[PS2] Okami

I just encountered Blockhead Grande -- what a piece of shit. I can't remember all the spots quick enough, so to possibly quell my frustration, what's the reward you get for beating him? Please use spoiler tags if it's anything spoilerific.

How ya doing, buddy?

That's an AWESOME idea. I forgot about recording it on my phone! I tried to map them out on a piece of paper but the dots come and go so quickly.

Well fuck, if it gets me a Stray Bead and Gold Dust, I'll have to beat him. The watch I could go without, since I'm not really strapped for Yen at the moment (having already bought every technique and donated 300k to get Cherry Bomb 3, which I'm convinced is entirely useless).

How ya doing, buddy?

It's part of the story. Do certain sidequests and you unlock new techniques.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Used my cell phone's video cam to record Blockhead Grande. Pretty clever trick, heh.

Anyway, got a question for ya. Where does one obtain the Ressurection beads?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Quick question for those of you who beat the game already. I've just recently acquired the final Divine Instrument -- the Tundra Beads -- and between that and the Solar Flare, I don't have enough Gold Dust to upgrade them both.

Is it possible to obtain all the necessary Gold Dust on the first playthrough? If so, what'd I miss? I completed all the revenge lists and bought all that I could from the merchants, unless there's one merchant I missed.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I'm a sword whore too, really. Although, when I looked at the damage chart for each weapon, the Solar Flare reflector is more powerful without an upgrade than the Thunder Edge glaive with an upgrade. So I switched, but kept the Thunder Edge as a sub-weapon. That uppercut pwns n00bs.

FELIPE NO

Blue Bomber -- could you please upload that to YSI or Megaupload or SOMEWHEREZ. I would like, rate you a 5 and stuff.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Heh, s'cool. Gave you a 5, and grabbing CD 1. Thanks val.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Whatever happened to using YSI? Rapidshare sucks. =0

Goddamnit. I have to wait an hour just to download another file? Fuck you, Rapidshare. It's not that I'm not thankful for the service mind you, but this sucks. I remember the good 'ol days when FTPs were basically the only way to get stuff around here. Is there even an FTP thread here anymore.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Heh. I guess I was prety anxious to get my hands on the soundtrack. After hearing you guys rave about it, I was pretty excited to get a hold of it.

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Listened to the whole soundtrack last night. It's absolutely amazing! I didn't think I'd recognize so many of the tracks, but sure enough. Listening to it without hearing that Okami speech going on makes the music seem that much more spectacular.

The only annoyance I have is that some of the songs are broken up into two songs, including and most notably the Shinshu Field song. I wish they would've left it as one whole, long song. :/

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Wait, what? Mini-games are supposed to be difficult. That's why they're optional. I had just as hard a time as you did on the Blockhead parts, but they are able to be beaten.

And yes, you can skip dialogues. Any brief one or two-line dialogue session can be skipped with the press of the Start button once you've read it one time.

Molitar, obviously you're letting a difficult optional mini-game ruin an entire game's experience for you. If you're that pissy about it, then fine, go return it and miss out on one hell of an experience. But if you can suck it up and get over it, great.

Blockhead's not that hard to beat unless you've the memory of a goldfish. Try recording the video of where the dots on his body appear. That's how I beat Blockhead Grande. Compared to him though, the other ones are kinda simple...

I was speaking idiomatically.

For those of you who have beaten the game -- what do the karmic transformers do? I haven't beaten it yet, but I'm in the process of gathering all possible 99 beads (on the first playthrough).

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by BlueBomber

And just so you know, you have plenty more gold dusts that you will be able to get as you progress the game. Isn't there just enough gold dusts to max out every weapon in the game?

I've acquired every single gold dust possible, and it's left me with two weapons I can't upgrade -- the Tundra Beads and the Solar Flare reflector, the most powerful weapons of their type.

FELIPE NO

I guess PN's right. I had no Gold Dust to try out on them anyway, so I wouldn't know. All I know is that when you use Gold Dust, it gives the weapon's icon a shiny background, and those two weapons don't have one in my inventory.

