I, Sisyphus

I bought "Okami" for the most innocent of reasons.  All I wanted was a simple Zelda-like game to keep me going for what was certainly going to be a long wait until "Skyward Sword" came out*.  For a time, indeed, I got exactly what I wanted.  Its Zelda where you play a wolf... all the time - and also that wolf is a Sun-Goddess named Ammy.  There's a time where you shrink down to "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" size and are playing "Minish Cap", there's a scene where you wander an ocean like "Wind Waker", and you even go back in time towards the end like just about thirty-three Zelda games.  Being like Zelda is not something a game should ever be criticized for.  If I say a game is "like Zelda", I'm giving the highest praise - just like if I mention that a storyline "feels like the Original Star Wars", I don't give compliments much more hyperbolic than that.  So for awhile, I was defeating bosses in dungeons, restoring trees, and saving big-breasted maidens, and it was great.

....Until I met the sleeping bear.  Then I fell right into the mouth of madness.  I've actually been diagnosed with radiation sickness after the horrible journey I went through.

Okami is a game where you can do virtually anything.  Exploration and sidequests are not only key to the gameplay, but they're the only way to gain EXP.  So when I first found sleeping bear standing upon the hill, I knew immediately that there was going to be a quest involved.  If only I had known what kind of quest it would be, perhaps I could still be a sane human being today.  The bear was doing something truly amazing:  he was not only sleeping while standing up, but also while balancing himself upon a very large ball.  Obviously such a bizarre sight could not simply be mere flavoring to the game's environment, there had to be a way to get this bear to wake up.  Using impressive Holmes-like powers of deduction based upon years of playing video games, I immediately focused upon the giant ball.  Perhaps there was another one in this area that the bear would like more?  And then, just to prove my point, Issun, the game's resistant Navi, gave me a dead obvious hint about balls mere seconds after I figured out the puzzle.  Like all Navis, Issun never shuts up.

However, first I needed to try other things.  So first I drew a figure eight with my magical paint brush and lit the bear on fire.  That didn't do anything, so then I used the tried and true method of destruction:  just cut the bear in half with my paint brush.  Then I tackled the bear head-first, only to be knocked back with ridiculous force while the bear still slept.  Not-Navi then started yelling at me about "animal cruelty".  So I made sure he knew which Sun Goddess was in charge and kept on attacking the bear for a few more minutes until getting bored.  Finally I have up and decided to look for some balls.

The first ball was actually a giant freakishly circular nut at the side of the lake.  Finding it was pretty easy but rolling it was not.  You see, Ammy is a wolf, and wolves do not have hands.  If you've ever played with a ball, you might notice the the most convenient way to carry it is with your hands.  Wolves also not have very long legs, so you can't kick the ball either.  Instead I was expected to push the ball around with my nose, having barely any control over which way it ended up rolling.  Going straight was impossible; the ball would inevitably swerve left or right.  Also, "Okami" is a game that has gravity, so the ball will roll up and down hills.  Just to make things really terrible the bear had to be sleeping on a rather thin ledge between a sheer drop into the lake and a solid rock face... all of which is also on a curved hill filled with obstacles you have to avoid.

As I rolled the ball up the hill, I suddenly realized that there was no way I was going keep that nut from falling into the lake.  Despite my extremely careful and steady attempts to nudge that thing up the hill, it inevitably fell right off the cliff.  At this point I figured I was screwed - when things fall into water in video games they often fall right out of existence and reappear in the spot where you first found them.  However, right at the bottom of the cliff was a slim two-foot bit of coastline where the nut had inexplicably landed.  So I tried to push the ball back along this little coast to reach the foot of the hill again, only for the ball to actually fall in the water this time.  However, wonder of wonders, the ball was still alive.  You could even push the ball along in the water.  But if you thought rolling balls was hard on land, it was ten-times harder in water.  Also, God has not created a creature that can push a ball back onto land with any reliability.  You just got to find a corner, say a prayer, and hope for the best.

But somehow, after may three times, I actually did manage to get the nut up the hill.  The bear awoke for a just moment, and stared out with the manic hunger of junkie seeing his first fix in over a month.  It leaped off its old ball (causing the first ball to magically disappear from the face of the Earth) and onto mine, giving a bit of EXP and nothing else.  Thought I had passed my first trial, this sidequest was far from over.  So once again I wandered back down the hill and looked for another silly-oversized ball.  It wasn't hard:  in the bushes was a giant head of lettuce.  And so began the horror again:  up the hill I pushed the lettuce, and right off the cliff it fell.  Yet, I was still up to this challenge, and brought that lettuce up for the bear's enjoyment.  He gained the weird sexual thrill of sleeping upon a larger and sillier ball, and I gained some EXP.  If the quest had ended there, I would have just kept on playing happily.  Perhaps in the future I would get the opportunity to bitch about "Okami"'s incredibly stupid ball sidequest, but that would be it here.  However, the true horror was just about to begin.

The last ball was an incredibly massive purple grape** hanging on a tree branch.  After I cut it down, I began to push the ball up the hill, just as I had done twice before.  Things were different this time though, I felt it as soon as I saw how big the ball was.  This thing was easily bigger than Ammy, thus making controlling extra difficult.  But what really made it terrible was how the ball would constantly roll backwards.  Give up nudging that thing for just a second, and there it goes, rolling right down the bottom of the hill.  You never could ease up on the pushing just to try to aim it away from the lake edge, because then the ball would roll right back.  Then I got pissed off, and bum rushed that mothafucka right up the hill without a care in the world.... and it slipped off the cliff and into the lake.  It was at that point that I realized that I was no longer Blue Highwind, I was Sisyphus, pushing that boulder up the hill only for it roll back off the other side as his eternal punishment in Hell.

