Beggin’ Strips: Dogs Don’t Know it’s Not Bacon. “It’s Bacon!!!”
I don’t have much to say about Okami, and mostly that is because it is so goddamn average. Nothing about it makes it stand out from the heaping pile of mediocre titles the video game industry craps out on a monthly basis. Now I know what you’re going to say, “BUT BRIK, HTIS GAME IS TOTALLY AWESOME AND YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKIN ABOUT TEH BEST PART ARE THE ANIME GRAPHICS LOL.” Before you go ahead and post that just think about this: you are an idiot.
Okami has virtually no redeeming qualities. The graphics are all cel-shaded, which was a cool gimmic back in 2003, but is kind of outdated at this point. The music is bland, uninspiring, pseudo-historical Japanese fare. The story has also been done to death, offering nothing new whatsoever. “BUT BRIK YOU PLAY AS A WOLF GOD WAHT OTHER GAMES DO YOU NOW ABOUT THAT HAVE HTAT LOL?” It doesn’t matter, just replace the wolf with a short guy wearing green tights, and you have another Zelda clone.
That’s the thing about Okami, it strives to be a unique, fun experience like Zelda, but fails miserably. In the Zelda games, Link has a main quest, but there are plenty of side quests and diversions to occupy your time along the way. Okami offers similar things, but all the side quests/mini-games are far too annoying to be any fun. The fishing is annoying, making dead trees come back to life is annoying, and feeding animals is annoying. In a Zelda game, these scenarios would be innovative. In Okami, you just do the same shit over and over again. How many fucking trees do you have to circle anyway? It’s just something they threw in to increase the length of the game, not to make it any more fun.
The other thing that really fucks this game is the horrible control mechanism. I can’t count the number of times where I tried to use the celestial brush, only to see the Wii-mote have a seizure. The brush jerks around on screen, and I sit there, unable to control it, hurling obscenities at the game. While it seemed like a cool idea on paper, it really is just a huge fucking mess. Did no one bother to play this game before releasing it? Jesus, it’s like Creed from The Office was in charge of the quality control on this piece of shit.
Other random things that pissed me off: unskippable cut scenes, getting to play for 5 minutes and then having to read walls of text for the next 10, and helping out mindless idiots (e.g. in the fishing sequence) so they can think they accomplished some menial task on their own. Why do I give a fuck if the person thinks they caught a fish on their own. I AM PLAYING AS A FUCKING GOD, I SHOULD GET ALL THE GODDAMN CREDIT. MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHY CAN’T I SMITE ALL THESE LITTLE FUCKERS?
On the positive side, the fighting was pretty original and a lot of fun, that is, when the Wii-mote didn’t spaz out. Good fighting aside, it doesn’t make up for all the other bullshit. So, if any of you fat, smelly otaku out there can explain to me why this game is anything but average (especially the guy who raved about it at the store), I’m listening.
Overall, Okami is nothing more than a weak Zelda rip-off. Clones usually range from bad to mediocre, and since this game is more frustrating than fun, it doesn’t come anywhere close to being good. Okami is the poor man’s Zelda.
A better god-game would be a Zeus simulator. You shove thunderbolts up the asses of the people that piss you off, and you have sex with tons of hot chicks with no risk of getting an STD. Nintendo, give me a call, I’m full of more great ideas just like that one.
Verdict: Shitty
Awesomely Shitty 
I was about to play this game but it didnt work. Dammit, I really want to play this game. I heard it was good.
BUT BRIK, HTIS GAME IS TOTALLY AWESOME AND YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKIN ABOUT TEH BEST PART ARE THE ANIME GRAPHICS LOL.
LOL
I AGREE! i totaly prefer zelda twilight princess. it kicks ass! a swear link’s wolf was way better than this shit!
WHAT?!
Okami is innovative, uses an art-style not seen before designed to resemble (and does so well) a Japanese ink-painting, making it absolutely STUNNING to watch. Has the ‘Celestial Brush’, a clever way to influence your environment and fight battles.
It plays smoothly, draws you into the plot and can make you laugh, feel good and never put upon by a stupidly powerful boss. The characters have life behind them and you genuinely feel for them.
Okami is not at all like Zelda, trust me on this and I personally prefer it to Zelda. However, playing on the Wii could be disheartening, I would recommend the PS2 version.
And Mr. Brikaus, Okami Amatersaru is supposed to be a good God, and therefore would be content with letting other people be happy without claiming credit, intead bringing joy and life the the land of Nippon.
