The DS game is without doubt going to have lower quality music on a technical level if not a compositional level (something we really can't judge yet, though I suspect it will be lower quality in that regard as well) and it will without doubt have less music than the PS2 game. I'm not sure why people are arguing that. These aren't so much debatable points. The technical presentation of Okami's music was extraordinary, and I think that game has a larger soundtrack than any other I've ever played. It's enormously impressive from a musical standpoint.
That said, there's no reason to think that Okamiden will have crappy music. Even if the DS hardware's sound chip isn't terribly impressive, there are a number of composers and sound engineers that have done really high quality work on it, not just from a compositional perspective, but also in terms of presenting that music in as high a quality as possible. People have already mentioned The World Ends With You and Soma Bringer (Mitsuda specifically commented repeatedly on how much of a project it was for him to make sure the sound quality was exceptionally high) and Ninokuni (though unless Joe Hisaishi is composing for Okamiden, with the music to be entirely performed by the Tokyo Phil, I'd stop expecting the 4gb cart Level-5 is using for that game), but there are plenty of other examples as well. Okamiden's soundtrack will not be on the same level as Okami's, but it can still have a very strong musical presence.
djtiesto said:
I thought it looked good for DS, but a 2D game would be even better... still don't understand why DS devs insist on 3D for games.
I think this criticism is fairly overblown, to be honest. The vast majority of notable games on the DS
are 2D, and of the ones that aren't,
most of them use 3D to fairly effective ends. All else being equal, sure, I'd prefer for most DS games to be 2D just because of how much I love 2D and because of I see it fading away and I'd love to have one last bastion of it. But if 3D can be used well, I'm fine with that.
Like, I know some people
hate that Phantom Hourglass was 3D, but I'm glad that even while using 3D graphics it retained the 2D overhead style of gameplay while still using the 3D at certain points to do things they wouldn't have been able to do in a pure 2D game (the sailing, for instance, or most of the way cool boss fights). And it seems that DQ9 also makes good use of its 3D to do things they couldn't do in a purely 2D game.
Even though, weirdly enough,
I mused just two weeks ago how cool it'd be to have a 2D Okami done by the Minish Cap team... I'm okay with the game being 3D if they use that to good effect for the gameplay. I'm pleased by the extent to which they've retained the original game's artistic style, so that helps, too. And I guess, ultimately, I
do understand why developers don't do 2D as much anymore as they used to (because the people with those skills aren't around as much as they used to be, because it takes a
lot of talent to create a really good looking 2D game, because that's not what younger developers are getting trained in anymore) and I understand why publishers don't do 2D as much anymore (because it's not seen as in demand by consumers, because it takes more time, because it takes more money), so I'm just thankful when we do get the 2D games that we get these days.
Regulus Tera said:
DQV and DQIV look a lot better than DQIX.
Outside of its animated enemy sprites, DQ4 doesn't look all
that great. DQ5 has the great enemy sprites again, and it also has some really lovely locations. But just going off screens, DQ9 also has some amazing looking areas like
and
.
So I wouldn't say that 4 and 5 look "a lot" better than 9. I think they look different and they take their own separate approaches to achieving nice visuals, but they all look great. But I haven't played DQ9 yet, I've only seen some screens, and I'm not really going to debate that further.
Y2Kev said:
omg omg squeeeeee chibiterasu <3
this is my most anticipated DS game now
The PS2 game has 5 cds of music. This is going to have fewer tracks.
Strange Journey is still most most anticipated
DS game, but... I'm really looking forward to this sequel that I never ever thought would exist. And yes, Chibiterasu is
so adorably cute, and yes, the PS2 game's soundtrack is utterly amazing.
