Stray Beads

[Hatta]

I've been playing Okami recently. Great game, but there's one element that annoys me to no end. The Stray Beads. So many times I'll spot a chest in an out of the way place, and think "oh good, something useful". So I'll hop and swing and jump to get to the chest, open it up and I get a worthless stray bead.

Of course, there's a reward if you collect all of them. What possible reward could be worth searching every nook and cranny in the game world to find beads? Invincibility. Hey, not bad. Catch is, you can't get the last bead until you complete the game. Now tell me, if I've been spending hours and hours searching for a bunch of stray beads, aren't I going to be sick of the game by the time I find all of them? Why in god's name would I want to play through the whole game again? And if I was able to complete the game without invicibility, why would I need it the second time through?

I wouldn't mind so much, but the stray beads come in chests that look like they might contain something good. Am I the only one who finds this type of gameplay annoying? Is there anyone out there who actually thinks searching aimlessly for beads is fun?

Other than that (and it's a very minor complaint), Okami's an excellent game. Thoughts?

[Ivo]

Thoughts?

It is there for people that fancy finding all the secrets of the game - many games have that kind of stuff. They didn't need to put something (invincibility) out of it. I guess you would prefer if getting a number of stray beads (not needing all of them) would get you something (as heart pieces do in Zelda). In that case finding some of them would already be worth it in itself without needing to find all of them.

It seems that if the chests with beads were different colour or something you wouldn't mind? I agree with that sentiment. In some games I don't feel like collecting all these kinds of "secret" or "hard" items, and then having them marked as such saves me going out of my way for one.

Ivo.

[Hatta]

Yes, either of those measures would make them a lot less annoying. I never understood what would motivate someone to collect 100% of everything in a game. Sounds like OCD to me.

[fastbilly1]

Ive not gotten that far in Okami, but from what I know of these beads, just think of them like the statues in Windwaker. They are there for those who have to complete everything. Now that I think about it I still need to get two more statues...

[JordanPlayer]

But at least the Wind Waker figurines are cooler... like how they are in a "collection" that you can view and have info about. I gave up on collecting the Stray Beads in Okami... too much of a waste of time.

[ieatramen]

I have too many games that i want to play to go for the 100% thing. Back when i was a kid, though, i would play my games to death because i didn't have much to choose from. If i was 13 right now, i would be all over those stray beads!