Name: Okami
Publisher: Clover Studios (CAPCOM)
Genre: Action Adventure RPG
Platform: PS2 (Control scheme used in the review), Wii

Okami............simply one of the best games i have ever played. The visuals are the best i have ever seen on a PS2 probably surpassed by very few *Cough SHadow of the collosus cough*. But as we all know graphics don;t make the game so let us take a look at one of the best games to grace our dying (or growing depending on what version you get) consoles.

The story begins with a brush painting out a scene with a narrattor telling you about the history of Kamiki village, a village in the land of Nippon, and it's history. Mostly it tells of the legend of Orochi and Nagi.

Well here is the short version.

Every full moon on a festival in kamiki a girl gest's chosen s a sacrifice... (Why is revealed in the story). Near the festival a white wolf appears and scouts the village. People call this wolf Shiranui and fear it for they think it is an ally of orochi. Nagi is a swordsman who....well that would be spoiling the story if I revealed that.......basically the rest ofy the story is this.
Girl get's chosen as sacrifice, Nagi is in love with girl, dresses in drag and goes to orochi's cave....fights orochi....gets pummeled...shiranui steps in and fights but also gets pummled....Shiranui howls at sky moon shies and makes nagi's sword all powerful and he uses it to kill orochi and seal it in the cave......takes shiranui back to vilage...shiranui dies and village makes statue of shiranui............

You with me so far.

Well that was the entire INTRO to the story right there. Yes that is basically the intro cutscene to that game.

100 years have passed and some idiot goes and finds the sword that was used to seal orochi and removes it releasing the 8 headed serpent from it's dark rest. With one big Roar he curses the land near the cave . Even Kamiki is turned into a wasteland. With the last of her power a wood sprite named Sakuya transforms the statue of Shiranui into a vessel for the great Goddess Amaterasu. While she dies she explains to Amaterasu her mission and what she must do. While this is going on a little ....thing jumps out of the hem of her kimono (making her laugh cause he was tickling her). This is Issun, wandering artist. He will become your voice ...since wolves can't speak. and he will be your friend untill you beat the game. Issun joins you on your quest to destroy orochi...but more sinister forces are at work in Nippon.......and they are determined to stop them.

And that is where i leave the story.

But one thing......The plot is seriously screwed up.....You will be running from plotline to seemingly unrelated plotline in your journey to restore the land tht orochi cursed. All of these plotlines will lead you to one truth in the climx of this great journey

Along the way you will meet the brush gods. The Spritual power of the celestal brush that ammy (What issun calls her) can weild. the will bestow upon you brush techniques to help (and you will need them) in your quest. Some of the brush techniques include Slashing your foes in half... slowing down time.......Moving water from one place to another...and restoring broken things like bridges to their former glory. To use the brush simply press the R1 button and the screen will turn into a parchment. and pres square and paint a shape or line depending on what technique you want to perform. Like a straight line across an object to slice it in half.



The gameply is action adventure with some RPG elements thown in.

Scattered across the land are things called Demon Scrolls...they will be your random battles. There are a group of monsters in each scroll. You have a weapon called a divine instrument on your back (or around your neck depending) You press the square button to attack your foes and kill them. when you finish a battle you get more money depending on how fast you took them out and how much damage you took. Money will always be your best firend here as it will buy you new abilities (some compulsory to finish the game) new items or weapons...maybe even some brush power upgrades if you find the right place.



As you go around you will find places that need healing like darkened patches of grass or withered trees and starving animals.Feeding or Restoring these (see image below) will net you praise. THIS IS YOUR POWER. You use praise to level up stuff like you health or your ink (Brush powers consume ink and ink recharges over time) Astral pouches (continues after you die) or your wallet (obviously you are able to carry more money).



Some abilities may be out of reach until you can attain a certain level or money upgrade.

The characters in this game are one of the best things you will see in any game....but hearing them is another thing. They did the voices in such way that it will go either of 3 ways
1 it will annoy you beyond all reason
2 it will annoy you at first but then it will grow on you
3...you like the voices.

They did a thing with rearranging the phonics of Japanese into a garbled mess. But in some cases they are cute but in others it does not works so well.

The bosses in this game are terrific they are huge epic battles that will force you to use your brush skills in unique ways



The graphics in this game are top notch it actually looks like you are looking at a Japanese painting....nuff said.

There is so much to do in the game

the main story will clock you over 30 hours and if you do everything that there is to offer 60 hours.

I am giving this game a 9.5/10

I only docked for it being a bit too easy.

Should have added that the game is one big reference to japanese and chinese folklore, in the game you are bound to find known legends like the bamboo girl, the the legend of the old couple in the haunted mansion and even the legend of Orochi and Susano and the way you defeat the terrible Orochi at the end is resembling the way it happened in the actual Japanese myth.

The game is indeed very easy, so much that it doesn't even require you to do much leveling up, so you can just breeze through the game avoiding pretty much all demon scrolls and only fight the big bad bosses themselves.

Throughout the game there are also mini-games, and among them fishing and picking raddishes.

Good review.

Thnks for that adddition after all that writing it is easy to forget stuff like that.

The only thig that eally annoyed me were those two Giant enemy crabs...........

I don't think i ever died once in the whole game, which is really cool, cuz i hate loosing XD

Not sure which boss was the toughest maybe that last one cuz of the transformations. Even so it was a fun battle.

I didn't like how it ended though cuz it felt like the story could go on. I'd love to get to explore that city in heavenn.

I thought the final battle was epic with the music an cutscenein in it