Games to play before you die: 2) OKAMI


Platform: PS2 and Wii

The game OKAMI is a very underrated one, it unfortunately did terrible in sales despite it's great reviews. This game is definitely worth the wait and surprisingly has a DS follow up coming next year.

You play as a great god named Ametarasu who is for some reason a wolf with psychedelic patterns on its fur that only certain people can see. It is her job to put to rest an ancient evil that has been released from its incarceration, after being defeated by ametarasu's ancestor years ago through the help of a great swords man.
Without giving any spoilers thats the start of the plot. However don't be fooled by this as the game does not end so abruptly.
Along with ametarasu is the descendant of the great Nagi (swordsman) susano who helps you with your quest through out the game. Also along for the ride is issun a traveling poncle who ends up being the navi of this game.



The main point of this game is the celestial brush which acts as a weapon and a puzzle solver all in one, to activate this you press the B button and paint the lines with the wiimote (obviously different for the PS2 version). It takes getting used to at first but after a few uses of it you should get the swing of things. This is implemented very fast and is used a lot during the game, even more than the weapons. It is beautiful to see an origami tree boom with bloom after circling it with the brush. Awesome, just awesome.

The game is very reminiscent of the zelda games and plays very similar, although thats not exactly a bad thing. The gameplay is a sort of cross between a traditional RPG and that of zelda. As fights occur through crossing a traveling demon curtain thing, this activates a battle field and you get to use your weapon and celestial brush.
You get to use things called floral finishers to overkill the enemies after and gain a dragon fang.

The out of battle mechanics are slightly different,as, in the fighting stages shaking the remote would be attack, it is now used as a dash attack which progressively goes faster the longer your running for. This also leaves ametarasu with a giant floral track following her. Jumping is really easy and so is digging, these are mostly just used to find hidden clovers and treasure chests.

All and all this game is plain awesome, and in my opinion definitely one of the best wii games out there. i would even say it could be better than twilight princess but thats just me.
It's really easy to find this game, I found mine for £15 brand new with the special edition sleeve. This is a truly criminaly low price to pay as this game will leave you engrossed and enthralled in it's story for 35 hours plus. So try find this before the new and possibly snazzier okamiden comes out. You seriously won't regret it.