I have played Okami about 7 times in the span of a few years and I have recently hoped to speed run it since I know the controls and the map so well. This is a huge help thank you for uploading this! ..On a side note I remember always trying to skip the fire tablet because I hated doing all the digging.. Now I know that it IS possible...
Whenever you feel inclined to learn the run, don't hesitate to check out the Okami Speedrunning discord for help and resources: discord.com/invite/AQNKmMu. Keep in mind that the route in this video is not really beginner-friendly, so you'll probably want to start out with the beginner route, for which we have a text and video guide that you can find among our resources. The beginner route avoids the hardest skips in the run, while still teaching you all the fundamental skills and concepts required in the category.
Really good commentary! I much prefer this to watching raw runs uploaded from VODs. Thanks for putting the time and effort into explaining everything! Very entertaining!
of course its a speedrun so it literally doesnt matter but i still get sad during skips in this game because like.... poor virtual sei-an in this save still suffering with the plague :'(
this was one of the first games i ever got on the wii and i made absolutely sure to have it for the switch asap. i firmly believe it's one of the most beautiful and unique games. i hope you know even years after you've posted people are still enjoying this commentary on your run.
Thank you for taking the time to make this great commentary! Okami is such a fantastic game, and it's really fascinating to hear all the details about how it's run!
:D thanks for this! i love post commentaries, i hadnt yet gotten around to watching the vod of the wr so this came in at a perfect time! gl and congrats!!
Well, what can I say... I just finished playing this game and even though I didnt enjoy every single part of it, it was a wholesome, fun and all in all amazing experience which reminded me of my childhood. So I thought: "Hey, why not look for a speedrun of this game, seems like it could be interesting". I was not prepared for, nor did I expect this. This level of detail and the knowledge you share is nothign short of brilliant. Definitely worth the watch for everyone interested in this game. Thank you for putting so much work into this video and game in general.
I haven’t finished the game yet myself (only beat orochi) so I’m probably not gonna watch this whole video, but this is awesome, am okami speedrun!? That’s sick
I've never played Okami a single time in my life, but I really enjoyed this video. Your commentary is very clear and well spoken. I left it on whilst playing my own game to fill the noise!
Thank you for your commentary, I'm just a simple speedrun lover and I can't thank you enough for your video :) You were very informative while still keeping explanations simple :) GLHF for your next runs !
The commentary is so good, this is the only vid i could find that had that for ng. Also I love how often you say spoilers😂. All seriousness tho, love the vid.
Decided to replay through this game and look at how speed runners play it, amazing how the game was cut down to just 2 hours! I'm tempted to try and pick up speed running this game but have no clue where to start.
If you're interested in learning the run, don't be afraid to join the discord server (discord.gg/AQNKmMu). We have a lot of resources available to help you learn, as well as a community of people willing to answer questions. Good luck!
As someone who was introduced to Okami about 12 years ago by a certain fella named Chuggaaconroy, I can’t help but notice your use of the term ‘crazy taxi arrow’. Did you get it from him or has that phrase been floating around since even before his time? Btw, Okami is absolutely my favorite game of all time, and I’m studying your video in hopes of completing my first run in the next few weeks! I’ve played through the game tens of times at this point but a speedrun would quite literally be a fantastic change of pace. Wish me luck, and thanks for the super informative vid!
Thank you for watching! Yes, I definitely got the Crazy Taxi Arrow from Chugga. I will say that, if you want to learn how to speedrun Okami yourself, watching this run is probably not the best single resource. It's an older, more difficult route. In the video description, I've linked the Okami speedrunning Discord server, which has resources for a more beginner-friendly route, as well as a whole lot of folks who can answer questions and offer advice. Good luck!
It's really a matter of practice. The game only cares that you have a circle and a line though it. From Sunrise, you can see just how small you can draw the circle. You can even fail to close the circle as long as you're close to a full 360 with the analogue stick. I usually start by pointing the stick left/up left, then rapidly spin counterclockwise. When I get back to left, I let go of the draw button (Y for me) and hold the stick left for a fraction of a second. Finally I switch to holding right on the stick and press Y again to draw the line through the circle.
