Investing to Entertain: Okami HD

Entertainment Investment: Okami HD

When it comes to spending your money, nothing is more important than spending your money on good entertainment. It’s how you unwind, how you rest and relax. Most importantly, it keeps you mentally sharper. One could consider it an investment in life, and therefore totally fitting for an investment blog.

What does this have to do with me wanting to write a review of the rerelease of Okami HD? Absolutely nothing, but I felt I had to justify writing a review of one of my favorite adventure games, as well as a would-be contender for my games of the year.

We all know the drill. We see a Insert Name Here HD edition and think of it as a classless cash grab by a publisher to extract another full price fee from us, so as I slapped another fifty bucks down to se…

Oh… It’s twenty dollars. Well, alright then, I sit corrected. Rewind a second.

Right. Yadda yadda, classless grab… here we are. So as I slapped another twenty bucks down to see just how badly they had stripped this treasure of its shine. I downloaded it to my ps4 for authenticity, still wishing I had gotten the steam version, and sat down and began to play.

After the first 15 hours in I can only ask. Capcom, you feeling ok? Normally I expect at least a dlc pack, or a stripped version that’s clunky and needs at least three patches before fixing completely.
No? You sure? Alright. Carry on then.

Okami HD is everything you would want in a rerelease. Keeping true to the original with a new coat of lacquer. Unfortunately, that also means the worst aspects are on display as well. Before you can even start playing the game, you are treated to a novella’s worth of text. With no way of speeding up the text mid-cutscene, you are forced to wait a snail’s pace. Of course, if you knew beforehand that you can speed certain dialogues up in the settings, you’d be fine. Unfortunately, I didn’t.

So after trimming my new beard I was finally set down as the all-mother goddess Ameterasu. The game draws heavily from the myth of Shinto, with your doggo self and a host of other godly inspirations like Orochi and Susanoo to name a pair. One can’t name inspiration without looking to the art and music in the game. Remember that coating I told you about? This is where it truly shines, kindling fond memories of the original and almost instilling glee in me as I look around.

My art-on finally having settled down, I meandered my way into the first area meeting the living power-up known as the first brush god. He teaches you the power to pause the game and doodle on the screen for a bit to make stuff happen. In all, it was amazing gameplay when it first debuted. You could pause the game to draw something that vaguely looked like a circle and make trees grow like you poured fertilizer by the gallon. Add a line to that circle and poof; a bomb. Thank the gods that’s not a real thing, otherwise it would make the ‘Are we there yet’ question quite frightening on family road trips.

It was here that I really experienced my first disappointment. In a post motion control world, I had hoped that it could be implemented somehow. Sadly, you are still using that analogue stick to twiddle the vague shape of a blob. It’s a small gripe, but nonetheless a thorn in the pudding.

As for the story length, it’s an old school adventure rpg. You’re gonna be there a while. Most games can’t hold even a few hours of single player, whilst I’m fifteen hours in and still nowhere close to the end. It can get a bit repetitive at times, but is overall an amazing experience.

If I haven’t already made it clear that I like the game by now, then let me clarify this way. If you haven’t played this game before, then you can finally redeem yourself by picking it up for the $20 price tag. It’s worth the cash.

Now back to business to work on next Friday’s article. With the January crypto dip passing and ripe for analysis, it’s gonna be quite the treat. Just… after I finish collecting these beads.

Until next time; Steem on, Rebels.

-Derek