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By brikrok3 (23rd May 2008)

Okami, released originally for PS2 in 2006, was never a hit. Critics and selective gaming circles lauded it, sure, but legions of children and hardcore shoot-‘em-up gamers seemed only passingly affected by the game’s charming visuals, barebones gameplay, and mythological backstory. As a result, at least in part, Clover Studios, the game’s developer, went the way of the dodo. For some this was a petite tradégie—another sign that there was little market share and, worse, corporate interest in games that were intelligent, rather than novel, and beautiful, rather than eye grabbing, in today’s market. This portent has proven at least in part unfounded, thanks to Ready at Dawn, a California-based game developer, who in tandem with Capcom (who diffidently owned and then summarily dissolved Clover back in 2007) have ported Okami to the Wii. The result—if not necessarily reinvigorating critical faith in the gaming industry—is nothing short delightful: in many ways, Okami is perfect for the Wii, if its execution leaves something to be desired.
In the game you are Amaterasu, a sun god who has been transubstantiated into a white wolf. Some time ago, apparently, a monster by the name of Orochi placed a curse upon Kamiki Village, killing everything, filling the village with innumerable monsters, and stripping the land of its natural splendor. You, as Amaterasu, are now expected to restore Kamiki to its former glory, fighting Orochi’s legions of monsters and revitalizing the land with your Celestial Brush, which you can use to colour the landscape and furnish your paths. (If all of this seems exhaustingly esoteric, don’t worry: the game doesn’t so much invent its own cosmology as employ it as a motivational backdrop.)

Gameplay is very good, comparable easily to the original. Central to all of this is the Celestial Brush, which allows you to colour the desolated landscape. Simply hold B on the Wiimote, then paint away, holding the Wiimote as you would a brush. As a result you’ll be able to bring about aesthetic effects—the reintroduction of the sun, say, or the revitalization of the landscape—as well as more integral ones: fixing broken objects or attacking enemies, for example. Occasionally this will prove a fussy task, one in which you’ll repeatedly try to draw the same object while a thoroughly unforgiving game god asks for a larger sacrifice of time. Fight scenes are a bit better, but again these are plagued by somewhat unresponsive controls. Admittedly this isn’t a huge problem—for the most part, precision moves aren’t really all that necessary, as most combat scenes, even those against many of the bosses, lack all that much skill. Moreover, the game’s stripped-down control scheme means you only have three basic albeit combinable tools with which to fight. Thus you can employ the Reflector, the Rosary, the Glaive, or some combination. Fast wins and no damage pay well, though, allowing you to purchase healing goods, weapon upgrades, and essential keys to each level, so one is best advised to employ the weapons tactfully. Overall, then, the control scheme is good, though some may quibble about the Celestial Brush’s reimagining as a motion-sensitive device.

Visually the game is stunning, lacking the problems so typical of Wii-ported games. To be clear, there is nothing high definition about Okami’s visuals—but that is just as one might expect. In fact, there is nothing really all that digital about Okami at all. For the most part the game relies upon a hand-drawn quality of water-washed inks on textured surfaces which replicate the qualities of not really paper but ancient papyrus or vellum. There is at a visual level then a perfect coupling of form and content: the narrative set in classical Japan lacks the anachronistic (and often over-stereotyped) tendencies of most other Japan-based games, employing an aesthetic peculiar to the game’s contents. The result, for most I assume, is nothing short of astonishing, the game taking on the qualities of its subject rather than the peculiarities of its console. Moreover, the Wii’s limited visual capabilities are in no ways taxed by the game’s soft, textured, inky presentation. As we’ve seen time and again, stylized presentations work much better on the Wii than minutely realist ones; Okami is no exception.

The game’s soundscape is likewise very good, though in no ways comparable to the game’s visuals. Admittedly, the music—like that in, say, Zelda—does its job, ushering us along from stop to stop, heightening tension, and creating continuity. But like, say, Zelda’s music, Okami’s can tend towards the lameness so characteristic of epic journey games. There is something a bit too manipulative, a bit to cinematic about the unflagging crescendos, the ponderous down-tempo interludes, and the propulsive staccatos that deliver us through the game. Eventually, one assumes, we’ve had and heard enough, so that gamers will shortly reach for their mute buttons. That being said, the music isn’t awful, just not really all that much fun after several hours.

Ulitmately Okami is a tremendously good, even great game. I cannot be overstressed how beautiful it is and how well this visual presentation matches the graphic capabilities of the Wii. That being said, the game has maybe two pronounced flaws (though one of them seems more passive than anything). First, the Celestial Brush. Admittedly this is ported decently to the motion-sensitive controls of the Wii. But it lacks the preciseness that would have made the game more or less flawless. Even in its original incarnation, Okami was not the mind-numbing, button-hammering debacle to which most games seem to aspire. As a result, there was never really much that needed to be changed, nothing that really needed the minute attention that, say, Tony Hawk needed in its transition from button bonanza to basic motion sensitivity. In fairness, this is a nitpicky, but nonetheless a grievance worth airing. Second, nothing has changed from the original. Admittedly, nothing really needed to change: the original was great; so too is the port. And yet the lag between original release and the Wii port has simply been too long not to expect a touch-up here or there or even a tad of tinkering. Regardless, this seems like splitting hairs—an observation all the more obvious to those who get a chance to play the game. In short, Okami is one of the year’s best games. In short, if you don’t already have it for PS2, then get it. And if you have it for PS2 and own a Wii, get it anyway.