Also, the green “fairy” is a boy.. Issun is a boy name.. Plus I don’t think girls hide in wood sprites’ robes lol

I’m on my third round, since you unlock bonus things when you beat it, like art galleries (my favorite!), level design, music tracks, and so on. I love the game very much, and I hope you end up liking it a little

that makes 100% sense, because i tried many different ways but ‘m pretty sure that i did not directly invert the stroke (”hit from left to right” and i’m doing it right to left). from a technical point of view this can even make some (quirky) sense. but still, i was so annoyed on that evening, i just didn’t think “technical” about it.

so, thank you – now i HAVE the chance to continue play … whenever i want. and that’s probably more the problem here

The issue with the cutting of the rock, though – that was also a big frustration for me. I eventually figured it out through GameFAQs, which is a lame way to get through a tutorial. Here’s the trick: it IS a bug. But not how you think. In the Wii version of the game, cutting things requires that you make a stroke IN THE EXACT OPPOSITE DIRECTION FROM THE ONE THEY TELL YOU TO USE. It seems so simple once someone tells you, like “why didn’t I think of that?” but the truth is, never in your right mind would you think the game might deliberately fool you like that. So you don’t try it. End of story.

And to top it all off, it IS the only time the slashing technique is super sensitive. So that’s a double whammy.

You should definitely go back and play a couple more hours of it, just to get a feel for how beautiful the visuals are capable of being. But the game suffers from a great number of design flaws beyond what the tutorial has to offer, so I doubt you’ll get much beyond a few hours in – which is where I stopped. I think I was by a waterfall or something. I don’t know. Tree were attacking me for some reason. Skipping the dialogue meant I had no incentive to keep going, so it doesn’t bother me that I ended the game in an incomplete state.

So it’s a hell of a boss fight in the first place, then you get to run around this village, liberated from the generations-long dread that this legendary nemesis will return and destroy the place. They’re celebrating, drunk, dancing, the music is ebullient, and the villagers are SO HAPPY. It’s really one of the best game narrative moments I can recall.

that reminds _me_ of nearly every final fantasy that i own. i never played it through, but i have an anoying savegame at the last / next-to-last boss fight.

At the beginning I had problems at the wooden fence which came AFTER the rock.

You mentioned that the camera angle is hindering the painting. Are you saying that painting the remaining gap while already in the river is a problem? If so, why? In general I’d agree that the level design should suggest better perspectives in the first place. The fact that you can adjust the camera during the paint mode will be communicated only later IIRC. How’s the control on the Wii btw? Since PS2 uses the right A-stick for the camera.

Checking out the game again reminds me of that unfortunate save game of mine that has me trapped in the final boss level. Still annoys the hell out of me.

I don’t want to come across as a fan boy and see valid points for your annoyances. Actually I almost forgot your show stopper, I had the exact same problem with slashing those rocks, got annoyed as hell but still powered through. Interestingly, gesture recognition was never that problematic later on in the game (though still occasionally failing, as I mentioned). The oversensitivity (or whatever that is) of the Wiimote is something I’ve read about already (so you’re not alone!) but not experienced myself, though I can imagine that the wrist angle you need to hold for painting might be rather uncomfortable. If 3D movements could be accurately tracked without having to point at the screen (not sure if MotionPlus offers that), the ability to paint in broad strokes (think conductor-style movements) might be the solution. But unrealistic for a port of a poor-selling game.

Not properly communicating the quasi-mode (the “you have to hold it!”) is definitely a design failure, even if I wasn’t annoyed by that.

Re: the fake voices, I think Banjo Kazooie did that definitely. Zelda 64, apart from the annoying fairy, worked with short sounds which only start each sentence if I remember correctly. Anyway, the Okami-rendition of it didn’t bother me that much, though I’d prefer a more toned-down sound (e.g. A Link To The Past) as well. I do think it’s appropriate for that extremely cartoony look, more so than for the Zelda series.

The long introductory sequences must have been acceptable to me as well, as they didn’t leave any “gamotional” scars on me – at least in the first run. I remember that I attempted a “New Game +” but the tutorial section actually put me off (not the only reason though). Oh and skipping was only possible on the second run back on the PS2 version.

It’s great to see constructive comments on the text boxes, though I wouldn’t increase the width of them as that actually hurts readability.

I can relate to the blurriness. The problem is twofold: 1. the game incorporates a bit of that low-tech motion blur by reusing the frame buffer. 2. the paper texture overlay essentially adds full-screen noise. Add to that the wild color-palette and the odd clamped dynamic range, you get an awkward kind of reduced readability (that I missed to put my finger on in my original review).

Having said that all, I replied off my memory (and some Internet screens), so I might be wrong as hell. Which is why I’ll pop in the game now. Haven’t seen it on my current TV setup anyway.

Looking forward to read more comments!