Okamiden (DS)

Okamiden is essentially Okami in miniature. This action-adventure game built from Japanese myth with a dose of comedy over top is ten hours shorter than the original Okami game, you play as the son of the previous game’s protagonist Amaterasu, and you even explore the land of Nippon again but not quite as much of it. Unlike Okami which was first developed for the PlayStation 2 though, the celestial brush techniques where you draw over the action seems like a perfect fit for the DS’s touch screen so there was potential for it to expand the mechanic. Instead though it seems more focused on just providing similar content but in ways the weaker hardware can handle, but despite that, it is working with its excellent predecessor’s ideas as a base line so even a reduction in scope doesn’t mean it can’t hit some of the same marks.

Okamiden begins nine months after the events of the original game and is definitely meant to be played after it. A good amount of the story devotes itself to things like following up on characters after their stories in Okami or exploring certain elements of the original game more like learning how a ship ended up shipwrecked. The game doesn’t do too much work to fill you in if you are newcomer even with the history scrolls you gradually collect that provide brief descriptions of important moments from Okami, but thankfully while it is sometimes overly reverent towards its predecessor, it’s not without some of new story ideas to explore, mainly in the form of the partners who help you along the way. Chibiterasu is the descendant of the sun god Amaterasu and still a small pup, but despite the efforts of his mother in the previous game, darkness still infests the land of Nippon. For quite a while Chibi will go from location to location wiping out the demons that manifest from the dark power before the game introduces a proper major threat for Chibi and his allies to work towards defeating, but that doesn’t mean it’s just puttering around before then. While the demons before the main villain aren’t as important, they do build up the small narrative you experience as Chibiterasu befriends a small cast of characters.

While Chibi can call on the celestial brush’s magical powers to alter the world, he also picks up a small set of partners who ride on his back who can assist in different ways. For the most part this is a bit unambitious, most of their abilities boiling down to crossing a certain character specific gap. For example Nanami the mermaid is able to swim over water while Kurow instead floats over hazardous drops, the character then usually grabbing an item or Chibi using a different technique to go over and join them, this action often fairly simple and usually impeded with enemies who are more bothersome than interesting obstacles. However, these partners find their value in how they give the story ideas to explore. Kagu is a young actress with an unusual power that she wants to keep hidden to try and appear more normal, her balance between a desire for normalcy and her forceful and somewhat egotistical personality giving her good room for a character arc as you help her rid the theater of demons. Kurow gets much more attention as a strange young man who stepped out of a shooting star that crashed in Nippon, him gradually making friends and learning more about himself leading to some good humor and drama in equal measure. Kuni’s cowardliness is balanced out well by his desire to be a respectable swordsman, but not everyone gets a proper arc for their time as Chibi’s partner. Nanami really is mostly just a mermaid along for the ride to provide you some mildly different powers for a while, but most of your allies are still endearing enough and a general theme of working together can form from the constant cooperation over the course of the adventure. A few moments where the writing outright leaves out words can cause a momentary hiccup in quality, but otherwise you get a story with some interesting surprises and a good amount of heart that will push past the flubs.

Okamiden’s journey does reuse the world seen in the original Okami but also wisely attempts to have its more involved moments of action or exploration take place in new locations. Familiar settings are pared down some and you get to explore new places these spaces now connect to, Okamiden trying to find a middle ground between plentiful referential moments and its new content and doing so well enough. It can’t quite pull off the same beautiful wood block inspired art style because of the DS’s limited display options but the game still does make a valiant effort to translate it. When Chibiterasu clears an area of the darkness infesting it is still rather breathtaking to see nature spread out in a beautiful surge as the music swells perfectly to match it, some boss fights can get away with more impressive effects and designs, and the traditional instruments in the soundtrack can both emphasize moments of mythical reverence, heartbreak, or goofy comedy as needed. Some character designs can look a little rough on the small screen and many seemingly open areas have to have tiny swirling portals gating off the road ahead so it can take some time to load in your destination, but it’s not too difficult to acclimate to and when the game wants you to look at something like a set of fireworks it can still impress. A sometimes uncooperative camera can impede your work at small moments, but mostly the presentation does remarkably well considering the compromises that were required.

The world of Okamiden will take you to some interesting locations like the clockwork theater, some newly uncovered but oddly advanced ruins, and unique locations like the demon market as you interact with new mythological monsters and gradually uncover your own abilities. You can freeze the action for a short time and draw over it as long as you have ink for your celestial brush, and even on the Old Hand difficulty level where you need to collect it instead of automatically recovering it that won’t often be an issue. A simple strike drawn through an object or enemy will serve as a cut that most often finds its use in battle, but you start to acquire new skills like making plants bloom by surrounding them in a circle or making an explosive by essentially drawing a cartoon bomb. Oddly enough sometimes the game gets a little touchy about what qualifies as a proper magical technique and what fails to register entirely, but usually you’ll get what you’re aiming for to do some puzzle solving or to overcome advantages certain enemies have in combat. There are a fair few that just involve you guiding an element like water or fire from one spot to another by just connecting a line, but there is a bit of thought into how this can impact certain puzzles so you do have to think some when using otherwise straightforward powers.

