OKAMI HD

Hailing from that Playstation 2 era when AAA wasn’t afraid to get weird with it, Okami returns, freed from console exclusivity with a fresh coat of paint to boot. Does this Capcom legend hold up? In short: yes. In long: just you keep reading smarty pants. The first and most noticeable aspect of the game is its visual design. Its Japanese ink painting style is one of a kind and quite good looking to boot. The transition to 3-D is remarkably smooth and effective, even if the higher definition makes things look distinctly wobbly up close. The game also pulls heavily from Japanese culture, mythology, and history. Diving far deeper down that rabbit hole than most results in an immensely visually varied cast and setting. Some arguably necessary shortcomings do crop up from time to time, like whacking a great big obvious visual indicator where level entrances and exits are. The game’s mechanical strengths and shortcomings can be neatly summarized by analyzing its signature mechanic: the Celestial Brush Techniques. The Brush Techniques are unique and creative, satisfying to use, and allow for occasional out-of-the-box solutions both in and out of combat. There are fully 15 of these abilities, which is much less impressive when one considers nearly half are just drawing a line between two contextual environmental objects. Of the remaining, a further half have such narrow use cases you’d be forgiven for forgetting some of them even exist. This wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle design is a constant from model-swapped enemies to basic dungeon designs. Only the late game bosses give tantalizing glimpses into the kind of in-depth gameplay that could have been. Beyond the brush the gameplay is pretty unremarkable. If you’ve played any Legend of Zelda game say, just to pick one at random, Twilight Princess, you’ve played Okami. Since we’re on the nitpick train I found the game’s 3-speed movement mechanics to be quite awkward, especially during the game’s frequent platforming sections. The camera on controller is also very sluggish and the game has a very short draw distance, making exploration and some combat a chore. The game is also very easy, but I don’t consider this much of a negative as it smooths over the rough patches and keeps the creativity and charm on display. The writing has a similar set of strengths and weaknesses. The overarching plot is pretty thin, only really existing as a means to shuttle you from one self-contained story arc to the next. Character development is an unsurprising casualty of this fragmented setup. Plotlines, friends, and enemies will show up and leave with little fanfare or long-lasting story impact. The bosses suffer the most from this, with only the final boss receiving any kind of meaningful characterization. Within each story arc is a different case, though. One-note personalities and predictable arcs are more than made up for by a charming and memorable cast. Despite not billing itself as a comedy, Okami is also a very consistently funny game. It keeps spirits high despite the often dire circumstances, letting its rare somber moments strike all the harder. What Okami lacks in depth it makes up for in spades with creativity and charm. Don’t pass up on this rare, resurrected Capcom classic.

1. You absolutely need Lossless Scaling for this to run in upscaled 4K60 (frame gen from 30), in native 720P30 it runs like a slog. 2. This is in essence a Zelda'esque (you can tell they've been heavily inspired so to speak) metroidvania, so if you like Zelda style of games, then you'll love this one. 3. First 5 hours are a complete slog, everyone talks down to you (player character), they aim for a Japanese slapstick comedy and first few hours are HEAVY in bad dialogue + bad jokes and very light on gameplay ... but just blast through the first few areas as quickly as possible, skip most of the crap dialogue because once you finish with the first boss you'll already start feeling the Zeldaesque vibe and it all starts to click! 4. First few hours the game is very handholdy and it literally SPELS OUT everything you need to do and treats you like a moron ... but persevere and it gets more and more loose with hand holding ... 5. Progression is confusing / broken at times, some quests won't let you finish them before you do some arbitrary things and push the story forward, which can be confusing ... so be prepared to check the walkthough because some things in the progression just don't add up (like the Mrs Cutter quest which for unknown reasons won't let you do the thing you need until you do some later quests) 6. There are some bad fetch quests in here ... All in all, first few hours are pretty horrible, but once it gets going it's starting to get really good ... with a few exceptions.

Beautiful artwork. Controls can be a little janky and the cut scenes are a little long sometimes, but no more so than other games of its era. Very much in the "games as art" genre.