Ōkamiden/Headscratchers

The ending for Okami rather unsubtly established that not only would there be a sequel, but that it would involve Amaterasu purifying and reclaiming the Celestial Plain. So why isn't this that sequel, and will we ever see that one?
- They likely couldn't think of a way to make a good game out of it.
- Alternatively, making a sequel of the Celestial Plain would require an all-new world. While Okamiden can rely on existing designs for characters and areas. In other words, less money.
  - I think they had to make Okamiden's world from scratch, there's no way they could port it directly from the PlayStation 2/Wii. I highly, highly doubt money was an issue.
- OR they're putting more characters on the Celestial Plain, as buildup to such a game. So far, there's Waka, Ammy, Issun and Chibi, and a way for almost anyone to get there from now on.
  - It's probably the next game anyways.
Why did they remove the ink regenerating? I mean, it's not that inconvenient from a gameplay perspective, but it is inconvenient from a design perspective! They need to put ink bottles everywhere to minimze your risk of running out, and there's still a chance of it happening, so they had to put in a redo function! Why did they do this? It doesn't improve the game, and made it harder to make!
- Probably because, in the first game, it was almost impossible to run out of ink after you had 5-6 ink pots, making ink restoring items pointless. So they swung too far in the other direction. A better solution would have been to make ink regenerate more slowly, I suppose.
- Actually not true. Instead of having to draw the ink showing at intervals, like at 1/8ths or however it was done in Okami, they only have to show full and half pots. Which is a lot less work and a lot less coding to do.
- Chibi can regenerate ink if you play in Greenhorn mode, but in that mode all the enemies are significantly weaker. I myself think the lack of ink regeneration in Old Hand mode adds to the challenge. Besides, if you stock up on ink regenerating items you would never have to use Redo.
Who wrote the script for this game!? It can't agree with itself whether Shiranui and Amaterasu are the same being, the same goes for Akuro and Yami, and people sometimes know thigs they shouldn't! I could have done a better job...
- Also, just to clarify, it's the script that bugs me. Not the story, but the dialogue and narration.
- This troper theorizes the localization just wasn't very good, due to several glaring errors in the text. Of course, he's never played the Japanese version, so who knows...
  - I heard that they rushed the translation to get it out before the 3DS. Just a rumor, but it would explain it.
- I have seen nothing in the game that suggests Akuro and Yami are the same being. I also don't think it couldn't decide, I think it did completely retcon Shiranui and Ammy's relationship to father and daughter but both incarnations of "the Okami."
  - Maybe it's only father-daughter-son in the aspect of reincarnation, without actual blood relations? We never see or even hear of two different Okami from the same time, so it is possible that the powers of said Okami take on a new shape when the old Okami dies (which means that Ammy has died while trying to purify the Celestial Plains...)
    - Well, the other Brush Gods exist but have offspring at the same time. I think we can Hand Wave both Ammy and Chibi existing with the same explanation: Ammy upset the Balance Between Good and Evil, causing a new generation of "little gods" to be born. For some reason. Actually, it bugs me this was never adequately explained.
- So wait? Akuro really isn't some Ass Pull retcon that makes him the real source of evil? I mean, it just irritated me to think that they'd invalidate Ammy's grand finale, only to have it turn out that Yami was just another pawn. I mean, they did specifically say Yami was source of everything wicked (not the exact words, but close enough).
