Yeah, if you go to the corners of big maps and look back toward the middle, there are some places where you will get slowdown. Late in the game, there's one where it's rather severe. But that's not what I was talking about.
I think I may have found the culprit. I picked up the PS2, and it was *hot*, particularly on the bottom. Even though it's hard-flat surface on hard-flat surface, there are no legs to speak of on this thing. So there's very little air space underneath. What I did was to drape the power and video cables over the external drive that sits flat next to it (and no, that's not the source of the heat--it's forced-air cooled, front to back, nice and cool all over). That lifts the back of the PS2 up about 2 inches. It looks precarious, slanted forward like that, but it's stable, and now has a big wedge of air under it. I shut it off and tried the videos again later. They worked fine, but I also pulled out the DVD, wiped it, blew on the lens, etc. (Not a very well-controlled experiment, was it?) My bet is on the heat, second place is on random misbehavior. We'll see.
The "start from the beginning" option after finishing the game is quite nice. It lets you skip absolutely all tutorial and story elements, including filling in constellations. You also restart with most of whatever you had at the end of the first game. I wish that didn't include the weapons, because it's a breeze dispatching early baddies with powerful late-game equipment. Only the final column of weapons is missing, I guess because those are special. Some of the special items you equip are there too, and again it makes sense why some are missing. It all seems carefully designed to let you retrace the game with a minimum of fuss. That suits me just fine.
I'm happy to have all the game music off the menu now. It's organized by locale in the game, sort of like a chapter menu on a DVD with pictures. And I got to listen to the end song without stutters. Yay. I haven't gone through much of the artwork yet. I think it's the same as what you get in-game during some cutscenes and character intros.
The game itself is extremely good throughout, although toward the end it did start to feel like a chore--not just because of hard bosses, but also because you can't take 5 steps without running into another puzzle which blocks all progress until solved. I suppose linearity in the final stretch would be hard to avoid in game design. But the rewards continue to be there throughout. I think Okami is required for anyone with a PS2 who still cares about games. I only wish it had come at a better time in my life, so I could enjoy it more fully.