Ayyy sorry to ask but I figured you do speedruns so you might know... how do I record a console?? I honestly have no idea. I've been asking around and people told me "video capture device" so I googled but come up with tiny black boxes that have holes or wires coming out of them... and I have no idea what they do or how to use them. I guess... I plug them into the TV??? I've never seen them before so I have no idea... I wanna do some let's plays of my PS2, N64, Wii U, and Wii games(and I presume a switch when I get one) no idea what to do or what to get Do you use one of the little black boxes or do you use something else for the game footage you record? Do you know how to get the highest quality?x.x If you do use the little black boxes do THEY do the recording or do I have to hook it to a PC? thanks for the help if you know!!
"Video capture devices" are more commonly called "capture cards". They're electronic devices which typically have 3 types of ports: video input (from the console), video output/passthrough (to your normal TV/monitor), and a data output (to your computer, usually via USB). You hook up the cables as described, then use recording software on your computer to record or stream the video being captured by the capture card. Many capture cards come with their own software, but most are also compatible with a general-purpose streaming/recording program called OBS. You'll probably want to follow tutorials for setting up any individual capture cards. I personally use a capture card called the "Elgato HD 60S", which costs around $150 USD and works relatively well. It is an HDMI capture card, which means it only captures signals over HDMI. Thus it won't work for older, analogue consoles like the PS2 or N64. For those consoles, you will either need a different capture card with other video input/passthrough ports (you could look up "Analog Capture Card" or "N64 Capture Card"), or you will need a separate device called an "upscaler" to convert their video signals to HDMI. Simply look up something like "composite/s-video/etc. to hdmi upscaler" and research different options. There do also exist ways to modify most retro console to output HDMI manually, but those are generally expensive and difficult to install unless you're skilled with electronics and soldering. I personally have no experience recording analogue consoles, so I won't recommend a particular capture card or upscaler. You'll have to do your own research there. Let me know if you have any other questions, though again I can't answer everything =o
@@Auride So sorry for the late reply, Auride! I read it when you first replied then forgot to reply ^^" Thank you so so much for taking the time to explain all this!! I really appreciate it and it helps me immensely. I finally know how the small black boxes work ahah Honestly I thought you just plugged them into the TV, hit a record button and then transferred the footage in HQ to a PC via a USB or something... oh how easy that would be. It's nice to know how they finally work! that was my second guess, hooking them up to a PC. Wasn't sure though, came across a lot of technical explanations on google and I'm not good with electronics. Thanks for putting it in easy literal terms!
@@mayettaxtriger436 In theory, any capture card could work with any recording software, though there may be incompatibilities or proprietary standards. You'll just want to look up compatibility ahead of time before buying any capture card. OBS can be demanding on your computer, but this is just the inherent nature of recording video in real time. You might be able to find slightly more efficient software for some specific application, but there's nothing slow or demanding about OBS specifically compared to others. OBS is basically the industry standard for recording/livestreaming because it's free, open-source, and works really well for a wide range of use-cases. If you really want to know whether your PC will work with OBS, you can easily just download it and start recording things on your computer to check the performance. Personally, I record on an Acer Swift 3, which is a relatively modern laptop with acceptable specs for the application. It seems to work fine for recording at 720p 30fps. If you have something much older, or with a much lower-grade CPU, you might have to compromise the video quality somewhat to record without dropping frames. If your computer has a dedicated GPU, it might have a hardware encoder which OBS can use to make recording much more efficient, but you'd need to check the compatibility yourself. As for how to get a Switch, I bought mine online way back in 2018, well after the initial sales rush, and didn't have much trouble finding them for slightly below MSRP. I can't really give you a magic trick for finding them in a crunch like this. Just stay vigilant on various store fronts (including pre-owned consoles if you're okay with that) and be patient.
There are definitely various places where fractions of a second could be saved with motion controls, but for the most part they are too imprecise and inconsistent to be useful.
"I like to call this turnip Mushi's dad" BOY gtfo I fucking cried laughing that is the funniest shit I've heard in days oh my god I had to pause the video I laughed too hard and couldn't hear you lol Mushi's dad was a turnip man! Explains where he went..xD
Using the touch screen, motion controls, or mouse on PC, can all be used to make large movements of the brush cursor across the screen faster than with standard controls. But there are a few caveats that mean this isn't commonly done by speedrunners: - You can only use the Switch touch screen by taking it out of the dock, but this prevents you from easily recording your run with a capture card. Recording is required for runs within 110% of the WR in each category. - Motion controls can only be enabled and disabled through the options menu, which takes several seconds to open/close each time. However, having motion controls enabled makes it very easily to accidentally mess up other uses of the brush, like combat or Brush Adventures. - Only standard controls has the "fast brush button", which makes long Brush Adventures much faster. Thus, you should use standard controls for those segments. - The vast majority of the time we use the brush, it's to make small, precise movements. Standard controls are better and more consistent at this than the alternatives. Only a few times throughout the run do we need to make large strokes/movements. In theory, I think PC is optimal in this sense, since you can switch quickly between mouse and controller with basically none of the downsides mentioned above. The unfortunate thing is that PC version seems to have significantly slower loading times than Switch, even with a top tier SSD.
