The game features a unique visual presentation made to look like traditional Japanese sumi-e brush paintings. On PlayStation 2, the in-world game graphics appear to drawn to life on a virtual landscape textured in rice paper, meant to harken back to ancient Japanese art. You will notice in our screenshots and videos that while the majority of the visual sense is maintained in the Wii build, the parchment paper texture is conspicuously absent. We suspect this is a filter that Ready at Dawn was unable to accurately translate to Wii. In a side-by-side visual comparison with the PS2 incarnation, we also noticed that the original title sports more subtle bloom work. However, to its credit, the Wii update to the game runs in progressive-scan (480p) and a quasi-16:9 widescreen mode -- we call it "quasi" because it's not full resolution; thin black bars remain on each side of the screen. The framerate differences separating the two versions are negligible, meanwhile. The ported build features a noticeably cleaner look, partly because of the missing parchment filter and partly because it's running in 480p. However, it's worth noting that everything also looks brighter and more vibrant on Nintendo's system.
You can in Capcom's adventure use an all-powerful brush, which temporarily turns the world into a canvas meant to house paint strokes. Using the brush, you can paint on bridges where they didn't exist before, paint a sun in the sky to transform evening to morning, make slicing strokes to cut through objects and enemies or even paint circles with fuses to summon bombs. Really, though, the process of using the Celestial Brush with the Wii remote is like night and day compared to the PS2 controller -- it's just so much more intuitive, faster, and better. To activate the Brush, you just hold the B-Trigger, at which point the world becomes your canvas. You hold down the A button to use the tool and draw with the Wii remote. Easy.
There are no actual content differences between the two builds of Okami so if you already own the game on PS2 and are looking for something altogether new with the Wii version, well, don't. On the other hand, if you've never played Okami before or just want to play it with dramatically improved Celestial Brush controls, you're in for one heck of a great adventure.
Strubes said:A bad port on the Wii to be honest. Sad because I was really looking forward to this game. One of the few I wanted to purchase. Unfortunately, it's been plagued by poor Wii-mote functionality. You have to have exact, pin-point precision with each stroke of the Wii-mote. A ton harder than the PS2 version. The PS2 version is far superior, IMO. It's worth a rent though.
Strubes said:A bad port on the Wii to be honest. Sad because I was really looking forward to this game. One of the few I wanted to purchase. Unfortunately, it's been plagued by poor Wii-mote functionality. You have to have exact, pin-point precision with each stroke of the Wii-mote. A ton harder than the PS2 version. The PS2 version is far superior, IMO. It's worth a rent though.
kirbyrockz said:Really? You must've just had bad luck. I tried it as well, and it's flawless from my experience.
Strubes said:It's just easier to use on the PS2...and I'm also basing this off of multiple reviews from sites and magazines...that's the only major flaw in it they're saying.