Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo O K A M I ~~ The epic tale of a dog that is more praise hungry than a politician. --------------------------------------- BY: zukalous(at)gameintestine(dot)com THIS FAQ CAN ONLY BE POSTED ON THE FOLLOWING SITS: www.gameintestine.com www.gamefaqs.com www.ign.com --------------------------------------- _____________________________________________ | Introduction | I first heard about this game in a certain electronic boutique. I actually thought the game's title was "Oh! Commie!" Visions of me playing as a simple, hardworking proletariat who rises up to become a comrade of Stalin, Mao, Che, and finally Karl Marx danced like Cossacks in my head. I later found out that it was about a god who saves the world. I was disappointed. Then I heard that the God was a dog. I perked up. Then I heard that you fight monkeys. At that moment I stood up and shouted: Okami! then danced like a Cossack. _____________________________________________ | Background of Okami | When playing Okami you have to realize that this game is steeped in Japanese history. A dog really did save Japan 400 years ago from an army of ass- slapping monkeys. Don't worry if you have not heard about this, it is rarely reported by our Western education system. However, playing Okami will catch you up better than any book. Gamespot gave this game a 9.0, which means it is one of the best games available. This game is even rated higher than most books about Japan. In fact, don't read books anymore. This game is so good, you will be able to debate the complicated Japanese politics and culture with the best of them. _____________________________________________ | The Themes of Okami | Okami is not just a video game about a dog that kills evil. There is some genuine depth to the storyline and supporting characters. The following are some of the themes that pop up regularly throughout the game. Think about what they mean and how they relate to the overall story. IDENTITY: Amastura is a God who is visiting Earth in the form of a wolf. She should appear just like a common animal. However, some characters in Okami are able to see through her disguise. Pay special attention as to who sees her for who she is, and who do not. PRAISE: There are miracles afoot in Nippon and everyone is willing to take credit for them. See who steals credit from others. There are many characters that seem like decent people but will claim one of Amastura's miracles as their own. FEMME FATALE: The "deadly woman". There are some powerful women characters in the world of Okami. Some of them will use their charms to make you think they are good but will turn around and use Amastura and Issun for their own gain. Some characters start out seeming to be femme fatales but turn out to be helpful to Amastura. NATURE CONQUERING EVIL: When evil invades nature looses. Notice how the trees die, or natural springs are dried up in the cursed area. Nature arises when good conquers. The nature as good comes out in little things like how Ammy grows plants in her wake. (Rayburn Odom submitted this theme) _____________________________________________ | Gameplay Graph | The following is a graph of how entertaining Okami is. The vertical line is the entertainment factor from 1-10. The number of hours is listed along the bottom. The action that is performed at each moment is listed in the chart below the graph. Okami started very strong but the story stagnated and finally seemed to loose momentum by the end (for a more detailed review, refer to http://www.gameintestine.com). Overall, the game is still highly entertaining and worth your time. 10| 9| ** * 8| * *** * * * * 7| ***** *** *** * * * ** * * 6| ********* **** ** * * ** * * 5|********** ******* * * ***** * * 4|*********** ******** ***** ***** ** * * 3|*************************** ***** ** **** 2|************************************* ****** 1|******************************************** 12345678911111111112222222222333333333344444 01234567890123456789012345678901234 HOURS 1 TUTORIAL 21 SEI-AN CITY AND DOJO 2 KAMIKI VILLAGE 22 PIRATE SHIP 3 HANA VALLEY 23 FOLLOW THE MALLET 4 SHINSHU FIELD 24 SHRUNKEN WORLD 5 AGATA FOREST / WAKA 25 STILL THE SHRUNKEN WORLD 6 HARD WORKING SON 26 THE FIGHT AGAINST BLIGHT 7 EXPLORE TSUTA RUINS 27 BAMBOO GIRL 8 SPIDER BATTLE 28 N. RYOSHIMA COAST 9 SPEEDING LOG 29 INSIDE THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM 10 KUSA VILLAGE 30 INSIDE THE DRAGON 11 5 CANINE WARRIORS 31 FIGHT AGAINST EVIL ROA 12 CANINE WARRIOR GI 32 ONI ISLAND 13 CANINE CHU/JIN 33 FIGHT AGAINST NINE TAILS 14 GALE SHRINE 34 NORTHERN EXPOSURE IN KAMUI 15 CRIMSON HELM 35 NORTHERN EXPOSURE IN WEP'KEER 16 KAMIKI VILLAGE 36 YOSHPET FOREST 17 OROCHI'S APPETIZER 37 GATE OF MISFORTUNE 100 YRS AGO 18 FIGHT OROCHI 38 FIGHT OROCHI AGAIN 19 FESTIVAL 39 WAWKU SHRINE 20 SEI-AN CITY 40 WAWKU SHRINE 41 DEMON OWL TWINS 42 ARK OF YAMATO STORY 43 YUMI 44 ENDING _____________________________________________ | Contents | Title Screen-----------------(#01) Training Mission-------------(#02) Cave of Nagi-----------------(#03) Town Rebirth-----------------(#04) Shinshu Adventure------------(#05) Hana Valley------------------(#06) Explore Shinshu Field--------(#07) Visit Mr. Orange-------------(#08) Restore the trees------------(#09) Have Water Lily, Will Travel-(#10) Hard Working Son-------------(#11) Ume is Lost------------------(#12) Explore Tsuta Ruins----------(#13) Restore Taka Pass------------(#14) Fuse-------------------------(#15) Find the Canine Warriors-----(#16) Remaining Warriors-----------(#17) Gale Shrine------------------(#18) Defeat Crimson Helm!---------(#19) Return to Kamiki Village-----(#20) Kushi's Feelings-------------(#21) Memo to Clover Team----------(#22) Festival---------------------(#23) Checkpoint at Taka Pass------(#24) To The Capital---------------(#25) Wanted Prayer Slips----------(#26) Pirate Ship------------------(#27) A tiny problem---------------(#28) A suspicious Emperor---------(#29) Kaguya's Lament--------------(#30) Kaguya's Memories------------(#31) Himiko, Queen of Nippon------(#32) North Ryoshima Coast---------(#33) Catcall Tower----------------(#34) The Power of Catwalk---------(#35) Find the whirlpool-----------(#36) Land of the Dragonians-------(#37) Inside the dragon------------(#38) Wada's Request---------------(#39) Bad Feeling Confirmed--------(#40) Go to N. Ryoshima Coast------(#41) Lone Wolf vs Evil------------(#42) Shinshu's Rolling Thunder----(#43) Kamui------------------------(#44) Squatters of Ezofuji---------(#45) Icy Wep'Keer-----------------(#46) Return to Wep'Keer-----------(#47) Yoshpet Forest---------------(#48) Gate of Misfortune-----------(#49) Beyond the gate--------------(#50) To the Moon Cave-------------(#51) Take Lika to Ezofuji---------(#52) Oki's Unauthorized Act-------(#53) Rising Yamato----------------(#54) Final Boss Yami--------------(#55) Denouement-------------------(#56) _____________________________________________ | Title Screen (#01) | Exposition. Woman yells clover. Someone paints a scene. Charley Brown's parents seem to be telling this story. Kamiki: a village in Japan is protected a wolf. Then a dragon comes to attack the village. However, the wolf blocks the dragon with a tree. Just believe me on this one because the next part is real cool. The wolf runs around and plants grow behind its feet. Don't let that dog in the house though because I just cleaned the carpet and she always makes flowers grown on EVERYTHING. Screen pulls back and it is "Okami: California Adventure" Push Start! Select New Game. A girl says OKAMI, OKAMI. A paint brush draws a picture of a garden. Kamiki is a hamlet. There are beautiful cherry blossoms and each tree was considered a god. However, the village had dark secrets. Orochi: a fearsome cave-dwelling beast comes around and a young maiden was offered as a sacrifice at the annual festival. With all the maiden sacrificing that festival was probably Lilith Fair. The beast has a body like a mountain and six heads mounted on necks. A wolf named Shiranui patrolled the streets at night. A total jerk-weed named Nagi fights the dog. Then hits something and a monster comes... This really is a lot of back story I may just summarize the rest up with bullet points. - monster is big - man fight the monster - looses - wolf fights the moster - wins - wolf dies - shrine built A girl with a huge pair of... bangs shows up and calls us "wood sprite Sakuya" - oh wait that is her name. She calls out to another god named Okami. As explained, Sakuya is the patron saint of forests, grass, flowers, and cleavage (both breast and butt). She assigns you a small, glowing guide named Navi, I mean Issun. He works blue and will probably say some snarky catch phrases that no one will laugh at. She believes in us, would that make her an Okaminist? _____________________________________________ | Training Mission (#02) | Issun leads you through a training mission that explains such basics as Origin Mirrors, wall jumping, and breaking pots. There will be no house training in this phase. Keep progressing through this whole thing. Learn the controls and keep following the bridges higher and higher. Towards the end of the training, you will encounter the brush technique. A huge constellation will appear and you will need to press R1. With the brush, make a dot at the end of the line - it may take several trials to get it pointed just right. You will make a big dragon that talks like hambone from animal crossing and has a huge piece of toilet paper stuck to its foot. The dragon is Yomigami, the god of rejuvenation. He was stuck in the stars, but your techniques released him. Go back to the gap and press R1 and mash the brush all over the screen to create a stardust bridge to swim across. On your way out, make sure to hit the treasure chest to get the Astral Pouch. Fill the pouch with food and it will revive you. Follow the path up. You will be in a room that with a giant statute of Bob's Big Boy but instead of a burger in his hand, he is holding a bowling trophy. _____________________________________________ | Cave of Nagi (#03) | A Kangaroo rat appears. Its name is Tachigami and it gives you the power of slash - no you do not get the power shred out a version of "Sweet Child of Mine." Instead, you get the ability to draw a straight line and have it hurt, which is far more useful in this game. You will enter into a new battle. Use the slash power on these monkey enemies. When you defeat them, it is explained that the sum power of Princes Skankuya is trapped within a giant peach. Ammy must cut down said peach to release it. Press R1 and slash at the giant peach to break it loose from the tree. Cinematic: The peach falls and explodes like it was filled with an ice-nine variant that cascades out flowers instead - I am going to call it flower- nine. The small bug mentions that he wants to spend time in her kimono, ugh. Well with that over I am going to go rejuvenate myself a sandwich. _____________________________________________ | Town Rebirth (#04) | Because of your totally awesome brush powers, the town has been reborn. Everything has been restored back to normal. Kamiki Village has been isolated by the evil that is engulfing this land. Continue down the path to investigate and find a solution. Explore the nearby area, but when you first get to the village, everyone is totally stoned, not in a Seattle kinda way but in a cursed kinda way. Run through the village until you get to a gigantic boulder. When you try to talk to the man who is stuck in front of it, you will be directed up the hill. Follow the arrow. At the top of the hill, pull out the Ocarina, I mean celestial brush and draw circle in the sky. The circle becomes a sun. The sun is a significant part of Japanese nationality. The word "Japan" translates to "Sun's Origin." The country is also nicknamed "land of the rising sun." Even the dot of the Japanese flag represents the sun. So this sun we drew is a little wink to the game players that this is a Japanese story. If this were a game about America you would draw a giant star in the sky. Of course, after you draw that star, old glory would appear while the Battle Hymn Republic slowly swelled. Then a red, a white and finally a blue painted B1 bomber would fly by to the din of a 21 Patriot Missile Salute. It turns out that Amastura is the name of the sun god who also happens to be you. Issun will start calling you "Ammy" because if you were to make a nickname out of Okami you would get "Commie" and then everyone in red state America would totally flip out. It is a female in Japanese Mythology by the way. Check the Mythology Guide written by ahoujed, it is so well researched that I assume it must have been written for a school book report. You run into a man bouncing a fruit on his head who is named Mr. Orange. All of a sudden some monkeys with Chinese menus stapled to their faces appear and challenge you to a fight. Attack them by using the square button on the controller. The monkeys really are not that hard to defeat. When you are finished, a screen comes up that tells you how much gold you earned during this fight. This is a tax statement you will need to keep track of this when it comes time to fill out your 1040s. After beating the monkeys a lake appears. It turns out that those demon monkeys were preventing this water feature. In return for my water creation I get Praise. Praise, it turns out, is a currency in this game. I think that praise should be a more common collectable. Ammy throughout this game will become a little too praise hungry in my opinion. Based on all the random deeds she will be doing in the name of "praise" it almost feel like she is running for political office. The praise is used to buy upgrades for Ammy. In the first part of this game, I recommend upgrading your hearts, I mean solar cells to at least 4 or 5. Then, buy a single ink upgrade. The money pouch should not be upgraded until mid game - right around the 10 or 15 hour mark. The rest of the upgrades are up to you. In addition to praise, Ammy receives a feedbag of seeds. The seed bag is used to feed the nearby birds. Press the circle button then select the seeds. Cinematic: the bird eats and I watch. This cinematic looks like that scene in every romantic comedy where the two stars run into each other in a park and then kiss for the first time. Don't worry. The dog and bird do not kiss. You can press start or just watch them rotate. Some guy on the GameFaqs forum said that he likes to get stoned and watch that part. I actually would pay to watch that play out. Continue down the path again and head back into the town. The following missions play out like an episode of Petty Coat Junction. You help out the village drunk, help repair farm equipment, and dig up turnips with the village kid. Oh and did I mention that everyone has their own theme music. Go back to the large rock that is located at the far edge of the village. The man trapped there explains how he has no idea why the boulder is stuck there. A Baboon boss appears but this time he plays a giant base. Like most bassists he slaps his ass a lot and is easy to beat up. Attack him when you get the chance and if he turns a pale color use your celestial brush to slash him for massive damage. Just like in real life, you get lots of praise when you defeat the bassist. The man by the rock tells me that only the town warrior Susano can remove this rock. Go get Susano, his house is located just to the west. Notice hose much it resembles a samurai hat. (See a side-by-side comparison at http://gameintestine.com/guides/okami/okami_town_rebirth.html. Inside his house is a large blue pot. Smash it and drop down the hatch under it. The wacky music sounds like the "sorry you lost" music for any game show. Susano is asleep but a head butt will wake him. He claims that it is his "meditation" room but I wonder if "meditating" is code for him "thinking" about that sake lady. Talk to him and you will end up carrying him out of there. Take him to the huge rock so that he can break it. Susano says he will do it but will have to return to his house to train. When you go back to check on him, he has fallen asleep behind his hut. His strength comes from Sake. You need to get him some. The mark of a truly great god is one that will encourage a drunk to drink more. Not only do you (as a god) encourage his consumption, but you go on the Sake run for him. You think this is strange, in a few more levels you go to a frat party and do keg stands. Sake, since most of my readers are probably 12 (only losers drink underage), is a Japanese alcohol made of fermented Rice. Don't feel like you are missing out, because the stuff tastes like someone poured you a glass of water that was run through a Brita filter made of dish rags, dust bunnies, and flowers. Go west to a small rice field and talk to the sake lady. She would love to give you the sake but first she has to polish the rice. Turn around to the small hut by the river, and use the restore brush stroke to complete the broken water wheel. It is easiest to go across the river to get a better view of the wheel. It will take a couple tries to get the game to recognize your drawing. She will give you "Vista of the Gods" sake. Press the bite button to pick it up (more games need a bite button) and take it over to Susano. Not since Christ turned water to wine have we had such heavenly sent spirits. Susano is now ready for his training. After each of his sword swings, use the celestial brush to slash the targets because Susano can't even break training dummies. Some gods use their powers to move the heavens or to end oppression, but Ammy is the type of god that uses her powers to erase inadequacies. When complete, Susano lifts the sword up like he is Bob's Big boy. Wasn't there a statue just like that? Back at the large boulder, Susano approaches thinking that he can destroy it. You have to help him once again. The boulder breaks and the path is clear. Note: Pay close attention to the next scene because you will see a tooter. Skankuya appears looking even skankier than last time. Did you see the butt? - a screen shot of it was even posted on kotaku.com. Also pay attention to the extra boob jiggle animation. She can't muster a reward because she doesn't have the strength to make a flower bloom - is this an innuendo? She explains the Guardian Saplings: trees that collect praise and adoration to give her strength. So she is a praise junkie as much as Ammy. There are several other saplings that feed off the main one. She has actually set praise franchises around Nippon - much like a Starbucks. Ammy's mission is to clear out the saplings in order to get Skankuya praise. This is actually a lot like ghost writing - I do all the work but she gets all the praise. _____________________________________________ | Shinshu Adventure (#05) | Venture down the newly de-bouldered path. Stop at the shop to buy five each of seeds, meat, herbs, but not fish. There are many animals ahead and you should feed them to feed your own praise ego. Always buy gold dust when you see it for sale. Apply it to your favorite weapons to strengthen it because as Liberace like to demonstrate, anything covered in gold is better. Issun talks, "This place is definitely cursed from the looks of it" - yah no doubt, it looks like a Trent Reznor video. Issun then says "This is a cursed zone" - just like Wriggly Field... BOOM! We will need to revive some more of praise sucking Guardian Saplings for princes Skankuya. In fact, there is a tree right there in the middle of Shinshu field. Examine it. Issun says "we need something that will help it bloom." Ammy can not do anything with it at this time, so head towards the house on the west side of the field. Enter the adjacent cave. Ammy's next destination is Hana Valley because apparently there is a crystal ball there that makes plants grow. Enter that gig white vortex that looks like an iris. _____________________________________________ | Hana Valley (#06) | Break the chest to get a talisman that increases godhood up a level. Godhood is a shield that you get as you chain your combos. The icon in the bottom left corner of the screen is your godhood indicator. You loose all Godhood when hit. So it is good to use this talisman if you are down to no health. There are several monsters having a wash party around fire. They are drinking out of a gold bowl and they look to be having a pretty good time and minding their own business. Ammy, needs to kill them because, well, I guess they don't worship her? Get to a big moving tree. Issun explains how to deflect the projectile buds right back at the tree. Once they are knocked out leave it alone - you can't do anything with it now. Camera focuses on a red symbol thus proclaiming its importance. Battle against a drum playing monkey. The drumming monkey's key technique is to hide underground thus wasting valuable killing time. When it is above ground, use the brush and scribble on it to temporarily blind him. The monkey will not go underground while blinded, so use this time to beat on him. When he returns to his normal color, paint him again to keep him above ground. The red symbol blows up. Susano is here and he is all pissy. He says he has to train. Go towards the painting and stand on the stone circle. Press the examine button to and it is strongly hinted that something is missing from the painting. Since you only know three brush strokes, it must be one of them. I suggest a circular one. Then, for no logical reason, your completing the painting destroys the stone blocking the doorway. Follow Susano, double jump up that wall. Cinematic: Another sapling, but this one makes a blooping sound when it moves. Pan to a blue puddle. This means that I am going to have to do something with that sapling then, do something with the blue puddle. Examine it and Issun says "there is a faint scent like Sakuya's coming from this sapling". Why does everything that is said about Sakuya sound dirty? Examine the pond then run down stairs and slash thought the