Wolf goddess + Calligraphy = FUN

A while back I picked up a little PS2 game called "Okami". I had heard good things about it and it received pretty good reviews too. Still, I was a tad apprehensive, since the concept is a bit strange (a requirement for a game from Japan).

You play the sun goddess Amaterasu, who has come to earth in the form of a white wolf to defend Japan from the demon Orochi. To mix things up a bit, you can apply your divine powers to the world by way of a paintbrush. At any time in the game, you can turn the world into a canvas and apply various paint techniques to affect the world in different ways.

After playing it for more hours than I care to admit, I LOVE this game. It has definitely become one of my favorites. Visually, the game is stunning - although I've always been a fan of cell shading. At the risk of being cliche, the colors pop out of the screen, the characters are well done and enemies are creatively rendered.

The game play is a bit simplistic - this is not a hard game. Enemies fall fairly easily and the puzzles don't take too much effort. However, this didn't change my enjoyment of the game in the least.

The true charm of this game comes from the magic paint techniques. As the game progresses your brush can make the wind blow, cause plants to bloom, repair bridges or cut things in half. Each of these techniques are used to fight and solve the many puzzles.

The game is incredibly long too, I'm at about 19 hours and haven't glimpsed the end yet (from reports out there it looks like the game may take as much as 30 hours to complete). 30 hours of entertainment for less than $40.

It's good to see that game makers are stepping up and still making quality games for the Playstation2. Hopefully they continue this trend, since there's not a chance in hell of me getting a Playstation3 - but that's an issue for another blog...