A great story and art design make this a worthy successor to the gaming community.
The game mixes a lot of Japanese mythology with an exceptionally good story to create one of the most well balance stories to come out in a long while, and it sucks you in from the start. It'll take around 35-40 hours to complete the main plot, though that depends on if you're sidetracked by the other sidequests and/or collectibles to hunt for.
The gameplay is one of the major highpoints, and it's always fun and exciting to use the many Brush techniques Amaterasu learns throughout the course of the adventure. Each is rewarded by a hidden God in the stars by filling in their constellation, and each technique is used by having the player turn a certain symbol on the screen, and then to watch its effect take place. Later on, Amaterasu has the ability to change day into night, and night into day on command, and it really feels like you have the controls of a God, especially with some of the defensive and offense abilities at your disposal. The brush techniques are also used accordingly throughout the game to solve puzzles like filling in a collapsed bridge to blooming trees to rid areas of curses.
Also Amaterasu can use swords and whips to dispose of enemies, instead of just using the Brush all of the time to take down foes. The game also has a lot of RPG elements, such as leveling up Amaterasu's health, ink level, and the ability to carry more money on hand. There aren't any major game choices like there are in some present day RPG's, but there is no need for them here. The gameplay is simply awesome here, although the only small flaw was that some of the combat can be exceptionally easy over weaker enemies later on in the game.
The graphics are simply amazing, even for the last generation of games. They are presented in a water color based way, and it's possible to see some of the canvas background in scenes with a lighter color, and it truly brought the game's focus on art and Japanese mythology.
The sound is good here, from Amaterasu's barks and scratching, and the sound of blade on blade while in combat, it all sounds pretty good here. The music is also that of Japanese, and it goes well while in combat, or while just exploring the vast landscapes of Nippon. There isn't really voice acting here, and is instead jumbled up voices and subtitles presented below, and after awhile it gets old to keep reading all of the dialogue instead of just simply listening to it instead.
Most of the characters are memorable. Issun, the pint-sized pervert who acts as a comedian at times throughout the game's many hilarious scenes to Susano, the 'Greatest Warrior Who Ever Lived', whose awkward misfortunes are always funny. All in all the characters are great, and are extremely memorable.
The game has relatively decent A.I., as they will just come charging at you with a powerful force attack, etc. The boss battles are another highpoint, since you'll have to sometimes figure out how to weaken it in order to go in for the final blow, and each one is unique.
Overall, Okami is one of the greater things to come out for the last generation of video games. This is due to an intelligent and long adventure, exciting and addictive gameplay and combat, crisp looking graphics, and all of the memorable characters it has to offer. A game that mostly stayed under the radar, and never emerged victorious in sales, which disappointed me, since this is such a great game to begin with in the first place. Anyways, a great take on the Japanese mythology that's bound for multiple playthroughs and much, much more. A truly amazing game, with melons. A 9 out of 10.
-horrorboy