Pavolink said:
MTZehvor said:
I'd be curious on hearing why you thought the final boss ruined everything. I'll agree that the dungeon felt pretty meh (but then again I don't think it was really meant to be much of a dungeon so whatever), but the final boss was great imo. Storywise it tied up all the loose ends and was most certainly not your stereotypical "super bad guy," and gameplay wise it required clever usage of all the skills presented in the game thus far. Plus the final stage theme is a masterpiece.
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Because it was boring, almost felt asleep, and the ending was so anticlimatic.
Ganon/dorf from Ocarina of Time is miles ahead of this final boss.
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I won't belabor the point about boring except to say I would disagree, but anticlimactic? The end part is, after a slug fest, Amaterasu being beaten to an inch within death before being saved by the last ditch efforts of Issun as he finally finds his "calling" in life, before Amaterasu regains her full powers and then takes down Yami as Shiranui. The whole thing rides on a wave of emotion, with all the major characters and their various arcs from the game being tied in to one final scene. Opinions can certainly differ, but I have a hard time imagining that being considered an anti climax by anyone.
sc94597 said:
MTZehvor said:
Well, I certainly spent the greatest amount of time saying what I thought Okami did better than Zelda (which will usually be places Zelda screwed up that Okami didn't), but that seems kind of the first place to start for a thread arguing why one game is better than others. I think apart from the things I mentioned, the games are pretty equivalent. Both Okami and Zelda have enjoyable combat that I think leans a little too far in the direction of easy, both have some really memorable soundtracks, and both games have some really well designed basic control schemes. I mentioned at the bottom that I wish Okami was more like Zelda in terms of puzzle difficulty. Outside of that, not a lot comes to mind in terms of differences I could discuss that I feel like would be interesting/helpful to discuss.
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My concern is that a few of the faults you placed on Zelda were not faults of every game, you even said a few times "All except (insert specific Zelda game) had this problem." This is the downfall of comparing one unique entry to an entire series of games. Also I think your concern about LoZ being repetitive only has merit if somebody plays more than one Zelda game. A person's first Zelda game isn't so formulaic I would think, and does have that sense of advaneture you described of Okami. Having played Okamiden after playing Okami it fell into the same pattern (purge area of darkness -> solve problem -> explore clean environment.) Also Okami has the issue of recycling the same bosses not twicely, but thricely. Okami changed its formula throughout the game after different lengths of time, but so have Zelda games (OoT child vs. adult link, TP various different patterns throughout each stage of the game, etc, etc.)
Overall, Okami is a masterpiece, as are some Zelda games. So yeah, the differences are miniscule.
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I'll tackle the issues in order here.
Firstly, I would say that every issue I mentioned, I think Okami outperforms every 3D Zelda game. Some statements I made were meant to illustrate how bad things got in some past Zelda game, which don't apply to for all. As an example, I think Issun is a better partner than any 3D Zelda sidekick. I would also argue that Zelda really screwed up sidekicks in 2 out of the 5 games. Even though I don't think the sidekicks were as bad in MM, WW, or TP, I'd still argue they aren't as good as Issun. That's the point I'm trying to get across.
The point about formulaicness is certainly exacerbated by playing more than one Zelda game, but it's certainly not limited to it. As a personal example, Twilight Princess was my first Zelda game. By the time I finished Snowpeak, I was starting to get a little weary of the predictibility of seemingly every dungeon I ran into. The formulaicness was a problem I noticed in my first Zelda game.
The repeat bosses are certainly a flaw, though only one boss gets recycled three times. I certainly won't deny that the Ark of Yamato is largely just padding before the final boss. I don't really have a problem with the second Orochi fight, however, but I guess that could vary from person to person.
I think Okami doesn't fall into the formulaicness problem nearly as much as Zelda does, because the formula you described, purging the area of darkness and then exploring it, takes maybe a couple of minutes at most. You find the Guardian Sapling for each area, cause it to bloom, and then the area opens up. Once the area is open, what you do from there can be anything. You might have to go save a Sparrow's daughter from getting eaten by monsters. You might go explore an abandoned pirate ship with a priestess. You might get thrown into a boss fight almost immediately (like with Agata Forest). The formalities of the formula are so quickly dealt with that I hardly cared.
