![]() Clover have taken the already unique art style of Viewtiful Joe, and turned it up to 11. You can keep your incredibly-detailed fat-necked marines and your footballers with visible beads of sweat on their foreheads – Okami’s running on a PS2, the least powerful of the last-gen consoles, and yet it’s by far one of the most stunning-looking games ever made on any platform. As much as we might like to go on about how visuals aren’t really important in video games, just look at Okami. Now, let’s be shallow and talk about the aesthetics for a minute. It can be a tad fiddly at times, and it’s bloody impossible to paint a decent cock and balls with it, but for the most part it works a hell of a lot better than anyone expected it to, and it’s one of those ideas that no other game developer will ever be able to touch for fear of people saying “Yeah, but they just stole that off Okami, didn’t they?” On top of this, instead of messing around choosing an inventory item to carry out the task you want, the game knows which technique you’re trying to use purely by looking at the shapes you paint, and the places you paint them. It’s easy to go on a spoiler-ridden rant about how wonderful this idea really is, but suffice it to say that you go from filling lakes with water so you can swim across them, to pulling lightning out of storm-clouds to shock your enemies. As you progress, you learn new brush techniques which allow you to affect the environment in different ways. You then guide your paintbrush (which you soon realise is actually Amaterasu’s tail) over the canvas, and paint stuff into your surrounding environment. At any point in the game, you can hit R1 and a canvas drops over the screen. ![]() Instead, you get new abilities in two ways – one of them is visiting the local martial arts trainer, who’ll get you dodging enemy attacks, mastering the double-jump, and so on. Weapons and health-related pickups aside, you don’t really gain any new items. Thankfully, Okami’s not just a straight copy – it adds its own little twists and quirks to the formula. But it does raise an important question – is it better than Twilight Princess? That’s not to say they’re not both classics, but if you were literally held at gunpoint and had to pick one, which would it be? Luckily I was in that exact situation this week, so I’ll give you my answer at the end. Hell, it’s not like anyone else has come close to effectively replicating Zelda’s unique formula, so it’s nice to see someone else have a shot at it. You’ve got your fighting and your exploring and your dungeons and your bosses and your gaining new abilities which allow you to access new areas. Nobody wanted to say it, but everybody has, because it’s pretty much true. ![]() Now, let’s not beat about the bush here – Okami is basically a Zelda game. But they’ve seriously nailed it this time. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much storytelling from Clover, as the narrative in the Viewtiful Joe games – as funny and charming as it is – is pretty thin. But this is only what the intro sequence would have you believe, and to sum up the story of Okami in such a manner is like telling someone that Metal Gear Solid is about some guy who blows up a robot and that. You step in as Amaterasu, the sun goddess, who has been reincarnated as a wolf and charged with the task of restoring the land to its former beauty, defeating Orochi, and allowing everyone to live in peace again. A giant, evil, many-headed serpent called Orochi has been re-awakened from a 100-year slumber, and is going around causing havoc and corrupting the land itself, making it grey and lifeless. Read on if you’d care to find out why.Īt first, the game’s introductory hook comes across as being a bit predictable and bland. Released in the UK as the PS2’s lifespan draws to a close, Okami is without doubt one of the best reasons yet to grab a PS2 if you’re one of the five people in the country who don’t already have one. ![]() I may as well tell you that now because you’ve probably already scrolled down to look at the bloody score anyway. ![]()
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