The music? Beautiful, I personnaly own the Soundtrack on CD and transferred it to my ipod, using traditional japanese intruments and unes makes it that much more authentic.
Third, cutscenes are numerous, but they enhance the gameplay so long you are not only interested in killing green imps or slowing down to appreciate the world you are in. If not they can be insightful and fun.
So, I adore Okami, it is new, exiting and appeals to most of if it’s audience. Furthermore it is beautiful and a joy to play. In Zelda, the same thing but with far less emotional stuff and far more killin’ So I deem Okami a more academic game.
But I guess there is no argueing with Zelda fan-boys. I do recommend trying the old-gen versions if you are getting this title, by the sound of it the main problem is the nunchuck.
Also, the cut-scenes are skippable with + on the wii remote, I know because I just played half an hour ao
and I am a zelda fan boy so there
I had a great time with the PS2 version. Just because the gameplay is somewhat reminiscent of Zelda doesn’t make it a Zelda clone. Your blog title about rings true to the quality of your reviews. 🙂
Dude, I……. I love you.
If you look at prices I guess it would be the poor man’s Zelda. On Amazon, Okami is $18.99 while Twilight Princess is $46.99. I’ll give Okami a try. This post was way too funny to not give Okami a try. Thanks
Glad I could help.
Haha, cell-shading is not a gimmick its a style. I like zelda, but zelda the windwaker and okami were both way more innovative and inspiring than the twilight princess. Cellshaded is way better than half baked wii graphics that arent cellshaded. Graphics on wii suck except when something like cell-shading is done with it, so i really don’t know what u are talking about. Furthermore, it’s not a zelda rip-off, it’s totally different, while practically all the last zelda games (except for the windwaker) were redo’s of the previous. U dont know shit.
hahaha whatever.
Okami is the game Zelda TP should have become.
TP was a huge disappointment, but Okami just did everything right and then some more.
“The graphics are all cel-shaded, which was a cool gimmic back in 2003, but is kind of outdated at this point.” False.
“The music is bland, uninspiring, pseudo-historical Japanese fare.” False.
“The story has also been done to death, offering nothing new whatsoever.” False
“The fishing is annoying, making dead trees come back to life is annoying, and feeding animals is annoying.” False.
“The other thing that really fucks this game is the horrible control mechanism.” False.
Those are some really well thought out arguments. Thanks for setting me straight.
PS2 version was better anyways…:D I LIKED CIRCLING TREES TILL MY ANALOG STICK SHAVED ITSELF OFF.
So did anyone EVER heal themselves with the food? I mean, I don’t think there was a SINGLE TIME where I had to heal myself because I was hurt so badly. Most I was ever hurt was in the tower with the flaming spiders…and I may have gotten down to half health…and most of the time my heal got replenished after fights. I can honestly say that I NEVER DIED.
well … ill get straight to teh point : okami was released before zelda TP ! so basicly , zelda TP copied okami ^^ !
I think you should try out the Resident Evil series (up to RE4), Devil May Cry 1 (but not the later sequels), Viewtiful Joe 1 and 2, God Hand, P.N.03, Bayonetta, and Vanquish. They were made by relatively the same people (Hideki Kamiya, Shinji Mikami and Atsushi Inaba) and teams, but, by your tastes, should be better far better games than Okami.
Or wait, DON’T play any of the games listed above, because from what I told you, you’ll assume that those games are all pieces of shit, because of your asinine prejudice from playing ONE GAME of theirs (because from what I see of your insipid blog of yours, it’s damn near filled to the brim with prejudiced opinion formed by blinding anger). You weren’t even playing the original PlayStation 2 version of the game, instead playing the shoddy Wii version ported by a bunch of Americans. I mean, Jesus Christ already.
P.S. Okamiden was made by an entirely different team at Capcom. But I guess you wouldn’t have known better until I told you, since you seem to be incapable of conducting any proper research on anything but Evangelion and Gainax.
P.P.S. I have absolutely no idea what the hell you mean by “pseudo-Japanese”, seeing as the original game WAS made by a Japanese team, and not, say, an American/European one.
I have played Resident Evil 0-4 and mostly enjoyed them, Devil May Cry 1 and thought it was too easy but kind of cool, and PN0.3. and thought it was dull and repetitive.
Liking a game based on who made it doesn’t really make sense. Do you like every movie made by the same director? Sure, you may love some of Spielberg’s films, but you probably don’t like every single one of them. So, conversely, it doesn’t track that I wouldn’t like some of the games you listed just because I didn’t like Okami. In fact, I enjoyed many of the ones in your list.
