Hey all,
     Just thought I would give you all a run down of the time I got to spend with Capcom's latest "artsy" project, "Okami".
I was surprised Okami didn't have more of a spotlight at E3 considering how close to release it is and how truly stunning it looks.

So if you don't know, you soon will.
follow me after the jump to find out more!

Well, I was wandering around the show floor at E3 looking for something interesting to try out and I caught something out of the corner of my eye that looked fantastic. OKAMI!! how could I have forgot? I've been looking forward to this game for at least a year now and now I finally had a chance to spend some quality time with a game that will most definetly eat up alot of my free time when it finally gets released in the states this September.

    When I said that Okami is "artsy", I wasn't kidding. Art, it seems, is the main theme in this game. You assume the role of a wolf spirit who is in possesion of a magical paintbrush which can be used to change your suroundings and progress your adventure, and is also used in combat to "paint" enemies out of existence as it were.
   
    My fifteen minutes of playtime started of unassumingly enough, just running around in the tutorial learning the basic mechanics of the gameplay. Running, jumping and uhhhh,,, well that was it so far.
The movement of the main character is very smooth and works very well with the camera as far as I can tell. After a bit, the player is presented with a problem, there is a river that is supposed to be filled with stars but is currently devoid of said stars, in order to cross this river you are told to pull out your magical paintbrush and draw in the river. Now I'm pretty sure this has to do with the fact that this was the first time I had used this paintbrush but for some reason the paintbrush was pretty hard to acurately use.

    In order to complete the level I had to make my way to this giant gnarled tree and cut down a giant peach that was hanging from it's branches in order to bring life to the valley below. Here was the problem I had with this.. as easy as it should be to cut this peach down with my paintbrush, it took me about ten or so tries before I could actually get the thing to fall, So getting used to the paintbrush and learning how to accuratly draw brushstrokes is going to be key.

    Combat is actually pretty entertaining too, you pretty much just jump and charge enemies until they fall over and turn black and white. After they turn black and white, you have to take your paintbrush out and apply a swift side stroke (imagine your using a sword to cut them in half) and after a while they will burst into an assortment of colorfull flowers and will sometimes yield items like food. Hopefully there will be other combat mechanics included in later levels of the game as I can  see the bum rush-slash mechanic getting tired quick.

    I don't think I need to say it but the graphics are stunning. Capcom has really made some interesting games using cell-shaded graphics. Viewtifull Joe, Killer 7, probably some more I can't quite remember of the top of my head. Okami takes the groundwork set by these titles and expands upon the artistic flair. Okami uses cell-shading but instead of making the game look like it came out of the pages of a comic book it looks more like it flows from the paintings of the great Hokusai, an ancient Japanese Sumi-e painter, try doing an image google to see what I'm talking about. Even on the Ageing PS2 hardware this game works like a charm, as you run around in game flowers and shrubbery pop up in your wake and the animation of the world really makes you feel like your playing a game set in some great mural somewhere in Japan.

    Okami looks to be one of the most artistic titles set to come out in the near future, and without a doubt will sit proudly on my game shelf for all to see. Something about Japanese mythology just seems to resonate with me, and considering the artistic style this game has going on I'm sure it's bound to resonate with other like minded gamers as well.. even here in the states.



~JOHN