Yeah, this was Hell.  I've been there.  And Sisyphus had it easy:  he had hands.  All I had was a wolf snout.

My fury was limitless.  I screamed, I yelled, I cried, I torn out my hair.  This sidequest was so horrible that I could actually feel my stomach tying itself in a knot and spitting acid out into my bowels.  My tears fell out scarlet, as now I was crying blood.  It got so bad that I think I got stigmata for a moment or two.  After I put my fist through the TV, I had to drag another TV into the room just to keep the game going.  Too much had been sacrificed to simply give up now.  I had to either win, or die trying in the process.

By the time I started feeling blisters under my joystick thumb, my mind was beginning to go.  It wasn't just a giant grape that I was pushing off the head of veteran actor Terry O'Quinn, star of such movies as "The Stepfather" and main bad guy from "LOST".  So there I was, pushing Terry up the hill and watching Terry fell right back down.  I could feel the years burn right out of my life from stress.  I felt the ulcers form inside me.

"Terry", I yelled, "Why are you doing this to me???"

The head-ball replied.  "I didn't make the game, I'm sorry.  This is just a role for me."

I always thought that Terry O'Quinn was a nice guy, and I felt bad.  Maybe some minor small-talk would even things out.  "I'm sorry, Terry.  How have you been?"

"Good."

"So... what are you doing these days now that "LOST" is over?"

"Actually, Blue, this is it.  I'm the third ball from "Okami".  It isn't the most pleasant work, but it pays the bills."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.  An actor of your quality deserves better than this."

"Yeah, I know.  Why do you think I passed on the remake of "The Stepfather"?  I've been acting too many years to lower myself this way."

"They remade "Stepfather"?  Damn.  They remake everything."

"You know it.  Hey, watch out!  I'm getting a little too close to the cliff!"

And too close to the cliff Terry was.  Right off the cliff he went, and into the lake he fell.  At this point I was such an emotional wreck that my garbled lunatic rantings didn't even make sense to Terry anymore.  He - a figment of my molested psyche, had to ask me:  "Are you okay?"

Then for a just a second, I actually managed to get Terry up the hill to the little flat area where the bear slept.  But then the camera got suck in the cliff and I couldn't see anything.  So I accidentally pushed Terry off the cliff... again.  I let out a perfect insane Joker laugh.  In fact, I've still been laughing since that moment.  I can't stop.  I can't eat or sleep or talk, all I can do is laugh.  When I finish this post, I'm going to the hospital to get surgery to remove the part of my brain filled with "Okami" and Terry O'Quinn.

Hours passed.  The ball went up, the ball fell down.  Even Terry at this point seemed to be suffering some adverse effects.  He kept up on mumbling about "4 8 15 16 23 42" and other odd "LOST" references.  He even reveled to me the secret of the show:  "Its all bullshit, Blue.  For the finale we wrote three hundred endings on the wall and played darts to pick which one it would be.  The alien abduction one was the one we picked.  That's how we made up the plotpoints.  Those numbers:  those were just the answers to one of the producers' son's math quiz.  Nonsense all of it.  We're laughing at you viewers, laughing all the way to the bank."

But then Terry stopped talking.  Because Terry was gone.  All there was was a giant grape and a wolf goddess pushing it up a hill right towards the sleeping bear.  Somehow, while Terry was revealing the dark secrets of "LOST" (which I already knew), I had subconsciously succeeded in my Sisyphean effort.  How, I do not know.  And I do not care.  I had done the deed.  It was over.

Now all I need to do is get over the symptoms and live out what little is left of my life.  Never again, "Okami".  Never again.

The rest of the game is awesome though.

(The painting here is "Sisyphus" by Franz von Stuck, 1920.)

Later Update:  The Blockhead Grande sidequest was worse.  The Terry O'Quinn sidequest was just poorly implemented, but probably doable if programmed right.  Blockhead Grande is in fact physically impossible using the game's engine.  CANNOT BE DONE.  You need either a camera or a hacker who can break into the source engine and slow the game down.  Its "Sonic 2006:  The Puzzle".  I did it, but it was complete luck.  (I've been told the little victory dance I did afterwards was hilarious.)

------------------------------------------
* Actually I first bought the game for the PS2 back when all the game critics were talking about how it was "the greatest game nobody played" and what-not.  So I started playing it in late 2008 or so, and I come to a sudden realization:  this game is garbage.  The whole gameplay is based around a drawing mechanic, where you use calligraphy skills to manipulate nature and defeat enemies, solve puzzles, and the whole Zelda thing.   You can't draw with an analog stick.  It isn't possible.  Anybody who played "Mario Paint" back on the SNES can tell you just how difficult it is.  By this point I had been playing DS games for two or three years, and I knew that games didn't need to use joysticks.  So when it was remade on the Wii with the controls the game was made for, I grabbed it first thing.  Well actually, Capcom didn't bother advertising it at all, so I didn't get it for still some more time until my college roommate become absolutely obsessed with it during the Spring semester.  I mean the guy started drawing circles with his fingers in the sky at night in order to bring the Sun back.  So now, years after I wanted to play this game, I'm finally playing it.  Earlier today, I thought about cutting the tree down with my magic paintbrush in order to see if there were some pieces of fruit inside.

** GameFAQs says that the third ball is actually a purple beehive.  I don't know about Japan, but in my country beehives are brown.  They're also nowhere near spherical.