Okami Preview

Okami Preview

By Matt Kelly

We've seen our fair share of past-gen games ported to the Wii, and with a few exceptions, most of them haven't been that great. Thankfully Okami is in the hands of Capcom and as far as their porting track record goes, they score high. We've seen this with Resident Evil 4 and now we're going to see it all over again with Okami. If you didn't play the game on PS2, it's not surprising, Okami hit during the back end of the Playstation 2's current gen life and enjoyed some relatively low sales numbers. But these numbers weren't to do with the games quality, scoring high right across the board. And now we're gonna have a chance to enjoy the experience all over again, and for a lot of people, enjoy it for the first time.

Okami game play is only part of what makes the game so magical, and from our play it has made its way to the Wii perfectly in tact. While it's argued The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess took a few cues from Okami on the PS2, from what we saw Okami has done the same for it's Wii controls. We didn't get a huge amount of time with the game but playing it was fluid all the way through. The nunchuck stick will get you moving around while the Wii remote will have you taking enemies out with waggles and slashes. The Celestrial Brush, which is one of the games main puzzle tools, has got the IR treatment. Painting on the world of Okami was fairly fluid, and really makes you go 'how did this ever work with Dual Analog sticks'.

Okami's story still lies within the realm of Japanese mythology, it's presentation is still wonderful and it was hard to not sit there and just get sucked in by the cut scenes during our limited play time. The graphics are a lot sharper in the Wii version, and will be shipping with full 480P support. If you've seen other 'toon shaded' games you'll already know the pop out factor these games have. Characters may look 2D but the environments do not. Okami gets closer to a 2D looking 3D experience than a lot of stuff out there, and even more so in the Wii version. Between its thick use of out lines and water coloring, the movement from 2D cutscenes to 3D gameplay is smoother than ever and run together beautifully.

While there is always going to be that slight cringe about buying a ported game, Capcom has once again given their ports more than just motion controls. Okami is looking better than it ever has before, given the chance you may have never played it before, this is the best time you could possibly start. Whether it be it's artistic styling, wonderful game play, or deeply rooted plot, Okami is looking like a must buy for Wii in 2008.

Tags: Okami preview

MrWii 21/04/2008

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