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Whatcha Playing?: Okami

Posted by Cole Stryker

I finally got around to playing Okami on the Wii this week. I really wanted to enjoy the game, but it's difficult for me to get past all the collecting and endless NPC conversations that drag down the pace of the game. It seems that the only complaint most critics had with the Wii version is its poorly implemented Celestial Brush controls. Sure these are annoying, but I think that they are far from the game's cardinal sin.

It's basically a Zelda game, for better and for worse. It looks great. The world is a joy to traverse, and the ancient oriental flourishes are a welcome change of pace from the usual medieval sword and sorcery. It's a stylistic triumph.

The thing I hate most about action-adventure games is the impulse that the developers have to litter the game's environment with collectables. It's repetitious and it prevents me from enjoying the beautiful surroundings. Just once I'd like to pass through a forest without having to dig up medallions, shake fruit out of trees, or cut through grass in order to collect butterflies or beetles or some other meaningless token. It's lazy game design. I'd much rather play a game half as long if it were stripped of the mundane.

The other drawback is a bevy of bloated dialogue. Fortunately most of it is skippable, but it would have been even better to eliminate the player's annoying sidekick who serves to state the obvious constantly.

Why can't more 3D adventure games be like Cave Story?

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Posted Jan 15 2009, 05:00 PM

Filed under: whatcha playing, wii, cole stryker, okami, port, cave story

Comments

John said:

I actually thought the collection of random items in Okami was implemented fairly well. I wasn't very interested in collecting lots things besides what I needed to progress so I just made my way through the game just by picking up whatever I happened to run across without thinking much of it. Most of the random collectibles were optional, and in fact I watched someone else play the game and found out that there were a huge amount of items that I had no idea even existed just because I didn't take the time to find them. That all was fine with me though, since I wasn't interested anyway. I appreciated how there were lots of random items for people who do enjoy collecting things, and whether it was an intentional part of the design or not I liked how most were optional for people who don't.

January 16, 2009 10:58 AM

Roto13 said:

People who complain about the celestial brush don't know how to use the Z-button anyway.

January 19, 2009 9:20 AM

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

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Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

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