That of the Clover Studio is an unfortunate story: this team funded by Capcom – and made up of some of the greatest talents of the Japanese giant – gave birth to exceptional titles during its short existence, from Viewtiful Joe (is, to all effects, born during the development of the first of the two chapters) at Godhand , and laid the foundation for what would later be the Platinum Games.
Outside of the roaring Joe’s adventures, however, every Clover game was a flop in stores, and yet they possessed qualities that would allow them to become little cult with the passage of time.
Okami is one of these forgotten pearls, and if we pull it out just today is not to force it to rediscover, but only because Capcom has decided to revive this magnificent video game to the public with the umpteenth remaster, this time dedicated to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Think about it, it is even the fourth possibility given to what is considered by many to be the great work of Hideki Kamiya (yes, just the director of Devil May Cry and Resident Evil 2), mainly because of its ability to remain visually wonderful regardless how long it has been spent.
We obviously can not but advise you to play it if you have not done it yet, because the title is really a masterpiece, the cost of this version is anything but prohibitive and
the transition from platform to platform has certainly not worsened; but we also want to warn you about some of the reasons why we believe that Okami has never broken through and analyzed the actual quality of the last port, to see if it really is the final version of Kamiya’s baby.
VICTIM OF A CURSE?
The plot of Okami has firmly rooted roots in the mythology of the Land of the Rising Sun and Shinto, and sees you fighting a tremendous curse falling on the land of Nippon because of the liberation of the eight-headed monster Orochi. The story written by the good Kamiya is not limited to take a single legend and turn it into the base for an adventure:soon it increases in complexity and scale, giving shape to an epic full of memorable events and characters.
Overall Okami is therefore an extremely extensive title and able to capture the attention already starting from the narrative, thanks to its ability not to take itself too seriously; we must, however, warn you about a specific aspect of the game, which could strangle many users and cause
them to give up shortly after: it has a start frighteningly slow, and it takes a few hours before carburizing properly, to the point of requiring almost twenty minutes only to overcome the initial set of interlude scenes.
Anyone who decides to dress the hairy cloths of Amaterasu – the goddess of the sun reincarnated in the body of a wolf to fight Orochi – must therefore absolutely take into account this obstacle before starting it all off. We assure you that once you have spent some time the experience
completely transforms itself, offering a series of brilliant and very unique mechanics, and some of the most beautiful views ever seen in a video game. From the mechanical point of view, at the bottom, Okami is a title to say the least brilliant, focused on virtual “brush strokes” with which the player can activate powers of various types: we start with the simple ability to launch flapping buckets (however very important
for much of the countryside), but from there you move on to revive the vegetation, to partially control the waterways, to reshape objects and create lianas, with a long list of other goodies that can be used both to complete puzzles and to fight the numerous demonic enemies that populate the Nippon maps.
