There are few games that make me want to cry. Okami came close.

While the touching ending could be considered sappy, I found it to be very appropriate to the spirit of the game. When you have a game about Gods and demons, it is difficult to make something that is not based around fantastic violence or faith. Okami’s ending incorporated both.

The theme of faith has been an undercurrent in the game, but it really rises to the surface at the end. People who believe in the power of the wolf help empower her throughout the game. The wolf is touching in its realism, and, as an animal lover, I find it amazing that the game created so much personality for the wolf without hearing her thoughts.

So what made me want to cry? It wasn’t the heartwarming faith message. It was beauty. At the end, you are able to see the wolf in a different form. The majesty, the music, and the miracle of it all is almost overwhelming in its artistry. It is a rewarding experience in itself.

I would love to recommend this game to anyone I could, but I feel that I can’t. The sheer amount of time necessary to appreciate the reverent tone and subtle humor of Okami will make it inaccessible for many people. I logged 54 hours and eight minutes. Although that included many sidequests, that type of dedicated gaming is not for the average person.

When the game finally ended, I was satisfied by the final fight and the conclusion. The story felt solid. Thinking back on my experience, I felt that the mini-games were frustrating at times, but those required to continue were never ridiculously tiresome like those in Kingdom Hearts II. I finally did find Moley’s treasure eventually and was able to complete the quests I really cared about.

Perhaps one of the best aspects of Okami was the fact that dying was more of an annoyance that a danger. I think I only died once in the whole game. If you fell off a cliff, you would only lose a portion of your life. This lead me to always have a sense of security, which fit the game, as the character was a God and should not be defeated by such a paltry setback.

I really enjoyed Okami and hope that my future gaming experiences can live up to it.  

I was playing through Okami this weekend when I heard of a special treasure area called “Moley’s Treasure Trove.” My source told me to look for “a large, circular slab of rock at Taka Pass.” Sounds easy enough, right?

Apparently, you had to use the Digging Champ (advanced digging) ability to find this. I looked at the large, circular slab of hard ground by the moles (thinking the name implied that it would be close to Moley, the mole leader). I dug and dug, but the ground yielded nothing but a couple of inkpots and some food. I was disappointed, but I still held out hope that this treasure would prove easy money and be just a few footsteps away.

I ran around Taka pass, gradually exploring a wider and wider radius. I dug around every rock that was remotely circular. After finding no treasure troves, I went back to a side area of Taka Pass (accessible through a cave) where a I had bloomed a guardian sapling. I found a couple of clovers to bloom but, once again, no treasure trove.

In desperation, I looked to the internet for help. While a web search for “Moley’s Treasure Trove” yielded few results, I did find one clue. It appeared that one of the digging champ spots WAS in Taka Pass by someone/something named Bingo. I was very excited, despite the fact that I was not sure who Bingo was. I assumed that it was the little dog I fed and went back to the game.

Once I found the little dog, I ran around and around but to no avail. I was so thoroughly disappointed by what I had hoped would be a simple treasure hunt that I quit for the day. I had spent nearly an hour running around looking for something that definitely wasn’t worth the time.

As I look back, I can see how I was sucked into what was perhaps an unintentional addictive game element. While extras such as this treasure trove are meant to be somewhat elusive (if not time-consuming), I had taken on the typical addict’s view of “it’s just around the next corner” or “just one more try.” I hate that part of myself sometimes, because I lose sight of what’s really important (in terms of the game and my life in general) and become focused sometimes to the point of hindrance. On certain memory mini-games, for example, I could not try more than ten times at once because I would no longer be able to keep track of all the elements. One such games involved remembering the order in which I had to kill the five thieves, and after ten tries, I had been holding the order for fifty separate thieves in my short-term memory.

In the end, I left Moley’s Treasure Trove alone and decided to move on. Even if I had stupidly missed something, it was not worth my time anymore. I shut off the game in my frustration and took a break.