Okami review

Exceptional

by deleted_592106

Possibly my all time favourite game, definitely my favourite Zelda-like (including the actual Zelda series). I've played this through to 100% completion with every rerelease it's come out with and that probably works out to 150 hours that I've enjoyed every second of. This is without a doubt the most beautiful game to exist: the character designs, artstyle, music, and environments that are each more gorgeous than the last make it a joy to look at and being made by the predecessor to Platinum Games (Bayonetta, Metal Gear Revengeance, Wonderful 101) you better believe it plays like a dream too.

The scenarios and locations you visit are imaginative in a way that means you'd never predict some of the places you end up and even by the highly important (to me) metric of how good the fishing minigame is it's still way up there. The only negative is the re-use of boss fights. They're all excellent the first time round but - thanks to a boss rush at the end of the game - some you face three times with only minor changes.

The best way to play is still an emulated version of the PS2 original as all later releases are missing the climactic ending song, but that's such a minor niggle just go grab whichever version you'd like. The only exception is the Wii version which, despite making excellent use of the pointer for the Celestial Brush, maps attack and dodging to directional waggles of the nunchuck, which couldn't be less reliable. The Switch version unfortunately chooses not to use the pointer controls that could've made it THE definitive version but is otherwise an excellent port.