So I was visiting home over the weekend and my older brother asked me if there were any more good games on Wii. I said I had heard that No More Heroes and Okami were good although Okami was apparently better on PS2; I left the PS2 back at my apartment so he decided to pick it up for Wii anyway. I was bleeding testosterone after I finished Contra IV on normal mode in a glorious eight-hour marathon, so I figured I'd play something more relaxing and put Okami in rather than the hyperviolent No More Heroes.
Earlier that day I watched as my brother sat through about forty minutes of introduction (MGS4 am cry) and decided to skip all that. My first impression was that this game looks fucking incredible; I know the Wii version is supposed to have some inferior paper filter effect or something like that, but that first area totally wowed me and although the remote's D-pad made for an awkwardly positioned camera I made full use of it. My second impression -- and one that continued to grow for the next three hours -- is that this Issun is fucking annoying, worse even than Navi in Ocarina of Time: "Hey Amaterasu, look at the SPHERE this bear is standing on; you've figured it out already, but doesn't it look exactly like the SPHERE in that PAINTING? I bet if you moved this into the ROOM with the SAPLING, something amazing will happen!" The game continues to insult my intelligence: five seconds and one hallway later, Issun again interrupts play and the camera pans BACK to the painting as if everything weren't obvious enough already. I used to babysit my little sister all the time and Blues Clues does the exact same thing as the host, Steve, says, "Hmm...I wonder what would happen if we put THIS over THERE!"; that's all well and good but I'm not five years old anymore.
Oh, and my third impression is just as bad but my contention is squarely with the system. I guess the waggle didn't turn me off too much since the combat was simple enough anyway, but then I started training with that old guy in his dojo and had to learn some technique where I waggle for four consecutive strikes. It took me about a half hour to finally pull that shit off; I couldn't find out why it wasn't working at first and eventually I just resigned myself to laying on the floor and randomly waggling until it finally worked (with no apparent difference in input).
Overall though I'm impressed with nothing but Okami's appearance; some of you told me that this is better than Wind Waker, but so far I think I like it less than even Twilight Princess. Does Okami get much better (I just learned to draw cherry bombs, btw) or did my own issues with the gameplay not bother the rest of you?
