Okamiden review

[taotrooper]

The non-spoilery part: I'd say 8/10. I'm surprised I didn't hate its guts like I expected, and my annoyances at the plot (many of those I already had before playing it) didn't hit until the final act, in which I was too busy getting my heart broken to whine properly about it. But that said, I had a lot of fun with the gameplay. I'm glad it was

Comments

[rainmage]

We have no idea! He was just namedropped. But in the end, the only clear thing is that Kurow was a doll, not a clone (which raises more questions, really)

[rainmage]

Who knows, that part happened so fast. Basically, he (and other Lunars maybe? Kurow talks about "they") creates or has someone create a doll who looks like him, and somehow/somewhere he gets sent to Nippon around the same time than Chibiterasu. The point of the doll was that with a pendant, he could make a seal with his own body for Teh Evol. Then if Kurow gets killed while he's restraining Teh Evol, it gets vanquished with him.

The ethical problem being that this kid, despite of later believing he's a soulless doll, obviously must have a soul if he has so many feelings. But does Waka consider Kurow a living being or he doesn't care? THAT'S THE ISSUE.

[outou]

1) The ugly baby wasn't retconned? Who exactly is this Kuni, and what has he done to our potentially-homely protagonist?!

2) Er...is the game a prequel rather than a sequel? I'm getting confused, what with the Shiranui/Chibiterasu/Issun/Isshaku mix-ups.

[rainmage]

1) The ugly baby will be born after the game ends! It's not really a big spoiler because it comes out less than 2 hours in, but Kuni is adopted. Susano just found him all amnesiac by the lake right before he rescues Kushi. We never get to know who/what Kuni really is.

2) With all the time travel they do... I guess it's still sequel but in a Back to the Future sequels kind of way (except the timeline isn't rewritten, just everyone else is shoehorned). It's a sequel where they get involved in the original's plot a little too much but without really ruining it. All the Okami events still happen but some look cheapened to me. Maybe I'm looking too much into it because I'm picky.

[balalaikach]

Aaah, I really wonder if someone who actually speak japanese and english could compare the dialogues from the game... even though it is quite meaningless, but I think it would be very interesting to see the differences on the details they give in both versions.

Thank you for your review by the way :)

[rainmage]

I'd be curious too. I do know that Kurou (in Japanese) gives more Ushiwaka flashbacks because they actually share the same speech quirks -they both use Engrish and say "mii" and "yuu" to refer to people. Meanwhile Kurow (in English) has no French vocabulary and has a different quirk. This is likely a localization decision, but it sort of makes Kurow sound more of an individual than Kurou as he doesn't feel exactly like a SD Waka. But no idea about other references. I've seen fanarts using the word "copy" to refer to Kurou, so I don't know if he's a doll in the original too or a clone or something undetermined. That's the problem of only knowing by tracking Waka fanart, I guess.

You're welcome!

[rainmage]

Yeah, if you follow the Japanese it would be technically Isshaku (as he is イッシャク), but in Okami's English localization (I had no idea for French and German because I can't speak those languages -my copy is the European fff) it was summed as Ishaku. Therefore, it's a localization/edition complaint, as the other original characters' names in English were the same but not him. It's about consistency. But since Okamiden!Isshaku was so rude I feel like making the difference to Okami!Ishaku? XD