Badie05
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Okami Wii PreviewReleased in late 2006, featuring dungeons, side quests, physical puzzles, upgradeable abilities, a wolf hero and a tiny talking sidekick, Okami was the PS2 equivalent of Twilight Princess.
The similarities are extensive, but what sets it apart from any other non-Zelda action RPG is that few people who've finished it would raise an eyebrow if you claimed that Okami was every bit Zelda's equal.
Set in ancient Nippon, the story concerns the demon serpent Orochi, unbound from his prison and smothering the once fertile land with a curse. The awakening of Orochi triggers the resurrection of the star of the show, Amaterasu, a goddess in the form of a wolf.
Called to arms so hurriedly, Amaterasu is vulnerable and has forgotten most of her powers. Humans think she's just an animal, and she can't speak, so she picks up a flea-sized artist called Issun to help guide her through her quest.
At first Issun just wants to learn Amaterasu's Celestial Brush techniques, but he soon comes to believe in her higher purpose, and they form a touching relationship similar to Link and his various fairy companions.
Motion commotion
The Celestial Brush is Okami's most distinctive gameplay feature. Various gods drop by to pay tribute to Amaterasu and lend her their own powers, which are activated by freezing the screen and drawing special shapes.
A horizontal slash will cut trees, cleave boulders and kill monsters. A circle in the sky will make the sun shine; drawn around a dead plant, it will bring it blooming back to life; in the water, it will conjure a lily pad for the hydrophobic wolf to float on.
The Wii version differs from the original in its lack of assistance for the drawing. On PS2, significant objects have a magnetic quality that attracts the brush to the correct parts.
On Wii, it's entirely freehand. We found the fishing minigame, which involves drawing a line from the end of the fishing pole to the fish's mouth, comparatively tricky on Wii, as wonky lines kept spawning loads of unwanted lily pads, concealing the fish.
Making trees bloom also took several attempts - drawing a freehand circle around an object using a motion sensor isn't easy. On the other hand, the horizontal power slash was much quicker than on PS2. It's going to take a bit of getting used to.
Other controls seem to work well on Wii. The D-pad moves the camera, which is never problematic, and almost everything else is mapped to the buttons.
You swish the remote to attack during a fight, and flick the nunchuk to dodge, once you've acquired the necessary skills. Against the tougher enemies (there's a vast array of them) you'll be combining brush skills with ordinary attacks but our day of hands-on time with this enormous game didn't quite get us far enough through it to meet many of the bigger bad guys.
As far as graphics go, we think it's marginally less impressive than on PS2. The colours are much more vivid on Wii, and it runs in a higher widescreen resolution, which your HDTV will certainly appreciate, but it comes at the expense of the watercolour effect that made the original look like it was painted on textured parchment.
It's just cosmetic, of course, but you'll be reminded of how it's supposed to look in some of the FMV cutscenes, which are lifted from the original.
It's still a beautiful game, though, and boasts an amazing orchestral soundtrack that's no longer marred by the burble-talk voices that used to go with the speech captions. Characters now chatter at barely a whisper.
Myth lords
The Wii version has faster loading times than the PS2, and the previously unskippable cutscenes can all be bypassed by pressing the plus button - be careful with that, though, because you wouldn't want to miss the story.
Okami is crammed with Japanese mythology. The locations, the monsters, the characters you meet, the things that happen... Ancient folk tales underpin the plot, and the writers have crammed in as many of their favourites as they could, which led to one of the only real criticisms the game got on PS2 - that it's simply too big to be accessible.
Neverending story
Several times during the adventure you'll you think you've reached the end, only to find that a massive new area opens up, a plot twist is revealed, another epic challenge is set or a new power allows you to explore hidden locations in places you haven't visited for 20 hours.
If you've played through something like Ocarina Of Time or Twilight Princess, you'll have no problem with the scale of Okami.
Think of it as extremely generous rather than overlong. By concentrating on the main story thread, if you knew where you were going you could probably finish the game in around 35 hours.
Take in the incidental quests, the bonus missions, the collectables and the hidden beads that offer tangible gameplay rewards, and you're looking at upwards of 60 hours. Clear the decks and book yourself some free time in June.
I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS. Gonna get this first day.
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Zaraki Kenpachi
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I hope they make a sequel though for both ps2 and the wii,...
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HungryHungryHippo
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Is this a sequel or just a remake?
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Badie05
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Remake for the Wii. I am so getting this. Played PS2 one and I enjoyed it.
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Phatkav
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I liked the game graphics a lot.
Me wants a DS version 
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Zaraki Kenpachi
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I hope they make a sequel on the ps3 or the like...(wii...etc....)the ps2 okami was quite massive.....(many wepaons,powerups,celestial brush moves,bosses,quests and graphics and a world so beutiful that it's amazing....)
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Badie05
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Bosses were hard and the people talking sounded stupid. Everything else rocks.
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Zaraki Kenpachi
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bosses were epicO.o like DMC series.....actually not exactly hard at all like DMC though the game overall is easy I mean you do stop time with the brush and can beat bosses that way and be creative...
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