I’ve heard many claim that the game feels twice as long as it needs to be, & while I do understand where they’re coming from, I felt that the actual ending of the game is much more satisfying. It essentially functions as any other fantasy realm. The game does a good job at building its world, so even if you don’t know a thing about Japan it won’t matter. Narrative: Despite being heavily rooted in Shintoism, foreknowledge isn’t required to understand & enjoy Okami. As you travel, you’ll bring light & life to the dying world, earning Praise by creating miracles & leveling up your Godhood. For example, you can slash foes by making a short, straight line across them, or you can creating a massive fireball by drawing an infinity sign. The Celestial Brush is your primary tool in the game, allowing you to pause the world to draw various designs, resulting in different effects. But whereas Link picks up new weapons & items, Amaterasu unlocks new brush techniques. Okami’s game style is very much inspired by The Legend of Zelda games, where you travel through various locations & dungeons earning new ways to advance. But later you uncover that Orochi was the just a pawn to something much darker. Initially your task focus’ on slaying the eight-headed dragon Orochi, who was mysteriously released from his prison & demanding human sacrifices. Your job is to vanquish the darkness that has taken control of the land of Nippon with the help of your Celestial Brush, allowing you to literally draw on the canvas of the world. In Okami, you take the role of Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess, incarnated as a wolf. Not only did I breeze through levels that had previously given me trouble, but I was able to complete the game. And shock of shocks, it actually did, thus continuing to prove motion controls are little more than a gimmick to entice new gamers. Thanks to the HD re-release on current consoles, including an upcoming release on the Switch, I purchased an entirely new copy in the hopes that using a regular controller would make the game easier. The game in question was the Wii version of Okami. Either resolution does the game justice and brings to light all the design choices that made the original so breathtaking.Readers from the earliest days of this blog might recall a rare rant post on how the Wii’s motion controls sucked & clearly weren’t intended for calligraphy writing. Even then, the game is a complete marvel to look at.

In a year that gave us visual masterpieces like Horizon Zero Dawn, which also benefited from the PlayStation 4 Pro’s ability to push 4K graphics, I still can’t help but be in awe over how lush the Okami re-release looks.Īnd if you don’t have a 4K TV, don’t worry. Capcomįrom the simple moments, like watching a small bird eat some seeds, to the full-on visual assault of boss encounters, Okami HD’s vibrant visuals seem like they were always made for brilliant displays. Beauty is something so deeply ingrained in the game’s DNA, so it’s wonderful to see all of those details realized at such a high resolution. But what really piqued my interest was the ability to play this re-release on 4K, which is a level of visual fidelity this game always deserved. Okami was stunning then, and now that the game is in 4K, it’s only become better.īased on the original PlayStation 3 HD remaster from 2012, Okami HD borrows the ability to set the game to widescreen, which is definitely the best way to play the game. I’ve always been impressed by how stunning Okami looked, especially as it launched when so many games were dreary-looking and far less visually inspired. That’s until I spent a few days with the Okami HD re-release, which is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. I respect giving classic titles a second lease on life with crisper graphics and more detailed textures, but I’ve rarely felt like most games have benefited enough from the upgraded visual polish to warrant the replay. HD remakes have only become more and more common - and I’ve only gotten less and less interested in them.

Okami hd release