Revealed by premiere Japanese gaming mag Famitsu and confirmed by both Sony and Capcom, Okami returns in all its cell-shaded glory this Autumn with an HD re-release, a $20 price tag, (cough) Move support and no more excuses for you to stay away from it. See, this PS2 cult hit got a bit of a raw deal deal upon its original release in Autumn 2006, going up against the releases of the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3. Okami was buried under a torrent of hype for the new systems, and the only people to laud the game were journalists and those willing to bite and give the action-RPG a try. How else to account for the massive amount of awards received, a port to the Wii and a semi-sequel Okamiden for the DS. Despite poor sales, people LOVE this game and for damn good reason.
Oh you want some reasons? Here are some:
1) Epic story
We’re not using “epic” lightly either. Okami works on the “Legend of Zelda plot theory”, a term we just made up and probably deserves a better name. We mean, that like Zelda – and let’s be honest, Okami is basically PS2’s Wind Waker – Okami tasks you with going through three or so dungeons to fulfill your quest (in Zelda’s case, finding the Master Sword), before opening the door on your adventure and making you realize there’s a whole other world out there to explore and an even more sinister evil to expunge. Okami is deceptively gigantic.
2) Celestial Brush game mechanic
We’re talking Okami’s core game mechanic, or “gimmick” if you’re a layman and asshole. At certain points in the game, you’ll hit a Pause button, which turns the game into a sort of faded parchment. You’ll then have a limited amount of time to draw a pattern over the game to either strike enemies, reveal secrets, or solve puzzles. Drawing a “swoosh” causes wind to blow. Drawing a circle over the sun or moon, creates the opposite effect, slicing through a monster strikes the baddie and opens them up for melee attacks. It’s damn effective and clever. It’s why more people bought the game on Wii, then the PS2. And if you have PlayStation Move, you can just point and “paint” on the screen. But no one owns PlayStation Move because there are better ways to spend your money.
3) Beauty
The entirety of Okami’s being is like Venus breastfeeding Ambrosia to your unworthy lips. You’ve got cel-shaded graphics (now rendered in breathtaking HD), played to the best effect in a game we’ve ever seen, even better than Wind Waker.
Here’s why, naysayers. Wind Waker has its aesthetic and carries it out to great effect. Good job, Nintendo. Okami hands you a ravaged portrait of a besieged land and tasks you with restoration of the countryside. By defeating enemies and completing dungeons, glorious color and windswept cherry blossom leaves flourish over the once rancid environment. So much color and beauty flows into the screen and rapes your eyeballs, that it is awe-inspiring and you reaffirms your love for all that is wonderful in the universe.
Sorry. Hold up. Let’s unstick the head from our asses. After all that pretension and hyperbole, just watch and see what we mean.
Get it now? On top of the wonderful story, colorful characters, and a theme surrounding beliefs (not to mention a tissue-worthy endgame cutscene), Okami HD will be the best $20 you spend this Autumn. BEST, we said. Don’t argue. Just buy the damn thing, because we are super-tired of recommending it.
