Like many otaku’s, geeks and gamers (Nintendo or otherwise) I love all things Japanese, from ramen and yakisoba to anime’s such as Deathnote and Lucky Star, but most of all I love its games and culture. Putting those two loves together equals Okami, a true Japanese game steeped in Japanese cultural references, mythology and all around goodness. Unfortunately Okami is one of those games I just missed on the PS2 a few years back, I was working for a video game store at the time and I was hooked on my DS and PC and didn’t give anything else much of a glance so that meant that although Okami showed a lot of promise I was never convinced enough to put £40 down for it. Luckily for me my income and love for games have grown substantially since then and didn’t want to miss out again so here are my first impressions of Okami on the Wii.

Without going into too much detail, Okami is based around the story of Amaterasu Okami, a white wolf with the spirit of a god who is given the task of rescuing its beloved home of Nihon (that’s Japan to you and me) from an evil recently released from its slumber. This evil has altered the once peaceful land into a foul sinister place where monsters roam free and beautiful valleys transform into desolate wastelands. No doubt if you’ve ever played a Zelda game you would notice some similarities by now and that’s not the worlds biggest shocker, Capcom’s team have clearly taken some Cues from the big N’s top franchise, but does that make Okami bad? In a word – No.

Standard Wii controls are also reminiscent of a Zelda game (Twilight Princess to be exact) with standard melee attacks controls with a swing of the Wiimote and movement with the Nunchuck. Overall the normal controls are pretty good so far into the game however I would of liked a lock on ability as sometimes the melee is a little off the target.

After the scene is set and the controls are making my brain sore I get to grips with the celestial paintbrush, Amaterasu’s main item of choice. The paintbrush is used to solve puzzles such as painting in a bridge that was previously broken or helping out during fights with abilities like cutting your foes in two pieces (at least that’s the kind of thing I’ve used it for so far). Its a great component of the game and if you’re sceptical like I was I can say you have nothing to worry about because it really is simple to use. When the time comes to chop a enemy into pieces or help an ageing warrior chop down some dummies you point at the screen with the Wiimote and hold down B, this freezes the on screen activities and turns the screen a brown colour to look like old parchment, now simply hold A and draw the symbol you want to use and let go of both buttons; want to cut a enemy? draw a line across him; want to make the sun appear? draw a circle in the sky.

Graphically the game (unfortunately) disappointed me a little but whether this is the games fault or not is arguable. I have a HDTV and running Okami at 60hz with a scart cable makes it look no where near as good as I think it should do but even when I use a composite cable and run in 480p, making the game look as good as Capcom made possible, I still find the game cant deliver the finer details on characters making them look bland and sometimes odd. Don’t get me wrong the style of the graphics are to die for and the colour palette is the closest thing to a Japanese painting I’ve ever seen but when Amaterasu looks like a white blob rather than a wolf god my immersion into the world starts to die.

Okami’s graphic style is complemented expertly with a phenomenal instrumental soundtrack I would gladly pay £20 for (and most probably will). It’s the kind of music that heightens the action during fights and sets the scene over vast hills of sakura’s trees and gentle streams. Other parts of the sound grate after a little while and speech similar to that found in the Animal Crossings game can be found during any cut scene – I’m still looking for a way to turn it off.

It’s still early days and despite a few minor options and tweaks I would of liked to have seen I’m happy to say I’m 5 hours in and really enjoying playing Okami. Look for full our review soon.