Today’s Hidden Gem: Okami
Released 2006 by Capcom and Clover Studios for PS2, ported to Wii in 2008

I shouldn’t even have to spotlight this game. It should be one of those games that absolutely everyone went out and bought the moment it became available and now refuses to sell. And yet…

In Okami, you play as a wolf who is the embodiment of the sun goddess, Amaterasu, called forth by the guardian of Kamiki Village to stop a demon accidentally released from his sealed prison. In addition to weaponry, Amaterasu can also make use of the powers of Celestial Brush Techniques, which involve painting what you want to happen.

Both bosses and many individual enemies have specific weaknesses, which brings the level of hack-n-slash button mashing down a peg. There are also a number of optional sidequests to complete and unlockables to unlock, and trying for 100% completion is a decent challenge.

Many of the characters you meet and situations you encounter have their roots in Japanese mythology, lending the game a fairy-tale quality that some games strive for but fall far short of. But what really makes this game worth at least one playthrough is the visuals. Normally, I would never say this… graphics in general rank pretty low on my measure of how good a game is… but I make an exception for this.

Okami is done in cel-shaded graphics (which honestly, is a look I normally just don’t care for, but it really works well here) made to look like traditional Japanese ink drawing, and the effect is nothing short of gorgeous. Throw in an exceptional soundtrack, an immersive plot, and solid gameplay, and it’s hard to figure out why this game didn’t sell better (only a little over 500,000 copies in North America between both releases of the game). Why aren’t you playing Okami? Go play Okami, right now!

That’s not to say it’s not without it’s flaws. There is an over-abundance of dialog, for one, which, though generally interesting, is a fairly substantial amount of reading. There are also times when you just cannot get a brush technique to work on the first try.

And it has Issun… who is essentially Okami’s version of Navi the fairy.

Difficulty-wise, the game is probably about on par with Kingdom Hearts. Not insanely difficult, but not so blatantly simplistic you get bored with it after the first five minutes (at least that’s my take… some may disagree with me about Kingdom Hearts).

Personally, I recommend the PS2 version over the Wii version, if you can find it. While the Wii version is a pretty good port, and the brush techniques translate well to the Wii-remote, I found the controls during combat to be better executed on the PS2. The Wii version also lost a bit of the visual filtering done on the PS2, making the images crisper and brighter, instead of like something painted on a piece of parchment.

Today’s Hidden Gem: Fatal Frame
Released 2002 by Tecmo for PS2 (and later for XBOX)

To be honest, Fatal Frame isn’t exactly “hidden”… just about anyone who’s a fan of the survival horror genre has at least heard of it… but it’s definitely a gem, and deserves a spotlight. And these days it’s hard enough to find that if you didn’t play it back when it was new, odds are you haven’t gotten your hands on it yet.

Fatal Frame takes place over the course of several days inside the Himuro Mansion in the Japanese countryside - a place where, rumor has it, spirits and ghosts congregate and those who enter may never return. You play as Miku Hinasaki, a young woman who, like her brother, Mafuyu, is sensitive to the spirit world. When Mafuyu and his mentor, along with two other researchers, go missing while investigating the grisly past of Himuro Mansion, Miku sets out on her own to find him.

Upon her arrival at the mansion, she finds evidence of the group as she explores, including the game’s one and only weapon, the Camera Obscura, which had been passed down to the siblings by their mother, and which Miku had last seen in Mafuyu’s possession.

The camera is said to have been the legacy of Kunihiko Aso, an occultist who worked to develop inventions to make contact with the spirit world. Functioning to capture the souls of vengeful spirits, the Camera Obscura is Miku’s only protection from the murderous ghosts of the Mansion.

There is so very much I could say about the story of this game, but that would really just ruin it for those of you who haven’t played it yet, so I’ll stop there.

The game is played primarily in third person view, but switches to first person mode when using the camera. Miku’s actions are very limited (in fact the only things she can really do are run, and raise the camera to attack), which raises the difficultly level of the game pretty significantly.

The object of battles is to photograph the ghosts until all of their spirit energy is captured on film. The better the shot, and the closer you are to the subject, and the higher the quality of the film loaded in your camera, the more damage is inflicted… and when your supply of film is running low, you definitely need to make every shot count.

But perhaps the greatest thing about Fatal Frame is that it is actually… well… scary. The game’s imagery, music, and story all combine to keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s a great game to play alone, in the dark. Preferably on a stormy night. It’s something you have to experience for yourself, because words just don’t do it justice.

Fatal Frame has already spawned two sequels: Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, and Fatal Frame III: The Tormented. The stories of both subsequent games are complete and stand-alone in and of themselves, but all three are ultimately related, most noticeably seen in the third installment which serves to tie all three plots together.

A fourth game is currently in development. Tentatively titled Fatal Frame IV: The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, the game is being developed by Tecmo and Grasshopper Manufacture, and will be published by Nintendo. It is rumored to be exclusive to the Wii and is due out in Japan at the end of July. A release date for North America has not yet been set, but you better believe I’ll be keeping an eye out for one.