I looked in the strategy guide, and according to it, the weapons are upgradeable. The guide gives a chart of the damage points each weapon inflicts pre- and post-upgrade, and those numbers are included for every weapon.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Oh, you can buy/acquire all the Gold Dusts you want to, by all means. Just don't upgrade two of your weapons until you get the final two. My advice is to not upgrade one of your swords and one of your reflectors. Reason being? Swords can be charged for uber-attacks, and reflectors are best kept as shields and not weapons, therefore their damage rating doesn't need to be considered. Soooo leave out one sword and one reflector.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'd say ink bottles are more immediately necessary, since you can still upgrade health by seeking out those Sun Fragments. Maxing out your ink early on (and acquiring an item through Demon Fang trading that rapidly refills your ink bottles) helps out tremendously.

Plus, if you need to restore health, just equip the wood mat and heal yourself when you lay down.

How ya doing, buddy?

MS, if you're still collecting Stray Beads, have you gotten to the Demon Gate where...

Spoiler:

you eventually fought repeat sessions of Waka and Nagi? Now that series of battles is hard as hell. At one point, you're fighting two Nagi clones and two Waka clones simultaneously.

Sonuvabitch. That took me over two hours to beat.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Metal, I'm using a sword/shield combo. Having the sword as a primary weapon lets you abuse the charge attack easily, and the shield as a secondary weapon still lets you use that counter ability. Uber damage can be done with two swords equipped, since you can charge them both simultaneously.

I rarely use rosaries except when my godhood runs out. Those bead weapons allow for long chains, and high combo chains restore godhood.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Best story moments?

Spoiler:

Well, I really liked that whole Dragon Palace scene, but I'll be damned if there was one thing that scared the shit outta me during the game, it was when you're near the Dragon Palace and swimming around in the water...

BAM!

Giant sea dragon swallows your furry white ass. Holy hell.

Edit: Wanted to add that I acquired the last Stray Bead I needed to before completing the game (still on my first run. I put it down for a while once I realized the only thing I had left to do was collect the beads), and it was a bitch to get.

Spoiler:

Had to race Kai through Yoshpet. She can run faster than Ammy can at her fastest speed! Only way I could beat her was to use a few Vengeance Slips -- those things kept me fromgetting hurt when running into the vine walls and even though I took damage, it kept me from getting frozen for a couple seconds when I ran into snowballs/ice spikes/stalagmites.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Spoiler:

The worst thing about that particular Demon Gate was Nagi. Especially the multiple clones. 4 Nagi's all spamming that flaming, homing sword technique? Hard as hell to dodge.

I was there was a way to extend the Mist technique. Certainly would've helped. 4 seconds is crap. ; ;

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Ah, about those two missing Gold Dusts --

Spoiler:

In the Ark of Yamato, there's a Celestial Being's spirit who asks Ammy to make an offering. Offering Demon Fangs will let you trade them as you normally would, and offering money does the same thing. The Being sells the remaining two Gold Dusts.

So MS, go ahead and spend all those Gold Dusts.

FELIPE NO

Geez, I've had the game since launch and just beat it tonight. Man, I'm a slacker. Oh well.

Spoiler:

What a beautiful ending. Issun's inspirational words made me well-up and almost cry. My girlfriend was crying though. Poor thing.

I'm really digging the Karmic Transformers. Some are hilarious, but KT 9 is by far my favorite. At first I thought it was just "ethereal Amaterasu" but after closer inspection, I think it's actually her original 3D model with a heavy outline. Wicked.

And yeah, String of Beads = win.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Metal Sphere

Spoiler:

I'll have to get to the final battle again, but I swear, almost everytime I used Veil of Mist I'd get one of the folks who died during the course of the game.

Huh? I don't get what you mean.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I knew about the Crescent brushstroke, but I never saw anyone give me items after using Veil of Mist, and I used it pretty frequently. Ah well.

How ya doing, buddy?