The world is your canvas...
Using the canvas has a deeper meaning for the art director behind the project. He wanted people to be able to freeze the action at any point in the game so that we could see the beauty of his artwork and he’s succeeded in his goal. Such is the style and beauty of the finely brushed drawings we were constantly summoning our canvas purely to look at the fine detail of the art, meaning that the 35 hours or so of gameplay could easily be doubled; if you like art that is!. Of course, we’re not all into Japanese anime and art, some of us will want to get straight on with the game, but we defy you not to be enchanted by Okami’s art-style and delicate brush strokes; it comes as no surprise that Ôkami is the brainchild of Capcom's Clover Studio which is renowned for such ground-breaking and critically acclaimed titles including the Steel Battalion and the Viewtiful Joe series.
Use of the celestial brush is the main gameplay element in Okami and for the most part it’s implemented well. On a few occasions we had to repeat a drawing in order for it to register in-game and the canvas didn’t always appear immediately after pressing the shoulder-pad, but mastering the thirteen brush techniques in the game is an art in itself that becomes progressively rewarding the further you venture into the world.
Aside from using the brush, Amaterasu has a standard set of gameplay controls, allowing her to dig, jump, dash, and perform combos. This platforming side of things works well in conjunction with using the brush and characters animate well.
Essentially, Okami is an adventure game in the same mold as the likes of Zelda, so there are plenty of quests that can be picked up from NPCs, dungeon crawling objectives, puzzle solving and combat to get your teeth stuck into. On the journey you’ll encounter numerous treasure chests where you can pick up pearls and beads. While you can use these treasures to bolster your wallet with yen, you’ll receive plenty of the in-game currency through other actions, such as fighting or pots that you find, so the excessive numbers of treasure chests are fairly irrelevant to your progression in the game. In turn, yen can be used to purchase items, such as ink bottles that you’ll need for drawing and more powerful weapons.
Okami is a slow adventure that’s heavy on storyline and Japanese mythology and thrill seekers may not be enthralled by the game’s pace, but the rich world, smart puzzles and entertaining combat was enough to keep us immersed in the game.
Set from the third person perspective, combat is triggered by clicking on one of the numerous floating scrolls in the game world. The surroundings are immediately cut-off and you’re limited to a fighting zone where you’ll have to see off a variety of demons. Combat offers the choice of three different weapons to equip, each of which offer a different style of attack. Killing an opponent is actually far too easy and only requires a bit of button mashing to succeed; with a mixture of slashing, dodging and the use of your magical brush to draw weapons such as bombs. Despite these unremarkable combat segments it still manages to visually entertain and is actually a great deal of fun. We also felt motivated to take part in as much combat as possible just so we could unlock the characters in the ‘bestiary log’ which can be viewed as a tapestry of fine artwork, that’s even more stunning than the in-game visuals.
