review
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POSTED 6/11/12


OKAMI HD

Capcom

PS3/PSN/Move

‘They’ say that beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. Well, we challenge any beholder to not consider Okami beautiful.

An adventure of as grand a scale as anything that Zelda chick’s ever endorsed, Okami takes a bunch of Japanese mythology and wraps it up in, again, one of the most beautiful things that you’ll ever see masquerading as a game. Lush cel-shaded imagery looks to have been watercoloured onto your screen, and it’s all the better than the PS2 originator for its HD makeover.

You’re a white wolf, blessed with many powers including a ‘celestial brush’, a kind of all purpose painting device that Rolf Harris would kill to get his hands upon – or at the very least wobbleboard somebody to the edge of madness for. As such you draw heavenly bodies and more as you and your irritating bug-thing companion quest to free Nippon of shadowy forces.

Incredibly story-intensive – you don’t do anything other than read for a good 20 minutes at the outset - Okami isn’t a pick up and blast for five minutes thing. It’s a long-haul experience that rewards dedication. It’s also deceptively complex, with several RPG elements incorporated as much as some rather silly minigames and relatively uncomplicated combat.

As established, it looks beautiful. Audio – save for continued repetitive Charlie Brown’s teacher speech - is sublime and the gameplay experience is an experience worth experiencing. There’s only one let down, and it’s massive – controls. These scream their last decade heritage via alarming clunkiness, particularly with the mind-of-its-baka-tare-own camera, which caused much expletive-letting – hardly in keeping with the vibe of proceedings. This was whether using DualShock only or comboing it with Move.

Despite only having sold about 17* copies on PS2, Okami is regarded as a classic. This is the perfect opportunity to find out why. Arigatou gozaimasu, Capcom!

* Not necessarily an exact figure – forgiveness, please.

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ALL WRITTEN CONTENT COPYRIGHT © AMY FLOWER 2008-2018. GAME IMAGES COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE GAMES COMPANIES.