Alle Kunst ist der Freude gewidmet

I've finished Okami.

8D

And it was awesome. There were, overall, things that irked me (about which I've ranted already), but honestly? The story is so fun and everything -- landscape, characters, the gameplay -- are so charming and alluring that those failures are easy to cope with. Only during long cut scenes it gets noticable.

The magic system needs a moment of familiarisation, but afterwards the drawing of the symbols is easy. Especially since often enough you only need to connect two "dots" (like drawing a line between a fire and your target). The vine magic is the only one that's tricky sometimes, because even though you seem to have done everything correct, it doesn't work (very frustrating if you try to fly from flying downwards-looking flower to downwards-looking flower).

The riddles in the dungeons are often very well constructed and relatively easy to solve if you remember your magic. Sometimes jump passages are a bit tricky because the camera refuses to move every now and then or because Ammy´s jumping is a tad hard to estimate (god, those papers you had to blow up in the air so you could walk over them ><)

The dungeons themselves are not just beautiful but really diversified. One is underwater, in one you're shrinking to the size of Issun, another one is a plant and one even the innards of a human! The dungeons are definitely one big strength of the game.

The enemies are neither too hard nor too easy and some of them are really mean :> Sometimes it'd hard to guess how to kill them because they block all your standard attacks. Good thing; you can find tipps in the bestiarium after you beat the first monster.

The best part, imo, are the sidequests and searching for the clovers. It was just so awesome to suddenly spot the green light and all get excited because "Digging! 8D" and "Yay, Soon better stats 8D"

Also, pretty music. I'm not much of a fan of game music, but it was pretty and never annoyed me. :3 Definitely a beautiful, great and worth to play. I would always recommend it.

You are a lovely game. You are really pretty and the element of the ink and the drawing is awesome. At the beginning it was hard to draw a circle with a pad, but I learnt quickly. The first arc with Susano was fun, if at places a bit slow because it's impossible to make the dialogue run faster and you people tend to repeat things over and over again. But I could live with that.

Then. The fight against Orochi on the island seemed like an ultimate boss fight, as in afterwards the game is over. I was sad when I thought that. The game would've been really short. However, I went into that fight and it was fun, if annoying (fucking Orochi).

Then I saw that, Hey! Game's not over yet. I was all "Yay! 8D". And the game continued to be fun. I learnt new techniques, did more quests and the innovative levels, like the one where you shrink were awesome.

However. You little fuckers. You could fool me once -- I was able to laugh about Orochi and the "Olololol, that's the last fight *wink wink*" attitude the first time. I wasn't annoyed then. The second time however...

Are you fucking kidding me? I went and killed the Water Dragon because I fucking wanted to make the quest at the restaurant on the beach. And what do you do? You force me to go to the Oni Island and fight the fox. And I think the whole time "wtf? If the game's over afterwards, how am I supposed to do that quest!!! >8(". And I was not happy. The Oni Island was a fun dungeon, but my bad mood prevented me from enjoying it to the fullest.

And then I beat the fox and surprise, surprise. The game isn't over yet. Am I happy about it?

NO.

Because I am angry. Because you made me think that I couldn't finish that quest before the end of the game. Because your litte ~trick~ prevented me from enjoying the game. And you know what, I probably won't be able to forget that. Because my brain likes to work that way. Goddammit.

tl;dr Okami, bad narrative choices, fuckers.