Okami is an incredible adventure that deserves a lot of credit.
-Before Okami came out for the Wii, I had not even heard of the PS2 version, and after playing through on the WIi, I am a little confused as to why not. Simply put, this is an awesome adventure that deserves to be played. Essentially I bought it because I saw 9.0 both hear and at IGN, but the real reason was because of the comparisons to Zelda. After my first run through I almost completely agree. Here's why:
-What I liked:
-Adventure/Plot: 100 years ago Shiranui, with the help of the chosen hero (Nagi) and some sake slay the 8 headed dragon Orochi who had terrorized the tiny village of Kamiki for years.You play as the sun god Amaterasu, the reincarnation of the legendary white wolf Shiranui. Essentially Susano, the descendant of Nagi inadvertently revived Orochi and Orochi begins to spread evil across the land of Nippon (The main world) again. However, defeating Orochi is really only the beginning of this incredible adventure as Amaterasu (with the help of Issun, the wandering artist) sets out to rid Nippon of evil. The storyline is told through story board drawings with text, along with occasional cinematic cut scenes, and while voice acting would be nice, it does an adequate job conveying the story. However, it really works because the story itself is very engaging and has extremely satisfying twists and turns as it nears the end. The adventure itself paces itself very much like a zelda game does. You enter a dungeon or temple of some sort (give or take) and earn a new brush technique, use that brush technique to defeat the boss of that dungeon, do some stuff in the overworld, then enter the new dungeon. That is essentially how the game paces itself the entire adventure, and it works well for zelda, and the same is true here. It keeps the game moving, but also allows for you to take your time and explore side quests (which there are many of) in between dungeons for those who are less ambitious. All in all, if you haven't gotten the idea, it's a great adventure.
-The brush techniques: The brush techniques are what really make Okami a refreshing and unique game. Shiranui had all 13 celestial brush techniques when he defeated Orochi, however as Amaterasu, you only start off with one, and a large portion of the game is spent acquiring the remaining 12. These techniques include restoration, power slash, wind gusts, bombs, controlling fire/ice/lighting/water, and a couple more. These techniques involve a movement with the wii remote. This is where the wii mote really shines. While none of the techniques are particularly unique from each other, they are so quick easy and satisfying to use that these techniques add a lot of fun and uniqueness to the game. It is truly unlike anything from any game I had ever played, and it was a refreshingly awesome gameplay component.
-The Graphics: Stylistically speaking, the graphics are breathtaking. Okami takes an almost Wind Waker type approach, and it works brilliantly. There is nothing quite like watching a tree come back to life and spreading life back into the area. The light water colors the game's artsy style utilize simply put look awesome. The environments are varied and equally pleasing to look at no matter where you happen to be in the game, and Amaterasu looks satisfyingly bad ass.
-The Sound: The music no matter where you are fits the mood perfectly, including intense drum beats as enemies approach and cinematic lord of the rings type music during dramatic moments. From what I could gather it was fully orchestrated and everything sounds exactly how it should. Most importantly, the themes are catchy and sound good, really good, I often found myself humming along with the music, even when I was not playing. Simply put the music rocks.
-Value: I finished in just a little less than 30 hours, but I ignored essentially all side quests. Thirty hours is pretty good value without side-quests, but I could imagine spending an additional 20 entertained hours just exploring the massive overworld and completing sidequests and mini-games. Once completed, the game creates a brand new game, but with a lot of the power ups and items from the finished game, which I don't know why, but it gave me an incredible urge to re-beat the game again (probably cause the game was so good), but regardless, that just further demonstrates how high in value Okami is.
-Miscellaneous: Praise is the equivalent of experience points in Okami, and you can earn praise by feeding various animals, restoring the land/trees, and performing various other acts. You can use the praise to increase your health, ink, wallet, or your astral's pouch (it saves you if you die, but you'll probably not have to worry about dying too much). The praise system is a pretty effective reward system. Also merchants are scattered throughout nippon, where you can buy and sell various items (It's a lot like RE4). This also works very well, as you'll have a lot of money on hand, and prices are pretty reasonable. This allows you to buy lots of feedbags (for the animals), health, and other items in bulk, so you'll never have to worry about anything essentially.
-Ok now for my minor grievances:
-Load Times!: They are frequent, and sometimes up to ten seconds long. A few load times are understandable, but sometimes they can be spaced inconveniently close to each other, and it can slow down the pacing and interrupt the excitement, disengaging you a little bit from the experience.
-Graphics: While i've mentioned artistically speaking they are awesome, from a technical aspect, Okami is no masterpiece. There are lots of blurry edges, and occasional frame rate drops here and there.
-Combat: Combat is not a main focus in Okami, it essentially serves to keep things from getting too easy, however it can be a little repetitive. Enemies appear as floating scrolls and mini haunted arches, and thankfully can usually be avoided, but sometimes the game springs an unexpected battle (usually preceded by a frame rate drop), and these are never welcome. You can equip two items at once, one main weapon used by swinging the wii mote (which is not all that responsive), and one sub weapons used by pressing the z button. Unfortunately, since the motion sensing is not all that responsive, there are some types of weapons, reflectors especially, that are just not well-suited to be main weapons in the game because it is so hard to time it right. Thankfully the beads work satisfyingly well, but it's pretty repetitive, you just kind of swing randomly (like twilight princess a little) and it gets the job done. It's not that it isn't fun, it just gets a little repetitive. Also there are some bosses you have to face more than once (yes the exact same boss), and a little variety would have been nice.
-Text: Okami conveys speech through text with the addition of gibberish instead of voice acting. I am fine with the text, but I have never been a fun of the made up language instead of real language, and it gets in the way of the music in the background. Also there is a lot of reading that has to be done in the game. While Amaterasu remains silent, Issun does plenty of talking for the both of them, and occasionally the large amount of text can slow down the pacing considerably. The game gives you the option to skip every cutscene, but I felt like if i skipped i would miss something important, so there is a trade off for the very impatient.
Conclusion: All in all, if you have ever played a Zelda game before and enjoyed it (as most people have), you are doing yourself a great disservice if you are ignoring Okami. As long as you're not a real nitpicker, the negatives never interfere noticeable with the positives, and Okami is just an awesome adventure that I had an absolute blast playing through. (If you need some comparisons, I would say think a tiny bit worse than Windwaker, but it's considerably better than Majora's Mask).