The game's North American cover art.
Okage: Shadow King is a 2001 JRPG developed by Zener Works and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2.
The game follows a 16 year old boy named Ari, who on the night of the circus, finds his little sister Annie cursed by a ghost. In hopes to help her, his dad releases an Evil King named Stan and his butler James who has been imprisoned for 300 years.
This game, despite having low sales due to lack of U.S. advertising and being overshadowed by Dark Cloud and the 2002 releases of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy X, as well as being criticized for it's battle system and load times (due to the game being on a blue bottomed CD-ROM), has a quite huge following. Though there are still no plans to make a second because Zener Works now creates mobile and handheld games.
Story
The story begins with an ordinary boy named Ari who lives in Tenel village. The next night, the circus comes to town. That same night, his sister is attacked by a ghost and falls under a curse. The family turns to a bottle Ari's father found for help, performing a ritual to invoke the power sealed within the bottle. Upon opening the bottle, Ari allows his shadow to be possessed by "The Evil King Stan", who was trapped in the bottle, in order to break his sister's curse. Stan and Ari obtain a "Map o' Evil Kings" from a circus ringmaster, which shows the locations of other Evil Kings in the world. Stan realizes that while he was trapped in the bottle, various people stole his powers and became false Evil Kings. Stan starts off on a journey to defeat these Evil Kings, reclaim his stolen powers and conquer the world—dragging Ari along with him.
In the city of Madril Ari teams up with Rosalyn, a parasol wielding "hero", and defeats the Sewer Evil King. Upon leaving town they meet up with the scientist Gutten Kisling. In the seaside town Rashelo Princess Marlene sailed to Aquatic Ruins to acquire "Heaven's Voice". The Princess is seized by the Bubble Evil King, a giant fish-monster. After defeating the evil king and rescuing Marlene Stan attempts to use his powers to possess her, but fails. Stan believes this is due to her having no soul. Returning to Madril, a strange corporation has been making underhanded deals and cheating townspeople out of their money. Further investigation leads to an office building where the Chairman Evil King is in charge. The trio confront him in his office, but he escapes. They head to the Escapeless Abyss and defeat him. The group next discover and defeat the Big Bull Evil King, a muscle-bound bull. In Madril, the group discovers that people are now extremely obsessed with Teen Idol Evil King Linda's songs. The group travels to a snow-bound plains to defeat her.
Various machine components from the defeated evil kings are combined into a music box, which breaks a seal in the sewers. In the back of the sewer, Ari steps into a mysterious machine which seems to make him fade from existence. Everyone seems to have forgotten about him, and is ignoring the fact that he ever existed. Ari discovers that his condition is not unique; there is the town of Triste is full of people like himself. By speaking up enough in other people's conversations (despite being "invisible"), the circus ringmaster is able to restore Ari into existence. After reuniting with all party members they confront the Phantom Evil King Epros in the gear tower in the desert.
It is revealed that "Princess" Marlene is actually just a doll made to look like the original Marlene, who disappeared a long time ago. Beiloune is actually her father and the creator of the world the game takes place in. He created the world to let his daughter have fun, but he lost her and became obsessed with the doll. He plans to destroy the world that defied him and ruined his daughter's adventures. The final of Beiloune's fake evil kings, the Vampire Evil King, is defeated.
At the world library Beiloune attempts to classify Rosalyn and Stan into hero and villain in order to make them destroy each other. Ari uses the music box, which contains recorded memories of their true selves, to break the two free of Beiloune's classification. The heroes confront and defeat Beiloune, who had become a giant monster in order to destroy them. His defeat destroys the world's classification system, frees the true Marlene, and makes Stan a true Evil King again. Afterwards, Ari reunites with Marlene at his house and they hold hands as they enter the house.
Characters
- Ari - The main protagonist of the game. A quiet, 16-year-old boy with an overshadowed destiny. His shadow is so thin, that most people ignore him and it is what enables Stan to take him as his slave. Seems to be without note, but... He reluctantly takes on the responsibility of being enslaved by the Evil King Stan in order to save his sister from the ghost's curse—and once that's done, to save the world from the Fake Evil Kings and restore Stan's true power. In the beginning of the story, his weapon is a branch. He obtains a sword, which is upgradeable, as he progresses through the game. In the Japanese version, his eyes are wide open. They were toned down in the US version.