gate. There is Susano and a big drunk bear with a leaf attached to its head. It is standing on a ball that looks like the one from Men In Black that contains the universe. Susano must be getting his sake hangover now because his head throbs as he explains why he must destroy the bear. Follow Susano around and use the brush slash. Susano mentions that he was using his new "technique" - which must be "attacking helpless animals". The bear falls down and Susano runs off again. Go over to the ball and examine it. Issun gives another not so subtle hint about what to do next. Really, I don't know why I am writing this FAQ. Just do whatever Issun says I am going to make another sandwich. Push the ball up to the altar and then draw sun in the sky above it. Watch the cinematic and draw another constellation. A monkey wearing a fez and holding a World Series trophy appears. Its name is Sakigami of the Hanagami. You get the BLOOM ability. Draw a circle on the plant. An animation plays that actually looks like flowers are desperately running away as if someone dropped a bucket of Roundup weed killer. Issun reminds you of the dead tree in Shinshu Field. You are done with Hana Valley at this point so return to the field. On your way back, there is a chest containing a scroll about digging. The scroll recommends pressing the triangle button to dig where you see a light shinning on the ground. This will reveal a clover which will bring you much praise. A clover eh? Handy, considering the studio that made this is named Clover. By the way, Clover Studio was just shut down by Sony. Notice, that across the bank is one of those lights. Dig with triangle to unearth the clover. Draw a circle on it to bring it to life. Back at Shinshu Field, walk over to the guy who is just wandering around. I love the question mark above his head. That is exactly what should appear over everyone's heads when they get that "what the f?" look. You would know what I am talking about if you have seen the movie "Night Watch." I just rented it last night. In it, vampires fight over earth and there is a stuffed owl that turns into a woman and a CEO performs surgery on his desk and then straps a belt around his head to look inside another guy's soul. I highly recommend. Return to the centrally located sapling that you examined before. Use the bloom stroke around the dead tree. Bloom cinematic. All of a sudden it is like the Japanese version of The Sound of Music. Cinematic; Suyana's tree grows and apparently she gets aroused when this happens. _____________________________________________ | Explore Shinshu Field (#07) | Ever on a public relations campaign, Ammy decides to tour the key landmarks of Nippon. As such, you will be required to visit three locations around Shinshu Field. If you hold L2 a map will indicate the 3 places (circled in red). Visit each as follows. -- Bomb Shop -- The Bomb Shop visit must be done at night. If it is day time, go to the other two stops and return here when it is night time. Get there by traveling along the path that is north east of the bridge. The sign outside says "Super Pyrotechnist Tama's House." I like the idea of putting "super" in front of my name. Try it: "Super Technical Writer Christopher." I have a theory that combining three things that are totally incongruous will make the sum total of them scary. Take for instance The Chainsaw Massacre: Business Suit + Chainsaw + Deformity = Leatherface. Or try Pins + Blue Skin + Moby = Hell Raiser's Pinhead. http://gameintestine.com/guides/okami/okami_explore_shinshu.html My three part theory explains why this next monster you fight totally freaks me out. Butterfly + fish + straight jacket = the dead fish. When you fight it, clip his wings by slashing him with the brush. When he is near death he may try to grab and strangle you - just slash him with the brush if it happens. He is not hard to kill but boy does he give me the heebie-jeebies. Go inside and talk to Tama. It looks like the bombs are not the only things that are smoking. And by smoking I am talking about buddha. He introduces himself as Flaming Pyrotechnist Tama. He needs help firing his rockets. The camera shifts to an overhead view of a giant table. Draw a circle with a line coming out of it, like indicated. Cinematic: Ammy runs outside and jumps at the fireworks. Stop and watch this because it is the cutest cinematic I have seen in a long time. I want to have that animation ready any time I feel a little crappy. Draw the constellation and see a giant bore walking around on a bomb. You get the Cherry Bomb. You can test this new ability out on the wall just outside the bomb shop. It is also pretty handy against enemies. -- Dojo -- Head up the hill to the dojo. It is located along the Western side of the field. The head of the Dojo does a big dance and brings fire. The drumming is very intense. He offers to teach you some techniques. Buy every one that you can afford. When he teaches the technique he takes you back into a room filled with bamboo and tatami mats - it looks like the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki room. Practice the moves and then leave. Return here regularly to learn new techniques for the weapons you will eventually collect. -- Moon Shrine -- Head to the Moon Shrine. It is the Eastern Red Circle. You descend into a path with a series of golden gates. There is a small shrine with a sign informing you that purpose of it is to purify visitors before heading to the moon cave. You would think a cave would be dirty and you would not need to be clean for it, but not this one. Enter and meet Mika. He tells you that Lake Harami is Nippon's largest lake. The cave disappeared when a sword that kept demos at bay was taken. Waka guarded the cave. Mika gives you "Mika's Monster Notebook" which is a list of monsters you should kill. This is the same way that Richard Nixon got his enemies list. Leave the Moon Shrine and Toya of the Short Temper appears. Toya is pretty easy to beat, nothing special, just attack him. This will be the first monster you have defeated on the list. Continue further down the path towards the lake. Instead of a big cave, there is a big mountain. Ascend the mountain and note how much the path looks like Disney's Haunted Mansion. At the gate to the mountain there is a large red force field here. Cant do anything to it. _____________________________________________ | Visit Mr. Orange (#08) | Ammy finishes her PR tour of the outer lands and returns to her old bread and butter, Kamiki Village to perform more good deeds. I think Ammy returns to the town because she is aware that some form of a bible will be written about her miracles. This trip is probably just to cover all her bases and ensure that someone sees what she is doing. From Shinshu Field, go northwest to Kamiki Village. If you talk to Kushi, the sake lady, she will tell you to find Mr. Orange on the observation deck. Go there by heading up the hill northwest of town. Mr. Orange is waiting at the wooden platform. Last weekend, I went to a wedding and I swear that there was an old man dancing just like Mr. Orange. The game designers really did a number on the motion capture, well done. Mr. Orange lectures you about disturbing the villagers. He starts dancing again but luckily there is a skip button this time. He asks if Ammy has witnessed the figure of Konohana? She has been withered and leafless - is he trying to imply she is barren? Shame on him. But, he claims to have revived her. He begs Ammy to watch him dance again. Follow along and draw circles around each cherry bud. Mr. Orange is proud of what he has done. So why does Ammy keep making these people feel like they are doing something? Is she trying to make the losers feel better, like they are actually contributing? Maybe she really is a Commie. _____________________________________________ | Restore the trees (#09) | Ammy gets sucked into working on a city beautification campaign. Using the bloom technique re-grow the dead trees that line the village. Starting from the observation deck, draw a circle around each black tree that is wrapped with a bow. The dead trees are all along the path that leads to the village and even in the village itself. There are 15 of them total and if you talk to Komuso (he wears a bucket, which I think is worn to stop the notes from seeping out of his head - it is not working) he will tell you how many trees are left to bloom. The ironic thing is that making a dead tree bloom is quite a miraculous feat yet it yields only 1 praise point. Feeding birds, which even old people can do, earns you up to 9 points. (This inconsistency would be situational irony by the way) When every tree has been brought back, return Mr. Orange. His sitting makes me feel kinda strange. He does the dance of the Konohana tree and holds up the "sake of Valor" - which has the face of Satin on it. He drinks it then gets totally wasted. His "orange" grows quite large. Maybe it wasn't "Sake of Valor" but actually "Sake of Viagra." Remember this game is rated T for Teen. Skankuya appears and somehow manages to wear even less clothing than the last two times we saw her. She thanks the old man; not Ammy mind you. She has been re-energized. She then says something that I swear was once a slogan for Glade Pug-ins: "May the fresh scent of flowers protects you always!" Cinematic: It is dark and starts raining pedals. There is a new constellation that represents a monkey with a top hat. I get the power of the Water Lillies? Wow, what a crappy new ability. Ammy is battling the forces of evil in hand to hand combat and the most appropriate miracle is water lily? Also, is this the third miracle that involves drawing a circle. It is four if you count the bomb as one. Couldn't the designers have worked in a figure eight or at least an X? _____________________________________________ | Have Water Lily, Will Travel (#10) | Continue through Kamiki Village to Shinshu field. Press L2 and proceed to the red spot indicated on the map. The dock here leads to Agat Forest. Ammy must have both the lily and cherry bomb power to proceed. Jump in the water and swim through the cave. When the swirl icon above Ammy's head starts to shrink, draw a circle around her and she will miraculously be standing on a lily pad. Swim some more and draw another lily when you are low on energy. At the end of the cave is a cracked wall, draw a bomb on it. Agata Forest is totally filled with curse smoke. Keep close to the path and wind your way around to the caves underneath. Cinematic: There is a house in the cave. Go in to the house and talk to Madame Fawn. Listen to her speech. If you pay her for a fortune you just get a tip for where to go next. Ammy must clear out the smoke by blooming another sapling. Head out from the fortune teller and run along a very narrow path that is hidden just next to the curse smoke. At the end of the path is a cave containing the sapling. Draw a circle around it and see the plant growing cinematic again which is what happens every time you use Fabreeze. Open the nearby chest; there are "Devout Beads" inside. Leave the cave and notice how the curse smoke has been transformed into the set of Fern Gully. A kid named Waka appears and introduces himself. He has a mullet but instead of party in the back, business in the front, it is party in the back, eagle skull in the front. He is French because he punctuates big statements with cliched French words like Bonjour, Oui, and Maurice Chevalier. He is also a Taoist. Waka reminds me of that kid in school that no one liked because he carried that stench of trying too hard. That kid also got in a lot of fights. This is funny, because our next boss battle is against Waka. ### BATTLE AGAINST WAKA AND PILLOW TALK######### - Stay on land because if you get in water you can't avoid his attacks. - If you have the beads equipped as your secondary weapon, shoot him. - Avoid his very slow bullets by jumping out of the way. - Go in for short melee attacks then jump back to avoid his counter- attacks. - When he falls over and turns a mud color, use the bomb and slash miracles. Post Waka cinematic: Waka says "Quite some time since I've tasted your power" - that must be the pillow talking. He gives more back story about swords, curses, prophecies - standard spiritual babble. Waka can also see the future (of course) and prophesizes that I will see "a log and big thrills". That to me means Splash Mountain. Pillow Talk, in case you don't know, are the sweet whispery things couples talk about after they have sex. Maybe it is a joke on the part of the translators because the sword will "put you down." Waka then gives us the hang ten because besides being a flute playing French Taoist with visions of the future he is also eXtreeme! I bet he listens to a lot of Nickleback. Waka runs off which means we will unfortunately see him again. _____________________________________________ | Hard Working Son (#11) | I really enjoy this next chapter because there are some pretty interesting dynamics between two non player characters. A father, Karude, attempts to let his son, Kokari, grow up by giving him more responsibility. At the same time the son tries to grasp this new freedom. As a go-between for two of them, you hear both sides of the story and help both of them explore their evolving relationship. The dialog and the implications of their actions results in a true advancement for videogame story telling. The character's emotions feel very multi-dimensional and I could really empathize with both of them. This part of the game is more real to me than any scene rendered by a tera-flopped, pixel-shaded, next-generation console. Find Karude - he has a bear on his head and is looking around. Karude gave his son a big project to build a bridge to Kusa Village. He has not seen the boy in a while but does not want to check on him because he wants the son to learn from his own mistakes and evolve on his own. Ammy could actually learn a lesson here and just let Susano realize on his own that his sword is not magic and that he can not hack training dummies, rocks or even bears with it. _____________________________________________ | Ume is Lost (#12) | The son, Kokari, is fishing along the banks of the great abyss. Kokari was worried about the bridge project and so he and his dog explored the Tsuta Ruins. The dog got trapped inside and the key to the ruins fell into the great abyss. Note the lack of responsibility. Did I mention that Kokari is also a total brat? Issun lectures the kid about his inaction to fix what he broke. Speaking for us, Issun says we will not be there to solve the problems for the kid (which is a first considering that we have been micromanaging every personal problem in the greater Nippon region). However, we decide to help the kid find his dog by unearthing the submerged ruins key. Follow Issun's fishing steps to catch two fish. The third one will be the great salmon. When caught, the salmon vomits the ruins key. Kokari really wants it, but silly rabbit-head, ruin keys are for gods. Use the bite button to take the key over to the ruins (which are circled on your map). If you drop the key, the kid will steal it and you will have to return to deep abyss and head butt him to get it back. _____________________________________________ | Explore Tsuta Ruins (#13) | The Tsuta Ruins: A wonka-esque river of chocolaty cursed water dominates the main room. A huge statue occupies the middle. Use the nearby save mirror. Veer east to the next room. Continue following the hallway as it dog legs north (pun not intended please just ignore it). You will see a large round stone, ignore it too. A giant flower with legs will attack. Start attacking him with melee attacks and/or long distance shooting. Circle him to bloom his flower. Then attack his nougaty center. At the end of the room is one of those cliched floor triggers. When did triggers become a regular part of the video game cannon? Everyone knows you have to put something heavy on it. I think it is a game designer trick to pad out their dungeons. The required heavy object is located at the top of the room, roll it down and onto the trigger. Note the small figurines surrounding the trigger. They are called Haniwa and have a real-life equivalent. Ancient Japanese would make them to accompany the buried dead. I visited Montreal this summer and saw an exhibit on them. For pictures see http://gameintestine.com/guides/okami/okami_tsuta_ruins.html The picture is of a farmer, notice the amount of emotion they were able to get out of just a few slits in his face. I really think that one of the defining features of Japanese art is their ability to express so much emotion with minimal lines. Key point: look what they can do with Anime. You may also recognize the Haniwa as the Gyroids in Animal Crossing. Because the Haniwa are grave markers and they are located throughout the Tsuta Ruins, it implies that Tsuta is really a series of catacombs. Cinematic: There are now two of the flower guys to fight. Same battle strategy. If they shoot small pellets at you, brush slash it to send it right back at them. After being hit by the reflected pellet the beasts will immediately be vulnerable to your bloom brush technique. Look up, there is a hole in the roof of the cave. Make a sun in this space to make the mushrooms on the tree stump grow. Wall jump onto the lowest mushroom and jump up to the rest. Run to the small alcove to the left and bomb your way through the glowing crack. Continue through the next two doors. Cinematic: a long winding path. This cinematic emphasis indicates that something is going to happen to it. Yup, they start collapsing behind you. Run all the way to the door. Pass through to the next room and there is a dungeon lock. Jump down. Talk to giant stone blocker named Blockhead. Unlock him by head butting him and then drawing brush spots in the exact spot and exact order that is indicated. He was blocking the door that leads back to the main room. Pick up the key item that is in the center of the room. With it in your mouth, jump up the platforms and run up the green tree limbs to bring it up to the lockjaw. Continue through to the next room and when you get to the broken bridge use rejuvenation brush stroke to fill it in. Tip: Hold the triangle button to make the line thicker. Scribble in the open space and fill it in. There will be a big room with three shacks that are the opposites of "love shack" that the B-52s sang about. That would make them "hate shacks". Enter one, fight the monsters, and repeat. When all are defeated, draw another sun to illuminate another mushroomed tree stump. There are pots at the top of the cave that spew purple poison into the rest of the cave. Destroy them. I find this funny because it seems like the pots have no real purpose. Someone wanted to poison the water just to be an A- hole. I mean who would do that, and don't say Halliburton. When the water is clear, jump off the waterfall and follow the current around to the next waterfall. Make lily pads when Ammy is about to sink. Follow the river around until you see a cave entrance that is emanating light. Enter it. Notice the skulls. They belch purple Japanese characters which probably translate to "stink", "fish odor", "tobacco", and "cat urine." Draw a circle around each skull a couple times to clean them up. When all the skulls are clean, the middle of the room will bloom. There is a new constellation to finish that yields a monkey who plays the symbols. With all three of them together Ammy has successfully reunited the Monkees. I think the one with the World Series trophy is Mike Nezbeth. Also, please stop sending me emails telling me the Monkees had four members in the band. They did not, technically, because Davy Jones doesn't count. He didn't even play an instrument. Well none of them did, but Davy didn't even pretend to. The new miracle is the ability to draw vines from blossoms. The technique is a bit difficult at first. I find it is easier start at the flower, then make a bend in the line, and finish the mark at Ammy. Using the new vine technique, hopscotch up the flowers to the door. The door drops you out at the center of the giant statue of the center room. Run up the vine that wraps around the statue. Use the vine grab to get onto the flower floating above. Continue vine grabbing up to the other flowers. The final flower will drop you off on his hat. Tie a vine from the flowers above to each hook on the hat. After the flowers pull up the cap, jump down the hole. Tip: if you fall all the way down to ground level, just wait in the water and drown. You will respawn back up to the door at mid statue level. The interior of the statue head has a save mirror and is flanked with Haniwa. Save, then use the brush stroke technique to make one long stroke through as many Haniwa as you can. It is awesome. Each Haniwa is filled with power ups so this means this is a powerup room. A new mood music starts that sounds like someone is taking sitar lessons. It is getting me totally pumped up for a huge boss fight. Go through the Golden Gate: which is an ancient Japanese architectural feature made for "checkpointing?" Cinematic: Ammy falls like she is in a Warner Brothers' cartoon except there was no "Uh-Oh" sign. There is a huge flower that Issun says is packed with treasure. But we know that it is actually packed with dog. Ammy runs up and saves Issun from the closing flower and does a Matrix jump over the ball of pure power. Issun is ungrateful - Ammy should have let him get hit. Huge tentacles fill the screen. You think it is the big dragon from the Okami introduction and that this is the last boss fight of the game. Wrong! It is only a 60 foot spider queen. The spider queen talks like a composition by Steve Reich and looks like what would happen if Cher became an arachnid. See http://gameintestine.com/guides/okami/okami_tsuta_ruins.html for a diagram of where to hit her ### BATTLE AGAINST SPIDER QUEEN ######### - Avoid all of her attacks by running clockwise around her. - At any time, draw a vine line from