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Okamiden
Nintendo DS / DSi
An Archetypal Handheld Side-Story Rehash
4/5 stars
“Okamiden” is the unexpected sequel to one of the PlayStation 2’s greatest hidden gems, “Okami.” “Okami” was the last game made by “Viewtiful Joe” developer, Clover, before that studio went out of business. With the death of Clover, the ‘Okami’ IP rights went to their publisher, Capcom. While Capcom was once known for making great games, that time is several generations in the past, with today’s Capcom more widely known for infinite rehashes, dead-horse-beatings, and exploitative DLC policies.
While I loved the original “Okami” and was quite sad to see Clover close up shop, I never expected to see a sequel. Of course, I should have, since Capcom is largely in the business of creating sequels by putting in as little effort as possible. When I learned that “Okamiden” was not only a Capcom-developed sequel to a Clover game, but was also going to be released exclusively on the handheld Nintendo DS, I couldn’t help but think of the depressing tradition of handheld pseudo-sequels stretching all the way back to the NES and Game Boy (Brick): Titles like “Blaster Master Boy,” “Super Mario Land,” and “Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters” bubbled up from the dark recesses of my suppressed memories. This same sordid situation persists to this day and is no longer endemic to Nintendo’s platforms, as Sony has demonstrated with its handheld renditions of “LittleBigPlanet,” “ModNation Racers,” and even “Killzone.” With very few exceptions, these handheld spinoffs pale in every way when compared to their originals. Sadly, “Okamiden” did not prove to be one of those exceptions.
Presentation
“Okami” blew gamers’ collective mind with its gorgeous, stylized, and creative graphics, employing heavy use of cell shading and bold colors to create a game world that resembled classical Japanese art. “Okamiden” attempts to copy this graphical style, with cell shading, heavy outlines, stylized characters, and bright colors. Unfortunately, where “Okami” had the 6th Generation power of the PlayStation 2 to push these graphics, “Okamiden” only has the power of a portable Nintendo 64 with tiny 2.5” screens. Thus “Okamiden” suffers unnecessarily from a cramped, short field of view, a drastically reduced polygon count in every environmental and character model, and blurry/pixilated textures both on environmental objects and on important portions of character models (like faces and clothing). “Okamiden” attempts to use the same graphics engine as “Okami,” but in the process of scaling everything down for the lesser power and lesser screen resolution of the DS ends up looking like a bad photocopy instead of a successor. Of course, I don’t mean to say that “Okamiden” looks absolutely hideous; far from it! It looks absolutely spectacular compared to 5th Generation polygonal games… but since it was released in the 7th Generation as a sequel to a 6th Generation game, that comparison no longer means much of anything.
At least the audio, which was also copied directly from the original “Okami” holds up better than the graphics engine (or, more accurately, needed to be watered down less in order to run on the DS hardware). “Okamiden” features the same style of music (with plenty of returning tracks from the original “Okami”), the same sound effects, and the same type of pseudo-voice-acting gibberish that accompanies the text spoken by in-game characters. These features were great in the original, and they are still great in the sequel.
Technically, “Okamiden” is a solid game. I never ran into any major bugs or glitches. However, the text has a few noticeable issues. Aside from a handful of typos, which are excusable, I counted two instances when the text spoken by characters didn’t seem to be correct. Maybe it was just a bit of incredibly poor editing, but it felt like instead of saying their next line of text, the characters in these instances repeated their previous line of text, resulting in a back-and-forth dialog that stopped making any sense.
Story
The title “Okamiden” seems to be a portmanteau of the words ‘okami’ and ‘gaiden’, which mean ‘sun god’ and ‘side story’ in Japanese. As a handheld sequel/spinoff, it only makes sense that “Okamiden” is a side story. Unfortunately, I have found that many side stories, especially when they reuse too much material from the original story they are based upon, tend to cheapen the exploits of the original hero for the purpose of a ‘Mary Sue’ style glorification of some tangentially-relevant new hero.
“Okamiden” falls victim to this common side story problem in every way. Taking place a mere 9 months after the events of “Okami,” in which the Japanese sun goddess, Amaterasu, in the form of a white wolf, defeated the monstrous 8-headed hydra known as Orochi, “Okamiden” stars a white wolf puppy named ‘Chibiterasu’ (a Japanese portmanteau of ‘chibi’ (‘short’) and Amaterasu’s name) who finds himself in a mythical Japan that is once again oppressed by demons. Most of the locations Chibiterasu visits are rehashes of areas Amaterasu visited in “Okami,” inhabited by a cast of returning characters from the original game. There is very little original material in “Okamiden” that wasn’t originally in “Okami.” In fact, there are still plenty of locations present in the game that actually had story elements and/or side quests in “Okami,” but no longer hold any relevance in the sequel. Even worse, thanks to a time travelling angle thrown into the story near the end, “Okamiden” allows Chibiterasu to steal the credit for some of the victories by both his mother Amaterasu, AND his grandfather, the original white wolf/sun god, Shiranui, who was only mentioned in the original game’s backstory.
As Chibiterasu travels through his mother’s footsteps, he must also learn to control the powers of the Celestial Brush that allows the deity who holds the title of ‘okami’ to paint miracles into the world. In the process of mastering these brush powers, like Amaterasu and Shiranui before him, Chibiterasu encounters a number of Brush Spirits, which are almost all rehashed from “Okami.” However, instead of learning brush skills from the original Brush Spirits, Chibiterasu learns them from the kawaii children of those Brush Spirits (apparently, Japanese deities do nothing but have sex when their world isn’t constantly being threatened by demons).
Accompanying Chibiterasu on his journey to re-purify Japan is a revolving door of sidekicks. While the tiny Issun from the original “Okami” makes a brief appearance, most of the time Chibiterasu’s companion is a more normal-sized child, most of whom have direct ties to characters that appeared in “Okami.” Fortunately, these sidekicks are well characterized and are given reasonable motivations for accompanying a wolf puppy into danger.
The one portion of “Okamiden” that is, thankfully, not rehashed from the original “Okami” is the villain. After playing for a while and experiencing the dreadful amounts of rehash, I was expecting a “Legend of Zelda” style situation where Orochi decided to revive himself just because, and start wreaking havoc again. Fortunately, “Okamiden” introduces an entirely new villain. Unfortunately, this villain has pretty thin characterization other than wanting to take over the whole of mythic Japan. We aren’t even given a plausible origin for this new villain, merely a motivation and a methodology.
It seems, also, that Capcom wants to keep this series going by ending the game with not one, but TWO dangling story threads. Hopefully these dangling threads make the next game in this franchise feel less forced than this follow-up to a game that had already resolved all of its conflicts and mysteries.
Gameplay
“Okamiden” plays nearly identically to “Okami.” It’s a by-the-book third-person 3D action/adventure with a trailing camera. As Chibiterasu navigates the game’s environments, he is confronted by a variety of puzzles, most of which involve using the Celestial Brush to draw something, ranging from repairing a broken object to creating a gust of wind. In the original “Okami,” the Celestial Brush was controlled with the right analog stick while the game’s action was suspended in a ‘drawing mode.’ “Okamiden” employs the Celestial Brush in essentially the same way, except with a few more annoyances added on thanks to the DS’ touchscreen. Since there is no right analog stick (or even a left analog stick) on a DS, the player draws with the Celestial Brush by using the DS stylus. Also, justified in the game world by Chibiterasu’s youth and lack of experience, the drawing mode for the Celestial Brush is no longer indefinite, but lasts anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds, depending on the context. I found this time limit frustrating, as some of the more detailed uses of the Celestial Brush (specifically, tracing the constellation outlines of new Brush Spirits) barely provide enough time. There were also a couple of instances where, despite drawing exactly what was requested, the game refused to accept my drawings. While there is never a penalty for a failed drawing (failed drawings in combat don’t even use up ink), it was annoying to be stuck in the same cutscene loop for 15 minutes. The only significantly new use of the Celestial Brush comes in Chibiterasu’s ability to guide his current sidekick by drawing a red line. While these sidekicks normally ride on Chibiterasu’s back, they can be told to dismount, cross terrain that Chibiterasu can’t, interact with chests and switches that are out of reach, or serve as a grapple point for the returning ‘Vine’ brush skill.
Like in the original “Okami,” combat in “Okamiden” doesn’t take place in the game’s regular environments. Instead, upon touching a floating demon scroll (random enemies) or demonic aura (static enemies), Chibiterasu is sucked into a small demonic arena for the duration of the fight. While Chibiterasu can no longer perform humiliations on demons (peeing on them or dropping a turd among them), his combat skills are otherwise identical to Amaterasu’s, with a choice of three different weapons becoming available over the course of the game (I prefer the prayer beads). Also like Amaterasu, Chibiterasu must earn ‘praise’ by performing good deeds in order to increase his total number of ‘solar units’ (health) and ink pots (magic). Praise seems to be a bit more generous in “Okamiden” than in “Okami,” as I maxed out the meter far before the end of the game. The problem with the combat (and even movement in the overworld and dungeons) in “Okamiden” is that the game engine was designed for a dual analog controller, and the DS is a no-analog controller. Controlling a character’s movement in a 3D environment using only a d-pad feels alternatively sloppy and stiff, while the lack of any camera control (outside of contextual arrow buttons that sometimes appear on the touchscreen) makes awareness of Chibiterasu’s surroundings more frustrating than necessary. While I loved the camera in “Okami” and consider it to be one of the best cameras in a 3D game from the 6th Generation, “Okamiden” does not live up to this standard.
Overall
While “Okami” was a hidden gem in the PlayStation 2’s library, this sequel feels both forced and like a blatant attempt to cash-in on its predecessor’s spotless reputation. Thanks in large part to an overly-rehashed story with severe Mary Sue issues, but not helped by tragically watered-down graphics and controls in order to fit the DS, “Okamiden” perfectly fits the archetype of the unnecessary handheld spinoff. While not a horrible game by any stretch of the imagination – and, indeed, significantly better than any 3D polygonal action game on the PS1, Saturn, and N64 – “Okamiden” is, nonetheless, a step down from its predecessor. Unfortunately for Capcom, the people who will feel the most let down by “Okamiden” are the fans who loved the original “Okami,” which might put a damper on their enthusiasm to buy anymore sequels that have the fingerprints of Capcom’s signature rehash style all over them.
Presentation: 4/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Overall (not an average): 4/5
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