![]() Combat is a mixture of melee attacks, weapons, and brush strokes – more on that soon. When you get near an enemy, a circular barrier encloses you and you must fight them. The overall goal is to repair and restore world from its curse. ![]() Inside there are light puzzles to solve, some platforming, and a boss battle at the conclusion. You’ll need to locate and get into the dungeons or caves. As you talk with people, you’ll get tasks – some pertinent to the story while others are optional side missions. You spend much of the game wandering the lands and towns interacting with characters and searching for new areas to explore. In many ways this game reminds me of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Other players may appreciate and understand this better than I did. The entire game is full of Japanese folklore and mythology that I was largely unfamiliar with. These are dreadfully annoying and really hold the game back. The noises that sync with the text are scrambled voice-overs. Some parts of the story are interesting, but I found myself just wanting to discover more and get back to the action. However, the game continues to be very text-heavy. Many of the characters you meet are quite entertaining and unusual, notably the self-appointed ‘greatest warrior’ Susano, who is completely useless and is responsible for freeing Orochi in the first place. ![]() Ammy doesn’t speak, so Issun serves as your guide, helps further the story, and adds humor – usually by insulting Ammy. It is up to Ammy, with the help of insect-sized Issun, to restore color and life to the now bleak land in hopes of stopping Orochi. ![]() Now, Orochi has been freed and has cursed the land of Nippon. You are really a Japanese Sun Goddess taking the form of Shiranui, a wolf who helped defeat the demon Orochi 100 years ago. You play as Amaterasu, a white wolf referred to as Ammy. Just know that the game starts off extremely slow and there’s a lot of text to get through. However, I’m glad I stuck it out because at times this game is very impressive. Had I not signed on to cover the game, I would have shut it off and never returned to it. This entire sequence bored the hell out of me and I wanted to mention it first. It was so bad that I kept nodding off during the first 30 minutes. Once this ends, you play a ridiculous handholding tutorial section, which is filled with tons of rambling and unnecessary dialogue. You are treated to a long history, mostly touching on events that happened 100 years ago. The second thing was the seemingly never-ending introduction. It has some of the same characteristics found in a cel-shaded game like The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker, but this has a different flavor to it. The artwork is an Asian Ink Wash painting style known as Sumi-e. First, the unique art style that is like nothing else I’ve ever seen. In the first half hour of playing the game two things struck me. Now that Okami HD is hitting the Switch, I chose to finally dive in, only 12 years late to the party. Sadly I was one of many gamers who overlooked it and never went back to play it, despite its many remakes. That year, I was either playing every obscure Nintendo DS release or feeding my Guitar Hero addiction. Despite winning IGN’s Game of the Year, total sales of this Capcom published game were very disappointing. When Okami released in 2006 it was heralded as being PlayStation’s answer to The Legend of Zelda.
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