P.S. You might want to look up the definition of prejudice, because you aren’t using it properly. (i.e. I didn’t go into the game with any preconceived notions.)
P.P.S. I’m not sure how doing research on a game would make me like it any more or less.
P.P.P.S. You should probably get better at detecting troll posts if you are going to spend time on the Internet.
I apologize. It didn’t seem as if you had played any of the games that I listed (seeing as you never seemed to talk about them on your blog, I searched, and all I found was something on the DMC anime). In addition, I wasn’t trying to imply that you have to like a game based on the person who made it, nor do I care if they think something is shit or not – my actual pet peeve is that people do not, at the very least, acknowledge the [actual] person/people/team/developer who made it. I’ve seen it all the time when, for example, people hold the PUBLISHER guilty rather than the developer, when people call X a “Y-ripoff” or whatever, despite the fact that maybe, JUST MAYBE, the people who made it had a hand in developing Y prior, etc.
I mean, even as a troll post, I would’ve at least expected you to say something along the lines of: “How could this piece of shit have come from the same fucking team that created Devil May Cry? Ugh.”.
It’s all good.
When I review games, I try to judge them completely on their merits alone, and not worry too much about who made it. But now that you mention it, I find it hard to believe the same team that made Devil May Cry also made Okami.
Also, even though this is a troll post, I still hated Okami 🙂
actually you technically did have a prejudice by thinking “this is going to be a zelda ripoff.” regardless of how that changes anything, it is still a prejudice.
From the article “Okami 2: Why Don’t You People Listen to Me?”:
“Don’t deny it Okami-fanboys, game creator Hideki Kamiya has stated that Zelda was a huge inspiration for him.”
Uh, whoops. Didn’t see that there.
Hmm. I’ve never played this game, but it might be worth trying the PS2 version of the game. The Celestial Brush, at the very least, wouldn’t be plagued by bad motion controls.
I’ve heard the PS2 version is better, so go for that one. Let me know how it was.
Okami is one of my favorite games of ALL TIME. In Zelda games, I just can’t bring myself to finish them for some reason. In Okami, everything just felt so right.
I have to say, the Wii version was just a slightly worse version of the PS2 one. In combat, the PS2 version just feels more fluid (without that darn timing mechanic), and the game overall looks (IMO) better too. Here’s a comparison image. http://insidermedia.ign.com/insider/image/article/867/867773/head-to-head-okami-20080418024919843-000.jpg
Also, I disagree with what you said about the story. It was imaginative, creative, and surprisingly depressing and touching at moments. As opposed to Zelda, where it’s generally more light-hearted (except in MM and TP though). I respect your opinion, but saying that it offered nothing new whatsoever is going just a little bit too far. I’m curious if you even finished the game. A plus for me is that Issun is so much more fun/interesting than Navi. I’d take a perverted artist over an annoying fairy any day.
And the music? Godly. (See what I did there? Haha. Okay, I’ll stop. That was a horrible pun.) But seriously, it’s not bland and uninspiring at all. Listen to this and tell me it’s boring. Especially the middle part up till the end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRx9gnY0Mp0
As for the sidequests… “In Okami, you just do the same shit over and over again.” There are a lot of unique sidequests in Okami and they are just as good as in Zelda games. Like making clothes to get a new brush technique, etc.
I guess it all really does come down to preference. I love Okami a lot more than Zelda because of how magical and RPG-like it feels unlike Zelda which is a straight-up adventure game. I also love the dialogue. It helps make Okami seem more slow-paced and fun/immersive unlike in Zelda where there’s little to no lengthy dialogue sections. Puzzles. Puzzles. Puzzles everywhere. And I know that appeals to a lot of people. Another thing is the environment. I find that Okami has a lot more varied places. (The part where you climb up a giant tower using cat pawprints was just awesome.)
Thanks for reading this huge wall of text, anyway. And I hope it cleared some stuff up. ^^
One common denominator I’ve seen from these various comments is that the Wii version is worse than the PS2. I’m sure that’s true, and maybe I would have enjoyed the game if I played it with a control scheme that actually functioned. As for everything else you mentioned, I’m still sticking with my original assessment. I like the minimal dialogue and non-stop puzzles that the Zelda franchise brings, so I guess it just appeals to me far more than Okami. Thanks for leaving your comment. I do appreciate your insight, and can see why you like Okami so much.
Zelda has been bad since OoT. I think the truth is that you suck at okami. Got gud scrub.
This is the most accurate description of this game there is. So much hype for an annoying little shit of a game.
Yeah, it really sucked ass.