one of the nearby flowers to the hook on her abdomen. - When she balances a huge pot on her head, slash it with the brush. - The pot spills on her and she will flip upside down. - Draw a vine line from one of the nearby flowers to the hook on her abdomen. - Connect a second, different flower to a different hook. - Vine Tip: Hold R1 and move the right control stick to get a better view before drawing the vine. - When two flowers have been vined to her abdomen, she will open up. - Open your inventory and use "Steal Fist Sake" right before attacking her - Run up and jump up onto the petals and attack the eyes with either brush slash or melee attacks - When the flowers start to make a rumbling sound, get out: it is closing - Repeat until all the eyes are destroyed. Cinematic: Ammy defeats the devious spider queen. It was mentioned that "a feeling of tranquility reigned throughout the ruins" which seems redundant considering ruins are usually quite uninhabited. Then, Ammy gets "Snarling Beast" which is the giant shuriken from Krull. Then Issun says a total non-sequitur: "Reflector marked with a beastly seal. Grants Ink Bullet power." Issun says "Wonder if this is Ume, you know, the dog that kid was looking for" Nah it was probably that other dog that was running around the evil spider queen's dungeon. You have now defeated your first Okami dungeon. The importance of this level was to establish Ammy's powers of resurrection. The ruins were actually catacombs which represent the underworld. By rescuing Ume from them, you are really bringing him back from the dead. As a god, Ammy was really bringing Ume back to life. Cinematic: Ammy and Issun leave the ruins with the dog. The kid, Kokari, runs up to it and says "Bad Doggie." The dog growls - I like the dog a lot. Issun then uses a lot of words to basically say that the dog hates the kid because the kid is an asshole. I would totally worship a god that goes around telling people that they are assholes. I have a long list of people that need a little one on one time with this god. In all honesty though, I probably would be on that list too. Kokari mistakes our lesson about being an asshole into being a lesson that he was avoiding responsibility. While it is true that he also skips his duties, I think he needs to hear that he is a dick-weed a few more times. Ume gives the kid a fishing pole. Giving a spoiled kid more stuff is not going to teach him anything. It doesn't, because Kokari runs off without even saying thank you. Go to the southern edge of the Agata Forest to the river. Kokari is attempting to repair the bridge by lassoing a rope to the other side of the river bank. Susano comes cascading down the river on a gigantic log. Quickly, use the brush technique to hook everyone onto the log. This next battle will require you to get into D.A.R.Y.L mode. ### BOSS BATTLE: THE SPEEDING LOG ######### - As the log speeds down the river, draw vines from bank's flowers to the hooks. - Pay attention to the camera, as it will favor the side in which the flower will pass. - Before it leaves the screen, press R1 and draw a vine to the log's hooks. - Purposefully drawing a bend in the vine seems to help make the connection. - Repeat this six times. Cinematic: The log stops just before a waterfall and is snapped back Spiderman 2 style. Issue: "thought we were gonners." Like everyone else, the kid takes credit for our miracles. Issun then lectures this kid on being scared and always avoiding adventure. This scene is kind of funny considering everyone playing Okami will be indoors playing video games, thus missing out on said adventures. Me included. Ume hugs the kid and a Japanese character comes flying out. I bet it is the symbol for "precious" because this scene warms my heart a little bit. Really, I am not being sarcastic. Don't forget to feed Ume some meat to get praise. Return to Agata Forest and talk to Karude. He says that he has accepted his son's fate to become a fisherman. Jeeze, Karude, way to really be accepting, its not like fisherman is that much worse than being a hunter. You have a bear on your head. Talk to kid if you want to do more fishing. _____________________________________________ | Restore Taka Pass (#14) | Cross the log that was fell into place as a result of Susano's speeding log shenanigans. The Devine Winds of Taka Pass are not blowing and the villagers are upset. Cinematic: A voice says "The call of the heavens, the earth, the sea, they summon me to defeat evil." Yup, it is Waka again. Yuka! He brags that he can see the future, Insults my killing of the spider, and picks a fight with me again. ### BOSS BATTLE: FIGHT WITH WAKA - DEUX ######### - Use the same tactics as last time. - Stick and move stick and move and join the Nintendo Fun club. - Slash him after he turns a pale tan color. Victory Cinematic: Waka asks if I have been to Lake Harami. Orochi is in the moon cave. The "Serpent Crystal will get you in past the barrier." The big windmill is mentioned. He then gives a prophesy: "Dog-gone difficult quest." Clever pun. By the way I hereby swear not to make any dog related puns; except for that dog-leg one earlier. The map really did dog-leg north though. Issun proposes that we race to the crystal. Run around the spiral ramp and continue out the cave while ignoring the burning piles of leaves because you would have to think "why someone would bring lawn rakings all the way up into here just to burn them" When you reach the broken bridge, use the brush to draw it back in. At the sapling, circle it to bring about the growing animation. Note to the game designers: it was cool the first 3 times, maybe we could shorten up the rest of them. _____________________________________________ | Fuse (#15) | Issun mentions that there was "something up in the mysterious windmill." Anything with the word "mysterious" is going to be hiding something. Go to the South of Taka field and enter Kusa Village. According to Issun "there is a mild creepy attitude to the place." Note that the "creepiness" will also slowly drain your ink wells. Talk to the Merchant located at the entrance of the town and purchase 5 bags of meat feed. Landmarks of note in Kusa: a wasted Susano wallowing in a road in the southern area of the village. He has regressed into a burrowing state. Issun questions Susao's warrior abilities and I question why we haven't taken him to AA. Venture into the southwest borough of Kusa by following the path up and around to a covered bridge. On the other side of the bridge is a temple that is watched after by Princess Fuse (what a spark!) She tells you that it is her fault for letting the curse in. A flying monkey attacks you. You may be out of ink power at this point which means you will temporary loose whatever weapon you had equipped. The good news is that without weapons, Ammy resorts to kicking. The most surreal battle will play-out when a dog literally kicks the crap out of a possessed monkey (I still laugh thinking about it.) After the battle, Fuse asks "Are you familiar with my family, the Satomi House?" - no but if you hum a few bars. Issun makes some sexist remarks and then she explains that when the winds stopped, the monsters were able to enter the village. Crimson Helm is one of these monsters. The Satomi Canine Warriors can restore them by defeating him. The princess gives me a radio with her high school graduation tassel on the end. It will track the lost dogs of Satomi Canine Warriors. Ammy must reunite the Canines to beat back Crimson Helm. _____________________________________________ | Find the Canine Warriors (#16) | -- Dog 1: Canine Warrior Ko -- Run back towards Kusa village but note the flower floating above the path just before it leads into some stairs. Draw a vine to it and bring yourself up. Run along the platform and jump into the cave that opens onto the deck. Inside the dog basically says "GRUMBLE GRUMBLE."&& Press start and access the meat feed bag. This is Canine Warrior Ko and he returns to Princess Fuse. -- Dog 2: Canine Warrior Shin -- From the dead fountain in the center of Kusa Village, walk North. Talk to the girl watering the ground wondering why things wont grow. Draw a couple circles to make the flowers bloom and a dog appears. It makes little sense but at least you found another dog. It will ask for food too. -- Dog 3: Canine Warrior Rei -- On the bridge that leads back to Princess Fuse's temple, the dog detector will go crazy. Jump over the side of the bridge and land in a small clearing where Komuso is sitting. There is a bomb crack nearby. Bomb it and you will see the next Canine. Feed it too. -- Dog 4: Canine Warrior Chi -- From Komuso's clearing, jump down to the path and continue west to Mr. Bamboo. Walk past him and his hut to a huge bamboo sprout that has a mandorla (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandorla). Use the brush to slash the bamboo down. Examine the stump then feed the dog. -- Dog 5: Canine Warrior Tei -- Return to the Princess Fuse's temple. Sitting on the front lawn of the temple is an old dog that looks like what would happen if Beethoven physically received all the attacks the critics laid on Beethoven's Third (Road Trip). The dog challenges you to a fight. Select Yes. ### BOSS: FIGHT WITH DOG ######### - If you see the dog flash, start dodging, he will strike for much damage. - The dog will be stunned for a few seconds after a flash attack. Bomb him. - Melee attack when he is not flashing. - Hit the "Steel Fist Sake" to make the battle go by faster. - When he is almost dead he will loose all color. Finish him with the brush. The princess is looking for eight orbs to break the seal to the cave. Each dog carries one of those orbs around its neck. The orbs floating around her have changed color to represent the dogs' return. I wonder how she sleeps at night with those orbs constantly rotating around here head like that. Maybe she always sleeps face down. _____________________________________________ | Remaining Warriors (#17) | Get ready for some serious designer padding. Rather than granting you access to the cave where this Crimson Helm resides, I have to tack down three more dogs. Not only that, but Dog 6 suffers from some major scavenger hunting. With that said, now is the time to go the bathroom, grab a beer (or milk if appropriate), put on a little mood music and hunker down for some shameless game clock stretching. -- Dog 6: Canine Warrior Tei -- Princess Fuse circled the locations of the three additional dogs on your map. Go to Sasa Sanctuary, which is located at the extreme northern end of Taka Field. The sanctuary is a spa run by the sparrow clan. An eye patch wearing (awesome) sparrow named Big Daddy Jamba won't let Ammy pass until she finds his daughter. The sparrow is being held by the animal hating, white trash couple called the Cutters. They want to eat her. The couple is located in the center of the field. I find the Cutters endearing. Sure they live in squalor, but everyone else in this game has such painfully traditional Japanese houses that I think we need someone to give the f-you to the home owner's association. When you enter their filth pit, watch out because the old man will slash at you. For fun, let him hit you a couple times - it makes me laugh. Also, head over to the well and examine it. Issun cautions that the water may give you the runs. I think this was the first honest-to-Ammy poop joke in video game history. Send me an email if you know of any other game, but I think this is the first. Run around to the back of their shack and run up the fallen log. Note the depression on the roof. Draw a bomb on it. From there jump down and talk to the old lady. She will talk about moonlight being bad. If it is daytime when you are at the shack, go do something else and return here at night. If it is night, press triangle and drag here into the moonlight. Note the wall - it is just like that Cat Stevens song - "moonshadow." The couple will turn into birds and you will fight them simultaneously. The fastest way to defeat them is let them dive bomb you and use the snarling beast as a shield. Press block before they it you and it will tear them up real fast. You kill the old people and free the bird - FREEBIRD! So what moralistic lesson can be gleamed from Ammy's slaughtering these old people? How are people going to interpret this action in Ammy's bible? The cutters were bad? Well, they were just carnivores. Their house was dirty? Does that mean keep your room clean or god will damn you. After the battle, the sparrow daughter Chun appears. She gives Ammy a hug. I just want to stop right here and say that there is nothing cuter than two animals hugging. No! Scratch that. There is nothing cuter than two animals from different species hugging. It is so cute that pandas appear wretched to me now. Chun needs an escort back to the Inn. Run back to the sanctuary, don't worry, she will keep up. If you get attacked by demon monkeys, she will wait for you. Cinematic: Ammy brings back the sparrow girl. The birds sound like robots. She bombards Big Papa with hugs. Cute yes, but not as cute as her hugging a dog, am I right? Big Papa opens the door for you. Continue through gate and past the curtains. The Sanctuary is a hotel run by sparrows. Go to the end of the central lobby and up the elevator. Big Papa is waiting in the throne room for you. He lets you take everything in the chests. Clean him out even though most of the stuff seems like yard sale fodder - example: a wooden bear? Check out each room in the inn as there is stuff to steal from guests. Return to the ground floor and exit out the side door. It leads to a hot spring. In a sub-sub-plot, the spring has run dry. A bird is dancing/praying with flame sticks in an effort to bring it back. After talking to the bird, Mr. Bamboo shows up. Follow his directions to play a digging mini game. Cinematic: The spring returns and the bird will "dance the hot spring hop forever more!" New Constellation: Draw 3 stars to make a jug that is filled with a snake. The snake whimpers like a dog? Name: Nuregami, God of water. First test: putting out a flaming bird. When you have doused it, draw a water line straight up from the splashing water and you will be shot up to the high ledge. Issun mentions that its sole purpose is to make sound, but that is false. It is a deer scare - I first saw it in Animal crossing. I also saw one at the Japanese Friendship Gardens in San Diego's Balboa Park (http://www.niwa.org/). They called it a boar scare. Draw a water spout to the giant deer scare. It will open the door. Enter it and go up the long pathway. The mist with the bamboo overhang is quite pretty. Now in a sub-sub-sub-plot a bird named Tai is crying because her dog Take is lost. Out comes the tracker. Go up the long path to some disco bamboo. I never realized it but Bamboo flashes when you put a dog inside it. Time it so that you go to brush mode and slash the bamboo in mid flash. After extracting him from the bamboo, fight Canine Warrior Gi. The battle is almost the same as the last dog you fought. - Stand back when he digs because he is truly kicking dirt in your face. - He will flash then zip across the ground, hurting you if you are in its path. Dodge at all costs. - A few seconds after his spark-dash he is stunned. Draw a bomb on him. - When he is defeated he lies upside down for a bit - it is funny. Cinematic: His "duty" orb flies over Ammy like it is part of a Skittles rainbow. Mr Bamboo stops by because he hears a ruckus. He gives Ammy a mermaid coin. Let's just take a moment to recap the ridiculousness of that last task: Need a dog > go to sanctuary > rescue a bird from carnivores > participate in a digging mini game > rejuvenate a spring > fail to convince a bird to take her dog > fight a dog > return orb to a princess. -- Dog 7: Canine Warrior Hayabusa -- The second dog is located in Shinshu field. The easiest, fastest way there is to use Mr. Bamboo's mermaid coin (if you already used it, the merchant at Kusa Village sells them). There is a portal located just south of Kusa Village. The second dog is Hayabusa (the ninja dog) and is in Ammy's home town of Kamiki village. The dog is just lying there not moving. Repeatedly talk to him and he will respond that he is not talking until you break its hole digging record. Start digging at the lady's turnips (that wasn't supposed to sound dirty). Slash her every time she gets near. She is quite tenacious so you may have to use an inkfinity stone. When you dig up the last turnip, bite it and take it to the kid Mushi. He has a dragon fly tied to a string. Why do I dislike every kid in this game so much? The dog talks and it turns out Hayabusa is just his gamer name, he really is Canine Warror Chu. "Chuyabusa" won't go with me until the festival is over. If you keep talking to him, he will pick a fight with you. ### BOSS: FIGHT WITH CHUYABUSA ######### - Use the same fighting techniques that you used to beat the other dogs. - Chuyabusa likes to dig holes, don't fall in - If you do fall in, tap rapidly to get out. After defeating him, Chuyabusa tells you how he is not even the real Chuyabusa. He is a Falsabusa. The real one was assigned to protect Mushi, but got sick. Falsabusa was passing by and just happened to look like the dying dog. He agreed to fill in and continues to protect the boy to this day. Telenovias have more plausible plots than this one. Falsabusa is going to stay and protect the boy but gives Ammy the "Loyalty Orb". -- Dog 8: Canine Warrior Hayabusa -- Use the mermaid spring to warp to Agata Forest. Talk to the Kokari (the rabit head brat). He has lost his dog, again. We must go to Hitoshio Springs to learn about a fish. The springs are located at the highest point of the Agata Forest. Kushi, the sake lady, is there and needs to make "8 purification Sake". This is the ancient drink of legend. She needs the spring water to make it but is having trouble getting it into the bucket. As the patron saint of petty miracles, this is Ammy's responsibility. Use the brush technique to draw a path form the water to the bucket. She is happy with Ammy's help, but monkeys attack. Susano shows up, but as usual he is in over his head. He attacks them and says un-intentionally funny things such as "Leave MY KUSHI ALONE." Slash through Susano's attacks. He thinks it is evil that is possessing his blade and runs off. Kushi gets a little sad because Susano ran off without helping her carry the bucket. Tonight Susano will regret not helping himself to a little Kushi. Leave Kushi, so she can carry the gigantic vat back to town. Return to the great abyss to meet Kokari. Talk to the kid and a giant fish leaps out of the water and it actually looks kid of funny because a dog is slowly pawing to get out of its mouth. The dog is Ume and he has now been eaten twice in one game. Talk to Kokari again and he will ask you to help catch the fish. Catch two fish using the same old fishing technique. The unimaginatively titled "Whopper" will come out. Nothing different about catching the Whopper, he just struggles more. We tell the kid to keep fishing because it is his calling. The kid is sad because the fish ate his dog and will never see it again. This would be touching except that you know that the dog will come bounding out of its mouth any second now. The moon comes back - remember back when the kid said that the fish ate the moon and it does not shine in Agata Forest. Now it does. There is another constellation. Complete it to see a rabbit wielding a huge mallet. Typical spiritual flim-flam. But then the rabbit makes the scariest sound I have ever heard in video game-dome. It sounds like a baby demon is trying to claw its way from a cursed womb. It also doesn't help that the rabbit is scowling at me. I get the power of the moon which means I can now cycle day into night using the Ocarina, I mean brush. In case you forgot the sad canine tragedy, the dog comes shooting out. He is one of the Canine Warrior too and his superhero name is actually Jin. Issun says the dog is ugly and now we have to fight him. ### BOSS: FIGHT WITH JIN ######### - Use the same fighting techniques that you used to beat the other dogs. After defeating him, he says that he must stay with the boy but gives up his orb. Ammy gets another skittle. This one is called "Justice Orb." You now have the complete set of collectable sacred orbs. Return to prices Fuse. You meet princess Fuse and tell her that the other dogs will stay behind because they did not have the "orbs" to fight. Ammy, on the other had, does have more than enough "orbs." I hand over the orbs and now Fuse can fully taste the Rainbow. It does not last long because the power orbs come back to me. Ammy was chosen by the orbs to fight Crimson Helm. _____________________________________________ | Gale Shrine (#18) | Not one minute into a new level and there is Susano again. He is also trying to get into the shrine. He prays to get past the barrier. A ghost named Yatsu guards the seal. Because I have the orbs I can pass. _____________________________________________ | Defeat Crimson Helm! (#19) | Run into the dungeon and stop in the room with the blue pond. You can use the slash brush stroke technique to open the submerged chests. Head through the hallway that leads north (Press L2 to determine where north is.) Enter the hate shack to fight a "monger" - it's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a tiger and a monkey and a pot mixed... bred for its skills in magic. Tips for the "monger": Draw a bomb on him. When he is stunned, slash and attack him. He is fairly easy. Try not to laugh too hard when he stands up and tries to attack you by swinging his morning star. After defeating it the "Exorcising Arrow" appears. Issun says: "I bet we could use it to open doors sealed with evil powers!" Wow, you could tell all that just by looking at it? Carry it back to the room with the pond then down the west hallway. After passing through the windmill room there is a Lockjaw. Unlock him. Enter the elevator. Issun mentions that he has seen the mark before. The mark