okami... worth buying?

[FightingGameGuy]

DarkNight_DS said:
@Alpha_DK: Alright you're opening a can of worms here and I'm going to piss off some people by saying these things but it keeps bugging me and I guess I have typing diariah tonight ;)

Please don't be offended by what I have to say...

Let's start with the graphics, it has got to have the worst graphics of any Wii game I own. I don't expect HD graphics but I do expect everything to be at least clear and easy to see. The game has a very very soft look to it that hurts my eyes. The textures are subpar, the lines around things are sometimes too big or too small.

Okami's graphics were intended to resemble Japanese woodcuts.  Kind of like windwaker, it uses a lot of filters to try to make much of the world seem flat.  While the graphics are a few years outdated (you do know its a port of a 2006 PS2 game  right?) I personally find the overall aesthetic, especially the use of color, very beautiful, and a huge majority of people share similar views -- In 2007 Okami won many awards of art direction and graphics (IGN, Gamespot, Japanese Media Festival, etc)

Controls: The Paint Brush surprisingly works fine, the attack command (in battle) that's linked to the wiimote (waggle if you want to call it that) similarly to the slash in Twilight Princess is broken for some strange reason. It works fine in open environments to smash pots but doesn't work at all in battle mode.

Yeah the attack thing far more tricky than it should be.  You have to, for some strange reason, make sure you definitively stop the wiimote between waggles.

Story: The story is bad... like... really bad... Why does my character have more then 1 name for instance?

While the story isn't incredible, I do feel its quite a bit above the Zelda's level.  But honestly the example you bring is really really weird. Real people have 2-3 names.  Mythic figures, which the protagonist Amaterasu is, often have a fleet of names and epithets.  The people of the Kamiki, made up the name Shiranui to call the mysterious wolf appearing in their village.  Sakuya tells Issun Amaterasu's real name, which he sometimes uses and othertimes shortens to a nickname.  

Saving: Unless I'm missing something, you can only save while standing on mirrors? If so... that sucks... I like to be able to save and walk away from a game at any point. The save method seems so ancient.

Nope, you didn't miss anything.  It is annoying, but the game is pretty linear anyway, usually with a save point after each significant advancement so it generally doesn't turn out to be too much of a problem.

 As for the game getting better ... Uh oh.  The game is divided into roughly 4 major story arcs.  I personally found the first, the Orochi arc to be the best.  It should probably take 10-20 hours depending on your speed.  Overall the game should take about 25-50 hours.  Hopefully, you'll get accustomed to the art style and master the needlessly difficult waggle bs and be able to enjoy the game better.  Good luck.