When it comes to optional activities though the powers are a bit underutilized, partially because the treasure rewards feel so basic. A lot of the collectibles you find don’t have any immediate pay off, being things like a set of scrolls you need to collect for a reward if you manage to find them all. On one hand the game doesn’t hide too many of these goodies that well and it’s often just about having the right power in the right place, but on the other sometimes you will find a small hidden alcove and learn you don’t have the power yet and know that going back for it probably won’t pay out too well. Some items are meant to be sold instead of powering up Chibi or providing some other aid, but you get quite a lot of cash over the adventure and there aren’t too many things to spend it on. There are items that can instantly heal you in combat, provide either ink refills or brief periods of infinite ink, or give boosts to your stats like defense and offense that serve as lesser treasures, but also this is what you mostly are encouraged to spend money on since power upgrades and unique brush skills aren’t in shops too often. At the same time though when you can buy something like the Fireburst brush technique or get an upgrade to your weapon it is a significant reward, so it’s not like there’s nothing special off the beaten path. In fact, one interesting idea manifests in the form of a town you help populate by telling people and animals across the land about it. Sometimes the game will just shove a character in your face and you just tell them to go there, but it is still neat to drop by Yakushi Village as it grows and you get new rewards for helping certain characters reach it. You can help regular citizens in other ways to gather Praise that eventually increase your health and ink reserves, these often a bit more interesting since they’ll at least tie to helping a character with their issues or provide a little bonus for completing certain activities.

At times your stylus will be asked to do things more detailed than drawing circles and lines, new powers often acquired by first tracing a constellation and a brief period of the game getting pretty minigame heavy as it seems a surge of more unique challenges are all clustered together. Some like keeping up with music requires good timing and ink management while others like a chase sequence can be rough until you realize a trick to ease the difficulty, but in general they do show the game is willing to get creative with a challenge and it isn’t afraid to devote a good deal of effort in setting up locations and situations you approach in less typical ways. A good deal of combat will crop up along the journey and Chibiterasu is able to get a few different weapons that have different advantages in combat like greater range or damage, but brush abilities end up being the main decider on how a fight will unfold. Certain enemies have brush specific weaknesses or you’ll need to get around their defense with a special power, and since Chibi’s attack combos are fairly simple, whipping out the brush allows for more interesting interactions and many normal enemies even encourage you to experiment with your growing repertoire of magic. In some cases like battling a water nymph that can backfire as learning her weakness means she’s essentially invalidated and beating any more water nymphs you encounter is just a matter of putting in the time, but some do require more effort or timing even with the right brush power.

Boss battles, while perhaps sometimes going on a bit long, do also try to draw out more brush use both in ways unique to the fight and through special uses of your normal skills. The game isn’t afraid to give a tip if you aren’t puzzling out a vital power use but it will give you room to figure out normal puzzles or specific enemy vulnerabilities that aren’t too crucial to know. The battle system does have a rating system where your rewards are greater if you can complete a fight quickly and without taking much damage, but an odd metric for extra spoils comes in partner participation. Your partner will participate in the fight some as part of your normal combos or possible brush techniques since characters like Nanami provide a consistent source of water, but while time and damage adjust based on the specific demons you face, the game will expect some decent partner participation even against foes better handled in other ways. Fights are more interesting when you’re trying to puzzle out how to push past the defenses as you discover what brush powers can actually aid you, but the puzzle-solving is probably Okamiden’s stronger suit and gets a greater degree of focus so the fights don’t wear too thin.

THE VERDICT: While it can’t match the excellence of its predecessor, Okamiden is an enjoyable way to spend more time in the world of Okami, and when it’s not reveling in that past too much it’s able to create some engaging narratives around Chibiterasu’s partners. It has a good degree of creativity in its new locations and the puzzle-solving during the story makes exploring the spaces engaging even if side content often comes up short. Making the most of your brush skills in battle and out in the world is an interesting form of interaction even if it’s not too ambitious in concocting ways to use them, but there’s enough variety in how you can use the techniques that you’ll stay entertained long enough to see characters both old and new develop and grow.

And so, I give Okamiden for Nintendo DS…

A GOOD rating. Reducing the scope of Okami also came with a bit of a reduction in quality as it can’t be as ambitious with its side activities, locations, or even how some abilities can manifest. However, Okamiden does still make good use of the ideas it carries over and it serves as a nice supplement to the first adventure, a chance to see how characters changed after Amaterasu’s grand adventure. Chibiterasu is an adorable little hero and his partners make up an endearing bunch with their own personalities or character arcs to makes meeting a new character exciting while reuniting with a familiar partner can provide just as rich a narrative opportunity. Okamiden does feel like it had to pick its focuses carefully though, the combat not as clean as it could be but the applicability of brush techniques in them giving you something to focus on rather than your plain combos. Puzzles make interesting use of your new skills and the game is happy to indulge in creative diversions, but a bit more love to the optional activities could have given you more to do as you head from location to location. When something is important like a boss, dungeon, or major scene you can expect Okamiden to provide quality ideas despite a generally low difficulty but the little pup can’t quite escape the shadow of the sun god’s more expansive journey.

If not for its repeated references to the original game, one could almost think Okamiden was the simpler game that was expanded into the more robust and rich Okami. Being on a handheld did require compromises, but Okamiden still pushes through where it counts to provide memorable moments even though some ideas like exploration took a knock to their complexity to accommodate that focus. Manifesting powers with a quick simple stroke of your stylus gives Okamiden’s adventure a more flexible form of interactivity than basic battles and puzzle solving, and so long as you have played the first game, it can be seen as a nice return to a familiar land that still had some stories worth telling.