is that of the bomb. Draw a bomb on the spot. This elevator is actually powered by that bomb. This is a great alternative form of energy. Imagine a world where the bomb-fuel economy could replace the need for foreign oil. Fight the blue scroll, get another exorcism key, and carry it to the elevator. The elevator has dropped back down to the first floor. Jump down. Don't worry this is one of those fall without penalty games. Draw a bomb to get back up to the second floor. Then, draw another bomb to get to the third floor. When you get there you will unlock the next lock jaw. Ammy exits the elevator onto a giant wood platform. The colors are a monochromatic, muddy blue. It actually looks like it was designed by the ICO team. The platform is the giant windmill overlooking Kusa Village. Continue up the various ramps to get to the very top. Evil is making the wind blow the wrong direction. It may just be the Coriolis Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect). Anyway, Issun will pretty much tell you this but draw a line counter to the direction of the wind. Don't feel like an idiot if it takes you three tries to do each one - it did for me. When the drawing training is finished, the windmill will start moving again. There is another constellation. This god is a horse with a shish-ka-bob attached to its back. The new brush technique is another circle - sigh! Climb down from the windmill and return back into the shrine. There is a flaming chest on the deck that can be put out with the wind technique. Go back to the second floor and out onto the porch. There is a chest there that is on fire. Blow it out too to get a stray bead. Everything in this game is beads or orbs. Return to the ground floor and head to the large room with the bottomless pit and two miniature-golf-sized windmills. Draw the new wind brush stroke perpendicular to these windmills. The bridge will rotate as a result of the wind. Turn the structure until you are aligned with the one unexplored hallway. In the new long room which I think could be considered a nave, blow out the flaming box to get a pearl. The description of the pear gives you a little info about how to get high quality pearls. Pure water makes them better - did not know that. Makes sense though. If you want some extra gear, turn around and look up to see the flowers. Draw a line to yourself to get up there. While in the rafters, work your way further west. When you can't get any further, use the wind technique to blow the banners out and jump on them. Venture west and through the doors. Blow out the flame jets to continue. The jets are so incongruous but were obviously added at the last minute by the designers to give you a bit more practice with the wind brush technique. The sitar pump-up music is back in this level too. This must be the boss foreshadowing music. In the big room, you see the Serpent Crystal - run to it. A samurai crocodile comes down to block you. This is Crimson Helm. The skittles return to me possibly to remind me that I am where I am because of their magic. ### BOSS: FIGHT WITH CRIMSON HELM ######### - Bomb and hit him to knock off his armor. - When his armor falls of, use wind to extinguish his flames. - Without his flames, use basic attacks and bombs to cause massive damage. - REPEAT When his power is down to 10%, cinematic: Out come the flaming arms of that dragon beast we saw in the opening credits. The skeleton/samurai/crocodile pulls back. Susano comes back. Great, just in time to steal credit from Ammy. Do what we always have to do when Susano is around, brush slash everything he swings at. Notice how the serpent heads move even in brush mode. That must mean they are truly powerful. When Susano decides to go into his drunken, spinning, finishing move, draw the newly learned wind stroke on the beast - not on Susano. Cinematic: Susano realizes he is a fraud. He prays to the gods in the sky. For you readers still in school thinking that you will never use what you learn in English 101: this dramatic Irony. Susano thinks the gods are far off but the audience knows that Ammy (the God he should be praying to) is right next to him. A super-black serpent appears and then Susano gets a nasty case of schizophrenia. The super-black serpent disappears because to fight him now would take away from the climatic battle we will be facing at the end of the game. Ammy gets "life beads" - better than the other type of beads they could have been. Not much explanation as to why I got those beads, was the boss just holding them? Waka is back (ugh). Why is it you always run into the people you dislike the most? This is the medieval equivalent of running into Waka in the grocery store. You try to hide in the pet food section but somehow he still finds you and you have to spend the next 20 minutes trying to get out of a conversation. Waka grabs the Serpent Crystal. I don't know why they are fighting over the crystals? I have seen some just like that at Pier 1 for like thirty bucks each. Waka runs off to fight the dragon beast and takes the crystals with him - this would be considered getting cock (strike that) rock blocked. His prophesy this time: "a sweet little thing rendezvous." Princess Fuse thanks Ammy for fixing the windmill. Yatsu says thanks too. It is explained that Yatsu was the Princess' husband and because the temple has been purified, he can go to the after-life. If you are thinking "wow this totally reminds me of one of my favorite movies - Ghost", shame on you. Not because you just basically admitted that you like to take long hot baths while listening to Kenny G, but also because that would mean Ammy would be analogous to Whoopi Goldberg's sass-talking fortune teller character. _____________________________________________ | Return to Kamiki Village (#20) | Go back to Kamiki Village. The entire Kamiki village gathers around Susano's house to hold an intervention. He is holed up in his house because he drank the entirety of the "8 Purification Sake" meant for Orochi. Close up of Ammy, you see her just grinding her teeth as she tries to decide which ring of Hell to send Susano. Like any alcoholic, Susan first denies saying "he couldn't help himself, just wanted a sip." Then quickly jumps to the first step of AA and admits he has a problem, "I'm to blame for all your misfortunes." The second AA step which is to "Come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity" is easy because Ammy is right there. He then admits that it was he who released the demon from it's prison because he could not take the expectations people had of him. He was a descendant of Nagi. He tried to flee from responsibility which is why we kept seeing him everywhere we went. He thinks he has to kill Orochi in order to make everyone happy again. A big purple ball appears and then a flaming arrow come towards town. The arrow heads right for the boy but Hayabusa knocks him out of the way. The arrow hits Kushi's (the sake lady) house. This means she must be a sacrifice to the evil Orochi. She doesn't seem to be too upset, her face is expressionless - I guess it would help that she has no mouth in the first place. To replace the "8 purification Sake" Kushi goes to get her "Thunder Brew". Follow Kushi out of town and into Shinshu Field. Kushi pulls ahead as this game's "character most likely be a Christ figure" when she decides to sacrifice herself and her sake because "there is too much suffering in the world." Ammy picks her up and they ride off to fight Orochi. Run to the south east corner of Shinshu field to the Moon Cave. Mika the shrine watchman is there and it looks like he is trying some new form of Body Pump Aerobics. He doesn't have much to say. The Moon Cave looks like total hell. Waka is there at the cave entrance and presents the Serpent Crystal. He plays a song on his flute, and small purple snakes inch their way to the crystal (ahhh because it is a SERPENT Crystal). The cave is open. Ammy readies to strike at Waka, be sure to aim for the neck Ammy, but a demon comes out to take the Sake lady. The cave door is locked again. Waka tells you the next prophesy "Look, the moon! The moon! The moon came out!" Great man, the moon rises every night. Too bad Ammy is locked out, oh wait, we are locked in. But Susano is stuck outside. _____________________________________________ | Kushi's Feelings (#21) | Inside the moon cave. Run up to the purple haze and Issun says to jump, so we do. Down in the ravine there are two Imp guards that won't let you through. Turn around and head the other way. Pick up Thunder brew in the calcified cavern. At the lowest part of the cave is A hate shack. You have to fight the super drummer. The monster is quite easy. Get a mask from the chest. The mask is used to disguise Ammy as an Imp in order to get past the guards. Draw anything you like on the mask. But, before you draw a penis, let me warn you that Ammy will be wearing this for the rest of this dungeon. So you better start thinking now of an excuse for your mom as to why that wolf has a penis on its face. Return to the imp guards and get access to the Imp dining room. One of the imps says that Orochi needs his appetizer before he eats the main course. Enter through the curtains to see a big boiling cauldron. Draw vines up to the flower above the pot to pull it up and reveal that the cook was in his own stew. Ammy gets him out, I am not sure how because it fades to black. Wouldn't a lily pad have been a more elegant solution. Ajimi, the one in the pot, is the head chef and needs Ammy to collect the ingredients. He lists them, and gives her a key to unlock the gate. -- Ogre Liver -- From the gate go down the winding path until reaching the sign "watch your step". Look up and see the flower. Vine up and along to it. Now the next few are tricky because they are upside down. You will have to vine to the next one while you are falling. Once you successfully work the flowers, land on the other side, slash the eye lantern to move on. Defeat the next hate shack. You get the Ogre Liver - it looks like a peach. If Ammy is posing as an Imp, why would imps attack her? And why are these imps in the shack instead of helping out around the kitchen? -- Lips of Ice - Return back to the winding path that you started with and notice a water spout. It leads to the main dining room. Use the basin there to get to the next deck level. Through another set of doors, a sign says "Breaks easily, so be careful". Break the floor anyway and fall down to the chasm below. Defeat the hate shack which reveals a pond. Draw a water spout up to the deer scare to drain the water. In the south end of the room is another water spout. Ride it to the next room to fight the drumming monkey. After defeating it, slash the eye lantern to open the floor below you. Draw another water spout to get back up to the dinning hall area. Go around to the center of the room and talk to the monkey holding the crank. Slash him to lower the elevator. Jump off. An imp by the fire says that he has just created a mechanism that will drive people nuts - why is he working on that, the god of all evil is upstairs and he is hungry. Get back to the kitchen. In the next room, kill the attackers, and then slash at the four eye lanterns simultaneously to open the door. In the next room is a huge ice sculpture. Issun says it is creepy and cold. Then a wheel looks like a leftover stage prop for the Rolling Stones tour of '79. You have to fight it. Strike it with the brush slash until the snowflakes are gone, then, attack your melee weapon. The Phoenix catches on fire. Issun says "It may take off at any moment." Constellation: Finish the three spots to get the pipe smoking phoenix named Moegami. It is god of the flames - not the god of flamers. Through the iced over door, talk to the imp manning the crank and he will bring you up. In the next room you fight two wheels. Defeat them easily by connecting the flaming torch to each wheel. Get the Lips of Ice. - Eyeball of Fire - Burn down the three ice cubes with the torch that is right next to them. You will be back at the main dining room. Continue back up to that room where you broke the bridge. Use your brush to redraw it. Draw a line from the flame to the ice cube. Go through the formerly blocked door. Fight the hate shack. There are two wheels, one on fire (get it), one ice. Those wheels probably don't hang out much considering the consequences if they ran into each other. Kill the ice one first by drawing a line from his friend to him. Then, use the same wheel technique to kill the flaming one. Get the eyeball of fire. -- Black Demon Horn -- Set the ice cubes across the room on fire. In that room, pick up the key and run back to the room with the bridge that keeps breaking. Orochi starts growling. Take the key back to the main dining room and run around the walkway. The L2 map shows you where the lock is. The next room is filled with "skull dunes." It actually looks like salt. The next room is a lot like the official sport of first dates: miniature golf. The goal is to roll a ball from the one end of the bone room to a giant switch on the other side of the room. Roll the ball by bashing your head into it. When you get to a gap, slash the eye to start a cascade of sand. There is an invisible bridge in an Indiana-jonesy-last-crusade way. Send sand across the invisible bridge using the wind brush technique. Roll the ball across and onto the switch. Continue up the ramp to the next floor. Stop at the merchant if you need anything. Go to the very edge of the railing (to the left hand side of the merchant) and look up. There is a flower across the room. Vine over to it. Run around the room and when you get to the next gap use the wind technique to bring the flags up so you can jump on them. There is a cannon labeled "out of order" and Issun says that he wants to do the opposite when it sees a sign like that. So do I, so do I. The goal is to shoot the cannon so it hits that large white banner at the other side of the room. I recommend standing right behind the cannon with the flaming ball to your immediate left. Draw a line from the ball to the fuse. The fuse takes a second to burn, so light it when the cannon is about 90 degrees away from pointing straight at the banner. It will take a few tries to get the timing right. After successfully blasting a hole in the wall run to the edge of the railing. Draw a line to the flower that is across the room and go through the black hole that you just created. Notice the flaming ball that is sitting on the pedestal. Use the wind brush technique to blow it down. Then continue to blow it down the curving hallway. Remember that the angle and direction in which you draw the loop-de-loop will affect which way the wind blows. When close enough draw a fire line from the ball to each of the ice cubes. Jump up on that ledge and fight the hate shack. After defeating the monsters get the Black Demon Horn. Return back to the dinning room and give the chef all the ingredients. Cinematic: He throws the items in the stew. He calls the dish "Dungheap Slimebucket goulash" Yuck, I hate goulash. Save, then go right the epicurean bell. Go back and hit the bell with your head several times. The monkeys bring out the goulash but it actually look like a giant bunt cake. I think this is a mistranslation by the localization team - I would have called it meatloaf. If you are wondering what Goulash looks like, see: http://gameintestine.com/guides/okami/okami_kushi_feelings.html Go to the center of the dining room and talk to the elevator guy. He resists taking you up to the top because he is scared of Orochi's throne room. After some pleading he agrees to bring Ammy up. Throne Room: There is a refill room at the top. As well as a merchant, and that thing that is supposed to be Goulash. Go up the ramp. Cinematic: There is another bell in the center of the room. Under the bell is Kushi wearing her fine whites and Ammy/Issun run over to save her. Hot lava breaks out from under the bell. Up rises Orochi like they are some crazy incarnation of the Wu Tang clan. Ammy rips off her mask. Orochi is like "100 years have passed since you imprisoned me here." If he is so imprisoned why doesn't he just leave his thrown room? I guess when you are attached to an island with a bell on it you can't move very far. But he shouldn't be that pissed off anyway. He wonders how I came back and says I reek of decay. Then Issun says "Bottoms up, big guy" as some kind of threat? We give the sake to Orochi. He blows fire. Then he turns gold and we fight. The music is very 70s western. Slash at him and Issun reports that Orochi has put up a barrier. Then orochi circles around Kushi. He dives for her and then Susano comes out. Kushi is glad to see him. Ammy gets this look of surprise like "No Susano you lush, I have waited 100 years for this and you are not taking this one away from me again." Orachi talks to Susano and says that he has been waiting for this score to settle. Orochi says there is a blood pact between him and Susano's blood line that will unlock Orochi's true power. Orochi asks Susano to say "I wish darkness upon the world" like he is Beetlejuice and they can join together and be super powerful. Susano does not say the prayer and instead decides to fight him. Susano jams a sword in Orochi's face and for once we had no hand in it - it was all Susano. Issun describes the sake falling into the channel the same way my grandma described two people having sex: "Suano and Kushi made a miracle happen!" ### BATTLE AGAINST WAKA AND PILLOW TALK######### Party animal Ammy once again takes special pleasure in getting people waaaasted. This time, it is a dragon. The goal is to get each head to growl and then draw a line from the sake pool and up into the mouth. This will get that head drunk. When at least four are drunk you can access the bell. Each head likes his drink served to him a special way so see below on how to get each one: - Fire: Red hat, leader head: Dodge fire then he will growl. - Darkness: Shoots clouds at you. Dodge, then growl - Wind: Shoots a tornado, use your wind stroke. He then growls. - Water: He shoots water. Draw a lily pad and then jump to each one. Strike him on the side of his head. He will growl and open his mouth in shock. - Lightning: Dodge the lightning balls, he will go "?". Strike him and he will growl. - Earth: He bashes his head into the ground. Dodge then hit him once = growl. - Poison: He shoots blooms at you circle both before they erupt with snakes. He growls. - Light: Dodge his lasers, while he is shooting he growls. After four heads are drunk they will all drop to the ground. Run up their necks and start hitting the bell. Brush slashes work best on the bell. After enough hits he will sober up and turns grey. Dodge the heads in the same manner as the first part, but after you draw a sake line up to their heads they will drop to the ground. Start attacking the head with everything you have until that head's life bar is empty. Circle around and defeat every head this way. Cinematic: With the heads defeated Ammy and Susano gather together. Susano says some mumbo jumbo about the moon and his sword Tohenboku. Issun reminds us of the legend because we last saw the introduction about 20 game-time hours ago. Ammy howls, Susano lifts sword and the moon shines but then it goes away. Use the brush to draw in the moon. Susano's sword turns gold and he says "Susano-Syle Blade of Truth". Susano dashes around and slashes at the heads. Its ok, help him out this time he has earned it. Susano then says stop and that he does not need my help any more. Susano says "Celestial Cleaver". He then butterfly's the main head like he is going to stuff it with an herb and oil mixture, tie it up and then grill it up for about 5 minutes on the hot side then flip and set for another 5. Sorry, it is dinner time as I write this. Kushi falls in Susano's arms because all monsters explode and anyone within 10 yards will be flung up into the air. Susano says "just as you devote your life to sake brewing", "I devote to sake drinking?" No he doesn't say that he actually says "I follow the sword." He confesses that evil clouded his judgment. I think it is implied that he was possessed during this whole game, I though it was just the sake. Kushi tells him to smile and that frowning is what makes monsters appear. Kushi: "Laugh like you do when you help me harvest rice every year." They had some sort of relationship prior to this? Susano laughs. And then a really big sword hits Ammy in the face. Dude Ammy didn't even flinch. It is called Tsumugari. You can charge the attack. The demon turns into black smoke. Then the whole scene turns to black and white. Someone tells the legend again. The sword had been consumed by Orochi. The spirit splits off and goes in every direction. No one knew what that force was - I think it was convection. Kamiki was peaceful again. Fireworks: Quite nice. The festival continues because everyone knows Orochi is dead. We go back to the village. _____________________________________________ | Memo to Clover Team (#22) | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- TO: Clover-Development-All FROM: Capcom Entertainment Subject: Okami extra levels Per our status meeting on Tuesday, we need to extend Okami's game-play time by another 20 hours. I know we killed the end guy, but maybe we could make him turn into an evil spirit and go somewhere else. Oh and Steve, I like your idea about giving the player a weapon as sort of a "sorry we tricked you into thinking this is the end of the game." Why don't we make it a big sword. I know it doesn't make much sense that a dog would have a sword on her back but let's just sit on it and maybe something better will develop. Thanks for all your hard work on this great game, Capcom PS: Capcom looks forward to a long relationship with our Clover Team! