Our two leads are joined by some memorable supporting characters too. His role is both expository and comedic he brings a levity to conversations and provides the perfect yin to the silent protagonist's yang. Yes, a rich vein of humour runs throughout Okami – helped along by a sterling translation – and this is best exemplified by the player's travelling companion, the diminutive wandering artist Issun. The brush gods also walk this line, often revealing themselves in bizarre and slapstick cutscenes. At once a powerful goddess, capable of making sweeping changes to the world, she's also in turn a wolf pup, digging into the earth in search of treasure. Amaterasu, for instance, has a delightful duality. Oh, and how many games can you think of where the treasures you find are things like lacquerware sets and incense burners? It’s all dealt with playfully, however. Even the societal roles of the world’s inhabitants evoke a classical Japan. Shintoism and its belief in the spirit world permeates the game, while many of the enemy designs are informed by Japanese mythology. You get the idea.Įverywhere you look in Okami, traditional Japanese culture and folklore shines through. Some enemies must be attacked from behind with the brush, while others require the player to knock back their projectiles to open them up to attack. The combat in this game isn’t difficult - and there aren’t many enemies that demand more than rudimentary tactics - but there are some neat touches nonetheless. In these sequences the brush can become a sword that can slice an enemy in half, or a machine gun capable of peppering them with rapid-fire ink bullets. Of course, the Celestial Brush is invaluable in combat too the exclamation point on Amaterasu’s flurried melee attacks. It’s the classic Zelda school of game design, where each technique opens up new possibilities for exploration and treasure hunting. Want to get up into a tree? Grapple up there by drawing a line between the flower above it and Amaterasu. Need to traverse a stretch of water? Create a lily pad and hop on, then draw a gust of wind to blow Amaterasu to her destination. In the wider world, players use it to solve basic puzzles and get around. The Celestial Brush mechanic isn’t just a great thematic companion to the art style, but crucial to every aspect of the gameplay. By drawing the right icon, players can make dead trees bloom, repair broken bridges and machinery, slow down time and summon gusts of wind, spouts of water, bombs and more. Over the course of the game, Amaterasu learns 13 core brush techniques, and they’re nothing short of magical. It’s an unbelievably potent concept, and one that Okami absolutely delivers on. Freeze frame the mountain scene I just described and you can draw a circle in the sky to turn night into day, or a crescent to turn day into night. In Okami, the world itself is a canvas, manipulated through the player’s most valuable tool: the Celestial Brush. It’s no accident that the sky has a thick paper texture and distant mountains are often little more than a few simple ink lines. The hand-drawn ink and watercolour styling of its world, for instance, flows elegantly through to its gameplay. One of the reasons Okami is such a success is that every element of its design complements every other element.
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