With the recent port of the award-winning PS2 game Okami to the Nintendo Wii, I was afforded a chance to play one of the most critically acclaimed games to hit consoles in a long time. Much to my dismay though, the game was a rip-off of one of the greatest franchises ever, The Legend of Zelda. For those of you who may not see the parallels, let’s take a look.
First off you are a god in the form of a wolf. The most recent of Zelda games, Twilight Princess, had Link transforming into and out of wolf form for most of the game. Second, you travel back in time at one point, specifically 100 years into the past and have characters from the time period, travel forward to help you out later. How many Zelda games have incorporated time travel into the main theme? Ocarina of TIME maybe? Just to get you started. Third, you collect “brushstrokes” in this game, usually finding one in every temple, which ironically helps you greatly defeat the boss of the temple who has cursed the land. Where have I heard of finding weapons in a dungeon that are then used to help kill the boss? EVERY ZELDA GAME EVER MADE! How about in the ice dungeon where there is a puzzle where you have to make trees blossom on a giant weight. If you make the trees blossom prematurely, you’re S.O.L. and have to go back to your last save because exiting the room or even the temple will not make the trees wither back to their former selves. I immediately thought back to Link to the Past where in the ice dungeon in the dark world, you are only given enough keys to open all the doors except one. If you open the wrong door, guess what? You have to start over at your last save and re-do the entire dungeon. Let’s stay with the ice dungeon in Okami where the boss is a set of evil twin owls, one silver, the other gold. They use completely opposite powers. Anyone remember the fire and ice twin witches from the desert temple in Ocarina of Time? How about the whole thing of having to banish the darkness from the world and shed light back onto the land of Nippon and that Yami, the end boss, is the embodiment of all the world’s evil? I thought I was walking through Hyrule and fighting Ganondorf for a second there. How about before getting to the final boss, you have to re-defeat all the bosses from the game and clear the ship of evil before opening the path to Yami? Reminded me of two games there! Ocarina of Time when you storm Hyrule Castle with the six medallions, and every Mega Man game ever. Real original. How about that you have a sprite named Issun bouncing around with you the whole time who leaps and changes colors when there is something nearby that could be of interest. Anyone remember Navi the fairy from Ocarina of Time and every Zelda game since then? How about collecting sundial fragments to increase your “solar energy bar”? Heart containers folks. Heart containers.
Look, the game was innovational in many different ways, I’m not saying it wasn’t. All I am saying was that this game was hyped for being so special, but it wasn’t. I appreciate that it reaches into Japanese mythology and I love how it kept track of all the enemies you fought along the way, giving stories to their creation and what not, even if it admits to not knowing all the details since Japanese legends get mistranslated all the time due to the slight differences in their characters can say two completely different things. The brushstroke idea was great and having to draw your powers was an ideal concept for the Wii, even if the game did not always understand what you were doing so you had to re-draw a circle 6 times to make a tree bloom. The brushstrokes were more accurate but slower for PS2, but you probably saved more time because you only had to draw them once. The characters were vibrant and kept you well-entertained, but unoriginal. The one thing they did not take from Legend of Zelda was that the characters are always silent. Even though these characters did not speak, the mumbling underneath them was nearly enough to drive me insane right till the very end. I loved the story, even if it did make me think the religious right wing had something to with it because in the end it’s all about your prayers making god stronger and that you have to believe. The game gave you your money worth too because it took me 34 hours, 29 minutes, and 34 seconds to beat over the course of 42 days (nice touch really keeping track there with the calender) . Typical of any awesome epic game. That is one thing that I like was just like The Legend of Zelda.
Rankings based on a score of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.
Graphics: 9.0: It was a very nice cell-shaded style that reminded you of an old Japanese painting having come to life. Although the landscape and temples were a little too simplistic for my taste, they set the mood well enough.
SFX/Music: 9.0: The music was great and really complemented the experience, just like The Legend of Zelda. SFX were spot on, especially like the cutting sound that was made when you sliced with the celestial brush. If I heard one more mumbling sound during dialogue though, I would have started using the game as my new coaster.
Replay Value: 5.0: Not a lot of replay value for this one. Like any great epic quest, once it’s done, you breathe a sigh of relief and take pride in the fact you beat it. Not many epic games warrant a replay and this is no exception. It is nice that you can get special items if you find all the hidden stray beads and a couple of extra demo movies, but that’s about it and that is not nearly enough to warrant starting all over again, even though they do let you keep most of your health and ink.
Plot/Plot Development: 8.5: They keep you guessing as to the whole back story for most of the game, which is a great way to drive the story and keeps you playing it. It is basically another Legend of Zelda game though. Good guy must save world from forces of darkness as he powers himself up by collecting special items in temples and ridding the world of the minions of darkness and bring light back to the world. This took that a little more literally and I appreciate the green message of being rewarded for bringing plants back to life, but there were a lot of characters needlessly slain to get the point across, even though that is probably more accurate to Japanese mythology, and the whole religious right theme of everyone needing to pray crept me out a little.
Gameplay: 8.0: There were no glitches that I can think of except the major one of with the Wii, your brushstrokes were not always correctly felt and this made some puzzles and bosses very difficult. Also, the roaming camera worked well most of the time, but I think a stationary one that was behind your main character most of the time would have worked better, especially when it was difficult trying to position said camera the right way so that you could draw a line from one point of interest to another.
Overall: 8.5 (not an average): Blasphemy! Someone did not give this game a 9.5 or better! Well deal with it. There were too many parallels to The Legend of Zelda to make me feel this was a special game. With the handful of glitches, lack of replay value, and lack of an original plotline, this game did not deserve everything it got in terms of praise. All those Sony, Microsoft, and Sega people are just finally getting a taste of what they have lacked over the past two decades by not having The Legend of Zelda series. Nintendo die-hards should pick it up, but do not expect your socks to be blown off as advertised. You will still get that good feeling of accomplishment though if you beat it.
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