#1 Okami

Anyone that’s known me for any amount of time knows three truths:

I’m going to make bad jokes.

I’m going to show you pictures of my cat.

I’m going to gush about Okami.

It’s funny, looking back. I was so obsessed with JRPGs at the time, and excited to play this very unique looking action RPG, but I actually didn’t even get to it at first. I bought it, but it happened to come out about a month before Final Fantasy XII. Needless to say I was going to be a bit busy to be playing some new game about a dog, and since I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish it before FFXII, I put it off.

But once I popped it in? Things changed. From the second I fired the game up, to the moment the credits rolled, I felt as if my near two decades of loving video games was suddenly validated. A single game reached out and said “yes, video games are more than just silly toys for children”.

To this day, nothing has ever hit me the way Okami did. I could pick any element of this game, any moment, character, scene, set piece, dungeon. I could pick anything and talk all night about why it’s amazing. This is the kind of perfect storm where everything just… comes together.

The art style remains one of the most astonishing achievements in gaming. The music is infinitely listenable and beautifully composed. The twisting of classic Japanese mythology feels like it’s done with respect, and not just borrowed from because that’s what’s expected of the genre. Every single character, from main to side, is remarkably well crafted and memorable. Every puzzle, side activity, and boss is engaging and fun. It all just feels like it was made with a love and passion that every artist wishes to stive for.

I’ve replayed this game several times, even going so far as to be one of the very first people to ever get the Platinum Trophy for the HD remaster. Every time I learn something new. A new detail I didn’t notice. A new hidden secret. A new animation or character interaction. It just feels like the game is ever-expanding. I could fire it up and just spend an hour running through the fields, basking in the sunlight and smelling the flowers, feeling the wind blowing through Ammy’s fur.

It’s made me laugh, made me cry, made me a better person through the lessons it teaches with it’s story. I’m grateful that I got to experience something this revolutionary when it was new. It’s left me with nothing but respect for the craft of making video games.

And for that all of that, and way more than I can put down here and now, it will forever remain my favorite video game of all time.