Japanese text has, on average, fewer characters than the equivalent text in English. Throughout the run, there is a moderate amount of dialogue we cannot skip. In those places the Japanese dialogue takes less time to scroll through, and so is faster. Japanese saves about a minute over the run compared to English. There are no other meaningful differences between the languages for the sake of this run.
@@farter555 I could already read hiragana, which is used to show the pronunciation of Japanese text. There's only 46 unique characters, so it's easy to memorize them. That said, most runners just learn to recognize a few key shapes in the kanji used in the names, which lets them distinguish between them.
Salmon roe is sometimes called red caviar. There are also other similar foods sometimes called caviar, in the same sense that soy/almond/oat milk is called milk or seitan is sometimes called chik'n, etc.
I have played Okami about 7 times in the span of a few years and I have recently hoped to speed run it since I know the controls and the map so well. This is a huge help thank you for uploading this!
..On a side note I remember always trying to skip the fire tablet because I hated doing all the digging.. Now I know that it IS possible...
Whenever you feel inclined to learn the run, don't hesitate to check out the Okami Speedrunning discord for help and resources: discord.com/invite/AQNKmMu.
Keep in mind that the route in this video is not really beginner-friendly, so you'll probably want to start out with the beginner route, for which we have a text and video guide that you can find among our resources. The beginner route avoids the hardest skips in the run, while still teaching you all the fundamental skills and concepts required in the category.
Need you to know that is a FANTASTIC thumbnail of Ammy yelling into the mic XD
Really good commentary! I much prefer this to watching raw runs uploaded from VODs. Thanks for putting the time and effort into explaining everything! Very entertaining!
23:35 i love little things in games like this where there are multiple ways to do a puzzle if you're creative enough
I remember early TH-cam days when Okami gameplays is always on the home page.
of course its a speedrun so it literally doesnt matter but i still get sad during skips in this game because like.... poor virtual sei-an in this save still suffering with the plague :'(
If it makes you feel any better, i think killing the final boss would cure them.
this was one of the first games i ever got on the wii and i made absolutely sure to have it for the switch asap. i firmly believe it's one of the most beautiful and unique games. i hope you know even years after you've posted people are still enjoying this commentary on your run.
Had to leave “sick” during my zoom meeting to watch this. Definitely worth it thank you 👍 ❤️
Thank you for taking the time to make this great commentary! Okami is such a fantastic game, and it's really fascinating to hear all the details about how it's run!
:D thanks for this! i love post commentaries, i hadnt yet gotten around to watching the vod of the wr so this came in at a perfect time! gl and congrats!!
Well, what can I say... I just finished playing this game and even though I didnt enjoy every single part of it, it was a wholesome, fun and all in all amazing experience which reminded me of my childhood. So I thought: "Hey, why not look for a speedrun of this game, seems like it could be interesting". I was not prepared for, nor did I expect this. This level of detail and the knowledge you share is nothign short of brilliant. Definitely worth the watch for everyone interested in this game. Thank you for putting so much work into this video and game in general.
I haven’t finished the game yet myself (only beat orochi) so I’m probably not gonna watch this whole video, but this is awesome, am okami speedrun!? That’s sick
I love this game so much!!!! There’s such a high change of Okami 2 and y’all I will cry if I ever see the game’s trailer oh my goodness
I come from the future, we did it bros
@ and you better believe I cried when that teaser came out 😭 we’re so back!!
I've never played Okami a single time in my life, but I really enjoyed this video. Your commentary is very clear and well spoken. I left it on whilst playing my own game to fill the noise!
Thank you for your commentary, I'm just a simple speedrun lover and I can't thank you enough for your video :) You were very informative while still keeping explanations simple :) GLHF for your next runs !
