Representing the PS4 (though it could also represent the PS2, PS3, or Wii): Okami - I have been trying to complete this goddamn game for 13 years over 4 different attempts, and I finally managed to force myself to get through it all. So...was it worth it?
No, not really. There have always been 3 reasons why I could never get through this game before, and they're still very bad now:
1. The framerate - The game is hard-locked to 30 FPS, and with some of the visual effects (especially early on) I found it very easy in earlier versions and on earlier (and smaller) TVs to get motion sick playing this game. I know it can't be helped because the animations were tied to the framerate (much like Tales of Symphonia), but it's still a very noticeable problem, especially since the game clearly doesn't always hit that 30 FPS.
2. The Celestial Brush - I love the idea of Okami, but the furthest I ever got in this game was on the Wii, and I quit it because of the controls. At the time, I thought it was the Wii's fault that the Celestial Brush only correctly guesses what you draw about 2 out of every 5 attempts, because that was the story of Wii controls in general. But no...that's just how this game is. The longer the game goes on and the more brush techniques that get layered on that use similar brush strokes, the less reliable the entire gameplay experience becomes. By the end of the game, I stopped even bothering to use any brush techniques outside the simple slash and wind gale, because nothing else every worked on command. Do you have any idea how much times I'd go to draw a simple circle around something to do the regeneration technique, only for the game to interpret it as the wind gale? It's pure aggravation.
3. The pacing - Okami has a notoriously slow opening and some of the most glacial text crawl conversations in the history of mankind, but on top of that the game's story is a colossal mess that doesn't know when to end. The plot more or less reaches a climax and starts over 2 separate times. It's just too much.
And that's really my problem with Okami in general: it's just too much. It just keeps layering on more and more nonsense until the game sinks under its own weight. The upcoming Okami 2 is the main reason I finally pushed through to complete this game, which is funny because now that I've finished it I don't want to even think about playing Okami 2 unless they REALLY learned how to make a better game since.
For Okami, this was the Okami HD version right?
That was my first playthrough and I think it did still have framerate issues. It is a really slow start and much longer than it needed to be. Also, the celestial brush is a great idea, but was poorly executed. I thought the variety of sigils to actually draw was small and not diverse enough. Of course, adding more would have caused more problems with the recognition, but having them be more varied would have alleviated that issue to some degree. I am also on a wait and see position with the sequel.
Okami is easily the most overrated game I have ever played. For years I'd see nothing but post after post online about how it's secretly the best Zelda, or lots of people saying it was so much better then Twilight Princess that came out around the same time. Then I finally played it a few years ago, and this game is nowhere even close to any of the Zelda game. Anyone that can say this game is better than Twilight Princess let alone any other 3D Zelda, is a fucking troll.
I mean seriously, all the things people would say made Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword terrible games, Okami is way more guilty of. Okami's intro is literally 2-3 times longer, and has more handholding and less gameplay variety than either of those games. Even when the game finally opens up, the gameplay is a joke compared to an actual Zelda title. The dungeons in Okami contain the most simple puzzles that make the great Deku Tree look like the Water Temple in comparison. The combat is also so damn simple, it makes me even wonder just how involve Kamiya actually was, considering how much better the action in all his other games are.
Oh and don't even get me started on Issun. People say Fi ruined Skyward Sword but then praise Okami, are the biggest hypocrites in the world. Not only is Issun just as bad, but he literally sexually harasses every woman he see's. Seriously, he is one of the most vile and disgusting characters in gaming. And the worst part is he's never once punished for said behavior, and he actually gets rewarded at the end where the woman he was literally GROPPING at the beginning is now perfectly happy with him bouncing around on her body. He never had to apologize for his terrible behavior towards women and even gets rewarded for said terrible behavior in the end.
