Okami from the Audio Standpoint

This post took me nearly FOREVER to get around to doing, I've been busy as they say and I have done everything in my power to not write it. The main reason being is that I kept telling myself that I needed to play the game more to really get a feel for the audio. Well I kept playing and playing and playing and the reason is?????
THIS GAME IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!

Now for the audio breakdown........
I'll sum up the audio in one word--PEACEFULL,, and that right there inspired this post. Okami does such a wonderful job of balancing the music, sound effects, and dialogue (which is a total nintendo rip off but it does work). The firery swish sound of the jump and the soothing warmth of the praise pickup all create a peacefull and somewhat intoxicating audio picture.

The audio also does a wonderful job of not ever being overly busy besides the dialogue (which occasionaly wears me down) the subtle tones of each of the effects really blend well with the music. In fact it seems as if the music was written first and the sound effects were created to highlight it.

Okami might not perk the ears of everyone around but as a game audio person myself I know how hard balance is to maintain. Alot of times we throw our sounds in try and balance them and realize there are 300 new SFX to finish in a month. We never get the time to balance it properly and we're left with an audio picture thats cluttered and unfocused. Its this balance and carefull precision that makes Okami stand out.

Now I want to take a moment and focus on the combat sound which although isn't as peacefull as the exploration is oddly appropriate.
First off I think everything is drenched in reverb which clutters the soundscape yes, but since its so cluttered it creates a sort of ambience in the vain of some of my favorite music (My Bloody Valentine/Slowdive). The cacaphony of all of this creates a tension that really makes the combat feel like combat. In fact if you've ever been in a fight yourself you know that your not really able to hear or focus on anything everything becomes a wash. From the audio perspective this works nicely because ultimately the sound effects never clutter the music,, again a great job of balance even in chaos.

If I were to pick one thing I don't like it would probably be the way dialogue is handled. The pitch variations are too drastic and can sometimes sound obnoxiously sing songy.

That aside I became use to the dialogue and got some pleasure out of imitating it.

Overall GREAT AUDIO

Mega High Fives to the team at Clover Studios!!!

-mtcs