Plug & Sunday Soapbox

09/17/06 11:04 am

Plug for a friend's new site - TwiddleGeek.com, an anime n' gaming blog. Give it a visit why don't ya? There's a lot more updatin' going on there than here ^^;

And, in the spirit of game discussion... or.. just cause I want to... A word on the soon-to-be-released in North America PS2 game, Okami. I tried it out because it was getting rave reviews, and looked like something I might enjoy. Well... I will say that, as far as visuals and music go, Okami is a delight. In fact, you can probably get all the best aspects of this game simply by watching someone play it (assuming you're not watching it over a poor webcam feed).

The gameplay, however, leaves me wanting. There's really no challenge to be had in this game; enemies are easily smacked to death by button-mashing. The fudewaza ["brush techniques"] can be amusing - paint your enemy black to cripple his accuracy, or if that flying creature's out of reach, use the "cut" stroke to slash his wings off - but they get old as they're rather unnecessary on the whole [in minor battles anyway, which seem to comprise most of the battles you'll be encountering...?].

My other main complaint is tooooo muuuuch dialoooogue. It's kind of ironic that, while some character is blabbering away, the camera will cut back to Ama-kou, who has fallen asleep, and this is supposed to be a joke. Well, it is funny, and Okami offers some amusing character interaction, if you're willing to sit through the over-long exposition for it. Also, who in their right mind thinks that those Banjo Kazooie style animal murmurs instead of actual voiced dialogue are a good thing? Please no more ^^;

So, essentially, I'd say Okami is a rental; worth playing for awhile, but underneath all the visual hoo-ha is a game that gets dull too soon. You can play it until .hack//GU comes out.

Edit: Eh, maybe that's too harsh. ^^; It's just hard not to expect a lot from a game that gets upper 90s on nearly all of its reviews. It is a very good game, it just has some persistent annoyances ("Issun, can you keep your yap shut for more than 5 minutes?"), and I still retain that there's little challenging about it ("And here we draw another circle..."). At present, I like it better than FFXII; how's that?