Beautiful, fun, and a good story.
The game starts off with the prologue of the story, the events that transpired 100 years ago. An ancient evil is sealed away by a powerful warrior named Nagi and a valiant wolf named Shiranui, whom dies shortly afterwards and is enshrined in the village of Kamiki. Then it fast forwards to the now and how the evil that was sealed then is released once again upon the world. Weakened by the overwhelming evil, the Guardian Goddess of the village of Kamiki revives the wolf (Amaterasu) enshrined there. It's a long opening, probably taking a good 20 minutes to complete, but the adventure takes off shortly after with your primary goal being to seal the evil that was released and collect the 13 brush techniques.
The game is more action and puzzle oriented than it is battle oriented. Most battles can be avoided by avoiding the floating scrolls which mark the places were battles will occur, but some battles will happen no matter what you do, since they're scripted into the game.
The puzzles are fun to solve, with the Celestial Brush (the brushwork mechanic) usually being a key part of solving it and moving on. The bosses are usually puzzles in themselves, making you find ways to use your Celesital Brush to defeat them.
Some people may be upset with the pacing of the game, particularly in the first 5 hours of the game, as there are frequent pauses for rather long dialogue from Amaterasu's partner, Issun. Issun is responsible for being your voice in the world and he'll often speak on your behalf (since you can't), but he also speaks to you, helping to (often spoon feeding) information and puzzle hints. As the game goes on though, his little interjections become less.
Overall, the game is pretty simple. The fighting isn't too terrible difficult and the puzzles are never super complex, but it is refreshing to be able to get through a game without a game over screen (of which there is none anyway).
This is definitely one of the best games of the year, and a great release from Capcom and Clover Studios. Any PS2 owner should be out there playing this game, instead of reading this review of mine.