My issue with Issun

[Mercury Knuckle]

Yes, it's another topic about everyone's least favorite flea. Now I don't hate Issun as a character, yes he is an obnoxious womanizer who insults literally anyone who doesn't have tits, yes he is sometimes slow on the uptake, or even five steps behind the player. I'm not even annoyed by his voice. My Issue with him is that when he talks, he adds nothing to the conversation.

He either repeats dialog, derails the conversation to insult the person we're talking to, and ruins the pacing by talking in the middle of the game to tell us the sky is dark. Does he need to remind us every time the canine tracker appears? "Hey the Canine tracker is here, that means a dog guardian is nearby" Oh really? Thanks for telling me because I didn't notice this HUGE THING HOVERING AROUND MY HEAD! He feels the need to recap what your last conversation was after the other guy stopped talking. I can't remember the exact words but basically he repeats exactly what a character told us to do and then says "what did he mean by that?" HE MEANT EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID, YOU SAID THE SAME THING JUST NOW! When we went back in time he has to ask why every thing looks like it did 100 years ago every single time he sees something different. You'd think he'd figure it out after the 3rd time.

Maybe its a Japanese vs Western thing. Japanese audiences are playing a story, western gamers are playing a game with themselves as the main character. When Japanese writers see someone telling a character info they narratively wouldn't know, western audiences see someone talking down to them. You can see this storytelling divide in Western RPGs vs JRPGs.

[Don Lobo]

There's 3 things here. The first is the game's age. When Okami released, the "Hey, listen!" concept was still prevalent in games. Players can't be lost, everything most be indicated extensively.

Second and third are cultural things. Japanese audiences tend to appreciate exposition more, and the Japanese language is prone to active clarification (and oftentimes excessive when viewed from the perspective of more economical languages like English or German). Conversations will commonly be followed by someone interjecting with a clarifying question. "The dark lord has awaken. - The... Dark lord?". That's just a simple example but I think you might get the gist of it.

I also don't dislike his character, especially because he does get his comeuppance a few times. However, these issues with him as "your" voice and guide I understand really well, but I also understand they're partially a product of their time and the cultural background of the writers and designers.

[Space is the Place]

It´s just a japanese thing as express by the previous comment. Over exposition it´s literally 99% of dialogue in most japanese media.

Issun it´s prob the better example because we spend tons of time with him, but you could direct some of those complains to pretty much any character, they all yap and yap about nothing constantly.