No Okami extras for Europe

By Robert Purchese Published 29 January, 2007

Localisation caused delay.

Those of you eagerly awaiting Okami's 9th February release date will be slightly cheesed-off to hear us Europeans will receive exactly the same game as the US were treated to back in September.

It's localisation that caused the delay, apparently, which would be down to you lot with your long-word languages.

"The reason it's taking so long to get it from US to here is the localisation into European languages," a spokesperson for Capcom told Eurogamer. "The script is about 1000 pages I believe, it's a 60 hour game."

So, no special bonus disc, no Teen Wolf t-shirt, no "painting for beginners" sets, but a large and expansive game: we can make do.

Okami, if you haven't heard, is a free roaming game from soon to be closed Clover Studio, in which you take control of a wolf who is actually a god and uses a paintbrush to cut people in half in heaven in between listening to a garrulous flea ramble on about mice with swords (thanks Tom).

Pop over to our gamepage for everything from game impressions to animal mayhem on Eurogamer TV.

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About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (39) Latest comment 5 years ago

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  • Vin #1 5 years ago

    Shame.

  • Killerbee #2 5 years ago

    I will definitely be getting this on the 9th - hopefully I'll have completed Zelda: TP by then!

    Shame there are no extras on offer (I wish more games would come with a free soundtrack CD - surely that can't be too hard to manufacture?), but it's still one of my most anticipated games of 2007, so I can't really complain.

  • Inspirius #3 5 years ago

    So once again you have to wonder why the UK doesn't get an English only release.

  • Mageme #4 5 years ago

    Well, what did you expect? We're in Europe after all.

    Late releases, little to no extras/merchandise and no decent game cover artwork. Meh, it's been happening for years.
    Edited by Mageme at 29/01/07 @ 16:19

  • onyxbox #5 5 years ago

    This should be Wiimade IMO, Nintendo fans would lap it up.

  • Murbal #6 5 years ago

    Can't. Wait. 9th can't come soon enough. Then again, I've got to finish Resi 4 first...

  • jellyhead #7 5 years ago

    Everyone should lap this up, regardless of platform.
    It's a great game and i'm well looking forward to it.
    Shame about Europe getting shafted again though but no surprise there eh?

    Next - God Hand then FFXII later this month. PS2 is looking good this month.

  • Cappy #8 5 years ago

    Waste of time. Nintendo fans don't support original games, its been proven time and time again every time an original title bombs.

  • Tomo #9 5 years ago

    9th Feb?!!

    /faints

    Too many games to play...

  • jmctavish #10 5 years ago

    "Waste of time. Nintendo fans don't support original games, its been proven time and time again every time an original title bombs."

    Wow. So much bullshit in one sentence.

    I would love to play this. Shame it's only on the PS2. If the PS2 cost £50 I would buy one right now and half a dozen games. Not dropping £90 on another PS2.
    Edited by jmctavish at 29/01/07 @ 16:33

  • Steroyd #11 5 years ago

    Yeah Nintendo platform is usally where only Nintendo titles do well Okami would have Bombed even harder.

  • Cappy #12 5 years ago

    I suggest you look at the 'bullshit' sales figures for Pikmin 2, Chibi Robo etc. Then stop talking out of that arse.

  • GamesConnoisseur #13 5 years ago

    Problem would be solved if we realign UK to be next to North America, reset all our TV to NTSC standard and replace our spelling with that of American English! Then no more delays... at all... ever.

    OR we LOSES the region restrictions, then UK can just buy US version if we wish to.

    My PS2's inch deep gathered dust will be brushed off for this and FFXII! Don't think God Hand worth it though as reviews not that high.

  • jellyhead #14 5 years ago

    Yeah, i'm in two minds about God Hand especially considering i'm not that great at beat 'em ups and double especially considering it's supposed to be a double hard batard of a game.
    ... but the videos of it look so appealling and fun that i may get it anyway in the hope that it'll keep me entertained long enough to get good at it.

  • absolutezero #15 5 years ago

    Bought and finished American Okami, its fantastic.

    Bought and not finished American God Hand. Its bloody hard but fun.

    Bought and sold to a friend FF12. The story is awful and the characters hateable. Battle system is nice, but whats the point when I don't give a toss what im fighting for?

  • aabyssx #16 5 years ago

    > It's localisation that caused the delay

    >:(

  • onyxbox #17 5 years ago

    @Cappy: go jerk off somewhere else will ya'

  • jellyhead #18 5 years ago

    Cheers for the FFXII and God Hand thoughts, guys.

  • JediMasterMalik #19 5 years ago

    Can't wait, this is gonne be brilliant, and with FFXII following soon after, it really will be a busy time.

  • thegouldfish #20 5 years ago

    Wouldn't it be great if we moved our TV from PAL to NTSC (Never the same colour), that way we could also get a crap TV format!

  • MadMirko #21 5 years ago

    I suggest you look at the 'bullshit' sales figures for Pikmin 2, Chibi Robo etc. Then stop talking out of that arse.

    Woah, 2 sentences for a double bullshit. Come on, Cappy, you can do the hattrick!

  • Commodore75 #22 5 years ago

    It's not just the UK ... most European contries don't get their games translated to their language (of choice).
    Sure we get a four page leaflet that tells us the green button is called "The A Button", but that was allready in the NA release. We simply get to wait a couple of months for the UK release.

    I don't get it. They allready have english, french and spanish from the NA release, correct?
    So what's left is Italian and German.
    Or do they actually translate to other languages?

    And maybe they need to stop and wait to see if the game is a hit in NA before they start thinking about "locilization" for the PAL region. Eh?!

  • dirigiblebill #23 5 years ago

    Where oh where is that Okami review eg?

