It’s time to brush up on my DS stylus skills: Let’s Liveblog Okamiden
So recently I got my hands on a copy of Okamiden, and a friend of mine suggested doing a live blog run of it so what the hell why not. Join me as I take on this adventure with only my wits, iPhone and fruity pink 3DS to assist me, along with my trusty sidekick ‘Shoddy understanding of the Japanese language’. And my first trial was to get this damn wrapping paper off.
45 minutes and a few missing fingers later, I was well on my way to play Okamiden.
With a fancy title screen and a little girl just belting out the line “O~KAMIDEN” just what could go wrong in this game?
Oh.
Oh.
Okay I admit I really hate Issun with a passion, much more than most other people. It’s probably his irritating trait in the original Okami where he’d explain some game mechanic in game terms and then he would just repeat exactly what he said only without the game lingo as if the player had a really bad case of ADHD or apparently couldn’t figure out how health potions worked or some shit. Also the weird massive insect-dong thing he’s got going in this picture isn’t helping anything.
Let’s just move on, so I chose easy mode because I am a big pussy and the game even labels the difficulty as “Little Birdie” just to rub it in further. Yeah jeez thanks for reminding me about my incompetence at games Capcom.
So the game begins much like the original Okami, with a long boring unskippable cutscene describing the just fabulous history of some evil multi-headed demon dragon thing that haunted a village and then there was a hero and some white wolf and they beat the dragon thing. Which is actually exactly like the original Okami opening cutscene so good job on that one. And the game even goes as far as to recap the original Okami while they’re at it, I mean come on Capcom I don’t think anybody really plays the Okami games for their riveting story.
And then the game begins with some kind of terrible storm or maybe some stupid art designer had a mini freak-out in the middle of drawing in black clouds and they just said “Fuck it” and made it a giant storm out of nowhere.
OH NO NOT THE Shrine..? Wait what the hell what shrine is this supposed to be why is that cloud causing evil shit man what is even supposed to be happening?
And then apparently I was bumblefucking around with the iPhone because there are no photos of the bit after this, so the gist of it is that some head or mask <insert evil shit here> came out of the black clouds and then the shrine got all fucked up with lightening maybe and then what looked like the evil dragon-thing from the prologue came out of the destruction and started spreading an evil black cloud similar to the one in the sky.
OH NO NOT NAMELESS VILLAGE ANYTHING BUT THERE (What is even going on in this picture)
And then after a few more scenes of the darkness spreading over some other picturesque settings the scene abruptly shifts to everyone’s favourite Issun who is apparently on the run from the feds and is trying to dispose of his illegally obtained freedom bucks by throwing them all around him like confetti.
Yeah smooth moves there Bernie Madoff.
And then Issun bumps into some little girl, the perfect patsy to pin the blame on. That or he’s going to give her a signed painting of Okami-Amaterasu yeah sure that works too.
AND THEN OH NO IT’S THE FUZZ SOME RANDOM DANCING MONSTERS ISSUN HOW ON NIPPON WILL YOU GET OUT OF THIS DELIGHTFULLY WACKY SITUATION?
Oh hey Chibiterasu out of nowhere that’s cool I guess.
And on the subject of Chibiterasu, what kind of fucking name is that for your kid? I mean, Chibi basically means “Short person/child”, so is that supposed to be some name for him as a kid or is this his actual maiden name? That’s like me calling my son “Shorty” or “Junior” or something so then what happens if he grows up to become a basketball player or something? He’s just going to be bullied and ridiculed the whole time. CAPCOM I AM ONTO YOUR SHENANIGANS.
Anyway we’re playing a game and oh no wait what
When the fuck did we get into gameplay?
So it turns out trying to manually play a DS with one hand while fumbling with your iPhone camera with the other is actually pretty difficult so just try to believe me when I say that I managed to take on the two tutorial imps on easy difficulty without trouble.
And after the battle Issun manages to put two and two together and *gasp!* it seems that this glowing white wolf with red markings might actually be the child of the only other glowing white wolf with red marking that actually exists! Wow get this guy an ice cream or something because he just won the Grand Prize for the No Shit Sherlock awards!
It sure looks like Chibiterasu has inherited all of Amaterasu’s derpy looks, all but that classic goofy smile.
And then Issun starts complaining because the sun is out because of that dark cloud stuff that occurred in the prologue, so Chibiterasu does what any son of wolf god would do and pulls out his Celestial Brush™so he can just draw a new sun or something? I’m not really sure how any of the brush related shenanigans work but then again I’m not sure how a lot of things work in Capcom games so I might as well roll with it. So then you press L or R to go into the special brush menu, and whip out your stylus to draw in the sun.
Tee hee.
Okay okay I’ll do it seriously.
Okamiden is apparently really forgiving or something because even this shitty excuse for a painting of the sun is acceptable within their standards.
And so then we summon something that looks more like some kind of horrific infernal death ball but no it’s the sun all right so everything returns to being bright and cheery. So then Issun tells us about some village where shit’s going down or maybe it’s just that they happen to be having a 20% off bargain, but Chibiterasu seems pretty set on going so Issun just has to tag along because god knows he’s not doing anything important other than throwing paper all over the ground like a moron.
And then the game finally decided to let me free-roam, as in follow the ginormous glowing arrow and one little nagging problem started to pester me as I played: Chibiterasu just runs way too fucking fast for his own good. I mean, it’s like Mario fucked a bullet train and Chibiterasu came out or something, whatever direction I nudge, he just rockets away, colliding into invisible walls and making it a real pain to try and squeeze my way into the damn narrow bridges. It may be because I was using the 3DS analog stick when they were expecting me to use the D-Pad, but the main problem seems to lie in that the speed is similar to the original Okami, but this game’s borders aren’t as big, so you end up crashing into everything all the time.
Also Chibiterasu jumps and floats a little like Superman and that’s pretty cool :3
So after crashing into just about everything in sight, I finally crossed the bridge and bumped (well, crashed) into the little girl who Issun talked to before those professional dancers imps showed up.
But apparently because nobody believes in gods in the great athiest nation of Nippon, nobody can see Chibiterasu’s glowing runes and fire shit, so I guess the little girl here just happened to be conveniently looking at a rock or some shit when Chibiterasu drew the goddamn sun in the middle of the sky. Or maybe summoning giant fire orbs is pretty common-place in Nippon, who knows?
And then suddenly we bump into who has to be already the coolest character in this game, a man who I have affectionately named Pipi Longmustache.
And then he said he was the head of some dojo or something honestly I wasn’t paying attention because just look at that manly stache, it even wiggled the whole time he was speaking (I’m beginning to think it has a life of it’s own).
And to wrap things up for this update, I crashed headfirst into a fountain which turned out to be the save point, as Issun first explained, and then he just proceeded to say “Yeah it’s a save point you dumbass.”
Never change Issun. Never change.
Next Time on 3DS Adventures:
The 3DS teaches me all about crazy people I pass by on the street.
