What do you think of the music?

I’ve put in another few hours in Okami since writing this post, and I have to admit that the characters are starting to grow on me (or at least grate on me less). I wonder if I subconsciously give, say, the Zelda games a free pass when it comes to characterization; while I say they do a better job, I wonder if that’s not just nostalgia talking. In any case, the plot taken as a whole is definitely compelling, as I said before.

I’m glad to hear that the game is long, actually — I haven’t sunk my teeth into a nice big narrative game in a while, and it feels good. :-) It’s a fun world to be in. A little birdie told me there’s a New Game Plus mode, too, so I might be visiting it for a while yet…

Thanks for the shout-out! I’m commenting here ’cause I wrote about Okami on the blog today. I know a lot of people were put off by the game’s story, and I suppose it’s a matter of taste, but on the whole I found the whole thing pretty charming. I like the slightly off-color humor, and because it is presented as a fairy tale I was less offended by the one-dimensionality of the characters.

One warning: the game is much longer than you think it is as you go in. I hit a huge trough about 1/3 in and then had to give a big push later to finish. I was totally satisfied by the end though, it’s one of my all-time faves now.

Afello, though I”m not a fan of the dialogue, I definitely agree with you about the animal-feeding. Watching zones become “uncursed” is enjoyable because each cutscene is specific to the area, so it seems a bit silly to repeat the same one every time you toss a bag of seeds to a sparrow. :-) Even if they took place in the game world, though, feeding an animal is such a minor action that it doesn’t seem like it deserves a cutscene in the first place. I think of it as akin to using the Bloom technique on a blackened tree.

The thing I find a missed oppurtunity is that they put the feeding of the animals aside from the actual game world. I like the sight of the animals eating from the stack of seeds, leaves, meat or fish, but why did this had to be in some fairy dreamscape and not right there on the spot where i found them? I skip these movies because I feel they put me out of the world i am trying to restore.

I even liked the relationships behind the corny dialog. The hero, using an arrogant front to hide his insecurities. The Canine Warriors who don’t all wish to be the chosen.

But, as you say, the dialog itself would have been much better if treated more seriously.