The commentary is so good, this is the only vid i could find that had that for ng. Also I love how often you say spoilers😂. All seriousness tho, love the vid.
You might not have lots of views but thank you for this. Very fun
Very impressive speed run.
Decided to replay through this game and look at how speed runners play it, amazing how the game was cut down to just 2 hours!
I'm tempted to try and pick up speed running this game but have no clue where to start.
If you're interested in learning the run, don't be afraid to join the discord server (discord.gg/AQNKmMu). We have a lot of resources available to help you learn, as well as a community of people willing to answer questions.
Good luck!
Thank you, gonna watch it this night!
As someone who was introduced to Okami about 12 years ago by a certain fella named Chuggaaconroy, I can’t help but notice your use of the term ‘crazy taxi arrow’. Did you get it from him or has that phrase been floating around since even before his time? Btw, Okami is absolutely my favorite game of all time, and I’m studying your video in hopes of completing my first run in the next few weeks! I’ve played through the game tens of times at this point but a speedrun would quite literally be a fantastic change of pace. Wish me luck, and thanks for the super informative vid!
Thank you for watching! Yes, I definitely got the Crazy Taxi Arrow from Chugga. I will say that, if you want to learn how to speedrun Okami yourself, watching this run is probably not the best single resource. It's an older, more difficult route. In the video description, I've linked the Okami speedrunning Discord server, which has resources for a more beginner-friendly route, as well as a whole lot of folks who can answer questions and offer advice.
Good luck!
@@Auridethanks so much! I’ll head on over then c:
13:04 ... I'm so impressed honestly
I love Okami and I like this video!
your cherry bombs are super tight! any tips for drawing them so fast/small?
It's really a matter of practice. The game only cares that you have a circle and a line though it. From Sunrise, you can see just how small you can draw the circle. You can even fail to close the circle as long as you're close to a full 360 with the analogue stick. I usually start by pointing the stick left/up left, then rapidly spin counterclockwise. When I get back to left, I let go of the draw button (Y for me) and hold the stick left for a fraction of a second. Finally I switch to holding right on the stick and press Y again to draw the line through the circle.
@@Auride Thanks! I didn't know the line could go all the way through the bomb, I'll have to give it a try!
Ayyy sorry to ask but I figured you do speedruns so you might know...
how do I record a console?? I honestly have no idea. I've been asking around and people told me "video capture device" so I googled but come up with tiny black boxes that have holes or wires coming out of them...
and I have no idea what they do or how to use them. I guess... I plug them into the TV??? I've never seen them before so I have no idea...
I wanna do some let's plays of my PS2, N64, Wii U, and Wii games(and I presume a switch when I get one) no idea what to do or what to get
Do you use one of the little black boxes or do you use something else for the game footage you record? Do you know how to get the highest quality?x.x If you do use the little black boxes do THEY do the recording or do I have to hook it to a PC?
thanks for the help if you know!!
"Video capture devices" are more commonly called "capture cards". They're electronic devices which typically have 3 types of ports: video input (from the console), video output/passthrough (to your normal TV/monitor), and a data output (to your computer, usually via USB). You hook up the cables as described, then use recording software on your computer to record or stream the video being captured by the capture card. Many capture cards come with their own software, but most are also compatible with a general-purpose streaming/recording program called OBS. You'll probably want to follow tutorials for setting up any individual capture cards.
I personally use a capture card called the "Elgato HD 60S", which costs around $150 USD and works relatively well. It is an HDMI capture card, which means it only captures signals over HDMI. Thus it won't work for older, analogue consoles like the PS2 or N64. For those consoles, you will either need a different capture card with other video input/passthrough ports (you could look up "Analog Capture Card" or "N64 Capture Card"), or you will need a separate device called an "upscaler" to convert their video signals to HDMI. Simply look up something like "composite/s-video/etc. to hdmi upscaler" and research different options.
There do also exist ways to modify most retro console to output HDMI manually, but those are generally expensive and difficult to install unless you're skilled with electronics and soldering.
I personally have no experience recording analogue consoles, so I won't recommend a particular capture card or upscaler. You'll have to do your own research there.
