Okami is a game of undescribable beauty, and its story and gameplay make it that much more!
Okami is a tale of the Japanese sun god, Amaterasu, this is also who you control the whole game as a white wolf. Amaterasu's quest is to retrieve the 13 celestial brush techniques that were lost during the battle with Orochi and use these to defeat the him and the rest of the curse. You also have your little companion Issun, he is an inch-tall "wandering artist" who follows you in order to learn the 13 celestial brush techniques, hes a guide and the only real comic relief of the game. Issun is based on the one-inch boy from Japanese folklore and is of a race known as the Poncles. He's very boastful and likes to poke fun at other people, and he gets to because he does the talking for both of you. As much as he thinks he is an artist, the adventures ahead rely on your skill with the brush, which proves that Amaterasu is clearly the more skill artist.
It's pretty much a clash between an action game, much like the series of the Zelda games and a puzzle game, but a very simple puzzle at that. Most of the time Issun, will give you obvious clues that will completely give away how to finish one part of the level, and then later he will give you the rest. But, without his it would be very frustrating at some points. It offers an array of different monsters to fight, and a large traveling space to fight them in. Also it last substantially longer than most games of its kind.
You can call most other games looks, Graphics. But Okami, needs to be called Art. Visually this is a revolution in gaming. It is basically an ink and water colour painting, an interactive ink and water colour picture. Although in reality it is pretty much cell shading. The whole game is a clash of different vibrant colours, to make a beautiful mesh. Flowers pop up left and right, leaves falling everywhere. It's like playing through a giant painting, and fixing little problems as you go. Infront of all this wonderful art, is a rice paper cover that adds to the sort of traditional Japanese look. Magnificent!.
This game cannot be simply described, it needs to be played.
The game does not only offer up just pretty visuals, it actually offers some very solid gameplay to back it all up. The fights are pretty simple, and I admit could have been tweaked ever so slightly, but the point is they are made to be simple and made for you to think fast or pay the price. Okami's health system makes it pretty difficult to actually die in the game, but when you get the feel that your going too, you generally whip out the brush and hit that square button a few more times. Which brings me to another point, they even made sure that painting is involved in your fighting, as you can slash the enemy by drawing a slash on them, or draw a bomb and have it explode!
Throughout the whole game your basically going to jazz up the world if you will, from as far as restoring colour to bland clovers, drawing new bridges to cross all the way to painting the sun in the sky, to shine down upon you. You can dot the ground and trees will spring forth, or see an old tree and make it a new blossoming thing of beauty. Most of this is either you simply need praise to raise your skills or you have a quest from a village to make them look prettier and bring them good fortune. As there are alot of things to do in this game, quests come along with that. You can either follow the main story, and rush through the game or take another extra few hours doing side quests, and getting lots of items and tons of yen!
The story is fairly simple. The story is you are burdened with a quest to to save Japan from an evil curse. This is all the doing of an eight-headed serpent named "Orochi" that was defeated one hundred years ago and has been brought back to life, all because some nimrod pulled the legendary sword out that was sealing Orochi away. Amaterasu must now search for the thirteen different brush spirits, gain the power to help the land and defeat the evil Orochi. You move from village to village freeing the people from the evil curse, you move through hilltops purging the land. Most of the story is cutscenes which are actually a nice break from all the fighting and wandering.
One thing that the whole game would fall apart without is the music and the sounds, the whole game sports Asian style music which in all makes for a good atmosphere. Although, it can get very irritating if its really loud, so keep it to a quiet softer volume. Along with the music comes alot of sound effects, that are all crisp. Most of the attacks have a satisfying, crunch or clang and the victories all have a very loud drum beat. One thing that most people would find annoying is the voices, but I really like them. They never actually says words, they just make a sort of tone or hum that sounds similar to what they should be saying. But its unique, and I like that.
Overall, Okami is a game that demands to be played and you should all buy it not rent it. It's far to great of a game not be owned, I give this game my personal award for best game of 2006. Oh and Amaterasu, can you give us a victory howl?