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rallamajoopWhile I'm not allowed out of bed much I've been spending some time working my way through Okamiden on my sister's DS and I would like to take this moment to say fffffff THIS GAME! Failed to hook me as more than a moderately diverting time waster for the first 6-7 hours, then became horrendously addictive out of nowhere for the next 20 hours or so, only to let me down again in numerous irritating ways with the ending. So much set up with so little resolution! So much unrelated resolution that comes out of nowhere! So, so many adorable baby animals. It is really hard to be properly angry at a game with so many adorable baby animals, but I can still seethe a bit.
A brief primer on the subject of the proper use of foreshadowing
1. It is an excellent idea to set up one or two intriguing mysteries in the first act, but if you do, it is considered good form to take the time to resolve the bloody things at some point. Forgetting about these mysteries for the next three quarters of the game, followed by an ending sequence which establishes that any real resolution is being postponed for a hypothetical sequel is not any kind of good idea whatsoever.
See: The subject of Kuni's real parentage (which may, or may not, involve a direct decent from a legendary hero, adoption, amnesia, time travel, mystical powers, and complicated interference from an entity of pure evil). Developed as a major and intriguing plot point in the early game, dropped like a hot potato when Kuni leaves your party, and never mentioned again until the ending, which goes to considerable length to establish that the mystery is going to stay a mystery. This is all the more frustrating when you consider that it's by no means confirmed that there's ever going to be a sequel, when the Okami series is so well known for fantastic reviews but dismal sales figures.
Also, to a lesser extent, the questions who's going to succeed Queen Himiko (which, in what we all know to blatant RPG code for UPCOMING PLOT POINT AHOY, everyone in Sei'an city seemed to be talking about when you arrive), what Chibiterasu's is doing on earth and who his father isthough since it is OBVIOUSLY TOTALLY WAKA I can sympathise with why they may have thought that reference that particular flavour of divine hijinks might not be appropriate for a kids' game. If you're not going to resolve this stuff, why on earth would you raise it in the first place?
2. It is an excellent idea to set up mysteries and/or character-driven conflicts well in advance of their resolution just as a general principle. However, this only works if that resolution a) clearly relates to the set-up, and b) doesn't happen twice.
Waka Junior Kurow's story arc was full of great ideas, but the pacing was all over the shop. His guiding purpose and destiny make plenty of sense when they're finally revealed at the end, but when the game spent so much time teasing us about his relationship to Waka it would have been nice if this had come out as more than a tangentially related accident next to the real meat of the reveal, which ultimately raises more questions than it answers. Poor Kurow gets a bum deal and is well within his rights to freak out about it, but the implication that Waka – a fan favourite character from the previous game – set him up for it from the start then hid the truth from him until the end is severely uncomfortable and could really have used more explanation. Likewise the question of whether we're supposed to see his apparent face heel turn as him rebelling against his destiny or just a ruse to fool the enemy, or what we're supposed to make of his constant I HAVE NO FRIENDS bawwwwing when the game had already gone out of its way to point out that why yes he does have friends! hours earlier. The whole mess feels like a good concept that was just a couple of drafts short of where it needed to be.
3. Pacing: How the fuck does it work
Excluding the Poncles, Chibiterasu has five important companions over the course of the game – each (at first) more interesting and useful than the last. The first is the adoptive son of a character from the last game with the aforementioned mysterious parentage. The second is a mermaid who's relationship with Chibiterasu wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Doctor Who. The third is a famous child actress who's hiding mysterious powers. The fourth is a boy from the moon. So it's a bit of a let down when the game gives you your fifth and final companion right as everything is gearing up for it's climax who's entire concept is 'comical fat kid'. While his save-my-mum story arc is sweet enough that it could have fitted in just fine somewhere earlier in the narrative, coming so close to the end he feels like a bad attempt to pad out the conclusion for another hour. Not impressed.