This is why I always roll my eyes when people say Zelda games are overrated because of the name, but then praise stuff like this. Okami proves that it's actually the opposite that is true, where if you make something that's similar to a popular franchise, people are more willing to completely ignore or downplay its flaws. If Okami was an actual, official Zelda title, its reception would have been the same as games like Other M and Sticker Star. It would have been throughly picked apart and roasted for years to the point where even to this day people are trashing the developers for it, even though said developers have gone on to release much better games in each franchise since. Meanwhile Kamiya gets to announce Okami 2 and people are losing their minds and crying over it. Despite the fact Okami was a much worse and flawed game than Other M and Sticker Star.
Then again I wouldn't be surprised if Okami 2 gets a reaction similar to Axiom Verge 2. The original Axiom Verge was a mediocre Metroid clone that got vastly overrated like Okami, but then when the sequel came out, people are like, WTF this isn't all that great, despite the fact the sequel is similar in quality to the original. It's like, yeah people, the original wasn't that great either, so what did you expect. The things that made Okami more unique at the time, as well as the comparison to Twilight Princess wouldn't be there this time, so people might be more likely to judge it for what it actually is, and realize the original wasn't that great either. Which is why I hardly see people talk about Axiom Verge as one of the best Metroid style games anymore, compared to what they used to years ago.
The same thing kind of happened last year with Dragons Dogma 2, where the original game wasn't that great, but the expansion Dark Arisen greatly improved it, but when talking about the game after many seemed to forget how rough the original game was and lumped the original with Dark Arisen, as if both version were these amazing games. Plus many people seemed to forget that the creator of the series, Hideaki Itsuno, had nothing to do with the Dark Arisen expansion. Well then when Dragons Dogma 2 comes out and people are like, WTF is going on, it's like, well Itsuno made a sequel to the first Dragons Dogma and 2's quality is similar to that game, but not close to Dark Arisen that he had nothing to do with. During the hype for the game many seemed to forget that little factor, but after release, now more people rightfully separate all the different versions of Dragons Dogma.
I've tried to get into the X games, but the only one I've ever really enjoyed was the first one. Every game in the series since has had some sort of timer put on it where you have to do stages in a very particular order (without dying too much) in order to complete certain time-sensitive objectives and obtain the best ending.
I would agree that the first one is the best. I am not sure I will go back and replay the other ones even. Definitely some questionable design decisions.
Even though I love the first X, I've always found X2 to be the better game. The problem with X1 is the Dash is an upgrade that the game eventually makes you get, but most of the levels and bosses are all designed around not having it. So when you eventually realize to get the Dash first, it pretty much breaks the game and allows you to trivialize a lot of the platforming and enemy challenges. Now the first Sigma Fortress stage was awesome, but it always disappointed me how the second stage was much easier, and the third stage was pretty much just a boss rush.
That's what I love about X2 is you have the Dash from the start and all the stages and bosses are designed around that fact. That makes the levels more challenging and engaging than X1. Plus all 3 Sigma stages maintain a decent level of challenge as well so the game doesn't feel like it's running out of steam like X1 does at the end.
Now the later X games also have the Dash from the start but I agree they overcomplicate things with some of their decisions, but X2 is very much of the quality of X1 but with better level design and bosses. And once again anyone complaining about the X Hunters, they're completely optional. Unlike X3 which can screw you over with bosses like Bit and Byte if you're not prepared for them, the X Hunters can be ignored. The ending is still the same, the only different with fighting them is whether you fight Zero before Sigma or not, and some would arguing that fighting Zero makes the last level better from a gameplay point of view.
A lot of complaints I see people have with X2 feels more like the problems X3 has instead. It feels like many lump X2 and X3 together because yeah they were rehashes of X1 and on the SNES, but in terms of quality X2 was still just as good if not better while X3 is the one with the noticeable drop.
It kind of reminds me how for years many used to lump Classic Mega Man 4-6 together as inferior rehashes of 2-3, but now in recent years, I've noticed more and more people, especially on first time players on Youtube are giving Mega Man 4 a lot more credit and even calling it the best in the Classic series. Even though I still slightly prefer 2 and 3, I always felt MM4 was just as good as those two games and 5 and 6 were the ones with the noticeably drop in quality. It's nice to see MM4 getting more deserved love in recent years, so hopefully X2 will follow in the future as well.
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