Disclaimer: First Impressions implies a brief time playing. It does not mean a comprehensive review. It's simply what I think in the short time playing so far. As the game goes along, all opinions are subject to change.

Okay, as you may or may not know, I've been playing Skies of Arcadia. Wonderful game, just finished it. Okami has been sitting on my shelf since April 19th. Unopened. That's over two weeks. Two weeks too long. Tonight I have finally unsealed the plastic shrink wrap and dived into the game. Hooray!

So I plop into my Wii and see the majestic Okami in the channel and start it up. Okami! I watch the intro cutscenes when the game starts and a little more. The developers put some work into those for a lot of games and I'd like to show my appreciation for them by watching. Plus the art style of Okami is awesome which makes it even better. After that I select options and configure my normal non-HD TV.

I go to New Game and push A. And nothing happens. The batteries in my Wiimote died. Damn! I will not be stopped, I will play this game! I get new batteries out. Problem solved and crisis averted. Now I hit new game. Sweet, a narative/mosaic. I'm excited about this, I like this style a lot.

3 minutes into it... This story is awesome.

6 minutes into it... Still neat, I hope Orochi is stopped!

9 minutes into it... This cool and all but can I get to the game part yet?

12 minutes into it... Excuse me while I check the box. I meant to buy Okami Wii, I think I may have accidentally gotten "Okami the Movie."

17 minutes into it... Oh look, the game is starting. I save at the mirror. 18 minutes into it.

Time out.

I'm sorry, games should not take 17 minutes before I can start playing. It shouldn't work that way. Movie/Film-makers figured it out a long long time ago. You show enough action/comedy to get the ball rolling and then you show the title/intro credits. The audience is immediately engaged and then you start. The makers of Okami didn't seem to understand that. I know I can skip the opening stuff to go straight into the game, but then I just missed all the opening stuff and have to go all the way back to New Game and watch it anyway. Intros to games should either be brief or allow the player to start doing a few things first before going into them. Remember, we are playing a game after all.

All in all, a minor annoyance but still one none-the-less.

Okay, so I'm Amaterasu. I can jump! Wee, look at me jump! Okay, enough being amused by simple stuff. Well maybe just a little bit more. Weee! Ehm, anyway, getting into it the art style is brilliant. I love the colors, the contrast... it's beautiful to watch. Everything feels so vibrant. The atmosphere is great too. Night feels like night. Day feels bright and cheery. It's great.

Fighting, on the other hand, is not so great. Developers should realize that shaking the Wiimote over and over and over is repetitive and annoying. Anything you're going to be doing multiple times repeatedly should be a button. Amaterasu attacks by shaking the Wiimote. I need to get used to this... again. The camera is kind of bad too as it's pretty slow. Reaching up to the D-Pad isn't the friendliest of choices either.  An option to manually map stuff would have been stellar.

Also, it's annoying that you can't increase the text speed of all conversations. Some I can speed up by pressing the A button and others I can't. This is bad because I read fast. An option to change text speed would have been great.

The camera speed is also a pain. I really wish there was an option to increase its sensitivity. I want it to turn faster... Have I mentioned that yet?

Those are my complaints so far.

You know what's not up there? The bruth. You know why? Because it's fantastic. No complaints about brush control yet. Drawing circles, lines, and dots are easy. It has yet to take me more than one or two tries to get anything correct. Once I've done it once and know what to do, I can get it on my first try.

In summary so far...

Pros

• Art style is great.
• Movement is fluid.
• Battles are fast-paced and exciting.
• Art style is great.
• Story seems pretty good so far.
• Celestial Brush seems perfectly fine.

And did I mention the art style is great?


Cons

• Attack is mapped to a Wiimote shake, not a button. No option to remap controls.
• Camera speed is slow. No option for sensitivity.
• Conversations cannot always be sped up with A button.
• No option to increase default text speed.
• 17-freaking-minutes went by before I could start playing.

Time spent playing so far: 1 hr. 12 min. 36 sec.

At least you don't have to wait through the credits and epilogue at the end of the game.

What a dissapointing omission.

Frame rate and graphics were a dissapointment in that they were barely improved if at all over the PS2 version.

I don't see why they couldn't have kept the PS2 control scheme as an alternative with the classic controller.

Some fine tuning of the wii pointer sensitivity would make the game alot more accessable to first time players.

And while I have no problem with current appearance of the game, it would have been nice to of been offered a choice between the new brighter version and the classic drab rice paper version. If that's not possible, then fine, I can live with that.