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- _____________________________________________ | Festival (#23) | Fireworks are going off and everyone from around town is there having a good old time. The word on everyone's lips is Susano. They are all convinced it was him and everyone is like "where is Susano he should be here enjoying this." However, some people can see Ammy for her true form and her true deeds. There is a Jungian self awareness element as to who can see the truth and those who can not in Ammy. The dog Ume - who is spiritual - says that he knew that it was Ammy that killed Orochi. Talk to Komuso (the pot head) and he says that Susano is not around he may be off with his lady friend - probably making miracles with Kushi. He says that I should not poke my nose in such affairs. No such luck, I am headed up to the great tree. On the way, stop by the observation deck to see Mr. Orange, Mrs. Orange, and the turnip mom. Talk to Mr. Orange and in one breath he both compliments and then bemoans Susano - a perfect example of how old people provide backhanded compliments. Continue north to the great tree and meet Skankuya - who is looking hot wearing a bikini and an off the hip loin cloth type thing. She says "oh great mother, the village thanks you." Note that she realizes your power and deeds. Continue through the gate. Susano is back at the big boy statue. He and the sake lady have hearts over their heads but they are not touching. Susano says thanks and that Ammy was a great follower. Amaterasu is considered his brother in arms. Kushi says thanks for all your help. Ammy looks back at Susano and Issun says he had a lot to do with it. Issun says this to trump up Susano because he just wants to help a brother get laid! Am I right! Kushi suspects that we are a god - she has come around. Then, Issun says let's leave and give them some alone time so that they can pork. Note that Susano and Kushi would be doing this right in front of a religious sculpture of his relative. Like, all of my best make outs have been in front of my great grandpa's grave. When you are had enough leave the whole town. Issun asks if you really want to. Say yes and you can go. _____________________________________________ | Checkpoint at Taka Pass (#24) | Skankuya shows up again. She says that she sensed another evil after the death of Orochi and that the Capitol is bad news. The next destination should the checkpoint at Taka Pass. To get to Taka Pass go to Agata Forest > Taka Pass > City Checkpoint. Talk to the soldiers. One says that the sacred flame returned to the phoenix. Remember how Ammy freed the Phoenix at the Moon Shrine. However, the Capital area has been cursed ever since the festival. Which probably means we caused it with Orochi's slaying. Yoichi, the bowman, says he has dreams of becoming a great soldier. He fires arrows across the chasm. He may be a better archer if he would just trim up those eyebrows a little. To get past the checkpoint stand with the phoenix and Yoichi in the same view. As soon as an arrow leaves his bow, draw a fire line from the phoenix and to the arrow that is now in mid air. Cinematic: The arrow lands in a cannon and the whole checkpoint blows up A- team style. Cross the bridge, there is a lot to be done in the exploded checkpoint station: four skulls to bloom, birds to feed, and clovers to dig up. It will yield a ton of praise. _____________________________________________ | To The Capital (#25) | You happen upon Ryoshima Coast which looks pretty crappy and curse-y. Follow the path to the northern edge of the pass. There is a dead end but it has a bomb crack. So, cherry bomb it. Continue around the path of the hill to the top of it and see a very bad looking guardian sapling. It needs to be "pepped up" which is Issun speak for "watered." Jump all the way down to the bottom where you bombed the rocks. There is a small pond and a giant pot. Draw a water line from the lake to the pot. Then, from the pot to the dried out pond that is located one step up from there. Climb up the next set of cliffs to the next dry basin. If you position Ammy right, the camera will swing around and you can draw a water line from the pond to the dry basin. Continue this technique of bailing water up the cliff until you get it around the Guardian sapling. When it rises up it will grow to quite a turgid state and be ready to be bloomed. So draw a circle around it. Bloomimation: typical flower stuff. A pirate ship! Did you see that?! Man I hope we have an adventure just like the Goonies. Sorry to get your hopes up about the old pirate ship but we can't do anything with it at this point. So continue west to Sei-an City. Sei-an City Commoners Quarters - The city is all hazy. The town is shrouded in a thick (what I think is a kinda romantic) looking haze. The haze is a magic one that cause everyone in the town to bitch and moan about the haze. This town is a total half empty crowd of whiners. Talk to a few people to get the general idea. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is like "blah blah blah haze haze haze". When they aren't talking about the haze, they are blaming the rest of their problems on some sort of Water Dragon. If this where a real-life society, "water dragon" would be replaced with the word "immigrants." Could we just skip saving this town? I am not sure they are worth it. Jump down and explore the empty canals because they are full of stuff. In one of the dead ends you will run into Master Carpenter Naguri. Naguri is the only person left working on the canal and trying to restore the water to save the town. Lake Beewa's drain plug is what is preventing the water. If you talk to him enough he will ask if you want to help him dig. Before you say yes to Naguri's minigame, make sure you have cleared out the canal of the treasures because you will loose them after it is done. Note: This mini-game requires a lot of ink. If you have not upgraded your ink in a while it is probably good to have 6 or 7 spots open by now. The digging mini-game is just like that time we restored the spring in Sasa Sanctuary. The goal is to get Ammy and Naguri to the bottom row of the black stones. The easiest way to get there is to go to the far right side and start the digging there. Naguri can not jump across the purple ones, so use your wind technique to float him across. When he gets down to the bedrock he will tell you where to dig. The canal is restored and travel across the bridge into the nicer part of town. Issun says that the queen lives there and she has not been doing anything about the mist. See, even Issun is getting into the mist bitching. Wandering Warrior Monk Benkei: He says that he came to this city to get the "Living Sword" that is in the depths of Lake Beewa. The warrior monk is preventing anyone from crossing until he fishes out his sword. In order to fish it out he needs a special white fishing rod. However, he can't afford it. He is hinting that you should go buy it for him. Go back to the commoner area of town. Visit the tool dealer - he is right at the gate. He sells a rod called the Blinding Snow - get that one. Run back and give it to him. He holds it over the water, talk to him and Issun first calls him Hoodhead then says we should help him. Really, we should not be doing this for Hoodhead. If we draw this man a line we really are only helping him today. However, if we would just show him how to draw a line we could help him for a lifetime. Or something like that. Just like our time with the kid, catch two fish then the big one will come out. The fish in question is called the Cutlass Fish. Due to a misunderstanding by Hoodhead, the "living Sword" is actually a fish (I bet this was all a very clever pun in the Japanese version but it does not translate as well here). Would it still be a "living sword" after you have fished and slashed it? Hoodhead says thanks anyway and lets you cross the bridge. Cinematic of a tornado. Issun says that it is coming out of the imperial palace. It looks like Donnie Darko lives at the Imperial Palace. Waka is back. He is here looking for something but says that he likes it "Quick and Easy." Oh sorry Waka you would find that in the Red-light District, not in the Aristocrat District. Waka is here looking for a path to the heavens - he has probably been listening to too much Zepplin. He recommends that we clarify the mist then he gives the prophesy "Go through the hole in the wall, little ones!" Across the bridge a bunch of people are complaining about the mist and waiting to see Miss Rao who is beautiful and can apparently ease their worry about the mist. Jump to the head of the line and listen to Miss Rao speak. When you talk to her you may want to turn down your sound because your mom may think you are deep into a porno. She is a regent who serves Queen Himiko. The programmers decided to upgrade the breast engine that they originally used for Skankuya. She doubts that you beat the dragon so you have to show her a miracle. I just drew a circle because that is half of my prayer repertoire - it seemed to work. She needs help and Issun says she is "stacked to the ceiling" which really wouldn't be that good of a quality if you think about it. And why is Issun so into this rack, he is half an inch tall, isn't every rack enormous to him? She lost her Prayer Slips and needs us to go get the papers, get the papers. _____________________________________________ | Wanted Prayer Slips (#26) | From Rao's back door, veer east and cross the courtyards to enter a building with green smoke billowing out. Run up to the sentries that are on duty. They describe how the Emperor is sick and that it must be (what else) the mist that is causing it. They mention a girl named Kaguya who is locked up in a cell. Just to the right of the Sentries are Rao's prayer slips, take them back to her. Back at Rao's, she says we are the only hope against the "Forces of Darkenss." I don't know why that is highlighted because every video game other than pong has been about fighting the forces of darkness. Rao wants us to go get something called "Fox Rods" from a sunken ship. Yes! Yes! Yes! Pirate ship time. _____________________________________________ | Pirate Ship (#27) | Leave the city and go back to the Ryoshima Coast. Before we board the ship, Ammy needs to be upgraded with some new moves. The upgrades will come from the Dojo which is on an island that is just west of the shipwreck (check your map). Swim out there. In the Dojo you must learn the following moves: - Holy Eagle: The classic and much needed double jump. - Diggin Champ: This lets Ammy dig through stone. After learning them, swim back to the beach and go to that thin peninsula that points right to the ship. Double jump up onto the wooden platform that is located at the end of it. While on the wooden platform, draw a moon in the sky. The tides will recede. Swim out to the pirate ship. The water stops in a surreal Ten Commandments sort of way. Just believe it and run up to the pirate ship. Jump up and into the hard to miss, glowing spot. There is a cursed door - which I think looks pretty. Rao shows up. Then Issun and Ammy talk about boobs. Why does Ammy care? As a wolf, doesn't she have eight of them? This time it was the Water Dragon at fault for sinking the ship - not the mist. Roa says she can use her prayer slips to open the doors, so we carry her around on our back. Move up the stairs and draw a line from Roa's prayer slips to the ghosts. In the next room, jump down and start opening treasure chests. If a hand comes out of one, shoot it too with the slips. From the treasure floor go through the next open door and past a hall with all the shooting darts - which is standard on ships these days. In the next room, Ammy is attacked by crabs. Attack them with the prayer papers until their shells are gone. Then, attack in whatever way you feel most comfortable. Continue through to the next doorway, cross the gold checkpoint gate, and then use the papers to unlock the door. The next room has an open hole to the sky and Rao asks "Isn't it beautiful?" Then, Issun says there is a scale that is unbalanced and makes a really bad pun "That's what I call an unbalanced balance." What he should have said is "This mechanism is a lot like our friend Rao, top heavy." (Capcom, you can use it if you want) Anyway, draw a sun in the sky and the ship will flood, giving you access to other parts of the ship. Return to the room with the huge pile of bones. Two crabs are back and join together to make a shark. Don't worry, you read that right. Fight the shark by hitting it with the prayer papers. Also equip some form of bead as a secondary weapon and you can shoot it from afar by hitting the triangle button. If it flies up in the air, just jump out of the way. Backtrack through the spike room, and return to the now flooded treasure room. Swim over to the giant floating barrel. Jump on it and onto the upper deck where a golden checkpoint is. Jump down and swim past the cannon and in through the hallway behind it. Shoot down any ghosts. Swim into the large flooded room that has the huge green hands. Hulk Smash! The camera will focus on the barrel. Brush slash it down. Jump onto the barrel and lumberjack roll it to the glowing hooks at the north end of the room. If you fall, swim back to the ramp. The hands will pick you up; quickly jump off of them because they will pull you under if you stay on there too long. Get back to the ramp. Run east across the bridge. The hands will make the gestures "peace" and the bottom half of "the shocker." Jump over or duck where appropriate. Those hands are so surreal/cool that it justified my purchase of this game. Run around the ramp to the room that has the sky light in it. Jump down into the room and instead of a sun, draw a moon to lower the water. Because the barrel was connected to the chain, the balance will pull the other side up. Thus, giving you a way to reach the upper part of the room. Jump up there and return to the room that used to have the green hands. The hands were controlled by a giant green monster. Well, now it is a puddle. Don't touch him though, he will hurt you. Roll the spiked barrel over him for praise. Run out of this room heading southwest towards the room with the giant cannon. Jump on it to control the trajectory. Draw a bomb on the flashing indicator to fire it. Destroy the boxes by drawing bombs and pointing the cannon. The middle box hides a pearl. The lowest box hides the key. Use the key on the lock jaw. Run up the stairs and unlock the curse door. Notice the ghost of Crimson Helm floats about you. Through the door is another treasure room. Make sure to get the "Lucky Mallet." Dear reader: Hi this is Chris, the author of the FAQ that you are reading right now. I want to let you know that in the following paragraph I transcribed exactly what happens. I did not leave anything out. The gaps in sequential narrative structure, cinematography, and all out logic are purely the fault of the Okami designers. Please keep that in mind when you read this and watch it. Again, if this does not make sense, it is not my fault. Cinematic: The ship fills back in and we are swimming in the open ocean. Ammy is doggy paddling back to land. Rao warns that the Water Dragon is coming. It attacks. Rao starts jumping ON THE WATER and UP A CLIFF. When you resume control of Ammy, draw a lily pad. The Dragon will eat Ammy and the screen goes blank. Ammy is back on land?! The mallet jumps out and we have to follow it. Return to Rao's house and talk to her. Rao tries to explain that we are just slow swimmers. She then says that the Fox Rods are not on the ship. If it sounds like I was complaining about the previous cinematic it was not because of the content - it was because of the staging. I loved it vicariously because I was born into a life in which I will never, ever be chased from a sinking pirate ship by a totally sweet dragon. _____________________________________________ | A tiny problem (#28) | From Roa's place, follow the floating mallet to the emperor's quarters. When asked if you want to be shrunk down (do they even have to ask) press "Bring it!" So now you are tiny. You know that because grass is bigger than you. Then we get to see Issun eye to eye. When you see him up close he is named Wandering Artist Issun (x1000). Don't ask me what the 1000 is for but lots of things are get weird in this level. Walk right by the Blocking Spider (x1000). Issun says "it may let you go some times and hold you back others" - it is like Steve Rubell at Studio 54. Continue past the foot and to the giant stepping stones. We see a jail cell with someone crying inside. Although I can't see her, she is skinny which means Issun will get all crush-y on her. Continue past the stones. You are attacked by a giant POG. But, instead of the face of Alf there is the face of a Kabuki actor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e). He is fast so avoid his circular dashes. Basic brush slashes and beads seem to work well. When it is knocked over and dizzy, draw a cherry bomb on him. After beating the POG, enter the next clearing. There are several large figures waiting around to smash you. One of them is sweeping so diligently that he will not let you pass. Ignore the sweeper for now and run along the east wall. One of the figure's feet will try to stomp you. Try to lure his foot close to the waterfall on the east wall. When he stomps close enough to it, jump onto his foot. Then, double jump off it to reach the high waterfall. Bite the key and head back to the stepping stones. When you pass the imprisoned, crying girl she will ask if you are the mallet bearers because she knows that those who are shrunk must have used it. She was arrested because she was selling bamboo wares for her father. She turns around and turns out to be hot. So hot in fact that she wears a glass bubble over her face just to keep guys (and even some women) from making out with her. Her name is Moonlight Beauty Kaguya (x1000). I think she is a lead singer for a shoegazer band because she says "I don't even know who I really am or where I originally came from." Cross the stones again, and head back to the first room. Open the lockjaw-ed door. Once inside, bomb the glowing crack on the floor. The room is filled with platform spiders; but, do not do anything with them yet. Instead, jump down to the bottom floor and bomb the wall. You have found where Emperor keeps his precious chachkis. The only thing worth while is the huge hanging gourd flask. Use the slash technique to cut it down. Then, jump inside it. In the next scene, read what Issun says and you can replace every occurrence of the word "mist" with the word "Ganjah" Explore the interior of the "pot". You need to get the contents out. Do this with the wind brush technique. By getting the "mist" out, Ammy released the god Kasugami. The god is a lamb with a huge sheep's bladder filled with some type of intoxicant. Kasugami stumbles around, takes a few hits of the sauce, and then takes a few hits from some lutes. One of them hits him right in the (lamb) chops. The new "mist" miracle allows Ammy to slow things down - just like the real-life "mist". Test it out on the spider. Just outside the room is another one of those POGs, but it is much easier now that you can give him a hit of the "mist." Dude! That was totally the Emperors "mist" stash. If you looked hard enough you could probably also find some old Playboys that he hid from his mom. In the large room outside of the secret stash room is a whole mess of platform spiders. There is nothing necessary in this room other than three or four praise clovers in the very highest platforms. But, if you are someone who has to get 100% completion (have mercy on your time drenched soul) you should climb the spiders because there will never be another opportunity to get those clovers. Exit the room and cross the stepping stones and the imprisoned girl to the room with the sweeper. Get the broom totally "misted" and continue past it. Do the same for the second broom behind it. A dank river and some deer scares fill the next room. Draw a water spout to the first bamboo to lower it. Then, proceed quickly along the length of each one. At the end, jump up onto the red capped spider to ascend to the window sill. Cinematic: The emperor is in his bed expelling some pretty wicked green mist. I bet he wishes he could access his stash now. Jump down into his room and kill the POG monsters that are rolling around. Once cleared, jump on the red spider that is located at the foot of the Emperor's bed. Follow the line of the spiders using the mist as required. Jump on to the shelf and pass through the golden save gate. Follow the ramp up to a maze made of the rafter's beams. Using the L2 map helps big time in this next part. I will give you the direct path, feel free to explore for treasure. At the first junction take a left and jump across the platform spiders. Next, head West and run through the three spiders. Draw the mist symbol in the middle of all three of them to get them all totally baked. The end of the board hangs directly over the Emperor's mouth. Jump off the edge to clear out his smoking problem from the inside. _____________________________________________ | A suspicious Emperor (#29) | This next chapter is a perfect example of the undiscovered power of nanotechnology. Imagine what microscopic wolves and pixies could do to relieve us of incurable ailments. Go through the sphincter and run to the end of what I think may be the Emperor's prostate. Issun asks us if we want to leap. Say yes, and Issun will say "we always leap before we think." But weren't we just thinking when we were asked if we wanted to leap into the Emperor? Cinematic: It looks like the root of the Emperor's problems is one of those mini cocktail swords. He probably just got drunk at Trader Vic's and swallowed the whole cocktail. It happens to the best of us. A monster named Blight appears. Based on the number of swords he has stabbed through him he seems pretty easy to attack. He gives us a big speech about how he is one of the germs that causes really bad breath. You may have experienced Blight if you have ever eaten Corn Nuts. ### BOSS: BLIGHT ######### - Fight Blight defensively, let