Let me know if you have any other questions, though again I can't answer everything =o
@@Auride So sorry for the late reply, Auride! I read it when you first replied then forgot to reply ^^"
Thank you so so much for taking the time to explain all this!! I really appreciate it and it helps me immensely. I finally know how the small black boxes work ahah
Honestly I thought you just plugged them into the TV, hit a record button and then transferred the footage in HQ to a PC via a USB or something... oh how easy that would be. It's nice to know how they finally work! that was my second guess, hooking them up to a PC. Wasn't sure though, came across a lot of technical explanations on google and I'm not good with electronics. Thanks for putting it in easy literal terms!
@@mayettaxtriger436 In theory, any capture card could work with any recording software, though there may be incompatibilities or proprietary standards. You'll just want to look up compatibility ahead of time before buying any capture card.
OBS can be demanding on your computer, but this is just the inherent nature of recording video in real time. You might be able to find slightly more efficient software for some specific application, but there's nothing slow or demanding about OBS specifically compared to others. OBS is basically the industry standard for recording/livestreaming because it's free, open-source, and works really well for a wide range of use-cases.
If you really want to know whether your PC will work with OBS, you can easily just download it and start recording things on your computer to check the performance. Personally, I record on an Acer Swift 3, which is a relatively modern laptop with acceptable specs for the application. It seems to work fine for recording at 720p 30fps. If you have something much older, or with a much lower-grade CPU, you might have to compromise the video quality somewhat to record without dropping frames. If your computer has a dedicated GPU, it might have a hardware encoder which OBS can use to make recording much more efficient, but you'd need to check the compatibility yourself.
As for how to get a Switch, I bought mine online way back in 2018, well after the initial sales rush, and didn't have much trouble finding them for slightly below MSRP. I can't really give you a magic trick for finding them in a crunch like this. Just stay vigilant on various store fronts (including pre-owned consoles if you're okay with that) and be patient.
I want to get into speed running and I think it would be fun to start with this.
Edit: forgot I don’t have a way to record my switch screen. XD
Just finished this game and it is amazing. I’m curious: would this run be any faster with motion controls?
There are definitely various places where fractions of a second could be saved with motion controls, but for the most part they are too imprecise and inconsistent to be useful.
"I like to call this turnip Mushi's dad"
BOY gtfo I fucking cried laughing that is the funniest shit I've heard in days oh my god I had to pause the video I laughed too hard and couldn't hear you lol
Mushi's dad was a turnip man! Explains where he went..xD
Is the celestial brush faster with the touch screen on the switch or is it faster to use the buttons?
Using the touch screen, motion controls, or mouse on PC, can all be used to make large movements of the brush cursor across the screen faster than with standard controls. But there are a few caveats that mean this isn't commonly done by speedrunners:
- You can only use the Switch touch screen by taking it out of the dock, but this prevents you from easily recording your run with a capture card. Recording is required for runs within 110% of the WR in each category.
- Motion controls can only be enabled and disabled through the options menu, which takes several seconds to open/close each time. However, having motion controls enabled makes it very easily to accidentally mess up other uses of the brush, like combat or Brush Adventures.
- Only standard controls has the "fast brush button", which makes long Brush Adventures much faster. Thus, you should use standard controls for those segments.
- The vast majority of the time we use the brush, it's to make small, precise movements. Standard controls are better and more consistent at this than the alternatives. Only a few times throughout the run do we need to make large strokes/movements.
In theory, I think PC is optimal in this sense, since you can switch quickly between mouse and controller with basically none of the downsides mentioned above. The unfortunate thing is that PC version seems to have significantly slower loading times than Switch, even with a top tier SSD.
Why the Japanese version and not the English version?
Japanese text has, on average, fewer characters than the equivalent text in English. Throughout the run, there is a moderate amount of dialogue we cannot skip. In those places the Japanese dialogue takes less time to scroll through, and so is faster. Japanese saves about a minute over the run compared to English. There are no other meaningful differences between the languages for the sake of this run.
@@Auride did you have to learn the japanese names of the imps on the priest's hitlist in shinshu field, or could you already read japanese?
@@farter555 I could already read hiragana, which is used to show the pronunciation of Japanese text. There's only 46 unique characters, so it's easy to memorize them.
That said, most runners just learn to recognize a few key shapes in the kanji used in the names, which lets them distinguish between them.
Isn't caviar always black?
Salmon roe is sometimes called red caviar. There are also other similar foods sometimes called caviar, in the same sense that soy/almond/oat milk is called milk or seitan is sometimes called chik'n, etc.
@@Auride Wow. Such new knowledge :)