  - Akuro and Yami are one and the same being, so Yami wasn't a pawn. In the computer room within the Underground it is stated that Yami broke up into five pieces: Akuro, Master Anura, Bullhead, Sen & Ryo and King Fury. Akuro refers to himself as the successor of darkness and talks about Yami's new age, not Akuro's new age. In other words, Yami is indeed the origin of evil, with Akuro being his successor after Yami's demise. The 'Yami's age' part seems to show that Akuro has some respect towards Yami, so Yami could still be the origin of evil. Akuro wanted to combine with the other parts of Yami to truly become the new Yami and continue from where Yami left off. I think the descriptions of Orochi and Yami being Akuro's pawns is incorrect. After all, if Akuro once used Orochi as a vessel, why does he need to go back in time to collect Orochi's blood? Couldn't Akuro just pop out of Orochi's body and then retrieve the blood? This observation might have a few holes here and there, but I think one can assume from it that Akuro is not the true master behind Orochi and Yami, but rather a product of them after their death that wanted to continue where they left off. Alternatively, Akuro is the 'mind' of Yami. Either way, to drive the point home even further, Akuro speaks about how he himself had been broken up into five parts, despite the fact it was Yami who was split in five. This truly shows that Akuro is Yami, or at least his mind.
- Now that I can accept. It just seemed really insulting to the ending of the original game to say "Well, turns out Ammy only killed a super mook, not the real master of evil." Of course, I could have also believed if Akuro were a similar being like Yami, a dark god with the same intentions. And I had actually figured that it was probably the other way around, Akuro is Yami's son/reborn essense, considering how much of the orininal game implied several demons were born from the death of others. I take then that the Shiranui/Ammy thing is another translation screw up as well, huh?
  - Akuro being Yami's son/reborn essence also fits with the Generation Xerox theme the game revolves around, so it's very likely Akuro is indeed Yami's successor. The Shiranui/Ammy part can also be a translation mistake, though one can consider one's former incarnation as his or her 'father' in a very abstract sense, as you were 'born' from the death of the former incarnation.
Am I the only one who was a tad disappointed we didn't get to see Chibi reunite with his mother at the ending? I mean, come on! He and his grandfather Shiranui have a brief bonding moment, why not him and his mother who was the protagonist of the first game? I mean, it's not a major complaint and doesn't take away from the game, but it could have been a nice Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. I don't know, I just think it could have been cute.
- Probably because they're saving that for the next game.
I've not been able to play Okamiden yet and I may be totally off base here, only watching a walkthrough and all, but here's a question about Akuro and Yami. So, apparently, because Yami was killed, the balance between good and evil is upset, leading to Akuro running free. Akuro needs a body and possesses different people throughout the course of the game. But, at the end Kurow offers himself to Akuro so Kuni and Chibi can kill Akuro. Won't that even further screw up the balance between good and evil?
- Haven't you seen Jackie Chan Adventures? A new evil will emerge, but they can kill that one too when it appears, wash rinse repeat, and eventually a replacement evil will emerge that can be safely sealed away harmlessly.
Isn't anyone else bothered by how Otohime knew who Chibiterasu was, despite the fact the moment they met was nine months in the past, during the events of the first Okami game? You know, before Chibi was even born? Is Otohime telepathic now?
I can't be the only one wondering why Kuni is on the box cover instead of Kurow. Out of all of the partners, Kuni has the least screen time while Kurow has the most. I mean, I know that Kuni is the first kid you're teamed up with, but, after you reach Ryoshima for the first time, he's irrelevant to the plot until the very end. On top of that, if he really is Nagi (since, according to Susano, only Nagi could use that armor for some reason), how did he end up in the future, why is he still (given one debatable cutscene from the first game) cowardly as an adult, and why does he seem to be unable to see Shiranui's markings? Did he lose some power and part of his memory as he grew up? Sure, he wouldn't know who Shiranui is, but he'd surely associate the markings, if he could see them, with Chibiterasu. At least him being Nagi it explains why Akuro took interest in him out of anyone else in the world and gives Orochi a better reason to wanna form a pact with Susano in the first game aside from the fact that Nagi defeated him and Susano broke his seal.
- Whoa, no one mentioned most of what you're saying, let's not get into WMG territory. They probably just figured Kuni looked the best for the image they were going for. Plus he was part of Chibi's whole character ark. Kagu says it herself that Chibi was looking for him through all of Nippon during the game, alongside his duties as the child of the sun.