him make the first move and counter attack. - If he ducks and expels a green ball around him, "mist" him then back off because his swords will circle around him like some sort of amusement ride. You can slash at the blue sword to deflect it (thanks Jon C.) As soon as they are above his head, run right up to him and the swords will fly right over you. - If he looks like he is coiling up to slash you, "mist" him. Because of the effect, he will slowly cross the playing field with his sword drawn. Attack him with everything you have and his sword will fly out of his hands. - Take some "Steel fist Sake" before you attack the sword. - Back off of the sword when it starts to glow green, because it sends out a shockwave of pain. - Repeat until dead. Cinematic: He flies up and explodes. You get a necklace that looks like it is a string of those complimentary chocolate peppermints that you get at most restaurants. Those mints, coincidentally enough, help prevent the "blight" you get when you eat garlicky restaurant food. It is explained that Blight was a disease inside the Emperor's body. The air is clear and the Emperor is back. The darkness left the sword and moved on to the Water Dragon. _____________________________________________ | Kaguya's Lament (#30) | Issun decides to take advantage of being in the Emperor's body to unlock Kaguya's cell. Drive him down the hallway in a walk that is straddling the thin line between charming and profane. The Emperor, I should disclose, wears a necklace of blue Bugles corn snack chips. When close enough to her cell, Ammy and Issun release Bamboo Girl Kaguya. The Emperor comes to and is apologetic about his behavior even though he does not really explain why he locked her up in the first place. When you leave the Emperor's quarters, Kaguya is standing outside. She explains that she can not remember where she is from but does remember a Royal Crest and a dark room. She thinks she should go to Sasa Sanctuary - the sparrow hotel. Then she disappears. _____________________________________________ | Kaguya's Memories (#31) | Now, Ammy is in pursuit of an unspeakable evil that was just exorcised from a nation's ruler. Similarly, there is a giant leviathan blockading Sei-an city's food supply. This should be a time to act on those. However, Ammy, Issun, and even the game's plot are sidetracked to the country's mainland in order to settle a domestic situation between an amnesiac and her grandfather. I have a feeling the design team sent us back into a previous zone to remind us that the two halves of the game are still connected, despite the fact that all the characters from the first half have no relevance anymore. I think designers were really hitting the "mist" on this one. No matter, head ALL THE WAY back to Sasa Sanctuary. There is a mermaid pool in the aristocrat section of Sei-an city that will lead you right to the sanctuary. At Sasa Sanctuary's hot-water spring go up the ramp. Walk back to the disco bamboo that at one point held the canine Tei. Mr. Bamboo is talking to his super hot daughter about how happy he is to see her again. The girl starts glowing and then a hole explodes in the ground. There is some subterranean past that she has to uncover. She dives down the hole. We follow her because, I don't know why, I guess bubble headed girls just can't dive down holes without needing our help. This is another digging game. The rules are the same as the previous occurrences. See the extra help below because this one is a bit tricky: - Dig straight down - Head right at the first purple spike stone then dig down - Head right and dig down to the black stones - Then Left - This is the most critical step and if not done properly, you must select retry - When you see the waterhole, dig straight down to it. Do not dig any of the blocks adjacent to it (except for the on just to the right of it because you need to get out). - Let Kaguya fall into the water. Then, water jet her back up. Make sure she ends up on the left side of the water feature. - Dig down through the 3 blocks located on the absolute left side of the map. - Continue to the right end of the map from there. - When Kaguya gets down to bedrock, she stops at a specific block - dig there Ammy returns above-ground. I love this part because it is that scene in a movie where a person from the distant past is thrust into modern life and they say things like "what is this box with small people in it who put on plays for us to watch" or "how can I hear you coming from this shiny rock even though you are not near me." A huge rocket ship comes out of the ground and Issun describes it as "a bamboo shoot, except it's metal and insanely huge." Kaguya says it is the link to her past. Mr. Bamboo says that he knew the ship was there all along. Kaguya came from space and Mr. Bamboo had adopted her. He begs her not to leave. She agrees to be his granddaughter in memory but still must go. She gives us a fire tablet because we showed her that her grandfather was really trying to hide her secrets so that he could hold on to her. She blasts off and Mr bamboo cries. _____________________________________________ | Himiko, Queen of Nippon (#32) | Now that we are though with that little diversion, return to Sei-an City. Continue straight through due north until you reach the queens palace at the far end of the Aristocrat's District. There are two guards who will not let you through. Use the mist technique to boggle them as you run past. Enter the palace and head into the elevator to the queen's throne room. You can tell that the queen is totally evil because she filled her private throne room with hot lava. Conveniently, the quest just before this one gave you a holy artifact. Press start and select the "Equipment" option. Place the Fire Tablet as one of your Holy Artifacts. You are now impervious to hot lava. Swim straight through the curtains to the end (she added the curtains as a decorative touch to make sure each room felt distinct and not create an overall dominating hallway). After the hot lava, run straight through the remaining doors. Don't worry, there are no secret chests located to the left or right of each room - I checked. This next part actually feels like the door sequence to Mystery Science Theater 3000. MOVIE SIGN! Himiko is praying but stops to talk and knows both Ammy and Issun's back stories. Notice how she does not call Issun a bug - a true sign she knows us. Issun complains about her negligence in office. From the back she actually looks like a blunt. Issun accuses her of feeding off the ill will of the people. She shows her face and it is a beautiful woman and Issun faints. Oh man Issun just got a boner for a girl, that means everyone has to take a shot. She tells us that we can get to the monster on Oni Island. The island vanishes at sundown and travels so it is hard to find. Issun accuses her of negligence again because she just consults her advisers, I mean prays, rather than act. As a rejoinder she says that the crystal ball actually is helping her to locate the island. But that still does not explain why she did not dispatch some sort of counter attack on Oni Island. I would call for an investigation. Talk to Himiko after the cinematic to learn how to get to Oni Island. She gives Ammy the Border Key. Run back out of the palace, MST3K all over again. _____________________________________________ | North Ryoshima Coast (#33) | Now that you have the Border Key you can unlock the gate that is on the northwest road out of Ryoshima Coast. Talking to the two guards will allow you to pass. N. Ryoshima Coast. Waka is back and he takes credit for our miraculous cleanup of Ryoshima Coast. I don't even care anymore - I think Waka just needs a hug. If we have a bite button, we need one for hugging too. He tells a story about a son who takes his father's paintings and claims them for himself. Waka then not so subtly implies that Issun is doing the same. Waka disappears into a cloud of fairy dust. From the save mirror head east: Fisherman Urashima is on the beach being tormented by bullies who tease him about his belief in a castle under the sea and how a castle controls the dragons. To get down there, you need to meet Orca. Go to the end of the pier (by the fisherman's house) at morning and Emissary Orca will come. Orca says that it will take us to the Palace because we are worthy. Ammy tries to jump on but falls off. Jump on and like a high school state champ stuck in the past, Orca repeats that "I am second to none when it comes to swimming." In order to get to the underwater castle we need to find a secret whirlpool. _____________________________________________ | Catcall Tower (#34) | WARNING: Before starting this Mission make sure that you have one fish food left in your inventory. You will have to feed a cat at the top of the tower. While on Orca, head due east to the island with the huge tower. I know you were expecting "Catcall Tower" to be some sort of meeting hall for construction workers, but it is not. It is where you are going to find another brush power. Press the Listen button to get off of the Orca. Climb the ramp and enter the tower. Just inside you have to fight a wheel made of blades. It is called a poltergeist. Bombing it seems to work best. After defeating it, go up to the wall that Issun calls attention to. It is a cat walk - just keep hitting X in order to scale the wall. This tower is way too long. There is even an observation deck that you must continue to climb up and past. And then climb some more. I realize they want to impress upon you the scale of this tower but use a cinematic. After all that cat walking there is an observation deck. Run up the wood stairs to the rooftop and venture out onto the stone boom. Walk out on it to see a single cat. Feed it using fish food and it will stop meowing. A constellation appears. This is a four star monster constellation. The cat plays with Issun and Ammy gives chase. They run through an open meadow and I thought we were going to see Ammy and the cat make out. When we return, the cat is in some post coital position on a wall. She is the god of walls? - talk about drawing the short stick when it came to handing out god powers. _____________________________________________ | The Power of Catwalk (#35) | Get off the tower. The easiest way is to go back to those golden rings and throwing Ammy off the side of it - she can not die from falling. Return to the King of Red Lion, I mean Orca and venture off for some cat climbing. Check your map and notice the golden cat paws. For some treasures head to the Eastern half of the N. Ryoshima Coast. Stand back when you draw the stroke, because the line must continue all the way up the wall. When drawn, climb up and enter the cave. Inside are some treasures. _____________________________________________ | Find the whirlpool (#36) | The second cat claw is on the back side of a large cliff. From the coast, run around to the broken bridge and swim across the water channel. Draw a path up from the cat there. Fight the monster there and look for the watcher. He says that this is called watcher's cape. He tells you that you can see the stars form a spiral formation but it is too cloudy to see now. The night sky will always show the stars though. Draw a moon if it is not already night and talk to the Watcher again. He is again looking for shooting stars. Use the brush to make a few dots in the sky. He wishes. I was actually afraid of what a lonely hermit named "the watcher" would wish for, but it turns out he just wants the whirlpool galaxy again. Go to the end of the cape. When the whirlpool is in the sky, a whirlpool will appear in the ocean. Issun hints that we should do something. Draw three wind brush techniques in a row and the whole galaxy will spin. I heard Carl Sagan talk about this kind of phenomenon; I guess it happens all the time. The whirlpool in the ocean opens. Go back to Orca and swim out to the whirlpool and get sucked in. Be sure to swim fast in order to avid the water dragon. God that dragon is so sweet, I hope we get to ride him. _____________________________________________ | Land of the Dragonians (#37) | So the whirlpool sucks Ammy and Issun into an underwater wonderland. Walking around in this level kinda gives me a headache because it reminds me of how my contacts retaliate on me staying up late, drinking, and then slowly curing them with cigarette smoke. Go thought the front door and the security will stop you. The water palace must have had the same architect as the Sasa sanctuary. Issun tells them who we are and they open the doors for us. We will meet the ocean princess - not yet a Caribbean Queen. Go straight to where the Sasa Sanctuary throne room was. Ammy and Issunn talk to the Dragonians and the princes Otohime. She knows our true form and explains the situation. The water dragon was helping the Dragonians fight the dark forces of Oni. The dragon got so hurt he totally flipped out and started killing everything. We can harness the power of the dragon by getting the Dragon Orb out of the Water Dragon's stomach. Then we will be able to use the dragon to break the seal of the super secret Oni Island. She gives us the Shell Amulet to help us find the water dragon. Go back down the elevator. From the bottom floor of the palace find the door to the Water Dragon's garden. If you are wondering why a totally sweet Water Dragon would do something as lame as have his own garden, don't freak out. It's not really a garden - there are only four plants. It's really more like the Dragonian's garage. The water dragon was like "hey man could you do me a mondo favor. I need a place to crash until I get back up on my own fins. Do you mind if I stay her for a while?" Before the Dragonians could protest he was all "I will just camp it out in the garage. I can't really pay you rent right now but I could defend the palace for you or something like that." So the Dragonians took pity on him and now he lives in the back. And that is why he seems like such a douche bag - he patrols the seas for rent money. So when you get to the garden/garage jump down into the mouth of the dragon. Just be careful not to hit the labia. _____________________________________________ | Inside the dragon (#38) | We here at gameintestine.com love levels involving the exploration of digestive tracks. This one is the best we have seen since "Ocarina of Time" when we had to get the Zora princes from a giant whale. This is a next-gen interior so the inside of the dragon is so delicately white and milky. Inside the dragon your goals are to fight off the monsters and get a lockjaw key. The key is located in the large, central room. From that central room, jump down into the water and swim north to three small mushroom platforms. On the tallest one is the key. Grab it, then use a water spout to get back to the higher levels. Head north to the Lockjawed door. Past the locked door is the Dragon orb but it is tied up by stomach muscles. In the next room is some red tissue that looks like a saggy diaper that leaks. Draw a water line from each platform up to that nasty membrane. It will blow and the beast will flood. I am sure the Water Dragon just got a bile burp - you know when you think you are going to burp but you throw up just a tiny bit and it burns about as bad as it tastes. The liquid will hurt you if you get in it, so draw a lily pad for Ammy. Use the wind technique to push the pad along the water. Sail back to the room with the stomach muscle wrapped orb. Jump off the lily pad and onto the small island. Start drawing water lines up to the orb in order to melt away his stomach lining. I think the orb doubles as an antacid because when you free it all the red liquid clears right up. However, the dragon's natural defenses kick in. Issun calls them foxfire. Could this be related to those rods we have heard so much about? ### BATTLE AGAINST FOXFIRE######### - Exorcism beads equipped as primary work best - they let you keep your distance. - Attack then dodge. - After defeating a few of them they will start shooting at you. Take a Vengeance Slip to deflect these purple pellets. - The next set of them will suck the ink right out of you. Figure out which one is doing the sucking and start attacking it. An inkfinity stone works well too. After defeating them, the doors open and you get the Fox Rods, which look a bundle of push pops. The Dragon's stomach starts doing something that I would imagine would happen if you were to eat a sandwich that is composed like this: porterhouse - cheese - porterhouse (no bread). Follow the arrow out of the stomach. Watch for the small shadows appearing on the ground as a drop will fall where they are. A clock appears like someone knows when the dragon is going to vomit. I actually wish I had one of those so then I could make plans around my vomits. Don't worry about the clock, there is plenty of time to escape. The dragon dies, but his spirit survives. The dragon was King Wada of the Dragonian. He says that the Fox Rods drove him to madness - you could say crazy like a Fox Rod. He gives back the Dragon Orb for you to return to his wife, the queen. Then he sinks into the depths. _____________________________________________ | Wada's Request (#39) | Rao is back. She saw the dragon "thrashing about" and came here - I have a feeling she always appears when something is "thrashing". She asks if he revealed the secret of "penetrating Oni Island." Why would she care? Unless... Then, Issun whips out his rod, I mean Fox Rods. We give her the rods. She acts creepy-possessive like she is holding the one true ring. She promises to protect the queen with the Rods. Return to the Dragonian's throne room to return the Dragon Orb. We tell the queen that we killed her husband. She takes the news fairly well because she realizes that he performed a very sacred thing to protect them. She wouldn't have been so understanding if she knew that we slowly killed him by flooding his intestinal track with digestive acid. She says that the Dragonians will do whatever it takes to get into Oni island. Wish I could say the same for the Queen of Sei-an City, who just looks into her crystal ball anytime something is wrong. The Dragonian queen asks about the Fox Rods. We tell her that an assistant to the Sei-an city Queen (Rao) took them. Otohime is like "holy crap you gave those up?" Then the music gets all suspicious. The dragon orb starts glowing and floating to show Roa getting attacked by a black shadow. Issun wonders to himself if that same orb could be used to watch Rao shower. The dark beast then takes the Fox Rods from her. We run off to get them back. _____________________________________________ | Bad Feeling Confirmed (#40) | Exit the whirlpool and return to Sei-an city. The gate outside the city is sealed for security so you will need to find another route. Go further down the coast to Ankoku Temple - it is circle in red on your map. Rao's ghost is hovering about. Keep following her, even when she goes through a wall - it will disappear. The temple leads straight to the Queen's palace. Go back to the queen's throne room. The orb is lying next to Queen Himiko. Rao tells us what happens and how the demons attacked. But, Ammy sees right through it. Rao was behind it the whole time - the femme fatale. She tricked us into getting that Fox Rod and now she can win. Evil Rao eats the crystal ball. ### BOSS: EVIL RAO ######### - Use Vengeance slip and Steel Fist Sake and just attack her any which way. You really don't even have to dodge. She coughs up the crystal ball. Ammy tries to finish her off but magical powers deflect us. Rao gets doctor octopus arms and then turns into the dark version of us. She hits us and we fly back. The dark us says "resistance is futile; your last remaining hope is gone." Whoa! Sorry about that quote, it looks like I accidentally pasted in the text from a nerd posting his favorite lines from Star Trek - wait I didn't, that is actually in the game text. That is bad. Evil Rao slips away. The queen died looking for Oni Island. However, she went all ethereal on us and got into the crystal ball and it was all according to plan to learn the secrets of the Island. Oni is just off Watcher's Cape. As for the crystal, a "blinding light heralded the crystal's demise." The cinematic doesn't show that, we just have to believe that it was in-fact blinding. _____________________________________________ | Go to N. Ryoshima Coast (#41) | This next part is timed so don't dilly-dally. Head for the Watcher's cape by running straight out the center of town. All guards will let you go by. Rao's house is empty but people are still waiting in line. The guards outside say "you look too cute to be a demon in disguise" which is dramatic irony because it was a cute person (Rao) who was actually a demon in disguise. Go back up to the N. Ryoshima Coast. Use the catwalk brushstroke again to get back up to the Watercher's Cape. Run to the edge and meet Otohime, the underwater Dragonian queen. She explains that she prayed to the plot convenience gods. In return they gave her the power to just knock down any barrier. Cinematic: For those of you who do not know what happens in this cinematic let me explain it without sugar-coating it. You see, when a water dragon really, really, really, loves an island it is necessary that it penetrates said island. The dragon will become very straight and small white things will come out of the dragon and enter the island. Let's just call those white things... wolves. _____________________________________________ | Lone Wolf vs Evil (#42) | Oni island is what would happens if Bowser were to add a little Asian influence to his next castle. There are your typical lava pools and stone walls but there are also samurai suits and teak doors. No Persian rugs though. Jump down from the end of the dragon and onto the brimstone. Run up to the lava pool and draw a water spout. Run to the next lava pool and jump down. Lily pads will burn up in the lava so swim quickly to the islands. Swim to the northern most stone island. From