4. And this is important because when you get your foreshadowing right, it can be the thing that makes the narrative.
Okamiden's faults are all the more frustrating because when it gets foreshadowing right, by god it gets it right. Nanami's cryptic hints that you've met before and the glimpse of the shipwreck of the Ryoshima coast give you the perfect set-up for the later section of the plot where you find yourself travelling back in time, only to get picked up by a ship that looks an awful lot like that shipwreck you explored in the original game... oh, oh. And that final scene of the ship going under at the back of the frame as you fly away... it's not often something happening on a screen the size of the DS's gives you the shivers, but this managed it. The time travel plotlines aren't flawless, there's a lot of stuff crammed in between the lines of what we saw in the original Okami that stretches plausibility a little far, but based purely on how much I loved the section on the ship (and, okay, the fact that at least they didn't make us fight Orochi again) I am just about ready to forgive.
There are other little details along the same lines – you hear about both Kagu and Kurow in casual conversation well before you meet either, and it's no surprise to learn Kuni was adopted when the game has already given you all the pieces you need to realise less than a year has passed since his parents first got together. But the trouble with having so many counter-examples of good foreshadowing is that it only highlights the stuff that comes apart in the final act.
A few other random thoughts that I cannot pretend fit under the subject of foreshadowing or pacing:
1. WTF was up with the game telling us that Shiranui is Chibiterasu's grandfather? Okami was completely unambiguous about the fact that Shiranui and Amaterasu are one and the same, and Amaterasu is Chibiterasu's mother, and for that matter, FEMALE. I don't know whether the translators dropped the ball on that one or whether the original development team all had a sudden case of amnesia or what, but wow, way to get your own backstory dead wrong!
2. Loved Kagu, pretty much from the first moment she walked on screen. She and Kurow are both such utter little brats when you meet them, it was almost a shame to see that softened so much under the weight of later character development. I felt a little let down that her big secret turned out to be nothing more bizarre than natural Miko powers though – between the electric effects and her conversation with Raiden I was fully expecting something more thunder-themed, and really, her big angst was that her Miko powers made her not-normal? It's the Okami world, girl! They're practically mundane!
3. While I don't really want to get into the subject of how the early hours of the game repeat a bit too much like the original Okami at length... you know all that stuff you've heard about how the early hours are a bit too much like the original Okami? It's not wrong.
4. Surprised by how much fun I had with the Yakushi Village stuff. Not many games out there where you get much – if not most – of your EXP by marketing real-estate, matchmaking, and setting up Japanese fairytales.
5. Also surprised by how much I enjoyed collecting the demon-parts for weapons upgrading. Usually this would be my least favourite part of RPG gameplay, but when combat's mostly pretty easy and doesn't get you conventional EXP, having to time that last finishing move to just the right moment to score an extra demon-bone or two adds a lot more interest to your random encounters. Certainly beats the FF series random-drop-system hands down.
Not sure I have much else to summarise the Okamiden experience with at the end of all that. There's lots to like about it as a game, but when there's so much about the story that looked like it was setting up to be so much better that it's hard to focus on the good bits.
A brief primer on the subject of the proper use of foreshadowing
1. It is an excellent idea to set up one or two intriguing mysteries in the first act, but if you do, it is considered good form to take the time to resolve the bloody things at some point. Forgetting about these mysteries for the next three quarters of the game, followed by an ending sequence which establishes that any real resolution is being postponed for a hypothetical sequel is not any kind of good idea whatsoever.
See: The subject of Kuni's real parentage (which may, or may not, involve a direct decent from a legendary hero, adoption, amnesia, time travel, mystical powers, and complicated interference from an entity of pure evil). Developed as a major and intriguing plot point in the early game, dropped like a hot potato when Kuni leaves your party, and never mentioned again until the ending, which goes to considerable length to establish that the mystery is going to stay a mystery. This is all the more frustrating when you consider that it's by no means confirmed that there's ever going to be a sequel, when the Okami series is so well known for fantastic reviews but dismal sales figures.
Also, to a lesser extent, the questions who's going to succeed Queen Himiko (which, in what we all know to blatant RPG code for UPCOMING PLOT POINT AHOY, everyone in Sei'an city seemed to be talking about when you arrive), what Chibiterasu's is doing on earth and who his father is
2. It is an excellent idea to set up mysteries and/or character-driven conflicts well in advance of their resolution just as a general principle. However, this only works if that resolution a) clearly relates to the set-up, and b) doesn't happen twice.
