at times the gameplay is more like a good book or film, you wouldn't really say you're having "fun", more that you're very engrossed. The game is not needlessly long, no sections feel like filler, and there's no denying that it's excellent value for money. I just felt that I was spending so much time appreciating the environments and experimenting with each new skill and ability that my progress through the game was rather slow and I didn't have much time to play or do anything else! Like all truly great titles, Okami monopolises your gaming time until you're really through to the end. Just as it should be.
As a final word, I should just return to the title of this review and repeat that the game does look incredible for a PS2 title. Although it's tempting to think the Xbox360 and Playstation 3 make the original PS2's graphics obsolete, Okami shows just how much more important style is than mere hardware, polygon-pushing power. Stunning.
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