there, swim under the bridge and towards that flower bud. As soon as you are close enough for the flower bud to open draw a vine to it to pull you out of the lava. There is a chest on it. From the island with the chest on it, double jump towards the island and flame spring. Pull yourself up on the island, then draw a waterspout to bring Ammy up to the stone walkway above. Run west along the walkway to the front gate. You will have to fight two stone faced horses. The stone faces are impervious to frontal attack, so use the mist brush stroke to slow them and then run around back to attack them. Drawing bombs helps too. These guys also have the power to slow your PS2 frame rate to an absolute crawl, so be aware of that. When they are defeated, run in through the main gate. Head to the western-most room to fight two poltergeists. Once they are defeated, pickup the key. Bring the key to the lockjaw located on the east side of the floor. "Evil Being Tobi" is a small slip of paper that wants you to race him. None of his races are that hard, the later ones may take a few tries though. Start running and don't get hit. The first two races are quite simple, the more complicated ones are explained below. Terraced Passage: The first major turn is down to the left. The cat track thing is there to help you if you fall and should not be used if you want to beat the paper slip. Passage of saws: As long as you realize that Ammy has the acceleration of a '91 Oldsmobile, you should have no problem passing it. Run around the small room a few times to build up Ammy's speed, then run over the trigger to start the race. Demonic Wheels: This is another race that requires building up speed before starting it. Watch out for the wheels that are located just around the first corner. The stairs are best handled by making smaller jumps and hitting every other one. Don't do double jumps. Chamber of Delay: The name is funny because that is what I call the DMV. You get jumped by baddies in this room. Kill them quickly by opening your inventory and using an Exorcism Slip. After the slip races, there is a room full of the laser shooting samurais. Use the brush slash to temporarily halt the lasers then leapfrog to the small pedestals that are out of the direct path of the beams. After weaving through the samurai, fight the Blue Cyclops. Attack the beast with beads. If his pipe goes out he goes CRAZY and will be untouchable. Use the nearby torches to relight it and continue the beatings. Slip race Needles: Warm-up start then jump over two sets of needles. Bomb the end of the hall. Outer deck: Run to the right to the cat, draw a line and climb up to the next level and grab the key. Go back through the hole over the needles and use the key on the lockjaw. Past the gate, run to the end of the hall. See the giant cougar statue. Walk up next to it and draw a line from the bow string right up to the cats head. You will get the celestial power of lighting from it. Wonder what Sigfried and Roy's tigers are doing now? Staring in video games. It's name is Gekigami. Follow Issun's explanation to unlock the door. Continue through the door and use the lighting technique again on the sword that is located at the edge of the cliff. The bridge will continue to rotate so jump on it before it is completely level and run across to the other side. Run through the golden gate and bomb the floor of the next room. Turn around and jump through the blue hanging tapestry. Pick up the key and the yellow terminals will glow and you can walk on them. Carry the key and jump up through the other platforms. At the locked door, draw a line from the key to the electrical sword. The door unlocks. This next series of rooms are quite spectacularly surreal. Follow through the path as each rice paper screen opens in front of you. The doors will get quite maze-y. The last room will require you to bomb your way out. This will drop you back to the entrance of this castle. Use the key on the central altar. There is a huge statue that looks like Michelangelo got bored half way through sculpting David and decided instead to sculpt Satan. Electrify the sword with the sparking object located in the right corner of the room. Descend into the newly opened stair case. In the next room, an alarm sounds and the floor drops. Slash out every eye to turn off the alarm. Then, turn around to slash the one on the right wall. Line up the four surrounding the trap door and make one long celestial slash. Continue through the door at the bottom. In the side angled room, light the prod then wall jump onto the rotating platform. Proceed to the right and then navigate the various rotating platforms. At the very top there is another electric key. Use the brush slash to break through the barrier then pick it up. Drop back down to the spinning platform with the spikes on both sides - a cat is there too. Run to the right and the lock for your key is there. Unlock it and go up. Save and pick up the nearby electricity key. Cary it up the stairs and across all the yellow platforms. After crossing the swinging spider and reaching the highest platform, drop the key. You and the key will fall through to the next room. Explore the room. On the east wall, bomb the green tapestry. In that room, pick up the regular old exorcism key and take it to the lockjaw in the bombed out room. There is another Tobi - I liked him at first but now I think this is wearing a bit thin - paper thin. Tobi challenges you to one final, ultimate race. First mist the spider, jump across the chasm and watch out for some random spikes. This will take a couple practice attempts. Fight the red and blue stone faced demons in the next room. Continue through to the next hallway, across some purple lava platforms. A cinematic will show you a cat statue and some spiked wall hangings. Draw a cat path along the side wall that does not have any spikes on it. Jump to the top floor. Run around to the outside porch then up the stairs. There will be a blockhead that requires 5 hits. The only tip I can give you is to see how the spots land in relation to his natural blemishes such as cracks, spots, and facial features. Keep in mind that you also need to hit the spots in the same order that they appear (clarification from zappo2). If he is really tough I have heard of people using a digital camera to record the spot's locations. There at the top is another Tobi and he is going to do a final race. Issun says "scrap..." but I think he really mean "crap." Before hitting the trigger, draw a bomb on the shelf across the room. On the other side is a vine flower. Hit the trigger, draw a line to Okami, then cross the finish line. Tobi tells you that because he was defeated he will be erased. I would like to feel sorry for him but I really disliked most of his races. Maybe we could just re-use him as toilet-paper, that would make me feel better about him. Issun then commemorates Tobi by saying something that I am sure the writers plagiarized from every high school valedictorian commencement speech: "I can now face the biggest challenge of my life so far!" It still doesn't make me feel sorry for Tobi - two words: Demonic Wheels. Run across the bridge and climb the stairs to the roof of the palace. Notice how the camera has pulled back showing Ammy as a smaller, more insignificant creature. This is to make you feel weak and fear the upcoming battle. Ever hear of Hanukkahmas? It lasts eight days, and you get presents under a Christmas tree that is topped with a Menorah. There are dredels and gingerbread houses. The central figure is not going to be Santa, and not going to be David, it is going to be Ninetails. She would make the perfect character. Don't believe me? Look right at the constellation you have to draw - that's a Menorah. Then, Ninetails appears and says "Ho ho ho ho ho!" Ninetails could be the perfect post-Santa, covering both holidays, giving presents to kids of all faiths. However, Ammy doesn't like it, not at all, probably because she is an Okaminist and doesn't believe in any of those holidays. ### BOSS: NINETAILS ######### - Dodge when it is just a wolf with ninetails. Run, dodge, and take some Steel Soul Sake to reduce damage. - When Ninetails raises her sword, draw the electricity from a storm cloud to it and she will explode and some Christmas Elves will start attacking. - Let the elves get close then use an Exorcism Slip to really destroy them. - If you do not have any slips left, just attack them at will, mist helps too. - If you hold the celestial brush too long, Ninetails will try to draw in a counter attack too (the red lines) - Each elf corresponds to one of her tails so when you kill one, it removes one of her tails. - When she is down to one tail you can attack her directly. - Continue to draw electricity to her sword when she raises it. - After several hits she will be stunned and loose her color, at that point draw bombs on her. Cinematic: So Ammy ruined Hanukkahmas by killing Ninetails. Ammy gets the Blade of Kusanagi. Himiko's death had been avenged. Oni island crumbled into flower petals. The queen stayed a dragon and returned to the Dragon Palace. The black haze moves from Ninetails back into the sky. Even Blight showed up, because he is a total party animal. Ninetails and Blight joined together and went to the North. A dark creature Yami lives in the north too. Waka appears: He says that we were on a fox hunt over at Ani Island and that the queen had her time - for a Taoist he sure is utilitarian. He says there is a storm brewing over Shinshu Field. Prediction: "A shocking zap and it opens!" He shows us where to go by circling the map. _____________________________________________ | Shinshu's Rolling Thunder (#43) | Warp, walk, or claw your way to Shinshu Field. This is your first major homecoming. Because of all your new god powers, there will be some things for you to unlock. Things such as burning leaves and treasure buried under rocks can now be uncovered. When ready, go towards the cat paw that is just Northwest of the Red circle. Use the brush and then climb up the cliff. Walk over to the huge stone pile. Issun explains that this pile has been here for ages but no one knows what it is for and that they are all over Nippon. What Issun doesn't tell you is that it requires 1.21 Giga-watts to work. If you still need a hint as to how to work the tower, go to http://gameintestine.com/guides/okami/okami_shinshu_thunder.html After getting the tower to rotate, run through the gate on the side of the structure. _____________________________________________ | Kamui (#44) | Kamui, which is explained to be the northern tip of Nippon, is a frozen island. That is why you needed to take an underground tunnel to get there. Find the nearby save spot. Explore the field and beat off any attackers - they look like Tikis that got lost on their way to Hawaii. Enter the hut. Ammy relaxes by the fire when a man wearing a Gummy Bear mask flashes a sword. The guy cautiously escapes and Issun admires his sword. When you leave the hut, the Gummy Bear is waiting for Ammy. Before the fight a picture is shown of Oki and I guess the brush adds 10 pounds because the guy in it is totally buffed out. ### BATTLE AGAINST OKI ######### - Use a vengeance slip to deflect the icicles he shoots at you. - Slow him down at every chance with mist. - If you do get hit by an icicle and freeze, draw a flame line from the bonfires. - Take steel fist sake to speed up the battle. When you drain the masked man's power, he will get into Michael J. Fox mode and turn into a wolf. ### BATTLE AGAINST WOLF OKI ######### - Keep using Steel fist sake. - Use mist constantly because he is fast. - Attack with bombs - each one will take away about a fifth of his power. - When halfway damaged he will split into three and attack even faster. - Stop this threat with the mist technique and try to attack the main, colored wolf while avoiding his clones. Cinematic: He turns back into a masked man name Oki. I think Ammy got a little turned on by all this wolf transformation. He is from the Oina tribe. Is that the music from the opening credits of MASH? Oni recognizes Issun and knows his back story. He has armed himself because the demons Lechku and Nechku have infested their sacred mountains and killed his tribe. His sword will glow when it is time to kill. Note: the sword is not named sting. He repeats a prophesy: "The wall of ice shall shatter and open the way to the heavens when Kutone, the guardian sword, glows silver." _____________________________________________ | Squatters of Ezofuji (#45) | Run north of the hut and see Yoichi (the eyebrow endowed) archer again. He is in this isolated area because he thinks he causes destruction wherever he goes. This time, connect the lightning to his mid-flight arrow. The bolt will destroy a hillside to reveal a guardian tree. He figures it must be the gods doing this to his arrows. He then realizes that he has been traveling to escape his true calling but now he has a purpose, this is all thanks to Ammy and Issun. Notice he realize Ammy's godliness when he finds himself (Theme: self realization = knowing who Ammy truly is). Circle the sapling to clear up the landscape. It looks like a Bing Crosby movie when the land is restored. Go and explore the northern regions of this field. In a small hut to the north east you meet Distressed Youngster Wali who says that he has been cursed since he touched the sacred sword. But really, he just sounds like a hypochondriac. He gives you a list of assassin monsters. If you kill them you get some extra points. _____________________________________________ | Icy Wep'Keer (#46) | Every door in the town is shut, and everyone is hiding. Ammy, maybe everyone is a little tired of hearing about your new religion. I am just going to say it: Okaminism is the new Jehovah's Witnesses. Continue up the stone stairs (next to the empty merchant stand) and up the northern path to cross some snow drift bridges to get to the northernmost reaches of the Wep'Keer. See Saickle who is a village elder. He knows Issun too, but is baring us from entering any hut in the village. Talk to him again and he will growl and threaten you to leave. Leave. Go back through the southern entrance to Wep'Keer. But, just before you leave a village girl named Kai stops you. She recognizes Issun and takes us back to her hut. She provides some background information about the town. Twin demons suddenly awoke and attacked the village leader Kemu. Oki (the Gummy Bear) stole the sword and ostracized himself. Her sister, Lika, has vanished too. There is a howl in the distance. Leave Kai's hut and return to the chief's hut at the northern edge of Wep'Keer. Ammy is permitted to enter noe. Chief Kemu attacks you, so attack back. He recognizes Issun. He tells us that we need to rescue Lika to protect the village from freezing over. She has run off to the forest of Yoshpet. However, to get into the forest we need an amulet. _____________________________________________ | Return to Wep'Keer (#47) | From the elder's shanty, go north through the gate. Progress up the hill to the northwest corner and enter the small hut there. The shaman, named Tuskle and looking like Dame Edna, gives back story. A great ship called the Ark of Yamato fell from the sky and it was full of monsters and people. Only one person survived the crash. After the story Tuskle gives you the amulet Sewaprolo. This will open up the forest. Go back to Wep'Keer and pick up supplies before going up into Yoshpet forest. Kai is at the gate and she volunteers to lead you through the forest. _____________________________________________ | Yoshpet Forest (#48) | Issun explains that Yoshpet translates to "consuming forest." That means Yoshpet Forest would be "consuming forest forest." Waka is there and he is still looking for a path to the heavens. Issun accuses him of wanting to kill Ammy. I wouldn't call it an accusation, more like truth because Waka did attack us the first time we met him. He actually wants the heavenly Ark. Based on Tuskle's story he is either the demon who is looking for that one lost soul or is the soul. Kai is at the forest entrance and she will lead us to a sacred place. Keep after her because it is like running an obstacle course. Pickup the flashing orbs to add time but don't work too hard for them because there is plenty of time to complete it. I know this whole scene sees really wild and untamed but be aware that in modern day Japan this very trail is probably a ski run for snowboarders (http://www.snowjapan.com/e/resorts/resortdetail.php?resid=137). The sacred place is called Pone'tan - "sine your pitty on the runny kine!" This is where Issun grew up. Down comes the Lucky Mallet to get us in Issun's home town. Issun decides not to go so it is an Ammy only affair. The designers of Pone'tan (Sepatown!) went to the Ewok School of City Planning and Design. First stop is Ishaku's house the elder - located in the center of the map's northern edge. Keep talking to the guards outside his house and they will let you in. Talk to Ishaku and Ammy has a conversation with him that is every single Lassy episode. Ishaku: Who is it? Ammy: Ishaku: Is that you Ammy? Ammy: Ishaku: What are you doing here? Ammy: Ishaku: What? You are looking for a lost girl? Ammy Ishaku: She fell into a well? Ammy: Ishaku: She fell into a spirit gate? Ammy: Ishaku: To a far off place? Ammy: Explore the village if you want. If you find Mrs. Seal, don't spend the 99,999 for the seal. When done, leave the village through the large hole in the southern end of the village. Miya will come out to talk to Issun. She asks if he has become an Envoy, which he has. He denies it because he was the one who stole Ishaku's drawings. Issun's theft is why he was not entering his home town. Leave the small clearing and continue north to find the gate that Lika supposedly ventured through. _____________________________________________ | Gate of Misfortune (#49) | Follow Issun through the second icy obstacle course. When you get to a large, black chasm, jump to the right wall - it has cat prints on it that allow you to hang on to it. Get to the gate and save. Issun says he has not been here since the "age of myths". Issun goes to open it like a pirate down a sail. The blue Gummy Bear joins your party. We warn Oki but he says he is "hoping for the sake of Kutone." I don't think Kushi makes a "sake of Kutone." Oh wait by "sake" he means "he is doing this BECAUSE of Kutone." Notice Ammy fake growling at Oki. Read between the lines: Ammy is totally crushing on him. _____________________________________________ | Beyond the gate (#50) | The "Gate of Misfortune" is a misnomer because the other side of it is quite pleasant. Run down the path to the village. It is Kamiki village. Meet Nagi and he thinks you are Shiranui. He goes to attack you and Issun puts it all together by saying "We went back 100 years into the past." Fight Nagi using a straight up, wolf-style, godly beating. Use vengeance slips to deflect the flaming daggers. After the fight, Issun says "What is going on he keeps calling himself Nagi" - didn't Issun figure out that they went back 100 years. Then Issun realizes a second time that people are confusing Ammy of being the wolf of legend. We then completely destroy the space-time continuum and everyone in the future will have monkey tails. Up in the sky, some colored lights twirl around. And then, just like before - which would be after because it was the future and this is the past, an arrow is shot at Kamiki village. The arrow, once again, hits the maiden's house. This time, instead of Kushi, it is Nami that is pegged. All the ancestors look the same as their future counterparts, which means this town is probably serious inbred. In order to repeat the legend exactly, Ammy and Issun have to dress up Nagi like the maiden. We need to steal Nagi's gown. Ok, now get ready and don't freak out, because in a second here you are going to totally see a naked chick taking a bath - well kinda naked. Issun says some sexist remark about a hot chick. That means everyone has to take another shot! You need to sneak up on her bathing and snatch the clothing. Go slowly so as not to alert her. Go over to Nagi and bring him the robe. Issun reminds us again that we are doing this so the legend is repeated. _____________________________________________ | To the Moon Cave (#51) | Leave the town and go north to Shinshu Field. Issun reminds us once again that this is 100 years ago. Issun says "Im not sure I like this whole going back to the past business" I don't mind as long as we don't have to do the Orochi fight again. The Moon Cave is in the far southeast corner of Shinshu Field. You will be attacked at will by the yellow paper slips so stay just off the dirt path and they won't attack you as much. There is no barrier this time because force fields have not been invented yet. Let's just hope Waka hasn't been born yet. Issun then tries to explain away some plot holes. Issun says "Looks like Orochi can taste the difference between man and maiden!" Years of practice. Then we get locked out of the cave? Or are we in? Oh it is in. Run up, grab the sake, go to Orochi. Lika is there sitting under Orochi's bell (that wasn't supposed to sound dirty). Issun then reminds us that to fulfill history we have to die. Hey thanks for the pep talk. Then Orochi says "How dare you stand in my way" - in the way of what? Orochi doesn't move. Oki shows up and then turns into a wolf and if you look closely you can totally see Ammy quiver with passion. Issun fills the canal with sake. Is Orochi wearing gingham patterned armor? The tension builds. Oh please God I hope we don't have to fight Orochi again. For once I would be happy with a cinematic - maybe something like a montage of us slashing at snake heads. Nope, no such luck. Get ready for a shameless ploy to add game time. ### BOSS: OROCHI AGAIN! - THANKS CLOVER######### Just like before: - Get the heads to growl, draw a sake line to them - When the heads are sufficiently drunk ring bell the bell Part 2: - Get