Fairy Tale Spotlight: Okami (Game Review)

Where do I even begin? I just finished playing Okami HD (on Steam), and I am simply without words. I mean... I do have some words, obviously.

Okami is a video game that came out for Playstation 2 in 2006 developed by the now defunct Clover Studio. It has been re-released for many later systems with upgraded quality. And I must say... I cannot, for the life of me, give this game any bad marks. Just playing through it for the third time has made me question what a perfect game really is.

Okami follows the adventures of the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu represented in a wolf form. She is very likely the most beloved goddess in Japanese lore. The game itself presents itself in the form of ancient Japanese artwork. The design of it fits the narrative as the protagonist is collecting special brush techniques from all the other gods as she travels through Japan.

The game's main mechanic is that, at any moment you choose, you can freeze the game into the form of a painting and then use something called the Celestial Brush to paint symbols and images over the screen to create various effects or objects that will appear once the game has been unfrozen. Two examples of this: A circle with a line coming out of the top produces a bomb at that location. A long curved line with a loop in the middle drawn from left to right (or visa versa) will cause wind to blow in its respective direction.

Beyond that, I don't really wanna spoil anything else. The problem here (but not really a problem) is that the game is about 40 hours long, and every single second of those 40 hours were filled with an abundance of beautiful lore all told through this wonderful art style. Creating this game with this painting style in mind has actually served to make the game timeless. It will always look good. A hundred years could go by and this game will still look wonderful. The entire game is a work of art, and though a video game, it deserves the right to sit aside great paintings of the old masters.

Musically this game is phenomenal. The entire soundtrack is based around traditional Japanese music using the traditional instruments. None of it is synthetic. They bothered to get the music correct, and there is not one track in the game that I dislike.

The story is also filled to the brim with Japanese folklore of every kind you can imagine. As a fairy tale enthusiast, I soaked every moment of this game up with a passion. Many times I laughed. Many times I cried. Sometimes I did both. And in 40 hours, you get plenty of lore. This game has no padding or fluff. It is absolutely solid in its design, writing, and direction.

I also want to point out that this game, at the very heart, is a 40 hour long prayer to the glory of the sun goddess Amaterasu. This does not bother me in the least. The writers of Clover Studios clearly adored her story and chose to write a beautiful love letter to her in the form of a painting, a musical score, and a game. Every single aspect of this game was intended for her. I'm not even involved with this religion, and I was brought to tears by the love showing through in this game, all of it directed at the goddess herself.

I cannot believe the amount of love that was so wonderfully poured into this game. I have never played a game that was so complete in all my life. If you can get ahold of this game, I highly recommend you get it. I'm not saying it is for everybody, but I know in my heart that this entire thing was a labor of pure, untethered love, and there is no game like it out there. It very well may be the most perfect game ever made in history. If only people bothered today like they did way back in 2006.

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