Topic: Okami Wii?

[gpw11]

http://wii.ign.com/articles/764/764007p1.html?RSSwhen2007-02-13_044900&RSSid=764007

Lets get past the rumour part, and assume this is actually going down.  What do you think? 

I'd say if they actually revise some of the brush strokes and a few game mechanics it could be great, but if it's just a straight up port, the wiimote isn't really going to add that much (slash, press button, slash, press button, circle, press button, slash).

[idolminds]

Its funny, even though the game seems tailor made for the Wii, its really only the brush stroke stuff that makes it feel that way.

Now I wonder if they could allow you to do the brush strokes without "pausing" the game. Like run and attack with the nunchuk, and use your paintbrush with the remote without going into any special "painting mode". Just hold A and move your wrist to paint while doing everything else. It could work...

[Quemaqua]

That would make it hardcore action-packed.  Would be too hard for some of the puzzle stuff, though, since you often need to pan the camera around when it's paused to do something "fast" enough.

[TheOtherBelmont]

That would make it hardcore action-packed.  Would be too hard for some of the puzzle stuff, though, since you often need to pan the camera around when it's paused to do something "fast" enough.

I was thinking about that as well, holy crap that would be tedious after awhile.

[PyroMenace]

So I have picked this up on Wii to give myself another go at it so I can finish it off which I never did and I always felt really bad about. So far it's been going pretty well, using the wiimote for brush stroke gestures does work... sort of. The problems Im having isnt really due to poor controls from the controller but rather some issues on the player side. Most of the gestures work fine but there is one I am having some problems with, and as I recalled playing the game on the PS2 I also had this similar problem, and that is using the most basic gesture, the slash attack. Turns out drawing a simple straight line with the Wiimote is really fucking hard, downright frustratingly hard. When the game was giving me the tutorial to use the stroke gesture, I simply couldn't do it at first and I thought well this is a bust. Eventually I got it, you basically have to give it a quick motion, a flick of the wrist. Its a bit tricky but I have gotten used to it and I still can't pull it off 100% of the time. If anybody that has played this remembers, there are some cutscenes that require you to use the stroke to advance the story, those parts became a real test to my patience. Another issue I have is when I'm activating the brush. Basically whenever I'm playing the game with the controller navigating Amaterasu around, I am not pointing the Wiimote at the screen, I just have it rested down a little bit. The problem with that is, if you activate the brush while its down like that, the camera will automatically shift its gaze downward away from what your wanting to use the brush on. It's a little annoying and I can't really say its the games fault, you just have to remind yourself to point the Wiimote when your needed to. Fortunately I'm not having too much trouble with using the Wiimote for the other strokes. Combat seems to work pretty well and I rather enjoy it a good bit (when I do pull of the slash attack in succession). With that rather glaring problem aside, I'm getting pulled back into Okami again and I'm really going to push myself to complete it.

[K-man]

So in other words, just buy it on PS2, right?

[Cobra951]

Yeah.  That was my impression even before his post.

[PyroMenace]

Yea I would say the Wiimote controls don't do much to the experience, they take some getting used to but you'd be perfectly fine with just the PS2 version. I'm actually getting fairly good at it now. The only other perk I can see is that it has widescreen support since its on the Wii.

[sirean_syan]

As a downside to that, I also remember hearing that a lot of the motion blur effects were just flatout removed from the Wii version that made the movement look more inky/flowy. Is that true?

[Cobra951]

I found this comparison video.  The Wii version looks smoother and more colorful.  That says nothing about how it controls, though.

Edit:  Check out the "Wii Version" segment of the Wikipedia entry for Okami.  It provides a lot of details.  I thought Pyro might find this part useful, given his early control issue:

To help with drawing with the Celestial Brush, two different buttons on the Wii controllers were given brush functionality; one button was assigned to provide free-form strokes, while the other was set to draw a straight line from the starting point.

[PyroMenace]

I found this comparison video.  The Wii version looks smoother and more colorful.  That says nothing about how it controls, though.

Edit:  Check out the "Wii Version" segment of the Wikipedia entry for Okami.  It provides a lot of details.  I thought Pyro might find this part useful, given his early control issue:

I can't give any real opinions on more specifics to the visual differences between the two since it has been literally years since I have played the game on the PS2. But thanks for that info Cobra, I immediately loaded the game up to see what that quote was talking about. And yes, there is actually another button you can use to draw straight lines, but even that feels a little wonky. I don't remember the game mentioning that addition control when I was going through the tutorial stuff unless I totally just blanked on it. That probably would have been very useful to know during those frustrating cutscene sequences. Anyway, I will give it more of a fair shake later after I get some sleep

[K-man]

Not to discount Pyro's experience, but it interests me that gamers nowadays expect an in-game tutorial that covers everything.  No one ever thinks about reading the manual any more.

Just another example of times have changed, I suppose.  One of my favorite things to do as a kid was read through manuals of games I owned, especially those that contained in depth info about the story, character, enemies, or power ups.

[gpw11]

As a downside to that, I also remember hearing that a lot of the motion blur effects were just flatout removed from the Wii version that made the movement look more inky/flowy. Is that true?

Yeah, the increased colour depth and contrast on the Wii isn't actually because of the superior hardware, but because they had to remove at least some of the effects like the filter, motion blur, and some type of bloom.  The upside is a crisper picture, the downside is it doesn't have that same hand drawn feel.

When emulated on PC (or at least when I tried), the same thing sort of happens.  The colours are deeper but you don't get that parchment filter.  But damn, the game looks sharp at 1680x1050 

[sirean_syan]

That's what I was referring to. I think I watch that comparison Cobra linked to way back when and came away feeling like the more washed out/water-color look suited the game better because everything was so fluid and ethereal. When you add the loss of the parchment filter I feel like a big part of what defined how the game's story was being told.

Of course, I've always been a purist when it comes to this sort of thing and never entirely reasonable when choosing between an overall sharper game over losing an effect or two. A good recent example of that was the Metroid Prime rereleases which made the original Gamecube games widescreen and added Wii-controls. It pissed me off the entire time that some of the weapon effects were removed from the original Prime and I noticed ever single time I fired the gun.