Today’s Hidden Gem: Beyond Good & Evil
Released 2003 by Ubisoft for PS2, XBOX, and GameCube

Beyond Good & Evil is a part platformer, part stealth title from Ubisoft, publisher of such exalted titles as the Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Rayman, and Rainbow Six series. Unfortunately, Beyond Good & Evil, while an excellent game, didn’t benefit much from it’s more famous cousins, and even though it has gained something of a cult following, it still remains relatively unknown among gamers.

In the game, the planet of Hillys is under siege by an alien force called the DomZ. You play as a young woman named Jade who, along with her “uncle” (a large anthropomorphic boar with a talent for all things mechanical), takes care of a number of children who have been orphaned during the siege. When funds begin to run low, and the power for the shield generators that protects their home is shut down, Jade takes up a photography assignment to make ends meet and protect her charges, but it’s not long before she falls in with a rebel group called the IRIS Network… a group dedicated to stopping the DomZ.

Using a combination of of physical attacks and stealth, Jade sets out to help the IRIS NEtwork reveal to the world the secret conspiracy that they believe exists between the invading DomZ forces and the planet’s apparent “saviors”, the Alpha Section. The game contains a variety of different gameplay options, including racing of various types, puzzle solving, stealth sequences, platforming, and a photography sidequest that allows you to earn money for weapon and vehicle upgrades.

The plot is engrossing, the controls are excellent, and even the camera is pretty decent for a game of it’s age, and still Beyond Good & Evil’s sales figures failed to impress (which may have had something to do with the fact that it was released against Ubisoft’s own Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell).

While the end of the game does wrap up the main story for the most part, it has an open ending that implies that Ubisoft had a sequel in mind when they wrote it. It’s a pity they never continued it as a series, because it’s a great plot with very well-done gameplay. If you ever happen upon a copy of this game, I highly recommend giving it a try.

Today’s hidden gem: Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure
Released 2007 by Capcom for Wii

Why haven’t more people heard of this game?

Zack & Wiki is a point and click puzzle game, that was seriously overlooked when it was released and hasn’t fared much better since. Of course that might have had something to do with the fact that it came out just two weeks prior to Mario Galaxy. It didn’t get a lot of attention at the time.

The premise of the game is that Zack, a chocolate-guzzling pirate, and Wiki, his flying monkey companion, are on a quest to find the lost treasure of the famed-pirate Barbaros. Instead, they stumble upon Barbaros himself… or at least his gold-encrusted disembodied head… who promises them everything they want and more if they can just reunite the pieces of his body (which, naturally, are made of gold and jewels… otherwise this would just be gross).

The object is to progress through the world map by solving the puzzle in each level in order to reach the chest that contains a piece of Barbaros’ body. You do this by picking up, manipulating, altering, and using various items scattered around the level. Different Wii-remote gestures cause different reactions, and some levels have multiple solutions, making some of them quite challenging. And for the completists out there, there are dozens of collectibles to find throughout the game to complete a number of albums.

The game is single player, but I actually found it to be immensely entertaining to play with a group, trading off the Wii-remote off every level. It’s fun to help out the person who’s playing the level. It’s even more fun to laugh at them hysterically when they’re not seeing the obvious solution.

You can even play a demo level online (click the Gameplay tab to get to it)… but I think it loses something without the full Wii-remote experience.

I’m a bargain hunter at heart, so when feeding my gaming habit, I spend a lot of time going through the clearance bins and other used games. And in the process, I’ve come across a fair few older titles that I’d never even heard of up until I stumbled upon them.

Today’s hidden gem: Kya: Dark Lineage
Released 2003 by Atari for PS2

Kya: Dark Lineage is an action-adventure/platformer following the adventures of a girl named Kya on her quest to find her brother and rescue a tribe of creatures called Natvis from an evil sorcerer named Brazul.

I like this game for a variety of reasons. First, playing as a female protagonist is nice. And yes, I know, there are a lot more games out there nowadays in that respect than there used to be, but they’re still badly outnumbered by those with male protagonists… and quite frankly, every once in awhile, I enjoy playing as my own gender for a change. Is that so wrong?

Second, and more importantly than reason #1, it’s a good game. Kya is a solid title, with a selection of gameplay options. It’s part stealth, part platformer, part combat, and part downhill speed and freefall courses. The hand to hand combat is easy to learn and challenging to master, and the occasional puzzle requires you to put a little thought into the game rather than just button mashing.

Now on to the downsides… first, and foremost, the camera is occasionally a little cumbersome, which is a complaint attributed to many otherwise excellent games. For the most part, it’s a problem that can be mostly ignored, but every now and then, it really grates on your nerves, especially in tight spaces. My other qualm with this game is its cliffhanger ending, and unfortunately, there is no followup to the game, so you’re essentially left wondering.

In the end, though, you really can’t beat the value you get for the price on Kya. Used (and even the occasional new copy), it has a price range around $4.99 to $11.99.