Hungry like the wolf
(This review contains
spoilers!)
The best way to gauge a game’s
lasting appeal is with remakes and remasters, especially if you’ve never played
it before. While many have favourite games they love to revisit over and over
and over again, it’s always interesting to be a newcomer to said games when
they are given a graphical upgrade or a full rehaul for a new release.
This is what happened to me when
playing Okami HD. I’ve had my eye on
this game for a while now, despite never playing it. The ancient
Japanese-inspired art style and ability to use paint to use special abilities
and attacks really appealed to me, but for whatever reason I never got around
to playing it until I spied this PS4 rerelease on a list of upcoming games. I
finally checked it out, and overall I think this is one of the rare remasters
that still plays just as well as it must’ve when it released despite being over
a decade old.
The game stars Amaterasu, a wolf deity
responsible for sealing away a demonic being of pure destruction 100 years ago.
Now the monster is back, and you have to cross the land of Nippon alongside
your diminutive friend Issun to set things right. That’s the extent of the
story, really. Similar in vein to a Zelda
game your only real job is to save the world and protect the gang of wacky
characters you meet on your journey. It doesn’t need to be complicated by any
means, and it doesn’t try to. It’s a silly and fun story about a wolf saving
Japan, and it’s great because of that.
Speaking of Zelda, it’s clear where Capcom’s inspirations for Okami came from. Ignoring some of the
more blatant similarities to Twilight
Princess (technically Okami released
a few months before that game, but both feature a silent wolf protagonist with
a sassy sidekick with one of the main objectives being removing dark spots from
the world so you can traverse them normally), this game is very similar to the
classic 3D Zeldas from the days of
the N64 and Gamecube. Both feature small but fun overworlds separated into
areas, lots of different abilities and items you can use to defeat baddies, and
a lot of clever dialogue to read through. If you’re looking for a game that
feels like Ocarina of Time, this is
the one for you.
One of the standout parts of the game
is the art style. Clearly taking inspiration from ancient Japanese art like The Great Wave, Okami is drenched in delightful pinks, blues and greens with thick
ink lines wrapped around everything. The cel-shaded designs look great on PS4,
even if it does become obvious at times that some objects are just flat cutouts
that spin to face the camera. The animations on the animal characters are
particularly entertaining, as a lot of the game’s physical humour lies with
them. Amaterasu is especially great, as her lazy dog-like mannerisms add a lot
of comic relief to the cutscenes that can occasionally go on for just a bit too
long.
The gameplay has that great adventure
game feel, especially in the more explorative parts where you can just run
around and do your own thing. The true star of the show is the drawing
mechanic. Over the course of the game you learn various abilities that allow
you to paint symbols to do various things, ranging from controlling elements
like water, fire and wind to creating fireworks out of thin air to open up
secret rooms. While I did find the game at times to be a little too picky when
it comes to deciding whether or not you drew the correct shape (more complex
shapes are especially finicky), I loved this mechanic overall. It’s incredibly
satisfying to finish off stunned enemies with a paintbrush stroke, and
restoring the dead nature strayed across the world with the power of art is a
small joy that never stops being fun.
I did find the pacing to be pretty
wonky throughout, unfortunately. There’s a point in the game where you have to
find a group of 5 missing dogs hidden around town in order to help break a
mysterious seal. When you reunite the dogs, you’re informed that there’s still
3 missing, and you have to backtrack all the way through the entire map you’ve
explored until that point to track them all down and progress through the game.
It kills the momentum extremely fast, and it’s a long, long, loooong walk
around the world trying to track down the missing 3 dogs just so you can enter
the next dungeon.
Perhaps even more bizarre is the
halfway point of the game. You finally face off with the villain the story has
been building up as the ultimate evil, and defeat him in combat with the help
of a prominent side character who ends their arc in this battle. When the boss
fight ends, everyone celebrates and it looks like the game is over…but no, it
just keeps on going. There’s still a huge chunk of game left, and while I’m not
complaining about more to do in this great game, it did feel a little weird to
take down the game’s final boss only for it to tell you that “Oh, he’s still
out there, you just gotta go kill him for good next time”. It definitely seemed
like Capcom told the devs they needed to extend the length of the game after
the battle, but instead of moving the climactic fight to the end of the game
they just made a second half after it.
I don’t think Okami HD is a game that absolutely everyone would enjoy playing,
but if you’ve never played it before and is looking for something that’d remind
you of the adventure games from the early 2000’s, this’ll be right up your
alley. The Japanese-inspired graphics look great to this day, the drawing
mechanic works great and they have a lot of fun coming up with a bunch of
unique ways to use it, and there’s plenty of game here for you to sink your
teeth into, even if the pacing does feel a bit disjointed at times. As someone
who never played this game until this release, I can safely say that Okami made me howl with laughter and
joy.
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
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