We can only pray Capcom takes the time to do this right and release a better version with all these adjustments. A special edition. Though its doubtful, even if a petition were made its doubtful enough people would care to see a change in what they don't percieve to be an issue. All we can do now is hope pressure and criticism from the gaming industry which has been railing Capcom for their handling of Okami Wii will embarass Capcom into doing it right. I know Capcom has already responded to the watermark issue with the cover but that's a little easier to fix than the actual game.

It's the small things like optional control schemes, fully entact content and clean box art that seperate a professional product from a half-assed cash-in. While this is hardly as bad as Prince of Persia: Rival Swords, its treading dangerously close.

Onimusha12: For once, I agree with everything you just posted.

Words of Wisdom: I completely agree that the intro before you can save was entirely too long. I'd forgotten that. The first time I played the game I only had abou 15 minutes so I actually had to do it twice.

Still, the game is great and people should play it.

Give it some time, WoW. I'll be interested to read your final word.

I've taken to going into the brush screen and using the analog stick to rotate. Much easier and quicker (IMO at least) than using the d-pad.

Every other con you have I agree with; the text speed one especially. The ability to speed up text coincides with Amateratsu wearing the correct weapon, as well; they must have 2 different movie modes, one of which allows the speeding up and has the correct weapon, and one which does not. I am not sure why they would do it that way, but it can get very annoying as I also read quickly. Does anyone who owned the PS2 version know if this happened in that game as well?

Also, I completely agree with you about the opening cinematics. Fortunately, I had heard of the fact that it was 20m long before I got the game, so I didn't start until I was in the mood to watch a TV show.

If I didn't make it clear in the other thread I think your out of your damn mind on the bold parts. But I do agree they could have done more to improve some of the little things. Its still far from a cash-in...

@WoW,

 I completely agree about the intro and how long it took to actually start playing the game.  And particularly about the text speed.  Those are my two biggest gripes right now but luckily once you get going its not too bad.   I will say at least the story is good, without that it would have made the problem much worse.

Let's just pray Capcom releases a special edition with the remove content returned and an optional classic controller (PS2) control scheme added. Similar to the special edition of DMC3 which offered extra content.

Time spent playing so far:  3 hr. 21 min. 49 sec.

Okay so now I've had a little more time with Okami, I've gotten another brush technique, done a bit more fighting, and had some fun.  Once again, there are good things and bad things I'm noticing.

The humor in the story is amusing.  Nothing over-the-top or hilarious, but amusing.  I seriously need a picture with Amaterasu cocking her to the left with a "WTF mate" quote underneath.   

The actual gameplay is very familiar. You run around and do stuff for people to get items, praise which lets you buy stat increases, and random hugs from Kushi.  I'm kind of disappointed with the items so far as there's really no item worth buying to help in battle though buying seed is nice because feeding animals gets you praise.  You need to feed the right stuff to the right animal though.  Sadly the game won't let me pretend the bunnies are Monty Python bunnies and feed them raw meat.  Oh well.

One thing that is really starting to get annoying is the constant chittering when you talk to people.  At first it was a nice touch but it's growing really old really fast.  Otherwise the sound is mostly good so far.  The music in the game is nice too but I haven't found a single song that was really memorable.

One of the nicer things about the game is that the developers seem to recognize what their audience is.  The second merchant you meet kindly explains that you can sell off treasures and immediately follows up by saying that your journal will keep track of all the ones you've found even if you sell them.

I am disappointed with something though.  Some of my favorite parts of Zelda games are collecting all the fun items and fighting the dungeon bosses (which are always really fun).  So far I've gotten a new brush technique and finished an area... but there was no "boss."  Also, fighting the same 3 enemies over and over is getting old.  I want some new enemies to play with! 

It's been fun so far, but not awesome.  Here's to hoping it picks up a bit.

I've actually started doing this a little bit. It just bugs me that Amaterasu moves so fast and they didn't give the game a camera that moves just as fast. It makes battles frustrating as I usually just use the farther out camera since I can never keep my sight on the enemy.  Having to make the game come to a dead stop just to rotate the camera is complete and utterly absurd IMO.

Ocarina of Time for the N64 managed to get this right. Not only did it have a Lock-on button to always keep the enemy in sight, but it also had the ability to instantly reposition the camera to whatever direction Link is facing. Even if Clover had put just one of those two features in it would have gone a long way to making the game much better.