  - Well, assuming what Susano said is 100% true, the only logical conclusions that one can come to are that Kuni is Nagi himself or a reincarnation/new incarnation of Nagi. In the case of the former, this creates a bunch of inconsistencies and most of what I was saying were questions based on the former. Either way, it'd explain a lot about why Kuni was so important to Akuro despite having been missing for most of the game. Otherwise, one would have to wonder just why a normal boy, out of everyone else in the world, would be significant to the main villain. As for the boxart, I know you're right, but I was seriously bugged by what happened in the game. It's sorta like what happened in Mega Man X7, except nowhere near as bad, for obvious reasons. Looking back on it now, however, I should've separated that post into two different questions because I'm clearly talking about something else in the second part.
- Well, as for box art, Kuni is a Small Role, Big Impact character. Despite Kurow being the party member you have the most, and being created to stop the Big Bad, Kuni is the one who is Chibi's first friend, and the one Chibi is trying to find. Also, Kuni is instrumental to Akuro's plans. Although, it would have been nice to have all party members except Manpaku on the cover.
  - Why shouldn't Manpuku be on the cover? Sure he livved 100 years before the rest of the party, but he still played an important role.
    - Because that would spoil things that happen later in the game. Like how The Underground Ruins isn't the last dungeon. And that there's another party member. I like him and all, but it's still a spoiler.
Speaking of Nagi's Armor, how did Orochi get it? The only time I could see him getting it was on the night Nagi defeated him, after Ammy and Issun dressed Nagi in the clothes Nami was supposed to be wearing when she was to be sacrificed, but before he was defeated. After he was defeated, he was out of the picture for a century and Susano doesn't mention anything about having owned it nor it being stolen... Could this mean that he sent demons to Kamiki to steal the armor for who knows why while everyone who could do something about him was actually fighting him?
Like in Okami, in the US most of the original names are shortened. I always wondered: what's the logic in that? Are Ushiwaka or Kuninushi too long to remember? Why do they shorten Tamaya into Tama but let Sakuya and Susano as such? And why do they abridge the four-syllable Izanagi into Nagi but let the five-syllable Amaterasu alone? There doesn't seem to be any logic in that…
- Well, some (if not, most) English speakers don't know how to pronounce Japanese. It's just to make it easier to read the names rather than remember them.
Why is Shiranui referred to as a "he" in the page when it is confirmed she was Amaterasu in a past life, and how'd she end op frozen in ice when Okami revealed she died saving Nagi from Orochi after saving her future self from two cyborg owls?
- Shiranui was frozen (presumably trying to get the Amber so he could fight Orochi), rescued by Chibi, fought Orochi and the owls (I'm confused which order but was involved in both) via time jumping chaos, staggered out of the Moon Cave back to the village, then after being horribly weakened died from headbutting Akuro. As for the other... gendershift during reincarnation? The villagers never taking a peak between hind legs? That one bugs me too...
Just a restatement of a question Issun half-asked at the start of the game: who's Chibi's father?
- Nobody, presumably. Either Chibi is a genderswap reincarnation of Ammy the same way she was of Shiranui, or it was a partnerless metaphysical conception more akin to budding than conventional mammalian reproduction.
  - Shiranui's female, as she and Amaterasu are the same being.
    - Not according to the retcon. Same being, but opposite gender due to revival for some odd reason.
- Various mythologies have showcased deities birthing divine offspring without sexual intercourse. As the Goddess of Life and Mother of All it wouldn't be hard for Ammy to perform parthenogenesis.
What happened to the most of the music from the first game? It seems like the music for some of the characters and locations from Okami have been replaced with Jimmy Harts of the original.
- Everything was chibi-fied?
Did anyone else go throughout most of the game without realizing That anything ice-related in a battle can be used as a source of water? Seriously, Where were Itegami along with a few of the other brush gods from the previous game?