Anyone whose purchased a Playstation in hopes of playing quality RPGs is no doubt an unhappy camper thus far. Games like Dark Cloud,Eternal Ring, and Summoner have failed to take advantage of the PS2s power, much less provide an engaging story and fun gameplay experience. While the wait for the next Final Fantasy continues SCEA has released Okage: Shadow King to try and pass the time. Unfortunately all it does is pass time, and at a snails pace at that. Hardcore RPGers in need of a fix might find some good in this game, but anyone who only plays the epic RPGs will be headed back to the store for a refund after playing this release.

Okage tells the story of a young boy names Ari, whos not the most popular kid in his village. Hes a shy boy, which is something that the townsfolk seem to be quite fond of reminding him of. However, all of this begins to change when Aris sister is attacked by one of the ghosts that are beginning to overrun the area. She awakes only to find that shes been cursed - she can only speak Pig Latin! Apparently this is a really bad thing, so Aris father opens a mystic bottle and a butler named James appears. James explains that his master must inhabit someones shadow, and it must be the best shadow available. After a brief pageant, it is determined that Ari has the best shadow and therefore Stan the Evil Shadow King will possess his shadow. Stan appears from behind Ari as they walk through the town and unwittingly becomes a favorite of the locals. Though he tries to be menacing, the townspeople only laugh at him and congratulate Ari on his cool trick. Stan eventually decides that he wants to take over the world and after almost two very slow hours, the quest begins.

The games visual presentation seems to have borrowed heavily from Tim Burtons Nightmare Before Christmas. What that means is that the characters are very simple looking with large eyes, and even larger teeth. The designs not bad, its just not very original. The same thing goes for the monsters and ghosts in the game theyre plain, unimaginative bunk. As you progress through the overworld, a weird effect is used to show things in the distance. It blurs everything thats not immediately in front of you. Perhaps this was done to keep a consistent framerate, but its a horrible effect. It makes it feel like the main character is near-sighted and is in sore need of glasses.

The environments are bland and sparsely populated, which often makes it impossible to tell which way you are headed or what way is the proper way to go. To compound this problem, after battles your character is often turned around backwards which will cause you to back track if youre not careful about consulting the radar in the bottom left corner. The camera has a nasty habit of getting behind trees making it impossible to see your characters, or the people they need to interact with. The game is very picky about making you interact with certain people before triggering a new event, so running around for 20 minutes looking for someone that was obscured by some bushes is not an uncommon affair.

Towns are standard cartoony RPG fare, with very little imagination. The standards are all here: Inn, Store, Bar, Mayors house. The troublesome camera comes into play here as it is often difficult to see your character, or the signs on the fronts of the buildings. This requires careful placement with the right analog stick to see where you are and whats around you. Its great that it can be moved around, but in a linear RPG such as this theres no way the camera should be a problem.

In keeping with the uninspired theme its time to take a look at the games audio. The only thing good are the catchy background tunes that play in the background. Unfortunately they loop about 100 times an hour, so they dont remain catchy for very long. Theres no voice-acting save for the narrator that announces a new chapter or briefly summarizes events that just occurred. Sound effects could have been lifted straight out of any one of a hundred RPGs, and not good RPGs at that. After about three hours youll likely be busting out the Discman for some tunes that wont drive you insane.

Okages biggest thing it has going for it is its unique sense of humor. Unfortunately its not going to strike a chord with everyone who plays, and its such a large part that if you find it unfunny, the game is pretty much unplayable. How to describe the humor? Its pretty much Japanese humor that youd find in any anime series. Its not the funniest thing on the planet, but there are some amusing light-hearted moments that help make the game more enjoyable. You are given many choices where you can steer the direction of a conversation, but it seems that 90% of the time it doesnt matter what you pick, things are going to happen regardless. I suppose its slightly more interesting than having no choices, but if they dont matter, then why bother?

Keeping with the theme of just like any other RPG is the combat system. Battles are turned based with a meter that charges and when its full your character can attack. Weapons, armor, and items are all equipped in a simple fashion dating back to the original Dragon Warrior. As usual various characters will join your party and assist you, and various others will leave. Id go on more about how the game plays, but theres no need, youve already played it before.

Load times are insane, as every room you enter has to load for a few seconds. Not every couple of rooms, but EVERY room. Save points are often a pain to get to, and the game ignores the cardinal rule of not letting you die during your first encounter as well. Supposedly Stan was supposed to help me out in this fight, but I died, and was forced to sit through the opening 30-minutes again because of this. The next time I got to the fight, I did the same thing, and this time he helped me. Gee, thanks Stan.

This games not horrible, and its story is certainly unique, but its mechanics, layout, and execution are so middle of the road its almost unbearable. There are people that will enjoy this game, but the humor and styling is so hit-or-miss that there are likely to be more people that are unhappy with the experience than those who are satisfied. If my life is ever so boring that I turn to a game like this to kill 20-30 hours, itll be a sad, sad day.