- Lord Stanley Hihat Trinidad XIV - Better known as Evil King Stan, or just Stan, possesses Ari's shadow to appear in this world. He is short-tempered and has a childish personality, but has moments where he picks up on things that even the other group members miss. He has built his identity on being evil and desires to be feared by the world as the Great Evil King. He claims to be the reincarnation of, and therefore the heir to, the Great Evil King Gohma, who was defeated by the Great Hero Hopkins three hundred years previous to the story. Apparently, Hopkins also sealed Stan away into a bottle, which is found by Ari's father.
- James - The cheerful ghost butler to the Evil King Stan. He is seen quite a few times in the game, mostly with just info on things you should know about, but he is often too preoccupied with something (or someone) else to follow his "almighty" master's orders.
- Rosalyn - A 22-year-old heroine, a master of the rapier and the reluctant devotee of the parasol. She and Stan have a history of conflict which began upon releasing him from his bottle three years previous to the game's beginning; Stan took over her shadow for just long enough to insult her figure and her to threaten to kill herself (thus killing him), before he retreated back into the bottle. Rosalyn used to be an elite hero and was at the top of her class, but ever since her shadow became pink she has been a laughing stock and forced to hide her shameful shadow under a parasol. She never forgave Stan for this mockery and has been hunting for him since. She feels she needs to prove her strength and skill as an expert swordswoman and caster of spells. She is also a magnet for ghosts.
- Princess Marlene - As a spoiled princess, She is snobbish and pompous before truly getting to know Ari and his family. Later in the game the player finds out that the Marlene they know is actually a doll, and that the real Marlene's body is trapped elsewhere in the world of her father's creation.
- Beiloune - Marlene's butler. It is revealed at the end of the game that he is Marlene's father as well as the game's main antagonist. He has a massive 9999 HP and resides in the world library. He also uses a devastating spell called Channel. He also doesn't have any minions with him. But if underleveled, it may take multiple tries to defeat this massive boss.
- Gutten Kisling - An extremely eccentric scientist who has devoted his life to the ghost research, while enjoying such hobbies as stalking pretty girls and collecting toenail clippings. Upon meeting the party, he is enticed by Rosalyn's ability to attract ghosts and joins the quest without a single party member's approval. Despite his behavior, the forty-five-year-old Kisling seems to be quite intelligent, and he wields powerful offensive magic.
- Big Bull - Formerly the "Big Bull Evil King", a fighter with great physical strength who loves exercise and battle. He excitedly joins Ari's party to help defeat the other evil kings after he, himself, is defeated. His dream is to someday open his own athletic gym. His idiotic and unwitting personality disagrees with Rosalyn and Stan but he's too cheerful and loving of the party to notice or care. He has a crush on Linda.
- Linda - She is an aspiring singer from Madril who unfortunately lacks talent so later uses Stan's stolen power to become the "Teen Idol Evil King" and loved by her brainwashed fans. Though she is somewhat subdued when Ari first meets her, after she joins the party her truly cheery and very bubbly personality comes out. initially, she seemed to have a crush on Ari, but it is later discovered that she actually had a crush on Stan who just happened to have the "dorky" "doll", Ari, attached to him. Further down the line, Linda's crush on Stan seems to fade in favor of one blossoming for the reluctant Epros. She attacks using her microphone as a weapon and supports the party with magical chants.
- Epros - Using Stan's power, he is known as the "Phantom Evil King" and throws playing cards and casts magic to attack his enemies. He is sophisticated and well dressed, though his interests in magic and the "truth" of the world, as well as his ability to float about and his strange speech pattern make him as peculiar as the rest of the cast. He always speaks in rhyme and with Shakespearean words, which confuses the team and annoys Stan to no end. Like the other "Evil King" party members, Epros joins the group after he is defeated, late in the game. Epros is the main love interest of Linda, but only after she gets over Stan.
Trivia
- The game's original title in Japan is Boku to Mao (ボクと魔王), which can mean:
The game's Japanese cover. Notice how Ari and Stan are apart of the background, instead of being the main part of the U.S. box. It also seems they are drawn the same way as the other characters, and the hill seems to be much larger, showing quite a lot of empty space between James and Kisling.
- Me and the Devil King
- Me and the Satan King
- The Devil and Me
- The Evil King and Me
- Me and the Devil
- This game was never released in Europe due to low sales in North America, however, the game was re-released in Japan under Sony's "The Best" brand.
- There are a set of figures made around the time Okage got released. This set included Ari & Stan, Rosalyn, Big Bull, Linda, Marlene, and James. However, a complete set of these figures can go up to $200.
- There exists only one commercial for Okage: Shadow King which was only in Japan.
- The game's narrator is J.S. Gilbert, who is also known for doing Sweet Tooth in Twisted Metal (2011) and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.
Okage Shadow King commercial
