First, some establishing info: Okage: Shadow King (Boku to Maō in Japan) is a PS2 game that came out in March of 2001. Pre-9/11. This game is old enough to get premium rates on car insurance. It's also rendered in 4:3 at a CRISP 480p. Wowza. The devs who made it worked on such blockbusters as Little Master 2 for the original Game Boy, and later a Bejeweled Clone for Nintendo on the DS, with a nine year gap since their last game, and a five year gap until their next (a shovelware visual novel). It's likely that this studio and the people who worked on this game made quite literally ONLY this game before the usual shuffling broke the studio up again. It is the definition of a one-hit wonder, or at least I remember it being one.

Name entry. Very standard for a JRPG of the time. The choice is obvious. I do remember the UI being very weirdly formatted. So I'm gonna keep an eye out for that. The game in general has a pretty funky aesthetic that you'll see pretty soon.

Here we go.

have fun, but I don't get the appeal of watching a random anon blogpost as he bumbles his way through a game. It would be more compelling if you knew the game really well and were demonstrating some sort of high-skill gameplay that I couldn't achieve myself

Holy crap, Okage!! This is one of my favorite games of all time. The game has a really devoted cult following and the original group that did the ost even performed in 2019 live and released a piano album of some of the tracks

im spoiling this shit thread with the best song in the game ahead of time, youre welcome

Cold open to our mom. She has no problems with self-confidence, seems like. >>1219536 It's a tradition, and this game is older than a lot of the posters on this board. I get to replay a game I remember liking, and you guys can poke your heads in while I ramble. >>1219548 Cool! I wouldn't know. I randomly thought about it the other day and barely remember it at all. >>1219550 This song gives me PTSD. As a retarded child, I remember being stumped on this town for a very long time.

I'm sensing a pattern with the red hair here.

No comment.

>dude I'm playing an old game! look at how OLD it is! duuuude, it's like it's old enough to drive! get it? because it's OLD! wowie zowie this is not like your everyday fortnights and angry birds amirite fellas!? I can already tell OP is an obnoxious fuck who thinks he's the master of witty zany commentary.

There's the birthday boy. Along with a jumpscare English voiceover of the text overlay. Also a choice. If I remember correctly, the choices you make influence which waifu will give you an overpowered item later in the game. I'm just going to wing it unless it's a choice between girls, in which case I'll probably let anons decide.

>>1219689 It's okay, the thread won't hurt you and not everyone is as bitter and combative as you lol. On the other hand I'm really happy to see such an obscure game I love talked about

The McGuffin arrives. I also recall that you can reply to roughly half of all choices by just saying nothing at all, and this makes one of the girls like you.

>>1219634 It was the tree stump dungeon that fucked me, if i recall correctly. Couldn't beat the boss until i grinded some levels, which was kind of a pain in the dick since this game does the SMT3 'if your lead died, its all over' bullshit. After THAT, i powered through until the final dungeon, where i stopped since i was sick of the game and never actually beat it. Only fact i have about the game is they made MC's eyes more narrow in the US version.

What a whore.

The game in general has a very "spooky" aesthetic. They were definitely trying to compensate for being early PS2-era by making everything really cartoonish. The CRT blur and 480p would have hidden it a lot better back in the day.

What a fucking brat.

Ah. Woke.

No clue why it blurs like this. My stupid friends (?) rib me about not asking a girl to the circus tonight. Fucking assholes.

Here's waifu number one that's been mentioned a few times before: Julia. She is very obviously thirsty.

Fucking bitch. At least it's clear she's just trying to make us jealous. Still a cunty thing to do.

She fucks off after being yandere, I find the shop, and stock up on ridiculously cheap healing items and status items. I talk to a few of the townsfolk and they foreshadow something to do with the water supply drying up. I also change the HDR settings on my monitor and the colors get a lot more vibrant. I pick up the quest item from the bakery and head back home.

Somehow stopping into a bakery to pick up a single loaf of bread advances time like two hours. My sister also continues to be a brat and we timeskip to the next day where my family is all standing around talking about the bottle.

My sister ignores my mom's advice and insists Chad will protect her. Dad refuses to let me leave and spends the next two hours being autistic about this stupid bottle instead of letting me go hang out with my friends. I think I know where the MC inherited his.

I don't understand why they changed the MC bulging huge eyes in the localization. Did it not gave good MC appearance or something?

Fuck you, Chad. >>1220220 Probably concerns about not appealing to Americans or something, which is weird since tons of other characters have them.

OP, are you gonna be getting all the tiny gears? this game's style is one of the standouts of the early ps2 library imo, love to see it

Well that took a turn, before swerving right back into comedy again. >>1220273 I have no clue where they are, I just remember that they're literally fucking invisible in random spots and that they exist to sell strategy guides and make you go to GameFAQs.

Oh god, not a comic relief girl!

Dad is certain we can fix her by using the bottle he found in the intro FMV.

James is pretty cool from what I remember. Very devoted.

I do a playthrough of Okage at least once a year. It really warms my heart that this game still catches the attention of people 20+ years later. I won't ruin any of the story for OP, but I guarantee you'll enjoy yourself. Have fun.

Hopefully we can eat cereal out of this one.

Damn. They just called my mom a hag and me a fucking loser overshadowed by everyone else.

There he is. He even instantly fixed my brat of a sister.

Well. "Fixed". He also gave me a nightmare.

>>1220513 my goat has arrived

He has plans for me. Big plans. Like sowing discord and driving the town into nightmarish terror. Instead he's helping old ladies and coping because everyone thinks the two of us are cool instead of running in terror and swearing loyalty to him. He's still determined, though.

A local tells us about ghosts haunting the church basement. He also mentions a treasure, which Stan likes the sound of. Dad lets us in, and I get the feeling we're about to see the first combat of the game.

The ghost doesn't like us very much and we get into our first fight. Self-buff move into AoE attack absolutely mogs the weaker minions.

One more attack and the big ghost goes down. It did nearly KO me, though. We level up and acquire what's obviously a quest item.

We fix the water, everyone appreciates us, then Stan gets fucking mad because he's the one they should be cowering before.

They laugh at Stan and he fucking malds about it. Of note is how neat the stretching and animation for Stan is. He really does look great in motion.

Stan copes and seethes and gets even a bit sad, and we find our first save point now that the town's unlocked. With that, I think I'm gonna take a break for the night and start back tomorrow.

I used to have this game and I loved playing it, I lost it in a move and never got the chance to beat it. I'm sure there's probably a way to emulate it but man it would have been nice to actually beat it on ps2.

I emulated this game and beat it back in 22. Some of the music tracks were good (madril's theme being the big standout) and the artstyle was charming but the actual game was horrible. It deserved the recognition it got (nothing) and to fade into obscurity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA8mZ7M58yc

only reading this thread a week late, but thanks for putting this on my radar OP; wouldn't have known about it otherwise >>1286375 if the gameplay really is that poor, that's a shame - but the setting and artstyle are very cool. Am I foolish for being interested anyway?

>>1219550 >best town theme in the game is used for the most mechanical town What's with RPGs doing this? Trails in the Sky has Zeiss pulling the same stunt.