Okage: Shadow King

The Good
This RPG has a few things about it that stand out. First I have to give props for the unique random encounter system that is implemented. In it, ghosts randomly appear on the battlefield and if they come into contact with Ari, a battle ensues. Second, the game world is expansive but also compact. What I mean is it's easy to remember where locations are if all the areas in the game were joined together into a giant map. This game's soundtrack is also beautifully memorable that reminds me of Dark Cloud. For a CD-ROM format game (most are DVD), a good amount of content is packed into it. And last but not least, the titular Stan and his dialogue drive the humor through most of the plot.

The Bad
While it's not as hard as other RPGs, enemies are surprisingly difficult at first. Any of your characters can be KO'ed within a couple hits if it's a new area or dungeon. Another huge problem I had was that the item system in the battles is flawed. An example of this is if a character uses an item to heal themself, but they are KO'ed before they can use it; the game still deducts the item from your inventory. Call it a bug, or call it a feature, I don't like that. Without revealing spoilers, I also thought the storyline wasn't the best and that the climax was...well not very climax-y.

The Bottom Line
Another poster mentioned it, but it's a semi-toony RPG with humor sprinkled throughout. Not as serious as your Final Fantasy installments, plus it's something different.

The Good
Okage: Shadow King deals with a teenager named Ari who lives with his extended family outside the small village of Tenel. One night his sister gets cursed by a ghost and Ari's father suggest calling forth a genie from an magic vase he bought. The genie is actually the evil demon king "Stanley High-hat Trinidad the 14th and he agrees to cure Ari's sister of her "Pig Latin curse" in exchange for Stan to inhabit Ari's shadow and to make Ari his slave. Now hopefully, that last sentence exemplifies that this game does not take itself too seriously. Yes, Okage's lightheartedness is a nice change of pace from the usual RPG melodramatics. The main plot deals with Stan trying to regain his power from so called evil fake kings which have all of sudden popped up throughout the world. Definitely not your usual RPG storyline. Also, another cool thing is that Stan follows you around and will sometimes pop out when Ari talks to villagers and says some pretty funny things. I mean in how many RPG's do you get a character who actually wants to terrorize villagers.

The Bad
The main character Ari is supposed to be a nobody who everybody ignores. The main problem with this premise the game really doesn't reinforce this idea that well. Ari seems to have a family that cares about his welfare (ok to a point, I mean they did send their kid out in the world with an evil demon king) and most of his hometown villagers seem to take a shine to him especially after he solves their water crisis .Ari eventually gets companions to join him in his adventure but for the most part they are not interesting and are just their to help you battle your enemies. Speaking of which, the battle system lets 3 of your party(Ari + 2 others) to jump into the fray. The battles are turned based and you are allowed to attack when a time based meter is filled. One of the problems with how this is done in this game is that you can be attacked by an enemy and before your damage is calculated it will be your turn, so you know you were hit but for how much is anyone's guess, so you don't know how powerful of a restorative you need to use, if you even need to use a restorative, or if it's game over. Yes, that's right if the main character Ari gets knocked unconscious in battle the game ends. The other two members in your party can be restored to life but Ari cannot. Which leads me to remember that before certain fights Stan will pop up and give you a multiple choice quiz. Now most of the questions he asks will have an answer that has no rhyme or reason for its solution. Now if you get it right he will do one special preemptive attack but if you get it wrong he wishes your doom. Which to me makes no sense because as I have previously wrote before if Ari dies then Stan dies and its game over. I've read people praise the game for its lack of random battles. This is true to a point. Yes, you can see the enemy ghosts and run away from them but for only so long. They will eventually pop up right in front of you or track you down and you will be forced to fight, Which lets me bring up this point, the loading times. When you enter or exit a house in a village the screen will zoom in and then out and it will take around 15 seconds for this process to finish. Sure that doesn't seem like a long time but after entering 10 different houses it starts to add up and that black screen will become more apparent and annoying. Also the camera clings to Ari to tight while traveling around so it is hard to get a good look around your surroundings, which is very important in this game because most of the time you have know idea where you have to go next to progress the story. One last thing which I thought was ridiculous was the side quest for the tiny gears. The tiny gears are invisible, yes INVISIBLE, gears that you stumble upon on the world map. Who the hell green lighted that idea. I will give it that it was an optional side quest but still.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, Okage is a mixed bag. I thought the story was passable for a lighthearted romp which only lasts around 25 hours, This being a short game (for RPG standards) actually works to its benefit. I heard this game sometimes gets compared to Earthbound but besides the lighthearted humor and simple battle systems of both games, Earthbound is miles ahead of this flawed game. Hopefully the character Stan will get his own side story in a better game. Okage might have the title of shadow king but really deserves the title of court jester.

