During Thursday evening’s Game Awards ceremony, founder and host Geoff Keighley stunned everybody by wanting like he was going to burst into tears as he revealed that Capcom is engaged on a sequel to its PlayStation 2 basic Okami with unique director Hideki Kamiya.
It’s one of the human and relatable issues I’ve ever seen Keighley do, and I used to be proper there with him. As I watched the straightforward teaser — which consists of little greater than stirring music, footage of a wolf operating, the Capcom emblem, and Kamiya’s identify — I too did a little bit cry.
Let me clarify. Okami, which got here out in 2006, is an efficient recreation. It’s a Zelda-style action-adventure a few celestial wolf god who runs round preventing spirits together with her flaming disc and fixing issues for flummoxed villagers. It has stunning visuals impressed by conventional Japanese illustration; the characters are outlined in thick, inky black brushstrokes and stuffed in with delicate washes of watercolor.
I reviewed Okami for Edge journal on the time and gave it a 9 out of 10, a rating I stand by. I wouldn’t name it one in all my favourite video games, although; it’s overlong and might be clunky, and I wouldn’t select it over at the very least a half-dozen of the perfect Zelda video games.
But right here’s the factor — Okami represents a really particular time in gaming, when main Japanese studios specifically have been difficult themselves to develop the inventive vernacular of video video games. It additionally represents the partial failure of that dream, as a result of it didn’t promote very properly and sunk the distinctive Capcom studio that made it, Clover. Clover’s fall prompted the departure of Kamiya, Shinji Mikami, and others from Capcom to kind PlatinumGames.
For Capcom to hunt redemption by reuniting with Kamiya (who has named his new studio Clovers) and funding an Okami sequel tells me that the spirit of these days wasn’t fully stamped out. It additionally tells me — as a result of Capcom is a enterprise, in any case — that the varied reissues of Okami have offered properly sufficient over time to justify this transfer, and to show to Capcom how short-sighted it had been.
Watching the announcement of the Okami sequel, I used to be moved by the good music, carried out by a dwell orchestra. I used to be wowed by the putting new visible route, which ditches the ink outlines for heat splashes of painterly coloration. I used to be thrilled by the animation of the wolf god Amaterasu pelting throughout the panorama. But, like Geoff, I actually was emotional due to what this announcement means.
The Game Awards livestream reduce from a glowing Keighley to Kamiya within the viewers, wanting on impassively from behind his crimson shades. No doubt the notorious Twitter troll was mentally blocking Geoff for his sentimental weak point. I assume he’ll have to dam me too, now.