    This game just makes me ridiculously happy. I think a Wii version would make for a natural extension of the celestial brush mechanic, but since Clover's gone tits up it probably won't be happening :( Demonstrates rather aptly anyway that you don't need a fancy-pants new controller to innovate.

  • JediMasterMalik #24 5 years ago

    Don't tell Nintendo. ^^

  • Salvia #25 5 years ago

    "should be Wiimade"

    Oh for fuck's sake.

  • riz23 #26 5 years ago

    Of course Okami was originally a gamecube game but apparently that wouldn't sell on that platform so it got moved over to PS2..

  • dirigiblebill #27 5 years ago

    @riz23

    Blimey, was it? Didn't know that.

  • trevd72 #28 5 years ago

    so how come i have been able to play this for the last few months on a cheap ass TV

  • septimus #29 5 years ago

    Well you could have made some more money just by releasing the English version for the time being.

    Muppets.

  • AOFanboi #30 5 years ago

    Why would our long words be a problem? It's not like you can play an overbuljongterningpakkmesterassistent doing Nordöstersjökustartilleriflyg-spaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussions-inläggsförberedelsearbeten while observing the Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. You play a dog, which is called "hund" in all three of those languages.

  • chupachups #31 5 years ago

    "Sorry but uhm couldn't you translate from Japanese to English and at the same time translate to the other languages in EFIGS?"

    You could, but it would mean having to pay 5 times as many translators.

    I'm not sure if localisation is needed that much, in the 1980s most computer games (even text adventures amazingly) were sold in English across Europe and they still sold in respectable numbers.

    It's especially crazy if the text or speech in a game is irrelevant to the gameplay, I think most Europeans would rather have the game on time than have to wait ages because they need the menus translated into their local language.

    At the very least they should release the English language version across Europe straight away, then bung the localised versions out later if there's demand (and I'm guessing there wouldn't be demand in most cases).
    Edited by chupachups at 29/01/07 @ 23:55

  • DrunKao #32 5 years ago

    Killerbee - "but it's still one of my most anticipated games of 2007, so I can't really complain."

    You kn ow you're in trouble when your most anticipated game of 2007 is a game that was originally released in 2006.

  • Daikon #33 5 years ago

    And all because France forbids games without French localization from being sold in shop. Thank you France!

    But seriously, it's a miracle this one is going to make it to European stores at all as it's obviously the next Ico.

  • DrunKao #34 5 years ago

    Daikon, it's all because of France's policy towards American media.

  • onyxbox #35 5 years ago

    "should be Wiimade"

    Oh for fuck's sake.

    ;-)

  • PlugMonkey #36 5 years ago

    "And all because France forbids games without French localization from being sold in shop. Thank you France! "

    So I assume you'd be happy to buy a game that was in French with no English translation then?

  • Meho #37 5 years ago

    I also didn't know Okami was intially to be a gamecube game. Sure it's heavily inspired by Zelda series, and Clover did make games for Nintendo platforms so it makes some sense. Either way, it's a fantastic game, I completed it last week and still can't get over that fact. 67 hours of gameplay and I most definitely didn't complete all the side quests/ collect all the collectables. I was a bit amazed that some reviews painted this as a 20-30 hours game. I can see how it could have been a 50 or 45 hours game for someone in a hurry to get it completed in order to have it reviewed, but 30 hours? No way, hombre.

    There's many things to love about Okami, but what I think I love the most is the fact that it's length is NOT the product of its difficulty either in combat or in puzzles. Au contraire, it's the product of having much content and this content is usually of a very high quality. While Combat doesn't exactly get hard and while the puzzles never get really complicated, what Okami does is value elegant and aesthetically pleasing solutions (in combat and in puzzles) which makes for a truly satisfying gaming experience. And, yeah the music is stunnig most of the time, I would definitely pay for a separate audio Cd containing a soundtrack.

    As for Godhand, except for the end boss (who is a total bitch to defeat and will literally take me a whole day to overcome when I finally decide I want to complete this game), the game is nowhere near difficult as, for example the first edition of Devil May Cry 3 was. The continue system is much saner (akin to the gold variety in DMC3 special edition) and the bossfights, while not on the easy side are simpler: there is no (save for that end boss) change in behaviour of the bosses once you knock their health bar to half or one third, so once you learn their attack patterns it's a simple matter of developing your tactic and being quick to react. Of course, some of the bosses still took me hours to defeat but that's because I'm old and rusty.

    A word of warning though, while Okami is very easy to love on account of it being beautiful and smart, Godhand is a decidedly hardcore game. It's a low-budget product so the graphics are strictly cheap and most of the dev time seems to have been spent on tweaking the combat system. At first, it looks like a ridiculously easy button-masher with over the top physics and goofy humour, but once you understand the implications of purchasing new combat moves and being able to arrange them any way you want, once you realise the depth of the resource management you have to get into (special moves, godhand powers etc...) to make sure you come out of it alive, it's a very satisfying game that equally values twitch reflexes and tactical thinking. Plus some of it is very funny. As some reviews have said, this indeed seems to be a near perfect update on th 2D side-scrolling brawler genre of the late eighties/ early nineties, but with the added layer of tactical depth and literally dozens of possible combinations of combat moves.

  • NegativeZero #38 5 years ago

    I've had this sitting in my rack since the US release. I must get around to playing it.

  • Daikon #39 5 years ago


    So I assume you'd be happy to buy a game that was in French with no English translation then?

    I'd like to believe that my French language skills are good enough for that, yes. Of course I was already playing the original in Japanese before it was out in the US ^_^

    In any case, the fact that some French laws can delay or (if it's too costly) prevent a game's European release is ludicrous.

    Also, what about Holland, Scandinavian and eastern European countries? They don't get any special localized versions, not even subtitles and I've never heard any complaints.