3. Pacing: How the fuck does it work
Excluding the Poncles, Chibiterasu has five important companions over the course of the game – each (at first) more interesting and useful than the last. The first is the adoptive son of a character from the last game with the aforementioned mysterious parentage. The second is a mermaid who's relationship with Chibiterasu wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Doctor Who. The third is a famous child actress who's hiding mysterious powers. The fourth is a boy from the moon. So it's a bit of a let down when the game gives you your fifth and final companion right as everything is gearing up for it's climax who's entire concept is 'comical fat kid'. While his save-my-mum story arc is sweet enough that it could have fitted in just fine somewhere earlier in the narrative, coming so close to the end he feels like a bad attempt to pad out the conclusion for another hour. Not impressed.
4. And this is important because when you get your foreshadowing right, it can be the thing that makes the narrative.
Okamiden's faults are all the more frustrating because when it gets foreshadowing right, by god it gets it right. Nanami's cryptic hints that you've met before and the glimpse of the shipwreck of the Ryoshima coast give you the perfect set-up for the later section of the plot where you find yourself travelling back in time, only to get picked up by a ship that looks an awful lot like that shipwreck you explored in the original game... oh, oh. And that final scene of the ship going under at the back of the frame as you fly away... it's not often something happening on a screen the size of the DS's gives you the shivers, but this managed it. The time travel plotlines aren't flawless, there's a lot of stuff crammed in between the lines of what we saw in the original Okami that stretches plausibility a little far, but based purely on how much I loved the section on the ship (and, okay, the fact that at least they didn't make us fight Orochi again) I am just about ready to forgive.
There are other little details along the same lines – you hear about both Kagu and Kurow in casual conversation well before you meet either, and it's no surprise to learn Kuni was adopted when the game has already given you all the pieces you need to realise less than a year has passed since his parents first got together. But the trouble with having so many counter-examples of good foreshadowing is that it only highlights the stuff that comes apart in the final act.
A few other random thoughts that I cannot pretend fit under the subject of foreshadowing or pacing:
1. WTF was up with the game telling us that Shiranui is Chibiterasu's grandfather? Okami was completely unambiguous about the fact that Shiranui and Amaterasu are one and the same, and Amaterasu is Chibiterasu's mother, and for that matter, FEMALE. I don't know whether the translators dropped the ball on that one or whether the original development team all had a sudden case of amnesia or what, but wow, way to get your own backstory dead wrong!
2. Loved Kagu, pretty much from the first moment she walked on screen. She and Kurow are both such utter little brats when you meet them, it was almost a shame to see that softened so much under the weight of later character development. I felt a little let down that her big secret turned out to be nothing more bizarre than natural Miko powers though – between the electric effects and her conversation with Raiden I was fully expecting something more thunder-themed, and really, her big angst was that her Miko powers made her not-normal? It's the Okami world, girl! They're practically mundane!
3. While I don't really want to get into the subject of how the early hours of the game repeat a bit too much like the original Okami at length... you know all that stuff you've heard about how the early hours are a bit too much like the original Okami? It's not wrong.
4. Surprised by how much fun I had with the Yakushi Village stuff. Not many games out there where you get much – if not most – of your EXP by marketing real-estate, matchmaking, and setting up Japanese fairytales.
5. Also surprised by how much I enjoyed collecting the demon-parts for weapons upgrading. Usually this would be my least favourite part of RPG gameplay, but when combat's mostly pretty easy and doesn't get you conventional EXP, having to time that last finishing move to just the right moment to score an extra demon-bone or two adds a lot more interest to your random encounters. Certainly beats the FF series random-drop-system hands down.
Not sure I have much else to summarise the Okamiden experience with at the end of all that. There's lots to like about it as a game, but when there's so much about the story that looked like it was setting up to be so much better that it's hard to focus on the good bits.
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Date: 2011-07-19 06:16 pm (UTC)This. So much this.
And not just about Okamiden either. Other videogames, TV shows, movies, books... it frustrates the hell out of me when they go all "oh, let's just end this part with a cliffanger, we can continue the story later" and then they never do.
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Date: 2011-07-20 04:07 am (UTC)It's fair to say they always mean to continue on from those cliffhanger endings, so I can't hold it against them too badly if things don't go to plan, but boy is it ironic when they leave things so open that the ending satisfies no-one and actually helps kill the franchise rather than the opposite.