the heads drunk again then attack Oki gets in the way to cause the final blows but his sword doesn't work. Nagi shows up with his sword called Bokunenjin. Then, Issun tells us for the fourth time that this is a replay of 100 years ago, and that this is a famous legend. Draw a moon when prompted. Nagi then calls his sword "Nagi-Style Blade of Truth" - just like 100-years before. Follow him and slash the heads in time. He then whips out his "Celestial Cleaver." Orochi is dead again. The girl, Lika, lands on his back. We obtain "Thunder Edge" sword. Cinematic: The legend is fulfilled (from 100 years ago). The beast was killed and sealed for 100 years. Enshrined in the moon cave. Lika was de- cursed - I didn't know she was cursed in the first place. I thought she just ran away from home. Oki is disappointed that his "sword" did not "perform" and then he gets "sword" envy from Nagi's "sword". Then, like any noble warrior Oki runs off to pout in the wilderness. Nagi starts laughing at all the carnage. It actually looks like the end of Christmas at my house - or Hanukkahmas. Watch Nagi's hand motion when he says he was the one who defeated Orochi - it looks like he is throwing dice. A rock falls on Nagi but Ammy blocks it. But it is not Ammy - it is 100- year-ago Ammy. So where was 100-year-old Ammy during this epic battle? So it turns out the legendary battle was not really fought by Shiranui but actually by her future self. Furthermore, Shiranui was not killed in battle but rather by saving the life of Nagi. After the cinematic, run out of the moon cave. Watch the shadows for the falling rocks. _____________________________________________ | Take Lika to Ezofuji (#52) | A solar eclipse starts. If Ammy is the sun god, does that mean that the moon god is humping her? We have to return the girl to the Wep'keer. Exit the forest and head north. Continue through Wep'keer village to the gate at the northern edge. Go up to Tuskle's house at the top of the hill. Oki, in a colossal pout fest, broke the gate to the shrine. Kai gives a little background to Oki, describing a past event in which he actually stayed behind to distract the evil and save the village elders. Enter the doors to the gates. I don't know if it is the cold weather but everyone is telling stories about the past. Issun gets into the story telling spirit and explains the story behind the twin demons. The one on the right looks like former presidential fatty, Howard Taft. Really. Check it out at http://gameintestine.com/guides/okami/okami_lika_ezofuji.html _____________________________________________ | Oki's Unauthorized Act (#53) | Wawku Shrine. Cannons start firing at you. Use the mist brush to slow them down and see the projectiles. Slash the purple projectiles and they will return to the cannon. Run right towards them then up through the door. Enter and cross the ice bridges that lead east. Use the torches to melt the ice that has blocked the door. Avoid the icicles and enter the large room. There is a scale in the middle that must be balanced to advance. Do so by performing the following steps: - Melt the two ice blocks on the lower side. - Cary the two smaller house plants to the side that once had the ice blocks. - Bloom stroke the plants to make them grow. - If you drop one, return to the original big tree and slash it. It will become pocket sized. When the scale is level, use the wind technique to blow the ice ball over to the trigger. Pick up the key and take it back to the main room for the lockjaw. Past the lockjaw, melt the large ice block in the center. Start up the water spout that is in the center of the newly formed pond. Check the map for the cat paw. Run around the upper level to get to it and draw a path to the next floor. On the second level, run around to the rapidly rotating blue wheel. Use mist to see the cannon bullets. Slash the cannon balls back at them to kill them. Then, draw mist to slow down the blue wheels and jump across the platforms. Repeat this for the next three wheels. Cross the bridge, save, and enter the door straight ahead. Jump twice over the rapidly spinning wheels then use the mist technique, it wont last long so you have to go fast. In the next room continue south up the hill. Jump down and you will fight another flying face monster who blows flames, shoots daggers, and then vomits on you. I have been to parties with guys like him. The apocalypse blizzard is caused by nothing more than a big snow blower. Destroy the machine to protect the town below. Read below how to: - Draw a cherry bomb by the crack in the wall and run inside. - Defeat the tree then blow away the leaves covering the floor. - Note the symbols - they will make more sense in a minute. - Melt the snow on the lever that is located on the left hand side of the machine. - Use mist to slow down the faces. - Slash the lever to stop each eye - The eye should be lined up according to the picture back in the room. When all the faces are aligned according to the floor in the adjacent room, a force field at the top of the snow machine will disappear. Then, a Faberge sweet potato flies off. Issun once again talks about this mystical 13th brush stroke. We have heard so much about this it better be good. Complete the constellation with 5 stars. The unlocked god plays a horn and all 13 gods show up and I get the Solar Flare weapon. The new brush power lets you freeze stuff? Damn, I was hoping it would let you raise the dead or shoot lasers or something. Backtrack to the room with the save. Freeze the red spider that is right next to the bridge. Climb up on said bridge and proceed to the next spider. Freeze it and jump to the next platform (or up to the chest if you are feeling frisky). I know this sucks and I hate platform jumping puzzles just as much as you do but keep your head up because this one is not too long. Melt the ice next to the cat. Vine over to that flower. Catwalk up to the next platform. Freeze the lower spider at its lowest point. Then, freeze the other spider when it is at its lowest point. If a spider looks like it is starting to thaw, you can refreeze a spider by hitting it again with the ice. Jump up the next two platforms and there is one more spider to freeze and you are done. In the next room, jump across the many gears. You can perform multiple overlapping mist technique to keep the gears still long enough to let you cross. In the next room, cross the spinning platforms. Freeze the burning one. You are jumped by one of those Haniwa soldiers called Dogu. Use the ice crystal to make short work of him. At the big chasm draw a line from the ice crystal across the room to the snowflakes. The snowflakes will freeze and create ice platforms. Jump across them. Once outside, run up to the next chasm and again draw in some ice platforms. Run up the hill and to the next door. Use the wind technique to extinguish the afterburners. Mist the giant cannon, and then when he fires slash the red orbs to deflect them back at him. Do cannons even have gender? Fight the haniwa and enter the next room. Tread lightly on the ice and kill that other male(?) cannon. So a totally creepy clockwork owl appears and turns it's head around and then winks at me. I just crapped myself in fear. 100 year-ago-me shows up and she looks glorious. It is like she is covered in sea anemone. She flicks ice right back at the robot owl. We both howl because if one dog in the neighborhood starts barking they all do. ### BOSS SILVER DEMON NECHKU ######### - Let 100-year-old-you do most of the work - Deflect all the attacks of Nechku After the owl is knocked around a bit Oki comes in slashing the face of the other demon. The owl has a giant clock on his chest - lets just call him Flava Flav. Then Oki turns into a wolf. TRIPLE WOLF FIGHT! Oki slashes at 100-year-old-me. I wonder if real time Ammy felt that? Oki lunges at the demons and time stops as if Zack Morris had said "Time Out." 100-year-old-me sacrifices herself again and then falls off the edge of a cliff. Oki has to decide between killing demons or saving gods. If someone asks you to save a god... you say yes! Oki saves team Ammy and his sword finally starts to glow. Oki says "it was not until I stopped being selfish that it would glow." But wasn't the whole reason he took the sword a selfless act of saving his people? Shouldn't it have started glowing the instant he stole it? Pick up the gear that fell off robo-owl and take it to Oki. The whole floor lowers. Oki stays behind to watch over 100-year-old-me but I don't know what he could do. Run straight ahead and into the formerly locked door. Canons are located on each side of a chasm ready for a fight. Fire all the cannons on your side to destroy all the other evil canons. Can cannons be evil? Draw frost lines across to get some ice platforms. Some of the evil cannons may not have been destroyed, so kill them by slowing them down and slashing the purple projectiles back at them. When all the evil canons are gone, the door will unlock. Before heading through the door, melt the giant ice block to uncover an ice ball. Use the wind technique to blow it into the next room. This is difficult, but it is helpful to know that you can draw a second wind gust while the first one is still going. When the ball is in the next room, draw lines off of it to freeze the gears. First, go to the north side of the room to get the key (bomb the ground first). Then, go to the opposite side of the room for the door. The owls are back. ### BOSS LECHKU AND NECHKU ######### - Watch the owls heads because they will pull stuff out of them and then throw them at you. - The "stuff" they pull out is as follows, what you should do is in parenthesis. - Lightning rod (electrocute it), a bud (bloom it), beehive (slash it), purple projectiles (slash them), bomb (draw fire line to it). - After affect the "stuff" the owls will be stunned. Oki will run up to you and ask for help firing him onto its face. - While Oki is on owl-face duty, run up and slash that owl. It will bring him to ground level. Then, let the wolf savagery commence on that owl. - If one of the owls spins real fast, it will dive at you and grab with its talons causing a lot of damage. To avoid this, press R2 a lot to roll out of the way. Be ready for the second owl to do the same. - If they spin really, really fast, dodge them and use the wind brush technique. Cinematic: After defeat, a giant cloud of black is formed. Blight, Ninetails, the evil owl twins all come together and went to the "Ark of Yamato". The 100-year-old-you (Shiranui) is all bloody and looks like Shit- ranui and goes back to the past in order to die as a hero. This means that the real legend in which Shiranui dies fighting Orochi is not entirely true. Shiranui actually survived the battle against Orochi and followed us into the future to help fight the creepy owl clock twins. Her mortal wounds were suffered when she sacrificed herself to save Oki. Even in ancient Japan the gods are sacrificial Christ figures. With the demons defeated, and the blizzard stopped, we return to Ezofuji. The prayer is said by Lika and the mountains erupt. Everyone is happy and Oki is accepted back into the tribe. The sword went back to the pedestal. Then, completely unexpectedly, Laochi Lake melts. Al Gore feels a disturbance in the force and creates more slides. The "Ark of Yamato" then starts to float and shoots out a pixy dust rainbow. I don't know how scary it could be as there is a magical rainbow leading you up to the ark. Issun recaps everything that had done together like it is the farewell episode of a TV show. Issun says he has to go. Ammy follows him and Issun repeats again and again that he must go. Its like that scene in every pet movie where the kid tell his dog to run away but the dog won't and then the kid starts crying/yelling and pushing the dog away. Then the dog slowly slinks off into the wilderness. Waka is back and says this is a path to the heavens. Issun leaves. But how many of you want to place bets that Issun will pull a Han Solo and come back at the end boss when we need him most. Waka then tells us that to board the Ark we must be worthy. Haven't there already been about 10 doors that we can enter only if we are worthy? Waka then starts giving quotes from inspirations posters: "It is resolve that determines the value of your life." Ammy enters the ark without Issun. _____________________________________________ | Rising Yamato (#54) | It must be the color of the paint used, or maybe they used windows to let in more natural light, but the inside of The Ark has a much greater sense of space than what the outside lets on. Whoever the interior designer's were they must have seen Tron. I like the look and feel of it, quite a break from the old bamboo theme we have been used to for the past twenty to thirty hours. The setting is great but the content sucks. Get ready to re-fight five of the bosses that you played in this game. And not even the five best ones - there are no twin owls. Yes, Orochi is one of the returning bosses, that means it will be a hat trick when you defeat him. There isn't even a narrative purpose as to why we are fighting them again. Other than the designers put so much work into programming them that they felt bad not dusting them off and putting the bosses in the game again. So fight each one EXACTLY the way you did before. They could have at least mixed things up like color them all blue or given them lasers. Nope! Just a straight up ctrl-c then ctrl-v. I listed the bosses as they appear clockwise from eastern most arm. East most - Ninetails Next - Crimson Helm Next - Spider Next - Orochi (again) Next - Blight After all the bosses have been defeated, the hub of the Ark lights up. I highly recommend buying supplies for this next boss because the battle is long and has multiple phases. There is a merchant by entrance to the Ark. Have at least 6 bones to fully refill your solar cells. Also buy golden peaches. Have 6 flasks of "Steel Soul Sake" to reduce damage inflicted against you. Have at least 5 inkfinity stones. When ready for the fight, jump into the light located in the very center of the Ark. You arrive to see Waka attacking a giant chrysalis. Pillow talk makes light saber sounds. He tells Ammy that the two of them fought against Orochi together on the Celestial Plain. This ball is Yami - the ultimate evil ruler. He is a giant bocce ball. Yami then makes his move by attacking Ammy. In Japan, is there alphabet soup with Kanji shaped noodles? Because, it looks like Ammy vomits Japanese alphabet soup when she is hit. The ball opens up and there is a small whale embryo inside. Waka then jumps in front of the light, thus protecting Ammy. Waka confesses that he was driving the Ark and accidentally crashed landed it on earth and spilled all the evil onto the land. It was entirely his fault for the evil on Earth. Waka falls back and his white mullet falls off revealing that he has a gold mullet. Most people try to hide grey hair by dying it gold, but not Waka. Even in death he is such a tool. _____________________________________________ | Final Boss Yami(#55) | The alphabet that Ammy vomited was all of her brush powers. So, the first goal is to get them back. Run up and start attacking the croquet ball. After enough hits, the brush strokes will start flying out in this order: - Rejuvination - Slash Melee attack him until he looses all color then use the slash technique. Then the following will come out. - Bloom When he looses color again, bloom him and for no apparent reason he ignites. Dodge him until his flames go out. Note: the damaged sections to the platform can be repaired with the rejuvenation stroke. Out pops: - Cherry Bomb Continue to attack him until he goes colorless and draw a cherry bomb on him. Eventually Yami will surrender: - Waterspout When he is on fire, extinguish him by drawing a line from the water fountains that encircle the platform (because even the king of evil thinks water features are nice decoration). When the whale Embryo drops out, climb up and attack it. Continue to bomb him and Yami will expel: - Crescent The ball will turn evil and purple. When it does, draw a moon. Yami will then go into the Vegas mode. He transforms into a giant slot machine. Brush slash the set of reels and react to whatever he fires at you. If the wheels are 3 blue orbs, that is his symbol and you will get one of the following brush techniques - the usage of each is listed in parenthesis. - Galestorm (draw a whirlwind to blow away the fireballs) - Inferno (melt the ice that is thrown at you) After enough rounds of the slot machine he will discharge: - Mist Use mist the next time his slot machine wheels start spinning. Stop each wheel at the blue orb because the fishbowl will come falling out making Yami vulnerable to attack. If he ever goes purple and evil again, draw another moon and he will phase out Vegas mode and grow arms and legs. He will also kick out: - CatWalk At either end of the platform are a couple pillars with cats on them. Use the Catwalk to get the treasures that are located on top. While he is walking around, run up for quick attacks on his center. The fishbowl will drop and you can attack it. He ejects - Thunderstorm Use the lighting attack against him when he sticks up the two golden probes. Also, attack using your melee weapons. He will expulse: - Blizzard Keep attacking until his power is drained. Defeated: Issun appears and say congrats! Howl. Based on the sky, the battle actually took pace in Mathmagic land. BUT! The ball attacks Ammy when she was celebrating and we loose everything again. A giant fist comes out and goes right for Ammy. Everyone that we saw in this game starts complimenting us like it is a political advertisement. Everyone is praying. Issun then gives a speech telling everyone that we need the sun - like there is really that much disagreement about that. Just before everyone starts clapping and saying "I believe" like Tinkerbelle is dying, all the prayers come together. I hope no one does this when I am near death because I would feel really awkward and then die embarrassed. Now totally rejuvenated by compliments, Ammy gets up to fight again. Draw a sun in the sky (bringing this game full circle). Start attacking the hand with your melee weapons. Avoid the counter attacks and when the fish is exposed, attack it. If the Yumi hand snaps, the sun will go out and you will loose all your ink. If you have inkfinities left, use them to quickly regain your ink. Otherwise, dodge until it comes back and draw another sun. Continue the attack until Yumi is defeated. _____________________________________________ | Denouement (#56) | A space ship comes down and it is piloted by Waka. The evil is gone forever. Ammy climbs up into the ship and jumps up on Waka. You see, it all comes down to just a kid and his dog. Waka says "off to stormier seas" - which means sequel. Notice that Waka is carrying a guardian sapling - probably also for the sequel. Waka punches up some buttons and the space ship turns into an IMAX. Waka dials in the coordinates to the Celestial plain. Then Ammy and Waka's ship takes off and the Ark is right behind it. Issun says he will spread the word about us and then he gets real Pat Robertson-ish: "you're gonna have more believers than you know what to do with!" Watch out for Issun he will be going door to door and sending you religious pamphlets until you are sick of them. The ship heads off to a big floating island in the sky. It is significant artistically that they are heading off to a floating island. The art style mimicked by this game is called Ukiyo-e which translates into "pictures of the floating world." The art style also commonly featured Mt. Fuji. The floating celestial plain bears a striking resemblance to Mt. Fuji. This floating Mt. Fuji is an allusion to Ukiyo-e style. Credits Start. The following event really happened on 11/4/2006: As soon as I beat the game and saw all the cinematics and made fun of Issun for being a religious zealot I got a knock on my door. I answered it and a Jehovah's witness! The woman smiled, handed me a pamphlet and walked away. I scanned the front cover of the pamphlet http://gameintestine.com/guides/okami/jehovah-pamphlet.html Even the title of the pamphlet is strangely apropos. Are Jehovah's witnesses monitoring our Ammy play and arriving at doorstops as soon as completing it? Email me if you have similar experiences. Final Cinematic: After the credits are done (which look like Ammy is taking a walk through a shooting gallery) someone steps away from a piece of parchment. The person is the narrator and says "Live up to the heroes I told you about." I don't mean to ruin the mystery behind this but it Issun. He is telling the story of Ammy to "spread the word." He is writing the Ammy bible. Old Issun was the narrator from the beginning. PLOT OVERVIEW: The story of Waka and Ammy is basically one of incompetence. The two of them were battling evil on the celestial plane when they decided to save the good souls by herding everyone onto an Ark. Like a pair of Mosses, they would lead the people to peace. But, they did not prevent evil from following them. Furthermore, Waka crash-landed the Ark on Earth. Evil gets to Earth and Waka and Ammy have to clean up the mess. The flagrant negligence continues when Ammy dies while battling evil. She is put in carbonite for 100 years. Ammy comes back without any memory of the past. She meets up with Waka and does finally defeat evil. This lets the two of them lead the ship to a final resting place. But, you ask, why was Waka such a douche bag to Ammy? What beings are they going to return to the promise land if those beings were all killed by evil? ----- Lessons Learned ---- - Haniwa are found in Japanese Graves - Nothing is cuter than two animals from different species hugging. - Watch out for the femme fatale with breast physics - Third time is the charm when fighting hydra-headed dragons ----------------- Legal -------------------- Copyright 2006 Zukowski This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright.