Okamiden

Platform	OVERALL
Nintendo DS	6.70

Overall

6.70

I really wanted to like this game, the sequel to one of my favorite PS2 games ever. The original Okami was a great Zelda like game but while it never matched the greatness of Zelda it excelled in many areas like having a fun world to explore with interesting combat. Okamiden feels like the baby version of Okami, it simplifies everything from exploration to combat. What's left is a watered down version of Okami.

What angered me the worst is that Okamiden introduces some cool new powers and gameplay elements but fails to use them in any meaningful way. Over the course of your adventure you gain the power of fire, water, wind, magnetism, lightning and more. These powers are used only when the element in question is on screen; to use fire you must have fire. This means that if you need to set something on fire you will have fire on the same screen making it extremely obvious what you must do, draw a line from the fire to what you need to light. This is done for all elements, everything is spelled out for you. The puzzles become monotonous cause they are all solved the same way.

The other element introduced is a partner system, Chibi is joined by multiple riders, each with their own power. This power is usually one of the elemental powers I mentioned above. You may also drop your partner off and move them by drawing a line to where you want them to go. This allows for simple alternating switch puzzles, simple being the key word. For all the possibilities that can come from having a bunch of cool elemental powers, controlling multiple characters and the other brush powers puzzles stay as complex as a children's puzzle book.

There are a host of other issues I have and most of them involve making the game slow. The cutscenes are way too long and they have unskippable text. You know the games where you can't advance text so you have to read at the speed the game scrolls for you... well this game thinks you are 4 years old so its SLOOOOW. If I had to read during another long 10 minute plus cutscene I was going to throw the game away, it was driving me crazy. Why does this game have 10 minute cutscenes?! Seriously its the MGS of Zelda like games, but the story is even more incomprehensible than MGS. The game also loads a lot since the DS can't render full areas. Sections that were one big open field on the PS2 is now broken into 4 smaller sections that have to load for a few seconds. Then there is the drawing which still pauses the game and moves the game screen down to the touch screen (slowly might I add) so you may draw. On consoles this made sense cause you had to use your controller to control the brush but on a DS where you can use a stylus at any time why is it not done in real time?!

So whats good about it, well when you are exploring the world and finding hidden items it feels right. Sadly that aspect is not fully explored as the game really pushes you in one direction. The "dungeons" are ok, simple puzzles and all. They usually end with a big boss fight that takes too long to kill but at least its interesting. Every once and a while the game would surprise me with a new mini game or setpiece. I can feel the core elements that made Okami work but they don't get a chance to bloom.

You can do much worse on the DS and I doubt you will find many 25 hour long action adventure games on the go. There were too many nagging issues that slowly drove me mad to the point that by the last 5 hours I was just playing to finish the game not cause I was having any fun. Stick with the Zelda DS games which blow this game away.

Posted by Dvader Thu, 28 Jul 2011 04:16:43

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