Am I a terrible human being for never having played Okami? Maybe! But in my defense, I did buy it. I just didn’t have a chance to play. And once Twilight Princess came out, I kinda figured I didn’t need to. OK, yeah, I’m terrible. Sorry, Clover Studios. I helped kill you.
The exact same thing happened to me re: the playing of Okami. Oops.
Shame on you both! I dutifully played Okami right up until the day Twilight Princess came out, and THEN put it on a shelf never to be completed!
See, everybody did it wrong. You needed to play Okami right up to the release of Twilight Princess, beat Twilight Princess in like three days, realize how incredibly disappointing the game was, then return to Okami and play up to within hours of completing it, then quit and never beat it. Thank goodness I still have my save game.
” play up to within hours of completing it, then quit and never beat it. Thank goodness I still have my save game.”
Exactly what I did.
Twig light prances? Never heard of it. I was too busy playing Okami.
I played through Okami to the end.
The game was fun, but about twice as long as it needed to be.
My thoughts exactly. I felt that it dragged on and repeated too many of the boss battles. If some of the fat had been trimmed, this would have been one of my favorite games of the generation instead of merely a great game.
That said, the innovative aesthetic and mechanics kept me playing despite the less-than-ideal length.
I actually finished both Twilight Princess and Okami, though not at the same time. Okami is worth playing through for it’s own merits, but don’t try to rush through it. The game is kinda like Wind Waker in that there is a lot to do it the game and it can be pretty easy to burn out if you don’t take a more gradual pace to play through it.
As long as you bought it, you’re okay.
Still, in a lot of ways, it does the Zelda formula better. In some areas, not, but as a whole, it rises up to those lofty heights.
The plot of Okami is very meandering, how one set of events relates to another, and what your overall motivation is, is generally very unclear.
That said, I love Okami! Except that I played it on Wii and the controls for swords is utterly broken. Rosaries only thank you.
Yeah, I’d heard that the Wii version is less than optimal. I played on the PS2, so no control niggles to speak of.
Here’s hoping that Okamiden lives up to expectations.
I too played Okami up to the point of Twilight Princess coming out. Okami’s a really great game and all, but I do believe Twilight Princess is the better of the two.
Okami is a bit longer than it should be. It’s a great revelation when the game goes on longer than you think it does, but unfortunately by that point the game is all out of new tricks. So while it’s cool it keeps going, it doesn’t quite build on the game after that, but for those that are into it at least it just keeps on giving.
I don’t think I’ll ever understand the “Okami is too long” sentiment. (Now, the fact that the repeated boss gauntlet at the end is pretty unnecessary, that I can agree with.) I just see it as two or three awesome adventure games worth of content packed onto one disc. Don’t feel like pushing all the way through at once? Great! Play up to one of the three or four sensible break points / climaxes in the story, go play something else for a while, and then come back. It’s like you got a couple iterative sequels without actually having to pay for them. I don’t really see a problem here.
I’m on Kirin’s side.
I mean, you’re right, Okami packs lots of content. For the people that really get in there and just crave more then it’s a dream come true just how much is in that game. And that’s great that you guys are some of those people. You totally got your dollars worth.
My only feeling is that, and this is going off of a memory from years ago now so maybe I’m remembering wrong, the game doesn’t do much new after the first “break point.” To be honest, I felt like I got my money’s out of that first 8 – 10 hours, everything from then on was just “bonus.”
Anyway, I do like the game a lot! Just kinda like TP more. I might also be one of the five people that was okay with TP’s slow start too….
You hit the nail on the head here with the feeling of it being “bonus.” I felt that too many of the boss battles were repeated (as in the gauntlet mentioned by Kirin), and that the length was in a sense artificially lengthened. I think that a tighter experience (i.e. shorter, more compact) would have made Okami that much better of a game. It’s a legendary 15-hour game trapped inside of a 30-hour one.
That should say “… the GAME was artificially lengthened.” Oops.
Isn’t that the major complaint that most have about Twilight Princess, though? I see people complaining about padding in that game, too.
To be honest, I thought both were spectacular games, and were the right length. Maybe I won’t think so today, given my dearth of free time, but at the time I played both, they were far lengthier versions of the 3D Zelda games we were used to.
And maybe that’s the rub: at the time, we (or maybe just I) weren’t used to soldiering through a 30-50 hour experience in our Zelda games. I’m still not entirely sure we are. We have no idea how much content is going to be in Skyward Sword, and few other Zelda-likes reach those lengths.
Okami was too long, I ended up disliking it for that. Stopped playing around the Water Dragon part.
Twilight Princess however. Delicious. That is definitely a game I need to replay
That’s a weird sentiment to have, given that Twilight Princess was probably longer than Okami. It certainly was for me. My final savefile for Okami was around 35 hours. TP? Try 50, and that’s without tracking down everything, which I nearly did in Okami.
Sarge, I would reply to your comment above but I guess that comment thread got too long. Anyway!
You bring up a good point in saying that TP appears to be padded as well and ends up being a longer experience in the end (I put around 25 hours onto Okami before losing interest and also hit 50 hours in TP total), but TP’s strength is that the game just keeps on building on top of itself and consistently gives the player new rewards. For example, the Sky Temple in TP, which isn’t until the end, is probably one of the best dungeons in any Zelda. The level design somehow manages to get more clever as TP moves along, so the length isn’t felt like the way it is in Okami where things start becoming too familiar with time.
Maybe I was just OCD enough to enjoy almost every minute of Okami.
In any case, you won’t get any argument from me about the merits of Twilight Princess. I bring up the argument of padding, but I don’t necessarily subscribe to it myself. I thought there was a hefty chunk of well-done content there.
I too bought it and never played it.. and then gave my PS2 and it away. If I’d not bought it on PS2 I’d’ve bought the Wii version, but then have been disappointed by the control issues that I’ve heard about. For some reason I’ve just never liked playing things on a Playstation, the only exception (and reason for purchase in ’06 once it was all nice and cheap) being GT4 on a DFP wheel.
The control issues are annoying, but not enough to ruin an otherwise amazing game. 4/5ths of the problems are resolved when you realize holding down Z forces you to paint a straight line. Aside from that, avoid Sword weapons and expect to redo the peach tree blooming sequence a dozen times.
Okami really was released at the wrong time. It was such a great game though. I played through it on PS2 and then later on Wii.
Can’t wait for Okamiden in March
I gotta say that the similarities between Okami and Wind Waker became a little frustrating particularly a boss fight or two taken verbatim from WW. It was also pointlessly easy with no hard mode or replay value, and I could have sworn the game was going to end twenty entire hours before it actually did. With all that being said, I think I played through the entire game about 4 times. So I spent 160 hours playing Okami and I consider it one of those games you kind of need to play in order to be a gamer. Oh, it’s a mysterious one all right. On a side note, one of the best soundtracks in game history. Just insanely good music.
Oh hell yes, music in Okami is pure joy.