The Good
The highlights are the story, characters and their world. That's where the game shines most, offering up a lot of whimsical enemies, quirky characters and a story that the other two reviews didn't seem to acknowledge.

The tale is about much more than it initially seemed, eventually taking a sharp turn from being an odd-ball, tongue-in-cheek satire on RPG cliches. It then does a deep dive into psychology that not every player is going to comprehend. (Believe me, I've read plenty of reviews and other posts about the game across the net.)

Spoiling it isn't what I want to do, so let me assure that the game goes into deep subjects later on and is actually very meta. Also, it does have one of the best worst translations, offering up some great dialogue. There are some really great quotes in there, if you like that type of humor.

The Bad
As a game, the camera isn't the best. However, that's not exactly rare for 2001. Then there's the battle system that many find difficult, although it's easy enough to find out more about it online these days. The battle encounters aren't random, thankfully, even if that's not much to praise since the ghosts will spawn more frequently the more you try to avoid them.

There are also dialogue lines that are so poorly translated they're just incomprehensible without looking it up. This includes the translation of a text-based clue vital to completing one specific side quest. That's not okay.

Another problem seems to occur in the game's code during one of pop-up Stan's little games, making it impossible to give anything but one right answer. Annoying.

Granted, this game was meant for the PS1 console and encountered the curse of being moved to the next. That created some tension, I'm sure. Maybe it's also the reason for some of the game's issues.

The Bottom Line
The premise is simple. Make a forced Faustian pact with an Evil King who wants to be the very best, like no one ever was, then defeat all the competition for him. Also, recruit some helpers who... may or may not be all that helpful. Oh, and don't forget to discover who you are and that there's a life to be lived beyond gaming.

Yes, that's in there too, but it's not exactly easy for the majority of the Western audience to decipher due to the game's use of Jungian psychoanalysis. Essentially, Ari is doing some shadow-work in order to become less of a doormat. Questions about the world in which he lives eventually spur his growth and bring about the most subtle of changes by the end of the game, which many players will miss.

However, the meta-narrative of the game is still there, regardless. And once I'd grasped that message, it was truly profound for me personally. In fact, the first time I played Okage, it was the quirky, offbeat world and characters that really charmed me along with the humorous take on the RPG cliches I'd started to get bored of as a kid.

Something Stan said about humans -- that I didn't fully grasp at about age 14, you'll grant -- was a very good explanation of a mistake I made. That part has always stuck with me ever since, becoming something close to my heart. It helped me to really grapple with what happened and reminds me to avoid such in the future.

The funny thing is, even before all that, Stan was my favorite. I'd always loved comedic evil characters like Doofenshmirtz from Phineas & Ferb or Dick Dastardly from older cartoons. Stan kind of spoke to that, but there was something more. He was very insightful at times despite the others often ignoring it or never even realizing the situation had occurred in the first place.

It really highlights his character as the Shadow personified, which is a concept that I later delved into deeply on a personal level. It helped me grow as a person, especially in conjunction with this game, so I may be biased.

Still, I'm able to understand the game's message better than most who pick up the title and come away thinking it had little depth and an anticlimactic ending, some of the most frequent takeaways I've heard over the years. Both statements are patently false, but you have to know enough beforehand or dig deeper after to truly grasp this old gem that thankfully has its cult classic status.

If you can, check out the PS4 version. You might like it if you appreciate titles like Earthbound and Undertale and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, or even if you just enjoy quirky PS2 games from the system's Wild West era.

I'd say that this game reminds me the most of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask in its subject matter, and it was released less than a year after it too. The switch from the PS1 to the PS2 must've pushed back that release as well.

They're alike in exploring psychological concepts and delving into the darkness, though I'm always going to prefer Okage personally. While MM was more about the trauma Link endured in OOT that he needed to reconcile with, Okage is a standalone game that takes the meta approach to the same type of subject matter.

Thanks for reading! :)